Cockroach by Rawi Hage

Rage.  Anger.  An all-consuming hatred for pretty much everything.  That's Rawi Hage's novel in a nutshell.

The obvious comparison is to Dostoevsky's Notes from the Underground, at least in the narrator's self-regard, if not the florid writing style.  

It's the immigrant story viewed through the sewers, the underground of society, where only cockroaches can dwell and survive.  It's not a story that will convince the average Joe (the Canadian Plumber) of the value of immigration.  The narrator is easy to despise - a sick, lying, jobless thief, addict, and seducer - not all easy to empathise with, despite his obvious problems. 

It's a novel for the young - in that only a young person, full of strident opinion and in search of something to hate, could fall in love with the misery that consumes the narrator. 

The contrast between Hage's narrator and Yann Martel's narrator in "Life of Pi" is striking.  Martel's Pi Patel is an optimist, clinging to hope despite great calamity, cleverly camouflaging his unreliability until the end.  Hage's creation is the resolute pessimist, clinging to despair, upfront in his lies.  

And then the cockroach gets a job as a busboy (hard to believe he keeps it), a girlfriend (harder to believe - does he even ever wash), and finally an all-too-convenient chance to avenge another's pain, to assuage his own guilty past.   A funnily contrived ending to a story of rage and hopelessness.  

In the end, the reader is unable to find anything redemptive about this tale of the underground.  The narrator is barely recognizable as human, as a socialized being - how can we possibly care?

"Get Smart" - The Movie

I expected the comedic parody of the original TV series, a spoof of the cold-war spy.  Unfortunately, the producers of this movie probably thought they couldn't top the Austin Powers set of film classics.  Very unfortunate.  So we got an actual over-the-top, filled with special effects, explosions and car chases, wannabe blockbuster interspersed with some cheesy physical comedy (see the original Pink Panther movies for a much better example) and a few classic lines for the TV series thrown in randomly. 

It could have been so much better.  Why is so difficult for Hollywood to make a funny, intelligent comedy?

The Perfect Storm Again?

The former CEO of the Quebec Pension Plan Fund manager, Caisse de Depot, Henri-Paul Rousseau claims he couldn't possibly have known that the stock market was going to plunge.  It was impossible to foresee the collapse of all those financial institutions.  It was a perfect storm.  This time, it didn't claim a few Newfoundland fisherman.  It managed to sink the entire planet.

Right.  No one could see it coming, especially the experts.  They were too busy stuffing money in their pockets.  

Here's my take on the situation.

Some too-bright Wall St. guys looking for ways to make more money happened upon an idea.  Why don't we take a bunch of mortgages, package them all together, then split them up into little pieces, shares if you like, and sell them to investors.  Mortgages are really secure, we can sell them triple-A bonded.  So they went to the banks, who were happy to lend them millions to buy up these mortgages and re-sell them.  

So -

The mortgage brokers made money selling the mortgages to the Wall St. guys.

The Wall St. guys made more money selling the Triple-A bonded paper to the investors

The investor made money on these Triple-A bonded pieces of paper

And the banks made money on all of this

Until - 

The mortgage brokers ran out of legitimate home buyers

This was not good.  Nobody would make more money.

So they found a few non-legitimate home buyers.  And got people to take out new mortgages on existing homes.  And so on.  It was easy money.  The value of houses will always go up.  Guaranteed. 

The brokers were happy again.  The Wall St. guys too.  The investors.  The bankers.  No one noticed that the Triple-A bonded paper wasn't all that Triple-A anymore.  No one wanted to look under the covers.  No one wanted to stop the flow of money.  No one wanted to put an end to the party.

Then the bubble burst.  There were so many mortgage defaults, so many foreclosures that the price of homes started to fall.  Which caused more defaults, more foreclosures.  Suddenly, Triple-A became toxic.

And those that hadn't surfed out (Hey, Henri-Paul) of the way of the perfect storm got clobbered.

Of course, the banks can't be allowed to go under.  No one knows what would happen then. 

So the people who made billions keep their positions no matter what.  Great system.  Keep up the good work.

If you believe me, watch this video by Jonathan Jarvis.  And it has some cool graphics.

Life with a Two Year Old- Learning our colours

"What colour are Daddy's eyes, Sera?" 

"Uh... red!" she answered brightly.

"Gee thanks," I said.  "What colour are Sera's eyes?"

She shut her eyelids tight in evident concentration, clearly expecting to catch a glimpse of her eyeballs via some reflective process.  The logic was impressive.

"Sera, I don't think that will work.  You need to go look in the mirror."

"Mirror?" 

"Right.  Where's the mirror?"

She pointed over her shoulder towards the bathroom.  "Over dere," she said, then raised her arms skyward.  "Up now."

Of course, we need to look in the mirror right now.   As I lifted her, I re-tried the original query.

"What colour are Daddy's eyes?"

She looked at me intently, obviously aware that her previous answer wasn't correct.

"Pink!"  She said.

Much better.

Replicant Fading

'24' is a shell of its former self.  

The first few seasons were engaging and suspenseful even if you knew that Jack would always prevail.  Best of all, it wasn't dumbed down for the average viewer, and the technology babble wasn't totally ridiculous.   The violence and never-ending need for torture seemed to fit in a George W. Bush led, post-911 world.  It was a morality play turned inside out.  It was in-your-face fiction in search of non-stop thrills, though the real White House was rumoured to use it as a paint-by-the-numbers playbook for fighting terrorism.

Okay, so the series sometimes reached too far.  Jack's daughter joining the Counter Terrorism Unit (CTU) as an agent was a real stretch.  And of course the terrorists always have an almost unlimited supply of resources and backup plans, not to mention the ability to recruit at least one key employee of CTU.

But the true decline started last season (two years ago as a result of the writers' strike and Keifer's stint in jail).   My theory is that the writers were already on strike.  Perhaps the original writers left.  Or ran out of ideas.  Or forgot that dialogue should at least resemble what the actual characters might logically say, rather than using it to explain the convoluted plot.  

This season, '24' has officially jumped the shark.  The attempt to be politically correct in this year of Obama, while retaining some of the trademark Bauer edginess, is laughable.  The characters have become caricatures of their former selves, Chloe doing little else than making faces, and Tony returned from the dead with a perpetual scowl that couldn't be cured with a massive dose of Zoloft. 

Meanwhile, the producers attempt to wring every last penny out of the series.  Every time a cellphone rings now (which is quite often), the viewer is treated to a closeup of the Sprint logo.  Granted, we were used to seeing the Apple logo on the computers, but this new trend is blatant beyond any measure of taste.  

Heroes no more

The first season was fun, if too tailored for the ADD generation.  It has a comic book feel, and the characters were fun and even a little endearing at times.  The plot was silly but at least one knew who the villains were.

I caught the first season on DVD while the abbreviated second season was being broadcast.  From what I surmise, there wasn't a lot to miss.

Then came the attempt to watch the third season live.  Light entertainment has morphed into incomprehensibility.  And it becomes impossible to care about the characters when one can no longer tell who's good or evil, or even in what timeline they're currently over-acting in.

The writers only had one good season in them.  They should have quit while they were ahead.  Turn down that Hollywood money.  It corrupts, no doubt.

The S-Bomb

The U.S. Republican has discovered a new path to recovery:  label every action of President Obama as socialist.  Obviously, this is a much better putdown than just 'liberal'.  Watch for their rise in the polls closely.  Hold your breath if you want.

Books and booze: A splendid match

The Loquacious book club, located Tatamagouche, Nova Scotia, has built its own bar to host the monthly meetings.  This private, not-for-profit 'literary pub' boasts regular author visits and 7$ Grey Goose martinis.   The co-founder said she simply wanted a place to discuss over a glass of wine.

I'm sure they review only the best books, too, though the discussion might tend to wander after the second cocktail.