I Love... End-of-the-World stories

I love apocalypse stories. Books, movies, anything where some cataclysmic event blasts mankind back to the dark ages and forces him to struggle back up again. I'm not sure why this type of story appeals to me so much. I'm sure part of it is the misanthrope in me. I love to imagine a world where there are no people around to bother me, where I don't have to pay taxes or go to work or attend functions where I'm always ten minutes away from a panic attack.

There are lots of ways for the world to end. Nuclear war is the most common scenario in most apocalypse stories. That's how the world ended in A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller Jr. The story takes place centuries after the "Flame Deluge" as they call it, when an odd form of Christianity has developed. The adherents worship St. Leibowitz, who was an electrician in the last days before the Flame Deluge. It's a quirky book, with a dark humour about it that's really enjoyable to read.

On the Beach by Stanley Cramer is another death by nukes story. I haven't read the book, but I saw the movie a few weeks ago. It's a forebodingly quiet movie, and after a while that quiet starts to get to you and you begin to feel like the characters in the story must feel. Doomed. The story follows a group of people in Australia, which is just about the only place in the world left with any kind of civilization after a nuclear war. But the prevailing winds are bringing death to Australia too. It's only a matter of time.

We could also be hit by a comet, as happens in Lucifer's Hammer by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle. The fun thing about this book is that it was first published in 1977 and reading it feels just like watching one of those hokey disaster movies we all loved so much back then... Earthquake, Poseidon Adventure etc. The world has changed so much in the past 30 years and reading something like this makes it very tangible. In this book, women's lib is a very new thing. Radical black men call white people "honkeys." Home computers are virtually unheard of, the scientists at NASA and JPL had only just switched from slide rulers to pocket calculators (which cost a few hundred dollars)....and there were leisure suits people. Leisure suits! Written into scenes with perfect seriousness. I think a civilization-ending comet was a good thing with regards to leisure suits. As books go, it's not one of the better ones I've read. Too many characters, too much detail, not enough move-it-along action (at least so far...I'm only 3/4 of the way through) to let me find out who things turn out a few years down the road when all the manufactured goods are gone or broken down. It reads way too much like a book written by a guy who was hoping it would be made into a blockbuster disaster flick like Towering Inferno.

My favourite kind of end-of-the-world scenario is the death-by-disease story. Killer bug wipes out most of the earth's population, leaving everything else standing, slowly crumbling back into nature. The best book in this vein has to be Stephen King's The Stand. A true modern classic and the best book King ever wrote...probably the best he ever will write. A deadly, man-made disease nicknamed Captain Trips wipes out almost everyone, and the survivors band together in two opposing groups. This is not just a great apocalypse story, but it's a classic tale of the battle between good and evil, with all the literary archetypes and symbolism you could ask for.

While The Stand is my favourite King book, and probably my second-favourite apocalypse book, my very favourite is called The Last Canadian by William C. Heine (why do so many authors use their middle initials in their byline?). Another death-by-disease story...also a man-made disease, if I remember correctly. One of the things I like about this book is that it was written by a Canadian...the editor of a newspaper in London, Ontario. Like Lucifer's Hammer, it was published in 1977, and you can feel the culture difference when you read it. Misogyny is rampant in this book. But something about it always appealed to me...the survivor thing, I guess. I've read this book at least five times.

The aliens invading Earth scenario is another big one in the apocalypse genre, but not an angle I'm particularly interested in. Probably because it's so unlikely. The idea that a nuke or a comet or a killer disease could wipe us all out is much more real, and therefore much more compelling (and scary!), than the idea of someone just showing up out of the blue (literally) to take over and eat us all or something.

No...give me a good Superbug story any day.

I love... Soundtracks

I don't remember when or why I bought my first soundtrack, but of all the kinds of music I have, that's by far the most greatly represented genre in my CD collection. Just picked up two more today, so I thought it would be a good excuse for a blog.

At the moment, I have 27 soundtracks/scores - mostly from movies, but two or three from TV shows - out of a total of about 175 CDs. I know...not a big collection, and I'm not a downloader either. I'm not a "collector." I only buy music I really like.

The thing I like about soundtracks is that they bring together, on one disk, several different artists and even different genres, but they all work well together. It's also great to be introduced to artists and genres you might not know about or think of listening to otherwise. For instance, I'd never have been inclined to go out and look for CDs with "Dem Bones" or "Iko Iko" on them, but since they're both on the Rainman soundtrack, I've got them, and sing along gustily whenever they're playing. Coincidentally, Iko Iko is also on the Big Easy soundtrack. Nor would I ever have gone out and bought a CD full of heavy metal, but the soundtracks to both Triple X (XXX) and Gone in 60 Seconds have some really hard stuff on them that I love.

I also discovered that I love the dreamy, chant-like music from movies like Gladiator and The Insider...both of which include several performances by Lisa Gerrard. And that led me to other artists like Mother Tongue, whose style is similar.

The right music can make a good scene so much better. The best example of that that I can think of was in the final scene of the most recent season finale of House. House has to choose two interns from the handful remaining after the season-long elimination round. He really wants three -- after all, he had three before. But Cuddy says he can only have two. So he hires two men. Upon discovering this, Cuddy comes storming in to see him and says "you can't have two men...we'll get in trouble for discrimination. At that moment "Spirit in the Sky" starts playing...those uber-cool riffy opening chords playing loud as a devious and triumphant smile begins to spread across House's face, and Cuddy's face shows that she's just realized she's been had. House gets all three of the interns he wanted. Game, set, match. And it just wouldn't have been nearly as good without just that right music.

So...herewith is the current list of my soundtrack collection, in no particular order...

• Gladiator includes some really powerful orchestral stuff. One track in particular - The Battle - never fails to send shivers up my spine and always has me playing "air-conductor"...really, really rousing stuff.)
• Passion (the Jesus movie, featuring music by Peter Gabriel
• The Insider (Russell Crowe, Al Pacino true story about a guy who exposed the cigarette industry
• Deadwood (from David Milch's brilliant but too-short three-season opus magnum about a western mining town finding its way to civilization)
• Desperado (Antonio Banderas flick)
• American Beauty (Kevin Spacey flick)
• The Wizard of Oz (my favourite movie of all time)
• The Commitments (of course...this is a staple in most people's collections)
• Gone in 60 Seconds (rousing, hard-hitting rock)
• xXx (Vin Diesel flick...more rousing stuff)
• Rainman (One of the modern classics. Some great, funky, quirky tunes on this)
• Immortal Beloved (Gary Oldman's biopic about Beethoven)
• Thelma & Louise (One of my favourits, both the movie and the soundtrack)
• Matrix (just cuz I really liked that hard-driving theme music)
• Pulp Fiction (see below)
• Reservoir Dogs (as above, a Quentin Terantino movie. Both soundtracks feature delightful - and profane - snippets of dialogue from the movies between tracks. Brilliant collections)
• The English Patient (another of my favourites. Ralph Fiennes stars. Music is an odd - and oddly workable - mix of old jazz, classical, blues and score music, and even has a hauntingly beautiful Czech song called Szerelem, Szerelem [Love, Love] which never fails send shivers up my spine.
• Fried Green Tomatoes (Not one of my faves)
• City of Angels (and awesome, awesome collection of really great music. I can listen to this one over and over and over)
• Forest Gump (includes 32 "American Classics - so says the liner)
• X-Files (meh...wasn't a good choice, in spite of the fact that it includes the classic series theme music)
• Wonder Boys (Really good collection, featuring four Bob Dylan tunes)
• Practical Magic (great collection featuring two Stevie Nicks tunes, and my favourite Joni Mitchell song, "A Case of You"
• Cold Mountain (Nicole Kidman flick. I liked the hillbilly sound of the movie music, but the soundtrack didn't seem to capture the goodness that was in the film)
• The Big Easy (One of my top three soundtracks - great zydeco music that you can't sit still to)
• House (one of my new aquisitions. Not too impressive. It concentrates mostly on familiar tunes, when I was hoping for some of the really quirky stuff they often have on the show. And no, I couldn't tell that from reading the liner before buying it...I suck at remember song titles and artists)
• Black Snake Moan (on the player as I write this. Pretty good stuff. I love that old-style black blues with the electric slide guitar. Sexy stuff)
  

I love... Driving

Tonight I drove my Mum home from the casino so my Dad could stay and play for a while. Mum wasn't feeling well and I wasn't in the mood to hang out at a noisy casino wasting money.

It's about a 25 minute drive from the casino to Mum's, and another 25 minutes from Mum's to my place, mostly on the 417. So it was a nice long drive and there weren't that many cars on the road. I really enjoyed it. I could have kept going!

I've always loved driving. Even when I was a teenager and had just gotten my licence, Mum would let me borrow the car and just take it out for a drive in the country. I love doing that. It's one of the things I like to do in the summertime on a weekend afternoon...just head out in any direction and keep driving till I start getting tired of it, and then head home. As long as I know what direction I'm going in, I can always find my way home. That's why I always have one of those little liquid ball compasses in the car. My grandfather used to have one in his car too. All I need now to be just like him is a wobbly-head German Shepard figurine in the back window :-)

What I love most is driving out in the country at night in the summertime when it's balmy and I can roll all the windows down and just drive and drive and let the warm air buffet my skin and the scents of the summer night wash over me, changing as I move through different parts of the countryside. Somehow the world seems to be filled with possibilities then, when there's no traffic to slow me down and the clean night air lets me pass so easily through the darkness. The world is mysterious and it's all there for me to explore. It makes me feel like I can do anything I want.

A good drive is like meditation. The gentle vibration of the engine and the tires on the road lull me into a kind of driver's trance. I can go from point A to point B without have any recollection of how I passed between them. It's a unique kind of adaptable auto-pilot. Anyone who drives to work every day will recognize it. Your mind can wander anywhere it wants, but if needed, you can instantly switch back to manual to deal with those unexpected situations that pop up so frequently in traffic.

Driving is an activity unlike any other I do. My body is occupied, but my mind is free to roam wherever it wants, unharrassed by phone calls or emails or TV or anything else. My eyes flit from one scene to another, taking in everything and processing it all equally. A tree, a cloud, a dark patch on the road, a bird, a couple arguing in the car passing me, an 18-wheeler slowing down on an incline. Amazingly, these things inspire me and suddenly I find myself plotting out entire novels during a two-hour drive to Montreal or a 20-minute jaunt across town.

I love driving. There is no place I think better than in the car. I have solved romantic problems, figured out work issues, composed poems, driven off frustration and written the next great Canadian novel in my head, all while driving. Give me wheels and a highway and a clear, dry day and I am in heaven.

I love... Ralphy Goodness

Ralph & Sons Diner,
Carling Ave, Ottawa,
Crystal Beach area

I love breakfast. It's my favourite meal. I especially love going out for breakfast. You can get a pretty impressive breakfast at some fancy-schmancy $20 brunch place with champagne orange juice and caviar sprinkled smoked salmon omelettes. But most of us are more familiar with the average $6-$8 breakfast that you can find all over town. For the most part, I can't really say that one spot outshines the others to any great extent. Most of them are pretty good, but they're not spectacular.

But my family's favourite breakfast spot has a secret weapon that is so great, my mother has been going there every single morning for the past three years, and every morning she has the exact same dish...eggs over easy, bacon well done, toast and coffee.

Like my grandmother, who had a breakfast ritual of her own (half a bowl of corn flakes or rice krispies with half a bowl of all bran on top, drizzled slowly and very meticulously with honey from a yellow plastic honey dipper), my mother also has her own ritual. One slice of toast goes on the plate, and each half gets one egg with lots of salt and pepper. Two pieces of bacon are eaten along with the eggs and toast, all using knife and fork. The other two pieces of bacon and the second slice of toast are set aside until the eggs are finished off. Then, the bacon sandwich is carefully assembled. Each extra crisp slice is broken by hand and stacked meticulously on top of one half of the remaining toast slice. Ketchup is then liberally squirted over every square centimetre of the top layer of bacon and then the munching begins.

The amazing thing is, even with all the ketchup she uses, I've never seen her get any on herself.

Okay...so what's so special about all this? Well, there's the comfortable always-busy family atmosphere (go on the weekend and you may need to wait for a few minutes for a table...but stick it out, it's worth it), the friendly service (my folks are on first-name basis with everyone who works there) and the good prices. But the one thing that really shines, the thing that keeps me dreaming about Ralph's all through the week is.... the bacon.

Oh. My. God. You've never had bacon like this in your life. Perfectly cooked on the grill with some kind of weight that keeps the whole strip against the heat so the entire strip cooks evenly. And the taste is amazing. Juicy, salty, bacony goodness that just makes my mouth water thinking about it. It's specially ordered from a local supplier - and you can order a box for yourself if you want! I've never had such delicious bacon in my life, and it truly has ruined me for bacon anywhere else. Those greasy, fatty-looking curled-up blobs of half-cooked or over-cooked cheap bacon really turn me off now. I pretty much stick to sausage everywhere else because casually cooked average bacon just doesn't do it for me anymore.