10. Entourage (HBO)

HBO’s hit comedy about the day-to-day life of a movie star has become one of those consistant, comfortable comedies whose characters feel like old friends to revisit each season.

9. Corner Gas (CTV)

Though many have not heard of this show, as it is a Canadian-made comedy about a town in Saskatchewan, it is a wonderfully fresh and funny show with a cast of great comic characters.

8. Planet Earth (BBC)

There has never been a nature show as well-crafted and as visually spectacular as this. It is the ultimate epic when it comes to informational programming, exploring the vast reaches of our home called Earth like no one has done before.

7. 24 (FOX)

24 was a fresh, new concept that worked. But setting the show in real-time was just the hook; it was the intensity of Jack Bauer and the everything-on-the-line tension which made this show a hit. Sure it could feel very contrived at times, but it always delivers gripping and sometimes shocking moments.

6. Battlestar Galactica (SCI-FI)

Who would have thought that the remake of a cheesy old Sci-Fi show would have any effect on the TV landscape at all? Well, Battlestar Galactica did by delivering great characters, deep themes, and strong emotions. This was a sci-fi show which took itself seriously, and therefore was able to get audiences to as well, creating a wonderful television space saga.

5. The Office (NBC)

What? They’re going to try to remake another British TV show? It’ll never work. Oh wait a minute… The American vision of the hilarious show The Office was able to take the brilliance of the original and really make it its own, giving minor characters their own niche and playing up the emotionaldev elopment of the characters. And let’s face it; Steve Carrell is downright amazing.

4. Band of Brothers (HBO)

This ten-episode series told the tale of Easy Company in the Second World War, documenting its march across Nazi-occupied Europe. The battle scenes were incredible and the detail in which the war was depicted was stunning. We grew to care for each of the characters, who start out as almost faceless soldiers but become dear friends by the end. A specatular feat of television story-telling.

3. The Office (BBC)

Yes, the American Office has gone on tosix seasons of success and one fo the most popular shows of the decade, but the original still remains the better of the two. The sarcasm and wit of Ricky Gervais and Stephen Marchant’s comedy is unsurpassed. David Brent is simply one of the greatest characters in the television pantheon, and practially every moment of the show’s short run is comedic gold.

2. Lost (ABC)

Lost is everything I want in a TV show; an exotic location, a serial storyline, unexplained mysteries and complex entanglements, and deep and well-defined characters. Everything comes together so well in this show, you keep thinking they have to drop the ball at some point, but they never do. This is simply one of the greatest shows television has ever offered.

1. The West Wing (NBC)

The West Wing is perhaps the best TV has to offer (other than the early seasons of The Simpsons). It is witty, dramatic, well-acted, well-directed, and written like no other show has ever been written. It is genius on almost every level. The show has ade style changes through its seven years, moving from a more light-hearted dream vision of the White House, to a more dramatic and tense tone later on during a tough presidential election. I simply cannot get enough of The West Wing.

The Toronto Star (www.thestar.com/entertainment)  published a list of the “10 Most Important TV Shows of the Past Decade” — I thought I would share it with you. You should try making your own list–

Here’s the List (in no particular order) and my thoughts:

1. American Idol – Agreed. Whether or not you find it uncomfortable to watch Paula Abdul struggle to put together a coherant sentence… this show sparked the ‘Talent Competition Reality Show’ machine that has continued with shows like SYTYCD, Americas got Talent, DWTS etc.
2. Band of Brothers- Can’t say that I was a religious viewer of this one, although the sheer production value of this show is unparalleled on television (maybe ever?). Perhaps has something to do with the Spielberg connection.
3. Corner Gas- Obviously a Canadian gem…marked the rebirth of homegrown Canadian comedy akin to King of Kensington of the 70’s. The deadpan humor and lack of laugh track set it apart during its run.
4. CSI- Forensics has never been hotter! CSI is still the most watched tv show worldwide, because it is based on basic conventions of suspense, procedural drama, good guy vs bad guy, and a great cast of mysterious and dark scientists.
5. Mad Men- So trendy, so cool and suave…this show has charm and swagger. it has emerged as one of the best new shows certainly in the past few years.
6. The Office-the “mock-doc” style of the Office has proved that people know when to laugh without prompting from a laugh track or obvious one-liners. And Steve Carell is brilliant.
7. The Sopranos-The Godfather of TV… there’s no top ten list without this one…
8. Survivor-The ORIGINAL reality series…we have survivor to thank for the last 10 years chalk full of addictive reality shows. But it remains solid season after season, it goes to show that throwing people together will always cause drama, comedy, competition, even romance…everything needed for great tv!
9. 24- A Cult classic of the last decade… deserves to make the list.
10. The Wire- Honestly…never seen it. sorry. I think I would have replaced it for something like Greys Anatomy (a reincarnation of ER drama…mixed with comedy) or even 30 Rock (its worth it weight in Emmy gold for sure!)

an interesting list…any additions/subtractions?

It’s quite a ways off, but there’s a pretty cool promotional trailer already for SyFy’s upcoming four-hour two-part mini-series Alice.  The production is a reimagining of Lewis Carroll’s twisted yet family friendly Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland.

From the official SyFy press release:

For this re-imagined adaptation, writer/director Nick Willing mines the bizarre ingenuity and twisted logic of Carroll’s work to create a daringly different, boldly colorful and delightfully skewed dreamscape of his own.

The project features a large and impressive cast that, if you’re familiar with the sci-fi genre and/or Canadian TV, you’ll be astounded by.  The lineup consists of stars (not just guest stars, but actuall cast members) of: Primeval, Steven Spielberg’s Taken, Eureka, Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Battlestar Galactica, Crash (the tv series), Kingdom Hospital, Sanctuary, Robson Arms, Corner Gas, Davinci’s Inquest, Intelligence, North of 60, and Men In Trees, among many many others.  To top all that, they’ve also landed Tim Curry and Cathy Bates!  Whew – that’s alot of talent.

According to the network:

“An incredible creative team has been assembled to re-interpret this familiar tale in an imaginative and innovative way,” said Mark Stern, EVP of Original Programming for Syfy. “This exciting new vision is one of the reasons we’ve been able to attract such high-level talent.”

Alice is set to premiere on SyFy in December of 2009.  We’ll keep updated as it approaches!

And so as not to confuse anyone, SyFy’s Alice is in no way related to the upcoming Tim Burton film starring In Treatment’s Mia Wasikowska that we reported on some months back.

“It’s a juried award, which means that a volunteer group screens all the entries and decides on the nominees. That jury has a lot of power, and a lot of sway, and depending how it’s made up, you can favor certain things, favor your friends, or fulfill vendettas, say what you will.”

That’s a quote from my friend Denis McGrath’s highly popular blog,  Dead things on sticks. He’s lamenting the state of the Gemini Awards, especially in light of the snub to Corner Gas. Zero nominations for the most popular Canadian comedy show ever.

Denis is too nice a guy and too committed to Canadian television to say the obvious. The Gemini Awards are a joke. The industry should join most Canadians and ignore the TV show and the process.

Yes there are a lot of very worthy winners and terrific programs honored. All Canadians should both recognize and laud the quality television that is produced in this country. Heck, I’m a Gemini winner myself. But the Geminis are far too political and far too based on friendships and network loyalties to be taken seriously as awards of excellence.

I have two stories that speak to the ‘bull’ that the Geminis are:

When I was news director at Global I was on the jury for the best news program and the best news anchor. I was on the panel with someone from CBC, Tim Kotcheff from CTV and one other jury member. We watched the tapes from across Canada and honestly discussed the quality and value of each program we viewed. So far so good.

Then the trouble started. CTV did not enter Lloyd Robertson for nomination. I didn’t enter any of the Global anchors either. It soon became obvious that Peter Mansbridge would win the Gemini by default. Tim Kotcheff immediately protested. He demanded Lloyd be nominated. But you didn’t put him up for nomination, he was told. Kotcheff said he didn’t care. Further, he said if Lloyd was not nominated he would pull CTV out of the award show and the process. Of course everyone backed down and nominated Lloyd. I then demanded Thalia Assuras’ nomination. A whole lot of deserving anchors who were entered were shut out of any chance for recognition. In truth Thalia and Lloyd did nothing special that year. They did not deserve the nomination. That didn’t matter. It never does. Oh, by-the-way, Peter Mansbridge won the award. It was a foregone conclusion. He would have won whether he deserved it or not. He hadn’t made very many enemies yet and thus as the CBC nominee it was a lock. You see, CBC had about two out of three voters in the academy. CBC won everything in those days. That’s why CTV News boycotts the awards to this day.

The second story is even more curious. About a decade later I was jury chair for the best long form news story category, my description, not the category title. The CBC’s Terrence McKenna and Alex Shprintsen had done brilliant work finding ties to Al Qaida and Islamic terrorism in Canada after 9-11. Their piece was masterful, both great journalism and wonderful TV. Our panel of five looked at all the pieces sent in for nomination and as usual discussed each item as we saw it. Every single member of the jury stated openly that the McKenna/Shprintsen piece was head-and-shoulders above anything else we saw. It was clear the piece could not lose. That year the jury vote counted for 60 or 70 percent towards the award. I don’t remember which amount is correct. It does not matter though. Even at 60 percent if all the panelists agree on the best program the voters cannot override their choice. I left thinking I knew which news item had won months before the award ceremony.

Guess what? The McKenna/Shprintsen piece did not win. That means at least one, probably two or more jury members voted against the piece they openly professed to be the best by far. Why did they do this? I will never know because it’s a secret ballot by the jury. But Denis McGrath’s quote at the top describes some of the possible reasons.

I’m sure some Gemini panels are more honest than others. Some winners are most deserving. But as long as the process allows politics, friendships and network loyalty to play as large a role as the quality of the television programs they are judging and nominating, the Geminis will continue to exclude shows like Corner Gas, it will continue to make it more difficult for non-CBC shows to win, and it will make it almost impossible for excellent small market programs, producers and on-air personalities to be rewarded. In short the Geminis will continue to be a joke to those in the know and an afterthought for the Canadian television audience.

When I was traveling through Saskatchewan this spring, I drove through the town of Rouleau; the home of the TV program Corner Gas. I always got a kick out of seeing the Gas Station and Ruby’s Cafe there along the side of the highway. Also the old elevator across the road with town identification of Dog River rather than Rouleau, which apparently confused the odd tourist passing through.

Of course Corner Gas completed its final season last year and is no more. The movie prop is still there but sadly changed. The signs are down and it sits like any other abandoned building.

Rather sad and lonely looking.

But the elevator still said Dog River!

This is about B again but it will be the last one for a while because she’s gone back to the evil land that spawned her, Canada, where everything is perfect, the summers are always sunny and hot, the people are civilised and polite and the heating works properly in winter.

For the past few weeks she has been playing us endless episodes of a Canadian sitcom called Corner Gas, set in Saskatchewan, which reminds her of home and entertains her greatly.

She has compared me to a character from this programme called Hank. Wikipedia describes Hank as the ‘most likely candidate for Dog River’s village idiot’.

Apparently I am like him because in season 4 episode 8 he starts a blog. This gives all of his friends the freedom to stop him before he bores them rigid with his stories get going by saying ‘I’ve already read it on your blog,’ even if they haven’t.

B has also started to say this every time I open my mouth to tell a story. In my defence, I don’t always have more than one story to tell a day and if I have to write something every day (which is proving harder than I’d initially thought it would), what stories, I ask, can B, and my other blog reading friends expect to hear? 

The truth is, I’m at risk of becoming a bore. A big blogging bore. O utter crushing doom.

SOUNDTRACK: THE TRAGICALLY HIP-We Are the Same (2009).

I first heard of The Hip when I saw their video for “Nautical Disaster.” This is back in the day when I first got Canada’s MuchMusic on my Brighton, MA cable system, and when I actually watched Music channels. Anyhow, the song was intense and very cool and it built to a great climax, and I was totally hooked.

I got their back catalog and continued to get their new releases.  Since then they’ve released some really good songs, and some pretty good discs.  It almost feels like since their live disc they decided to switch from intense songwriting to more simple, straightforward rock. This is a little disappointing to fans of their intense stuff, and yet if you accept the change in style, the music is quite solid.

So this disc seems to be shooting for an even broader, more commercial appeal.  And, in the first half, at least, they emphasize a more folksy/country feel.  All of this should make me flee from the disc, and I think longtime fans are pretty disappointed by it.  And yet, I can’t get over how much I like it. There’s something slightly off about the Tragically Hip that keeps them from being overtly commercial.  So that even when they release a disc like this, which is quite mellow in places, it still sounds alternative.  Maybe it’s Gord Downie’s voice, maybe it’s something in the melodies; whatever it is, it keeps this disc from being blah.

The final track, Country Day” seems to sum up the overall feel of the disc: meandering country roads.  And “Queen of the Furrows” is about farming.  The opening few songs have a Neil Young folkish feel, since “Morning Moon” and “Honey Please” have big catchy choruses with folky verses

“Coffee Girl” actually reminds me of a serious Barenaked Ladies type song, which is disconcerting coming from the Hip, but could possibly become a hit (it’s probably their most overtly commercial song I can think of since “My Music at Work”).  Actually, I take that back, one of the final tracks on the disc, “Love is  a Curse” sounds like it’s their last ditch attempt to have a big hit in the States.  And if they were a more well known (or on a bigger label) it would be a huge hit.  It rocks pretty hard and screams radio friendly.

The Hip of old do surface on two songs though: “Now the Struggle Has a Name” is one of those great sounding Hip songs:  as you’re singing along to the swelling chorus you wonder why they aren’t huge down here, and then you realize the song is 6 minutes long and will never get on the radio.   There’s also a 9 minute song, and the good news is that it doesn’t get boring (no mean feat).

The second half of the disc has more loud guitars.  The cool riff of “The Exact Feeling” is pretty great.  While “Frozen in My Tracks” is probably the weirdest track on the disc, with a very cool, off-sounding chorus.

So yeah, the disc has horns and strings and is maybe a little too polished and produced.  But the songwriting is still stellar.  I’m sure that if I had heard these songs now without knowing the Hip, I wouldn’t be all that impressed.  Maybe as I get older I’m less critical, or maybe I’m just happy to mellow out a bit more.

[READ: Week of July 20] Infinite Jest (to page 367)

Even though last week I said I would keep to the Spoiler Line Page, I am breaking the promise already.  I just couldn’t stand the thought of leaving a passage unfinished, so I just continued to the section break of Gately’s A.A. meeting.

When I first read IJ way back in 1996 I, like most Americans, didn’t really think too much about Canada.  I liked a lot of Canadian music and The Kids in the Hall were awesome, but beyond that I was pretty oblivious to our neighbors to the north.  Since then, I have become something of a Canuckophile.  I did Curling for two years and have visited up North a number of times.  We even had a Canadian satellite dish where we watched most of our TV (like Corner Gas and The Rick Mercer Report) until that moderately legal company was sued out of business.  Now I subscribe to The Walrus which keeps me well informed. Anyhow, this is all to say that I have a greater understanding of Quebec separatists and the state of US border relations.  This makes this whole Marathe-Steeply section more interesting to me this time around.  I sort of went from Hal (apolitical) to a quarter of the way to Avril in my understanding.

But before we get to that, lets get into the book and learn about Orin.

The first section of the week’s reading is devoted to Orin (and Uncle Charles).  Orin was a decent tennis player at E.T.A., but he peaked around age 13.  From there he sort of drifted off the rankings (which, we are told is quite relative) and despite being in the mid #70s ranking-wise (and therefore not making the Top 64 of most tournaments) was still heavily courted by colleges (ranking being relative and all).

He decided to go to college rather than going pro (and we get a lengthy look at Avril’s aggressive campaign to have absolutely no impact on Orin’s decision, going so far as to leave a room when he enters it).   Orin ultimately settled on Boston University for its feeling of being away from home without actually being very far from home (and for the free ride, room and board and living expenses he received.)

Uncle Charles was somewhat instrumental in arranging this windfall.  But, as he himself magnanimously puts it (on every occasion he gets to speak in public) he didn’t come down here from Canada for Thank Yous.  He came down to E.T.A. from New Brunswick and the tiny Throppinghamshire Provincial College to be there for his family, to fill in where he was needed, for how could Avril possibly take over as headmaster (and be called a what? a (gasp)  headmistress) when she has to think about academics and about keeping her house clean and blah blah blah. It’s quite a funny speech (given in the middle of the open tennis courts where he is often drowned out by fans and flying garbage).

When we return to Orin’s story we learn that he decided freshman year to give up tennis and switch to football.  And the reason was two-fold.  He had literally burned out on tennis.  But he had also fallen head over heels for a baton-twirling, pep squad cheerleader.  Not a single college male, senior footballers included, had the courage to speak to this young woman, so gorgeous was she.  Some might say she was the Prettiest Girl of All Time.  For yes, it was Joelle van Dyne who won Orin’s heart and made him want to switch sports (to one where they actually had baton-twirling, pep squad cheerleaders).

But it turned out he was not suited for football (since he had a natural aversion to getting hit).  That is, until the accidental maiming of the team’s current punter gave Orin a chance to kick a football back to the coach (something he had never done before).  And he was magnificent.  We had learned earlier that Orin’s tennis game was almost exclusively based on a killer lob.  And what is a punt but a killer lob.  Once he learned to place his 60-70 yard punts (he was able to hit his staggering tennis lobs onto a coin at the opposing baseline 3 out of 4 times) at the “coffin corner,” he was a local sensation.

DFW details his football passage with as much loving attention as he gives to the tennis section.  He also has some nice references to how the U.S. has been divvied up, with several of the upstate New York schools no longer in existence (and more references to New New York).

It was actually the P.G.O.A.T. who approached him first.  For an autograph for her own Personal Daddy [and, no I have not figured out what this phrase means yet.  In the earlier movie theater section where her own Personal Daddy is mentioned, I found the hands in laps bit to be a little uncomfortable.  Am I the only one who thought that?].  Orin and Joelle hit it off immediately, meeting each others’ parents and generally falling in capital L love.

When Joelle decided to switch majors to Film-Cartridge Theory, Orin tried to introduce her to indie films rather than the films that she liked which were ones where they “blow shit up.”  This inevitably led to a meeting with Himself.  James found her intriguing, and asked her to be in his films.  And soon she was spending the bulk of her time with Jim.  It was only that Orin believed she was not interested in acting that he didn’t flee this awkward relationship.

During this time, Joelle was also learning the fine art of filming.  She was using better quality cameras, moving from b&w to color and even to sound.  Her main subject was Orin, while he was punting.  As their relationship grew strained, Orin would watch footage of himself, by himself, over and over, delighting in everything that he could see.

[This leads to the second thing that I remember so distinctly about the book.  The first reference to the Storrow 500 (albeit it is only one line so far)].

We move, briefly, to a very disturbing passage about Poor Tony Krause.  After stealing a woman’s heart (nice callback!), he can no longer dress Fine.  And he is wearing cast offs and other disgusting clothes.  He is also wanted by Emil Minty (of the Ennet House section and, woah, see a few paragraphs down).  All of his connections have abandoned him (or he’s afraid of them)–even Bridget Tenderhole has been shipped away by her pimp.  We go step by step through Poor Tony’s Withdrawal from heroin: his life in a dumpster (literally) and then living in a stall at the Watertown Library (although I must disagree here–certainly they have a cleaning staff in the bathrooms every, or every other, morning?).

There’s a lot of Zuckung (twitch) in this section.  Finally, Poor Tony, planning to go to the same Nucks who sold Pemulis the DMZ (the Antitois) has a seizure on the Gray Line and, I believe, dies.

At this point, I decided to go back and re-read the Clenette and yrstruly sections.  And they made more sense.  So, for my own peace of mind:

Clenette is the half sister of Wardene.  Wardene is dating Reginald.  Wardene’s mom (who is crazy) thinks that she is seducing her stepfather/mother’s boyfriend Roy Tony and so beats her with a wire hanger.  Roy Tony is Wardene’s real father’s brother.  Reginald promises Wardene that he will beat up Roy Tony, but Roy Tony has already killed a man, so he’s pretty badass.  He killed Columbus Epps over Clenette’s mom in an act of passion.  Clenette herself is friends with Dolores Epps (Columbus’ daughter), and they play together in front of their apartments.

Meanwhile, in the yrstruly section: yrstruly, Poor Tony and C (who we learn in the later section is actually Bobby C (I don’t THINK we have a full story about him yet).  We are also introduced to Susan T. Cheese and Lolasister (who later cannot be trusted). And we learn that Stokely Darkstar has AIDS (and dies soon thereafter).  Bobby C dies from laced heroin [I mentioned the rest of that section in the previous week's write up].

But the important thing about going back is that this later Poor Tony section reveals that Emil Minty is yrstruly who has left the street and has been unseen for months (because he is is Ennet House).

This sad sequence is followed by one of great humor back at E.T.A.  We learn a few things about some of the prorectors and the Saturday classes that they are forced to teach.  Most of the classes are a joke, although some students develop  a fondness for the insanity.  Schacht takes every crazy class offered by Mary Ellen Thode who once tried to form a tennis organization that would be organized, run, played and ultimately watched only by members of the Female Objectification Prevention and Protection Phalanx.  I adored the title of her class: “Toothless Predators: Breast Feeding as a Sexual Assault.”  As well as her request that you “Keep Your Answers Brief and Gender Neutral”

During a quiz that Schacht is taking, Troeltsch [and yes, I have a hard time keeping some of these kids straight with all the "ch's" in their names] is announcing the results of the PWTA debacle over the schools PA system.  This section gets increasingly funny as Troeltsch becomes more and more graphic with his synonyms for “beat” and “was beaten by.”  This clearly goes on for a long time (in E.T.A time) as there are so many players.   And just when you think he’s done with all of the players and the crazy flourishes, another paragraph-full comes along.  Troeltsch gets to do the sports announcing because he practically begged to be able to do it (visions of Troeltsch trying on his blue blazers and practicing into his hand crop up a lot).

Another prorector is (saluki-faced) Thierry Poutrincourt.   Hal is taking her [isn't Thierry a boy's name?] “Separatism and Return: Quebecois History from Frontenac through the Time of Interdependence.”  (Interdependence Day being November 8th).  Hal is basically apolitical and doesn’t care much about Quebec Separatism either way.  However, having some background in French speaking (and a Quebecker mom) Hal has become rather intrigued by this class, and actually finds it a challenge (although that is mostly because of the guttural Quebecker French Poutrincourt speaks).

This section about Poutrincourt contains the infamous Endnote 110, which is 14 pages long. The first part is a letter from Avril to Orin (care of the New Orleans Saints) which is very funny in what she says, and in the footnotes attached to the Endnotes.  I was particularly amused that her Greeting to Orin is “Dear Filbert”, which gets an a footnote. You then flip through several pages looking for the end of Endnote 110 to finally find the small a and the footnote says “Don’t ask.”

We also get a nice look at Avril’s grammarian side as she is trying to get all of the supermarket chains to change their Express Line signs from 10 Items or Less to the grammatically correct 10 Items or Fewer. [I can remember reading this back in 1996 and then noticing that in Bread & Circus (bought by Whole Foods in 1992), the express lines did, in fact, say Fewer.  And I wondered if maybe DFW changed the world a little.  I have not consciously noted whether other stores have changed.]

Avril gets a form letter (and a photo of Orin) as a reply.  (Which the later conversation between Hal and Orin reveals is actually sent by Orin himself, and not Jethro Bodine, as the note is signed).

The Endnote also contains another hilarious phone exchange between Orin and Hal.  In his first answering machine message to Hal, Orin notes that all Emily Dickinson poems can be sung to the “Yellow Rose of Texas” (which is not true….  I assume that DFW didn’t come up with this connection first, but I can’t find an origin for it).  When Hal calls back, Orin gives him Speedy Seduction Strategy #7 for picking up women (wear a wedding band).

The phone call eventually gets around to what is really bothering Orin, which is a question regarding Quebec separatists and their sudden change of protocol.  Historically, Quebec separatists protest against Ottawa, yet now they are attacking O.N.A.N. instead.  If they want independence from Canada, why should they care about the state of O.N.A.N.?  And but really, all of the Quebec attacks on O.N.A.N. have been quite minor up until now.  There’s the mirrors on I-87 in New New York which make motorists think that a car is coming towards them so they veer off a cliff.  But that’s minor terrorism, along the lines of draping fleur de lis on statues.

Couldn’t, Orin asks, Quebec offer to annex the Concavity (or Convexity depending on which country you are in) and say, we’ll take this burden from you if you let us be independent?  There is a whole lot more to this endnote, but that’s the nutshell.

And so why does Orin suddenly care about all this?  Well, his interviewer Helen Steeply is positing these ideas, possibly in relation to Jim– (just as we get to the really crucial part of the phone call, Pemulis hangs up the phone so they can go smoke a DuBois in the parking lot).

Orin also asks for a definition of samizdat, which Hal supplies as a form of Soviet underground propaganda.  This word pops up conveniently enough in the forthcoming Marathe/Steeply section as well.

After this section we get a touching (and a little disgusting) look at just what Mario Incandenza looks like (poor guy).  Suffice it to say that he is physically a wreck in every conceivable and many inconceivable ways, and yet mentally, he is not that bad.  Just a little slow on the uptake.  And, despite occasional taunting, he is generally quite well regarded at E.T.A. and beyond.  He brings his specially outfitted camera with him on his many walks and has even had some of his photos placed in local shops.

And although Hal feels that Moms has more love/respect for Mario than him (which is untrue), Hal clearly loves his brother, feeling that he, Mario, is truly brave and amazing for everything that he has been through.  And, Hal also once told the guy from the U.H.I.D. (who was trying to recruit Mario) to get lost.

The endnotes in this Mario section were fascinating for saying things like: “overshot the place to mention…” as if he (who?) were writing too quickly to include the note.  Man these endnotes are great!

And speaking of Avril.  We get an occasional glimpse into her behavior with her sons.  She seems to love them without question and tries very hard not to let her personal beliefs or opinions influence them in any decision they make.  She tries to leave Mario alone, so as not to  seem like an overly concerned mother, and we already saw how she acted with Orin.  This all comes across as slightly flaky, and probably a but too hands-off in terms of parenting.  But it seems like her heart is in the right place.

And from the Mario section, when he is helping out Jim with the films, we learned that Joelle had a veil on back then as well, so the veil has nothing to do with Jim’s death or IJ (V) evidently.

On to Marathe and Steeply (its been a while!).  They are still on the mountainside, discussing the virtues/vices of freedom in the U.S.A.  And their argument boils down to yes, even though the Entertainment is American made, it was disseminated by the Wheelchair Assassins as an attempt to show how complacent and childish Americans are.  The plot thickens.

And then, we finally learn about Eschaton (coming from Eschatology, the study of the end of the world).  Eschaton is a tennis based game in which 8-12 players take up various spots (coinciding with countries on the map) across 4 tennis courts.  Each of 400 balls is considered a bomb.  Players make up different countries, with articles of clothing representing tactical locations.

In this explanation of the game, we get the notorious Endnote 123.  This Endnote is probably the first thing in the book that I did not fully comprehend and will not investigate further as it is a Pemulis’ high tech math formula for calculating Mean Value w/r/t Eschaton.  And yet, don’t skip the footnote because despite the math, it is very funny.  It is “dictated” by Pemulis to Hal and is consequently written in Pemulis-speak, with digressions and (sic)s included.  It also has the funny note that graph b is called HALSADICK.  But, more important than that, this Endnote seems to give light to my enduring question of who is writing this book.  Pemulis laughs that Hal is trying to write the endnote in third person.  And since most of the notes are in third person, is it safe to assume that Hal is the one writing them?  Is Hal the author of the entire piece?  This would also explain the highfalutin language since Hal is an OED guru….  And yet….

Click here for fun!

The full Eschaton game passage is very lengthy and very convoluted so I’m not even going to attempt to summarize it.   Suffice it to say that the game is meant to simulate real-world end-of-the-world situations as best as possible and that there are rules that must govern play.  Prior to each game, the circumstances of the end of the word scenario are broached and sides are drawn up.  I will mention a few key players in today’s match, though: Ann Kittenplan (another great name) who is a beefy young girl with a mustache better than Hal’s; Todd “Postal Weight” Possalthwait; and the ever-hated Ingersoll are awaiting a decision from Otis P. Lord (who is playing the role of God).

The beginning of this passage is dull and very technically detailed (as is the game itself). As the game degenerates, the pacing gets faster but the details never subside.  And things gets funnier as they get more manic.  [And anyone who enjoyed the "seeing everything at once" writing style of this section should totally read DFW's story "Mr. Squishy"].  For instance, we learn that Pemulis hates the Penn family (J.J. Penn is also on the court) because his older brother called him “penisless” and convinced him that if he pushed on his belly button his ass would fall off.

As snow falls (and as Hal, Pemulis, Trolescth, Schatch and Axford (who we learn is missing one and a half fingers, as of exactly 3 years ago this Interdependence Day (do we assume it is firework related?)), watch (with a  DuBois in hand), Ingersoll decides to throw the rulebook out the window and hits a ball right at Kittenplan’s head.  Pemulis goes berserk because this will undermine the entire concept of the game (people are not valid targets).  Lord switches from a white beanie to a red beanie (which means Utter Global Crisis).  While words are exchanged, and tempers flare, Kittenplan escapes her holders and fires (what the narrator humorously notes is) an already spent warhead at Ingersoll. This encourages others to do the same and mayhem ensures.  The final insult of the mayhem is that two kids crash into the serving cart which houses the computer that Lord uses to calculate the day’s game.  As Lord tries to catch the flying PC, he trips over Lamont Chu and crashes headfirst into the laptop’s monitor.

There are bound to be serious repercussions for this amount of carnage.

Oh, and the whole time there was a green Ford with advertising for Nunhagen Aspirin idling behind the courts (only Troeltsch noticed it).

Incidentally, all of this Eschaton takes place on Interdependence Day (the only time when the kids have required R&R).  The Interdependence Day chapter headings are subtitled Gaudeamus Igitur.  [According to this site:  James J. Fuld notes: "Gaudeamus Igitur" is regarded as the oldest student song and as the embodiment of the free and easy student life.  There's an audio file of the song here.]

The final section (and the one that drifts into possible spoiler-type areas) is an in-depth look at a Boston A.A. meeting.  This section is (surprise) impossibly detailed.  And it begins with a simultaneous Talk by John L. about his experiences and a third person explanation of the trials of an addict and how low he has to get before he can Come In to A.A.  And, of course, a very funny talk from an Irishman about having his first solid turd in years.

As the meeting progresses we get more and more details about Don Gately.  And he gets more and more likable as he Relates to the new people.  We meet his sponsor Ferocious Francis G, a crocodile that Gately had the nerve to talk to.  We also hear of the first time he spoke at an A.A. meeting where he told everyone there that they were fake and the whole thing was bullshit (and how everyone nodded, and appreciated that he had the guts to be so honest).

And, in a Very Special Endnote, we learn that Joelle was not successful in killing herself and that she has been practically Fed Exed to Ennet House under close supervision of Pat.  And as the section continues (and we are definitely in spoiler area for this week here), we get to see all of the folks from Ennet House accompanying Gately to this White Flag meeting:

Ken Erdedy (he’s back!) is there, (he’s a yuppie and is in rehab for pot).
Kate Gompert (she’s back!) is there (she admits that she is in for pot, too) and is still on suicide watch.
Tiny Ewell, Nell Gunther, Wade McDade, Chandler Foss, Jennifer Belbin, Emil Minty, Geoffrey Day and Bruce Green are all there.
And (fanfare) Clenette (who gets a last name) Henderson is now in Ennet House too.  It’s like something of a touching reunion at this point.

And then we get a crack in Gately’s armor, and this is how I know I like him.  When Joelle criticizes the Program’s cliche of “There but for the Grace of God” as subjunctive and meaningless (which on a linguistic scale I totally agree with), the fact that he has to look at her veil and not her face, and the fact that he completely shuts down and actually fears that his silence means that he will definitely get high again was really wrenching for me.  For how do you know what to say to someone when you can’t see their expression?  It’s worse than email because the person is right there and can see you!  I can feel the bottom drop out from under him.

And it’s scary.

And I think that this A.A. section could be used as the best argument to anyone to stay straight, because the A.A. meetings sound like the worst possible kind of hell that you could end up in.  And like Joelle, I would be very sad if my life took me to a place like that (even if the program did work, I would still be pretty bummed about my life).

But, the fact the Erdedy thinks Joelle is hot because he can’t see her face was pretty fun.

Observations:

I’ve noticed that I hadn’t been paying very close attention to the dates assigned to each section.  This is a bad habit picked up from not knowing the chronology at all.  It hasn’t had too much of an impact, although I can see that a few things would be good to keep straight time-line-wise.  So, I may have to go back and do a little recon work on that.  I noted that the Marathe-Steeply section takes place in April, while the Eschaton is in November.

I also have this weird overarching feeling like no more great revelations will be coming–as if we have settled down from the manic intensity of the first 100 or so pages and now the book is just going to fill in the gaps.  The Eschaton and AA sections, while detailed, were so leisurely paced, that they seemed to calm the whole book down.  Of course, then I realize that we’re less than half way through the book and that there’s a LOT more to come.

And I’m pretty excited about that.

While some regular readers may be entirely disinterested in what follows, I had mentioned an interest in gathering some feedback/response to the introduction to my Masters’ thesis on Twitter and there was some pretty decent response. And so, in order to give everyone a glimpse at why the amount of blog coverage has been (outside of the Emmys) down a bit over the past few months, the following is a glimpse at the project that I’ve put together. Any feedback is more than welcome, of course.

Introduction

“You think there’s not a lot going on / Look closer, baby, you’re so wrong”
- Theme Song to Corner Gas

If you were to run a survey asking participants to describe the Canadian small town with a single adjective, the answers you receive will vary depending on the location of your survey. In a rural environment, the small town could be described as peaceful or serene, a welcoming and inclusive community. In an urban environment, meanwhile, the small town could be described as quaint, or backwards, or simple. While this thesis will engage with these types of responses, and the paradigms they represent, it is more concerned with another adjective that might not immediately jump onto one’s tongue: nation.

While the historical position of the small town, once the centerpiece of Canadian society and now a marginalized setting isolated within a predominantly urban nation, will be discussed throughout this thesis, the most fascinating quality of the Canadian small town is its continued role in the nation’s cultural production. Although the small town has only become more and more marginalized, it has emerged as the setting for the twenty-first century’s two most successful Canadian television comedies, Corner Gas and Little Mosque on the Prairie. That these two series, set in rural small towns but airing to a predominantly urban audience, have found success indicates that history alone does not define the Canadian small town.

In the first chapter of this thesis, I will demonstrate that the small town has persisted in cultural production thanks to its emergence as a microcosm for the nation, as historical conditions inspired authors to develop imagined communities where small towns stood in for the broader nation. I will demonstrate how the regional idyll emerges as a romantic defence of small town values, projecting an image of Canada as a welcoming and peaceful nation despite the threat of industrialization and urbanization. Decades later, however, a new paradigm of the small town emerges that depicts the nation as an exclusive and claustrophic garrison, threatening the sensitivity of modern individuals. These two paradigms form the basis of all further small town microcosms in Canada, and the first chapter clearly identifies their defining qualities.

In the second chapter, the definitive texts of these two paradigms will be analyzed in order to understand how viewing the small town as a microcosm for nationalism helps us understand responses to questions of national identity. I will demonstrate how the definitive regional idyll, Stephen Leacock’s Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town, and the definitive depiction of the garrison mentality, Sinclair Ross’ As For Me and My House, are driven by a combination of historical, social and biographical factors to either end of this central binary. However, I will also show how the internal debate between the two paradigms found within each text, and stimulated by the same literary devices which support one key paradigm, reflect the complexity of questions of national identity. I will then go on to show how this complex debate between the two paradigms is the legacy of the small town microcosm and would gain new relevance in the late twentieth century’s ambivalence towards nationalism, as demonstrated through an analysis of Lynn Coady’s Strange Heaven.

In Chapter Three, I will step into the twenty-first century and investigate how Corner Gas negotiates the small town as a national microcosm through the medium of television. While television does offer its own unique challenges, including a traditional lack of successful Canadian sitcoms and the small scale of Canada’s television industry, it also offers exciting new forms of visual representation and episodic structure to construct the small town microcosm. Rather than defining itself based on one particular paradigm, Corner Gas utilizes pre-existing knowledge of both the idyll and the garrison to engage urban viewers with a rural setting almost entirely foreign to them. Its depiction of an urban outsider attempting (successfully, but gradually) to integrate into the small town community serves two key purposes: not only does it allow urban audiences to slowly become familiar with the small town setting, but it also forms a national microcosm where elements of the garrison give way to an inclusive community accepting of difference.

The fourth chapter, however, expands the small town microcosm into national concerns outside of the urban/rural divide as it investigates Little Mosque on the Prairie’s engagement with multiculturalism. While the media initially pegged the series as a satire of post-9/11 racial politics, I will demonstrate how its position as a publicly funded series as well as the complexity of Canadian multiculturalism require a more thorough examination of its engagement with national issues. By analyzing the show’s decision to engage with the predominantly urban phenomenon of multiculturalism within the small town setting, the chapter will show how the small town microcosm is a more manageable setting to engage with issues as complex as racial politics, and concepts as large and unwieldy as the nation. I conclude that while Little Mosque may appear to be operating as a broad political statement on the conflict between Muslims and non-Muslims, its contribution to national identity is its familiarization of Islam and the Muslim community through the small town setting. Using examples from the series’ first season, I will identify the way the series transcends the complex urban experience of multiculturalism and uses the ‘quaint’ small town in order to magnify and highlight their experience in twenty-first century Canada.

What I have ultimately come to understand is that the varied opinions of the small town, and the dichotomous paradigms which emerged in response to historical events, are not a complication of the small town microcosm but rather an integral part of its effectiveness. Nationalism as a Canadian value is an eternal debate, where differences of region, ethnicity, or even time period will fundamentally alter your opinion. The complex nature of the imagined community of the small town allows it to adapt to new mediums, emerging beyond competing adjectives like peaceful and backwards to capture the complexity of the nation itself, a complexity that will hopefully become more understood as a result of this thesis.

[As one would expect, copyright Myles McNutt and the like. You know the drill.]

The Corner Gas sets in Rouleau are shuttered and fans of the show expecting a tourist attraction are disappointed when they visit.  Residents of Rouleau call the sets an eyesore but, based on the photo, I don’t see it.  Now talk radio is filled with chattering and whining about how we have to do something.  More specifically, talk has turned to government.  Premiere Brad Wall himself stated that the various levels of government could get involved.

I’d like to help.  I know exactly what the federal, provincial, and municipal governments should do about the Corner Gas sets.

NOTHING.

Government shouldn’t be in the tourism business.  If the Corner Gas sets are a viable tourist destination, some enthusiastic entrepreneur will pursue it without throwing tax dollars at entertainment.

You’re welcome.

Finley got around to finish watching all the episodes of season six of Corner Gas.  Like I have said in past Corner Gas blogs, I love Corner Gas one of the best show ever.  It’s too bad its all over.  How ever season six is the best yet lots of great laughs.  Like the past season DVD’s the extra are a bit week.  They should have put more on there.

You are a Corner Gas fan you have to pick this up.  If you have not seen or heard of Corner Gas go check it out now.  A funny as hell show.

5 out of 5 GT (GT = Good Times)

I wrote on my Facebook page the other night that I was “tarred” — as in past tense of “tire.” And I wasn’t kidding.

The last few weeks have been incredibly busy.

A week after we finished the June issue of The Christian Chronicle, I flew to Canada on a five-day reporting trip to Saskatchewan and Alberta.

When I got back to Oklahoma, I worked a couple of days and then left town again, this time bound for the extended Ross family’s annual summer vacation to a Tennessee lake.

• • •

With Papa in Tennessee

• • •

By the time I returned from vacation, we were about a week out from our press deadline for the July issue of the Chronicle — and I had about three weeks’ worth of work left to do.

I am exaggerating. Slightly.

Fortunately, like many of my journalist friends, I thrive under deadline pressure and even find it thrilling.

But by Thursday, I had worked 11 straight days and needed a break. First, though, I had a freelance story to finish for Christianity Today. Too beat to write it Thursday night, I set my alarm for early Friday and got it done by CT’s 9 a.m. deadline.

And then I was off — as in off from work!

The Chronicle office closes the Friday after we go to press, mainly to allow the staff to recover from putting one issue to bed before getting serious about starting the next one.

I enjoyed a nice, two-hour nap Friday afternoon and woke up ready to conquer the world — and even blog for the first time in a couple of weeks. After all, I couldn’t let Tamie Tuesday and Trygg Thursday have all the fun!

— Bobby

• • •

When I stayed with Stan Helton in Saskatchewan, he introduced me to Corner Gas. It’s a cool show, and I love the opening scene!

]]> http://moovieranch.wordpress.com/2009/06/10/dvd-releases-for-the-week-of-june-9-2009/ Wed, 10 Jun 2009 03:11:05 +0000 Barb http://moovieranch.wordpress.com/2009/06/10/dvd-releases-for-the-week-of-june-9-2009/

New DVDs that will be added to our shelves on Tuesday June 9th.

• Gran Torino
• The International
• Fired Up!
• Baby on Board
• Legend of the God’s Gun
• Outsourced
• Sunny and the Elephant
• Corner Gas (Season 6)
• Shield (Season 7)

For more information on these movies such as ratings, synopsis, reviews, and video trailers click on the movie title above. This will open the NewThisWeek.ca website.

To be notified of new releases, sales, and contests > Sign Up to our E-Newsletter.

Picked up the Corner Gas season 6 (the last season), on DVD today (June 9, 2009).  Made a post about it the DVD coming out yesterday.  Now I have all the seasons.  Not to sure what else to say other than this is an awesome TV show.  I so hope the rumours about making a movie are true.  Even a TV movie would be cool.  Make one of those every few years would be right on.  But I think that is wishful thinking.

The DVD for Corner Gas season 6 is out tomorrow (June 9, 2009).  This is the last season of the show.  This is and was one of my all time favourite shows of all time.  can’t wait to pick of the DVD then I will have all six.  Some times it is nice to complete a set of something.  It is sad that the show is over but now I can watch them any time I want.  So if you are a Corner Gas fan don’t forget to pick it up.  Oh they have some funny bloopers on there YouTube channel.

NO BIZ LIKE SHOW BIZ: What do Dark Knight scene-stealer Cillian Murphy, pop music queen Leslie Feist and Hollywood legend Lauren Bacall? They all appear on screen in the Canadian Film Centre’s upcoming

FEIST: on film

 Worldwide Short Film Festival, opening June 16 at special venues near you … Gallery 888’s 10th Anniversary Spring Fling & Ovarian Cancer Canada Fundraiser runs tomorrow, June 3, to  June 21, with works from over 40 artists … Ingrid Bergman’s pre-Rossellini daughter, New York broadcaster Pia Lindstrom, celebrated her new Sirius XM radio show with a dinner at Morton’s in Manhattan …  the buzz begins. YTV is all set to welcome a new comedy series this September, That’s So Weird. What’s really weird is that part of the team behind it cut their comedy teeth on This Hour Has 22 Minutes and Corner Gas. As street cred goes, not too shabby. Stay tuned … and speaking of comedy, Double Exposure’s weekly podcast sends up Susan Boyle (of course!), Stephen Harper’s discovery of some shocking Michael Ignatieff tapes, and a new epicurean delight from Canada’s Governor General. To hear it, just click here.

ZANN: NDP runner

NO PEOPLE LIKE SHOW PEOPLE: Gossip Girl heartthrob Chace Crawford has taken over the Kevin Bacon role abandoned by Zac Efron in Paramount’s forthcoming remake of Footloose … Lyndsy Fonseca has been added to the upcoming Hot Tub Time Machine (and yes, it’s a comedy) …  Zach Braff will write, direct and co-star withCameron Diaz in Swingles (can you guess what it’s about?) … Rosario Dawson will be Kevin James’ love interest in The Zookeeper (ditto) … and when Nova Scotians go to the polls one week from today, don’t be surprised if they elect stage & screen charmer Lenore Zann to represent them.  A staple of Canadian and U.S. TV movies and mini-series, and justifiably celebrated for her tour-de-force portrayal of Marilyn Monroe, the gifted actress from the Maritimes is the NDP’s candidate in Truro-Bible Hill, and the opposition is clearly concerned.

ZANN: as Marilyn

On the same day NDP Leader Darrell Dexter announced Zann’s candidacy in Truro, Liberals circulated a bare-breasted photo of Zann as she appeared in an episode of the cable TV series The L Word. Zann says her nude scenes have never been a secret and they have no bearing on her abilities as a candidate. As for Nova Scotia Liberals, she added, “I think it shows their desperation.” Me too.

SEDARIS: at Carnegie Hall

LITERATI:  Toronto Star laugh-maker Linwood Barclay reads clues from his new mystery Too Close To Home tonight at the Toronto Reference Library … Joy Fielding reads from her new novel, Still Life, tomorrow night at North York Central Library … Tash Aw’s Map Of The Invisible World goes Luminato at the Al Green Theatre on Thursday June 11 … and Camille Paglia explains her three new Commandments, Break, Blow, Burn, in a three-part lecture series on June 16 at the ROM … who knew? I bought Judy At Carnegie Hall and purchased Rufus At Carnegie Hall but apparently I missed out on the really big one: David Sedaris At Carnegie Hall. And no, I am not making this up. You can buy it online at Indigo/Chapters for only $17.80 plus shipping. Sedaris, the best-selling author of such quirky gems as Me Talk Pretty One Day and When You Are Engulfed In Flames, has become a raconteur to reckon with. And if his Carnegie Hall ‘concert’ is anything like his on-camera stint a while back with David Letterman, it should truly be a CD to remember.

-/-

(blogging live from Stan and Pat Helton’s guest bedroom in Regina, Saskatchewan)

Until last fall, I had never been to Canada.

As I recounted in a Christian Chronicle column:

I am relatively familiar with Churches of Christ south of the U.S. border, having made eight or nine mission trips to Mexico.

But north of the border is a different story.

That column described my first trek to Canada — a quick visit to meet a group of church leaders in Hamilton, Ontario, a city of 500,000 about 40 miles southwest of Toronto — and included these figures:

A nation of about 33 million souls, Canada has about 150 Churches of Christ. Their combined membership totals about 7,000. The U.S. population is about nine times as large as Canada, but its Church of Christ membership — at roughly 1.3 million — is about 185 times as large.

• • •

Church leaders in Ontario, after lunch in Hamilton last fall

• • •

Earlier this year, I returned to Ontario to do more in-depth research and reporting for the first part of a special Chronicle series on Churches of Christ in Canada.

Now, I am back in Canada — for the fourth time in less than a year — this time in western Canada. I flew into Regina, Saskatchewan, home of Western Christian College and High School, on Friday. I spent the weekend driving hundreds of miles to interview church members in this vast prairie province where the terrain — and even the green-lettered license plates — look a lot like what I’m used to in Oklahoma.

Sunday morning, I was privileged to worship in Gravelbourg, a French Catholic town of 1,200 souls where the local Church of Christ is bucking the trend of dying rural churches and making a big difference in its community. It’ll be an extremely interesting story, but you’ll have to wait to read it in the Chronicle.

Today, I fly to Calgary, Alberta, on the second — and final — leg of this reporting trip.

• • •

Tamie and Bobby, during our picturesque drive into British Columbia

• • •

Not too long after my first trip to Canada last year, Tamie and I were in Montana working on a story and found ourselves real close to the Canadian border. Since Tamie had never been to Canada (I, of course, was a veteran north-of-the-border tourist by then ), we decided to go just for the fun of it. It turned out to be quite the experience.

Here’s what Tamie wrote about it at the time:

During our lunch, the Smiths mentioned their home was only 10 miles or so from the Canadian border. Drat, I said, remembering I had taken my passport out of my computer bag and stored it in the desk at home, never dreaming we might have the time and proximity to visit on this trip. Not to worry, they said — I could cross the border with just my driver’s license.

Of course, that was all the info I needed at the time, and we happily sped off toward British Columbia. The border patrol asked a few polite questions (which Bobby said I answered really nervously) and then opened the gate to his country with instructions for us to have a great dinner in Fernie and enjoy ourselves. Well, OK. And thanks!!

We drove the 40 miles (actually, we drove kilometers because we were in Canada and you’re not allowed to drive miles) and looked around this cute little resort town. Oh my goodness. Snow on the mountains. Leaves that looked as though they were a week or so ahead of the Idaho/Montana leaves and the most gorgeous tunnels, rock formations and other natural beauty. My jaw actually hurts today from my mouth just hanging open yesterday.

On our way out, we made a pit stop under the Maple Leaf Golden Arches and then headed back for the good ol’ homeland. Bobby cracked some joke about them having to let me back in. Ah hahahaha, we both laughed.

We pulled up to the window and I smiled at the agent, handing him Bobby’s passport and my driver’s license. He did not smile back.

Fast-forward 10 minutes. Bobby and I are standing inside the building now, our rental car parked in a special lane for losers (me) who don’t have more than one form of identification. Our pockets emptied and turned inside out, our ankles exposed, agent No. 2 had now pulled our car inside the building of shame to completely inspect it. It took a long time. I watched her through the double windows as she scrutinized the engine, pried pieces off the door and out of the trunk to inspect for whatever she was inspecting for. It was comical, but only because WE are US. I mean, I know they don’t know us, but milk chocolate is my idea of an illegal substance.

Bobby and I had to keep from making eye contact so we wouldn’t bust out laughing and thereby look either guilty or unstable. About 30 minutes later, after Bobby endured harsh bladder restriction punishment, she came back in and quizzed us about our reason for being here. We explained it all again.

“But you don’t have luggage?” she said.

“It’s in our hotel,” we replied.

After showing reservation and receipt info, we were finally freed.

The moral of the story here is beauty comes at a price. Be prepared to pay, in some sense, for any trip you take to Canada, even if you only take memories.

• • •

During my enjoyable visit with the Heltons here in Regina, Stan introduced me to “Corner Gas,” a pretty hilarious comedy about life in Saskatchewan. I have already added it to my Netflix queue. You might also enjoy this related YouTube video that Stan showed me:

Canadians are funny. It’s like a law of nature — Kids in the Hall, SCTV (yes, I know it was in Chicago, but a lot of them were Canadian), Dan Ackroyd, Phil Hartman, the McKenzie Brothers, Celine Dion — all hilarious. So it’s no surprise that Corner Gas, a show about a small town in Saskatchewan, is very funny. And in one episode they manage to combine goofy Canadians and GPS. The geekgasm ensues.

The ‘Outside Joke’ episode in Season 4 is all about what happens when GPS goes wrong. I won’t ruin the ending, but basically the townsfolk discover that the gas station, Corner Gas, is not within town limits using the fancy new GPS unit. You can catch the episode here. Just be sure you catch the end of the episode. Well worth the 22 minutes. The episode (An American in Saskatchewan) about the ATM is also very funny. Utopia on the plains.