Book Review: Working the Dead Beat, by Sandra Martin

Not since reading Twilight on the bus to work have I had such a polarizing response to a book I've read, (and as a fan of horror fiction, I've read some pretty horrifying stuff), but whenever people asked what my latest read, Working the Dead Beat: 50 Lives that Changed Canada, by Globe and Mail columnist Sandra Martin, is a collection of fifty obituaries, written for Influential Canadians who passed between the years of 2000 and 2010.

The collection spans Canadians from all walks of life, and once you get past the morbidity of spending a few days reading obituaries, it was actually a pretty fascinating read. I read it as a book club selection and was quite impressed at just how immersive an experience it was into the lives of some pretty impressive Canadian figures.

Well worth the look.

Keeping up with the Top 40

After finishing grad school last year I did what a lot of folks do and attempted to catch up on the various books, films, games, music, and television shows I had been putting on hold while working on my Masters.

Being a relatively organized guy, I decided the simplest thing to do was to track the popular stuff from the last few years (using everything from Nielsen Ratings to Publishers weekly and IMDB to track down what sold the most and then figure out how far behind I was.

For Film and TV I actually didn't do too bad - I ended up with less than a dozen series and about 40 films behind my kids and friends, so I could catch up pretty quickly.

With books I was a bit further behind, but as my BFF Mike tends to read the current big SF I wasn't doing too badly either.

This left me with music.

In terms of popular music I was actually about twenty years behind anything that was really popular.  This doesn't mean I wasn't listening to anything good, just not anything really current.

So I decided each week I would start listening to the top ten songs in Canada.  Then, bowing to the inevitable, I added the US top ten list (an awful lot of overlap) and after a few months decided to add the UK top ten list as well (which actually introduced me to a number of Canadian artists) and about a month ago I added the Australian top ten list as well.

So far the experiment has been pretty fun - I recognize way more songs on the radio and in the malls, and every once I a while I surprise my musically-inclined friends with some trendy info.

So there you go - I'm creating a baseline understanding of current Top 40 music in the western world - not sure what I'll do with this info, but I have to admit it's a lot of fun!

Dealing with Donuts, or doughnuts

Late last night I got home from the Midwinter Meeting of the American Library Association in Philadelphia, PA.  The event was great, I had a lot of fun and met a lot of professionals from all over the US, in addition to attending various meetings, checking out the vendor displays and visiting various sites of interest in Philly.

Then of course there was the quintessential debate I had as a Canadian in the states.  How do the donuts compare to my Canadian experience?

I know this may sound silly to some readers, but up here in Canada we take our doughnuts (correct Canadian spelling) seriously, and although I grew up with both Robin's Donuts and Country-Style Donuts, when we refer to doughnuts up here, we mean Tim Hortons (pictured right).

So I knew when I visited Philly, I would have to compare the doughnuts I grew up with along side two specific competitors, Dunkin' Donuts and a small business called Federal Donuts.

Dunkin' Donuts (which appear on virtually every other corner), appeared to be the closest competitor in Philadelphia, I could be wrong, having stuck mainly to the downtown core, but these restaurants were everywhere (pictured left)

Also the lineups were crazy and if I walked into any business drinking a cup of Dunkin' Donuts coffee, I would inevitably get approached by strangers asking me where the nearest Dunkin' Donuts was located.

The coffee at Dunkin is pretty good, but the donuts were something else all together - first of all the batter itself was sweet, the first donut I tried was a standard Chocolate dip, and it tasted kind of like a donut mixed with a chocolate bar, very sweet for my norther sensibilities, and although it wasn't really my cup of tea, I can see how addictive a sweeter donut could be.

Federal Donuts, on the other hand,  was pretty hard to find (the nearest location to my downtown hotel was about a 20-minute walk), and deciding to save my Dunkin' experience for later in the trip, I went to Federal on my first morning in Philly.

The donuts there (pictured, along with a coffeee and my book), were some of the best tasting I've had in the last ten years.  Although Tim Horton's doughnuts used to be baked in store, since 2006 they've been pre-made in Ontario and are shipped out to be finished in store, and you can definitely tell the difference.  These donuts were freshly made and simply delicious, no matter which ALA event I was at, I could not stop talking about how great these donuts were.

Do they measure up to the doughnuts of my Canadian childhood?  It's hard to say, nostalgia is tricky that way, but I will say that they are about as close as I can hope to get, so if you happen to get to Philly, they are definitely worth a try - just get there early, as they close up once they sell out their daily batches.

Happy Canada Day

For all my Canadian Readers (Hello my lovely wife) Happy Canada Day!

For everyone else, I'll try to answer the question of "Why aren't any businesses in Canada answering the phone today?"

Although for most of the world today was a pretty regular Wednesday, for us up in the Great White North it's our National Holiday. Yup, Canada Day (which used to be known as Dominion Day) celebrates the enactment of the British North America Act back in 1867 when our country began the journey to being the great nation it is today.

It's a pretty big deal for us, we have fireworks, a statutory holiday, and my grocery store sells cupcakes with little Canadian flags on them.

Anyway, I'll be back onto my regular reviews and musings next week, I just wanted to send out a quick note wishing everyone a great Canada Day.

Bookmonkey's Top 5 Canadian Genre Films

Since I started posting blogs in August and began getting comments from around the world to my posts, I've found that more and more often I've become a defender of my nations character (as far as Genre films, TV, and Books goes). So this week, I'm going to look at some of my favourite Canadian films.

So here we go, my top five Canadian Genre Films

5. Videodrome

This 1983 film starring James Woods is one of the big reasons we have a "NO TV HOUR" in our home from 6-7 at night, as the film gives you the message that TV kills, literally. The movie follows James Woods, who plays a television producer in Toronto, as he attempts to find the new best thing for television. What he finds is a channel called Videodrome, which is basically snuff TV. The problem occurs when he begins to find out exactly what Videodrome is actually trying to do. The film does have some pretty gruesome bits, but it is definitely a Canadian classic.

4. Ginger Snaps

For those of you who haven't seen it, Ginger Snaps uses the idea of Werewolves as a metaphor for puberty. Basically you have two teenaged sisters (Ginger and Brigitte) who seem pretty preoccupied with death at the beginning of the film. Ginger gets her first period and is attacked by a werewolf on the same night and then everything starts to get very weird, and very freaky. Watching this film as a guy, I have to say that it definitely plays to all of the fears we have about girls at that age.

3. The Changeling

I actually found this movie as I began watching the films that had won Genie awards (Basically our Oscars here in Canada). George C. Scott plays a man who after a devastating family tragedy, buys a suspiciously perfect house in a new town. The tone of this film is pretty quiet, but once you realize the house is haunted the tension builds to an unbelievable level.

2. Cube

Alright, you know the scene in Resident Evil where Alice and the Umbrella agents enter a corridor and one of them is "cubed" by a laser? Totally stolen from my favourite Canadian horror film, Cube. Basically a small group of people wake up inside a giant cube shaped room, there are doors leading out from the middle of each side and as they move through these doors into other rooms, they are either attacked by some random killing device or left alive. Together, they have the skills to survive and escape, but that's only if they don't kill each other first. Simply an amazing film.

1. Last Night

This movie asks a pretty simple question. If you knew, for certain that the world would end tomorrow, what would you do with your last night? The characters in this film do all sorts of things, some funny, some terrible, some heartbreaking, with their last hours on Earth. For a film with such a grim concept, there is a lot of light here. This film should top anyone's list of must see Canadian Genre films.