Fittingly, a great decade of music ended with a great year of music. I’ve selected only nine albums here, not because “Top Nine of 09″ has a pleasant ring to it, but because picking a tenth just became too hard (and a twelve-way tie for tenth seemed silly). Besides, I always regret my final choices because I don’t hear about some albums until it’s too late—for instance, I just bought Animal Collective’s highly-touted Merriweather Post Pavilion and gave Charlotte Gainsbourg’s IRM to my wife for Christmas and though I like what I’ve heard, it’s too early to put either of them on this list. So this way I’m leaving a spot open.
Here are my favourite albums of 2009:
• xx, The xx
Feel free to make all the jokes you want about this band having just one song—and doing it eleven times on this album—but this is a fabulous debut. I listened to it a lot
• The Life of the World to Come, The Mountain Goats
I’ll admit it: I was skeptical when I heard John Darnielle was using biblical passages for song titles, but as the year ended, it was probably the album I was listening to the most
• Wilco (The Album), Wilco
Oh, sure, the music critics whined that Wilco didn’t break any new ground with this album, but I figure that was the only way they could avoid raving about another brilliant offering from this brilliant band—oh, and seeing Feist sing “You and I” with Jeff Tweedy at the second Massey Hall show was such a treat
• Infinite Light, Lightning Dust
Put me in a mood
• Veckatimest, Grizzly Bear
I found this album annoyingly hard-to-spell, but surprisingly fun and fascinating to listen to
• Beware, Bonny Prince Billy
I listened to this a lot in the spring before I went to see him and then forgot about it, but toward the end of the year, I listened to it again and realized just how good it really is
• Hospice, The Antlers
Took me a while to get into this one, but once I did, I really did
• Middle Cyclone, Neko Case
Okay, so it’s not Furnace Room Lullaby, but it’s still lovely (so was her Trinity Church gig)
• Noble Beast, Andrew Bird
Another impressive album from this impressively talented guy
Oh, and one other thing, one that made me feel like both a middle-aged man and a teenager: after reading so many raves about Tarot Sport by the Fuck Buttons, I went to eMusic and downloaded it. But when I tried to listen to it, I really felt middle-aged. And then I felt like a teenager for believing all the hype. No wonder my wife says I am highly susceptible to peer pressure.
I welcome your own lists (of whatever length) as well as your comments, complaints and condescension.
Anita Ho, a bioethics professor at the University of British Columbia’s Centre for Applied Ethics, reviewed That Good Night in the October 2009 issue of the Literary Review of Canada. It’s a thoughtful essay and not really a bad review at all — in fact, it may even make some LRC subscribers want to read the book — though apparently her take on dying with dignity isn’t the same as mine.
It’s not online, so here’s a taste:
As a bioethicist whose work in clinical ethics is also dominated by end-of-life issues, I particularly welcome how That Good Night includes multiple voices and perspectives – it weaves stories of patients, families, physicians, and ethicists together in exploring how our health-care system, despite its promises to be patient-centred and respectful of diverse perspectives, often fails to honour the wishes of or provide comfort for those who are facing an impending death. Various anecdotes illustrate how the lack of appropriate support has led to people dying alone, in pain or hooked up to machines. Nonetheless, as powerful as the stories are in conveying patients’ and families’ agony, some of the discussions Falconer presents may also inadvertently oversimplify the meaning of a good death.
Regardless, before the piece even hit newsstands, the editors at the Literary Review of Canada asked me to write a response. Now, I’ve always understood that the last thing an author should do is respond to a bad review — the standard advice is: “Sure, you can write a letter, but you should never, ever send it” — and, as I say, this wasn’t even a bad review. But, assured that author’s rebuttals are a regular feature in the LRC, I wrote a response that’s in the November 2009 issue and is online (scroll down to the seventh letter). It ends this way: “Well, I’m sure she sees a lot more death than I ever will (not that I’m complaining) and she would hardly be the first expert to accuse a journalist of oversimplification, but my book never judges how others decide to die, arguing instead that we all have the right to choose our own ‘good death.’ If Ho can find dignity and meaning in going out on a flotilla of medical technology, I respect her choice. But she shouldn’t expect everyone else to make the same one. Nowadays, even assisted suicide seems more natural than years spent lingering on life support, so I know how I want to die—as does my wife, just in case.”
The special “Legalize Everything” issue of This Magazine is now out. It includes provocative pieces on legalizing hate speech, music piracy, drugs and raw milk — and my short essay on legalizing assisted suicide. Please consider buying the magazine at your favourite newsstand, but you can also read my argument online (there’s also a poll, so please vote).
Parliament will soon vote on Bill C-384, Bloq Quebecois MP Francine Lalonde’s private member’s bill to legalize assisted suicide. So I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that Canada’s national newspapers are finally paying attention to the issue. Today, The Globe and Mail ran an excellent op-ed piece in favour of assisted suicide by Arthur Shafer, director of the Centre for Professional and Applied Ethics at the University of Manitoba. “When it comes to end-of-life care, Canadians should be able to choose from among a full range of options, including first-rate palliative care and physician-assisted suicide,” he writes. “With proper safeguards in place to ensure openness and accountability, there’s no reason to deny people the help they want and need.”
Earlier this week, The National Post ran an op-ed by Steven Fletcher, a Conservative MP who became a C4 quadriplegic after a collision between a car and a moose in 1996. He calls the bill “a provocative starting point for a discussion about potential choices at the end of life.” And while he won’t vote for it because he believes it’s flawed, neither will he vote against it, saying he “cannot vote against empowering Canadians to make deeply personal decisions for themselves.” So he’ll abstain.
Although I obviously wish he’d vote for C-384, I applaud him for giving the issue serious thought, voting his conscience — instead of his politics — and explaining his decision. Would that our other politicians would do the same.
Francine Lalonde’s private member’s bill to legalize assisted suicide is the seventh such bill before the House of Commons in the last 18 years, according to this excellent column called “Ottawa can’t ignore euthanasia debate forever” by Don Martin. Well worth reading.
Ian Brown is probably the finest non-fiction writer in the country and his new book, The Boy in the Moon: A Father’s Search for His Disabled Son, is fabulous. Don’t let the subject matter fool you into thinking this is a grim read. Sure, it is, in places, sad, and occasionally angry, and always unflinching in its honesty, but it is never despairing; instead, it’s full of wisdom, humour and hope. I was in awe of the guy who wrote it: not just Brown, the supremely talented writer (that was certainly no surprise to me), but of Brown, the man — a guy, who by his own admission is no saint, but who is so devoted to his son Walker.
I will be interviewing Ian Brown at McNally Robinson’s Toronto store on October 13 at 8 pm. That’s a particularly intimidating prospect for me not just because I’ve never interviewed anyone in public before, but because I’ve watched him on stage with some of my favourite writers — including Tobias Wolff, Nicholson Baker and Jim Harrison — and he is the best I’ve ever seen at public author interviews. Still, my apprehension can’t match the honour I feel at the prospect of discussing his brilliant new book with him.
I love fiction, and read as much of it as I can, but I realize some people can’t get into it. That’s why I wasn’t surprised to learn that the Mount Pleasant branch of the Toronto Public Library has a No Fiction group. I was surprised — but also delighted — to receive an invitation to speak to this group about DRIVE on Thursday, Oct. 8 at 7 pm. Everyone is welcome so feel free to drop by even if you’re not a member of the group or you also love reading novels and short stories.
I will be on CIUT’s Take 5 this morning to talk about the war between drivers, cyclists and pedestrians on our streets. CIUT is at 89.5 on the FM dial or you can listen on the station’s website. I will be on about 9:40.
When employers provide — and pay for — guaranteed parking spots, employees are more likely to drive to work. That’s obvious and the reason Donald Shoup came up with the idea for the parking cash-out law adopted by California (read about it in this excerpt from DRIVE that ran in the Toronto Star). Now Tom Vanderbilt, the author of the excellent Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says About Us), makes a strong case that if employers provided better parking for bikes, more people would cycle to work.
In his smart essay on Slate.com about the need for cities to invest in more and better parking for bicycles, Vanderbilt looks at some of the effective steps some cities are taking. Portland, not surprisingly, is a leader among US cities, but others are making intelligent moves. New York City, for example, “passed a bill mandating that commercial parking garages provide spaces for bicycles — one bike space for every 10 cars, up to 200 cars.”
He also points out that commuters would be reluctant to drive to work “if they knew their expensive car was likely to be stolen, vandalized, or taken away by police. And yet this is what was being asked of bicycle commuters, save those lucky few who work in a handful of buildings that provide indoor bicycle parking.”
I recommend reading this blog post — called “Smart growth must become more demanding, more community-oriented, and greener (literally)” — from Kaid Benfield, the director of the Smart Growth Program in Washington, DC. He makes the case, with photos, that density is not enough, we need to insist on density, diversity and design. “We in the smart growth movement need to become much more discriminating in what we support and what we don’t,” he writes. “In particular, we must stop applauding density per se and start advocating what my friend David Crossley, president and founder of the great organization Houston Tomorrow, calls the right kind of density — a built landscape that respects and improves upon its neighborhood instead of overpowering it.”
More on how Quebec is going to lead Canada in the right-to-die debate: 77 percent of the people in that province support legalizing euthanasia, according to a recent Angus Reid poll and this Montreal Gazette article.
Over the years, polls have consistently shown that across the country support for assisted suicide is about 70 percent. Two years ago, 84 percent of people in Quebec were in favour of assisted suicide and it would be interesting to see what that number would be today. I suspect that using the term “euthanasia” instead of “assisted suicide” generates very different results.
Sir Edward Downes, a prominent composer with the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, and his wife Joan have taken advantage of Dignitas, the Swiss organization that helps people die with dignity, and that’s news in Britain.
Downes was 85; his wife, a ballet dancer who became a choreographer and TV producer, was 74. They had been married for 54 years and “died peacefully, and under circumstances of their own choosing” according to a statement from their children.
Last week the House of Lords nixed Lord Falconer’s efforts to make it legal to accompany someone seeking help dying in another country. (I’ve written about the British situation here and here). But if the lawmakers thought that was the end of the matter, they were wrong. Such a high-profile case is sure to prolong the much-needed discussion.
Of course, the deaths aren’t news in Canada and, much to the relief of our politicians, we continue to sleepwalk through our lives oblivious to what awaits us.
When I am not writing books, I teach journalism at Ryerson University, where I work with the talented students who put out the Ryerson Review of Journalism. We were delighted to learn this week that the magazine, which has been publishing for 26 years, has won six awards in the 2009 Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication Student Magazine Contest.
Our spring 2009 issue won first place in the Single Issue of an Ongoing Print Magazine (Editorial) category. The judge, Ashley Deahl, who is acting editor-in-chief and managing editor of Phoenix Magazine, had this to say: “The cover grabbed me right away. It felt almost like an Esquire model—very modern, edgy and fun—something a reader would pick up even if he/she weren’t interested in journalism. The clean but sassy design carried itself throughout the issue as well, and it was married well with thought-provoking photography, perfect feature-openers, great use of typography and a real sense of how to break up copy. A tad copy-heavy at times, but the content was interesting enough to keep the reader moving and wanting more. I truly loved every feature.”
D. B. Scott’s Canadian Magazines blog notes that “this year’s competition attracted 232 entries from 23 universities from the United States and Canada.”
Here are the highlights:
* Consumer Magazine Article: People
First Place: “Deconstructing Barry,” by Ashley Walters, Ryerson University
* Consumer Magazine Article: Investigation and Analysis
First Place: “One Powerful Union Tactic,” by Carolyn Morris, Ryerson University
* Consumer Magazine Article: Investigation and Analysis
Third Place: “Hot Topic,” by Eve Tobolka, Ryerson University
* Consumer Magazine Article: Feature
Second Place: “The Long Goodbye,” by Greg Hudson, Ryerson University
* Consumer Magazine Article: Feature
Third Place: “Pissed Off,” by Greg Harris, Ryerson University
* Single Issue of an Ongoing Print Magazine: Editorial
First Place: Ryerson Review of Journalism, Ryerson University. Marit Mitchell, editor
The obits for Robert McNamara, who died at age 93 on Monday, naturally concentrated on his role as defense secretary to JFK and LBJ during the Vietnam War. And, if you haven’t seen it already, I highly recommend The Fog of War, the fabulous Errol Morris documentary. (The subtitle says it all: “Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara.”)
But this remarkable man also makes a cameo in Drive: A Road Trip through Our Complicated Affair with the Automobile as the father of the Ford Falcon.
Here’s an excerpt:
“The Falcon was Ford’s answer to the small imports that had somehow snatched nearly 10 percent of the U.S. market. To Americans, it was an inexpensive compact, but since it could seat six it was big enough to be a family car. Introduced in the fall of 1959, the Falcon was such a hit—the company sold 417,000 in the first year—that Robert McNamara, the man behind the project, earned a promotion. In 1960, he became the first president of the company who wasn’t a member of the Ford family. His stay at the top was brief, though, because before long President John F. Kennedy appointed him Secretary of Defense.
“Ford made and sold the Falcon in the United States until 1970, but the car had an even longer and more successful life in other parts of the world, where many saw it as a mid-sized model. In Australia, it remains the company’s best-seller. And in Argentina, the Falcon was not just the most-produced car, with half a million built between 1962 and 1991, but also a hugely important one culturally. The Falcon was a racing car, a family car, a taxi, a police car—and, from 1976 to 1983, a sinister symbol of the country’s military dictatorship and the so-called ‘Dirty War’ that the generals who ruled after the coup d’etat waged against their own people. Death squads used dark green Falcons to ‘disappear’ trade unionists, artists, students and anyone else who might oppose or question the junta. Since the squads illegally arrested, tortured or killed an estimated thirty thousand people, the car now stirs bitter emotions for many Argentines. (Lawrence Thornton’s 1988 novel Imagining Argentina does a hauntingly good job of capturing the ominous mood those dark green birds of prey created.) Even today, some people in Buenos Aires won’t get into a taxi if it’s a Falcon, and a tour operator in the northern city of Salta, who would have been just four or five when the dictatorship crumbled, told me, ‘I don’t like it when I see a Ford Falcon, I get bad memories.’”
McGill News, the alumni magazine of Canada’s best university, reviews That Good Night and says, “Tim Falconer’s thoughtful new book…approaches the thorny issues surrounding end-of-life care with sensitivity.” (Scroll down — it’s the fourth review on the page.)
Chris Turner, author of the excellent book The Geography of Hope, has a great piece on peak oil in The Walrus.
My reading at the new McNally Robinson Booksellers is tonight at 7 pm.
Eight hundred Britons have signed up with Dignitas and 100 have gone to Switzerland to die with dignity with the organization’s help, according to this piece on the British assisted suicide debate from The Economist. In addition, four out of five people support changes to the assisted suicide laws in that country so that anyone accompanying a terminally ill patient to Switzerland would not be doing anything illegal, as is now the case.
Assisted suicide is getting lots of attention across the pond. There have been a couple of high-profile cases in Britain recently and while a proposal to legalize assisted suicide seems destined to fail in Parliament, Lord Falconer (no relation, obviously) is pushing for an amendment that would make it legal for Brits to travel to Switzerland to die with dignity. He laid out his argument in an op-ed piece in The Times.
In other words, the debate is happening there and while the legalization of assisted suicide in Britain made not come right away, it will happen after citizens have had a real chance to learn about it.
Would that we were having a similar discussion here in Canada.
I will be reading and speaking at McNally Robinson’s Toronto location at 7 pm on Friday, June 12. Aside from a chance to hear more about That Good Night: Ethicists, Euthanasia and End-of-Life Care, it’s a great opportunity to check out the new store. I haven’t been yet, but I’ve been hearing great things, including that it offers the selection of a big-box store and the charm and comfort of an independent. Sounds good to me.