Misfortune Cookie

You can't trust anything cookies say these days.

“Avoid agreeing with people merely to keep the peace.”
This was what was written, in red ink, on a tiny strip of paper inside a faintly sweet biscuit, known as a fortune cookie. Seems like good advice unless, its real meaning is not to be confrontational so as to make you more of a pushover. It is, after all, a piece of advice from a fortune cookie which are a Chinese invention so could it really be disinformation? Are they trying to plant ideas of weakness, conformity, and passivity into the Western consumer's mind? I was about to use my fortune cookie’s "lucky numbers" as a new password when I paused and wondered, "Is that what they want me to do? Easier to guess my password if you've suggested my password to me!" How many people have followed the advice of a fortune cookie without realizing it’s exactly what the people’s republic wanted all along? My eyes opened to the real harm of taking advice from a confection of dubious origin.

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Advice from a shoebox

Embrace the rain.

“To embrace melancholy is essentially to embrace the rain.”

I won’t say I’ve experienced serious depression but like most people who live in the northern hemisphere I’ve felt the sadness of SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder). This winter in Toronto has been greyer than grey. We haven’t even had fifty shades of grey. Three shades, tops. Three shades of grey is at least 94% less sexy than fifty. A lot of times you don't know what you have until you miss it, including blue skies and sun on your face, but I'd say most people know they're missing out on sunshine. I guess what I've never understood is the desire to address this through artificial means, such as hyper-dosing vitamin D, spray tans or lying on a tanning bed. There's also the danger of too much sun, which seems almost absurd given that most of us in the north are suffering from lack of it. Of course, surfers and retirees in Australia are the world's leaders in melanoma, but here above the 49th, we are leaders in vitamin D deficiency. Though, to be honest, I'm not even thinking about the actual health implications of too much or too little sun. I just miss it.

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Everything’s Computer!

In the future, everything's Computer! Even kitchen and breakfast.

“Everything’s Computer!”, so said the mad king sitting in a plastic chariot.
Microwave ovens? Computer!
Broadcast television? Computer!
Electric cars? Computer!
Social media? Computer!!
The Internet? That’s Computerrr!!
AI? You better believe that’s nuthin’ but Compooter!!
Everything’s Computer!

Remember when we thought putting Computer in everything would make everything work better all the time? Remember when we thought connecting everything Computer (which at this point might as well be everything) to the Internet (which is computer!) and it would make our fridges smart enough to help us drink fresher milk? Now we’re going to put AI inside Computer which is inside everything and is connected to everything else and it won’t cause any harm at all.

Like it wouldn’t suddenly take over the power grid and turn off all the traffic lights at night to save money. It wouldn’t raise the temperature in refrigerators to spoil all our food to raise food sellers’ profits. It wouldn’t call you randomly and ask for $10,000 in bail money for the release of your nephew in the voice of your nephew. It wouldn’t scam your grandmother. It wouldn’t funnel money from the treasury and invest in bitcoin to fund a series of coups in the Balkan states. I’m absolutely sure it wouldn’t transpose the names of Estonia and Lithuania on every published map as an unsanctioned improvised defense strategy. It wouldn’t rename The Gulf of Mexico to Gulf of America then to Big Gulf of Water brought to you by Taco Bell, then rename it The Pepsi Halftime Gulf Brought to you in partnership with Verizon. It wouldn’t invent a new kind of porn that blends seafood with anime and broadcast it to screens, large and small, across the planet (OK, I’ve just been told it’s already done that). It wouldn’t spread disinformation to destabilize economies. It certainly wouldn’t take your job by making you redundant.

Well, it might do that.
Actually, there’s a good chance it will.
In fact, there is a 97.9% chance it has already happened.

Seen in March

A short list of a long look. Sasquatch Sunset was one of the highlights.

This is a short list. Why? It's short because we're in the midst of watching series that continue. It's a drip of entertainment instead of a flood. But it's a good drip, not a dark site water torture drip.

It's all over now, baby blue.

A Complete Unknown
Fascinating look at the explosive first few years when Bob Dylan (née Robert Zimmerman) fell first into the burgeoning folk scene before later becoming rock and roll royalty.

"It's all over now, baby blue" also applies.

Sasquatch Sunset
Kanopy
Like a funny version of Quest for Fire. We follow a group of Sasquatch as they make their way through the forest finding more and more human curiosities along their route. There's a reason it's Sasquatch Sunset and not Sasquatch Sunrise.

The magic of the show Hilda.

Hilda S03
Netflix
Still a wonderful comfort to me, this animated show about a young girl growing up in slightly Scandinavian place where magic, trolls, elves and witches are part of the natural world she and her friends love to explore. Based on a comic book by a British artist, voiced by British talent like Bella Ramsey yet animated by a small Ottawa studio, this show is beautifully designed and well written.

I am Not a Robot
YouTube - New Yorker Channel
Oscar winning short narrative film in which a woman makes a startling discovery in the most benign way.

Rosencrantz and Guilderstern, or is it Guilderstern and Rosencrantz?

Rosencrantz & Guilderstern are Dead
Hoopla
Secondary characters and childhood friends of Hamlet find themselves stuck, existentially speaking, in Tom Stoppard's film adaptation of his own play. There's a lot to be said of this oddity of a story that is described as "absurdist", and is both a challenge and a comedy, mostly due to the performances of Gary Oldman and Tim Roth (or is it Roth and Goldman?).

All the Weirdness in the World

Bob Dylan, Newport Folk Festival, 1965.

Watching the Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown it was striking to see not simply the florid period of Dylan’s output but how it was a part of the unfolding events shaking the world. At the heart of it was the postwar power and cold war shadow that was the USA. Sound familiar? Fear of nuclear armageddon, political upheaval, unwanted war, the environment, and fights for freedom and equality were the fabric of the quilt that was tearing at the seams of 1960s America.

I didn't appreciate the music of the 60s as I do now. Films like The Big Chill were a show of strength of the Boomer generation and when they were running things, all pop culture and music would directly refer to the time of their youth. We were constantly told by aging journalists, DJs, and music directors that Dylan was a mysterious deity, a genius, and oft suggested he might not be mortal. That was the bee in my bonnet and that bonnet was my cross to bear. As a Gen Xer, I recognize that the music of my youth is now popular and much revisited in many Marvel films and film franchises that returned from the dead for no particular reason (Top Gun, Beetlejuice, Ghost Busters etc.). Don't worry. This is just a brief blip as we Gen Xers are not a big bunch and we're getting older and would like to retire before the Earth is entirely engulfed in flames.

They say "Victors write history", but they forget to mention that the generation that comes after the victors get to rewrite history. I have reached the age when history starts repeating itself and it is very ugly. Let's go back some 40 years ago. Oh, I was a bright-faced boy who could not keep up with being cool, so I didn't bother. I couldn't afford it (the looks, the music, the whatever). I discovered my musical tastes later than a lot of people. In fact, I think I discovered that any of my tastes (music, film, art, books) would never be fully "discovered" but would be a continuous thing I am always chasing, finding, understanding or being wrong about. It's often said that the tastes, likes, and dislikes that you form as a teen are the ones that influence and inform your choices for the rest of your life. I can't really argue against that though I'm sure many would. One thing I think The Olds get wrong about teenagers in general, is that they don't know and understand the flotsam and jetsam of the world. Of course, teens don't have the weight of bills, work, and taxes on them, but they can have a keen eye for simplifying big issues into black and white. The moral greyness of adulthood hasn't clouded their eyes with corneas of experience.

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The New Egg

Leave your morals at home.

There’s been a lot of talk about a scientific paper from Italy purporting to make the perfect boiled egg using the periodic method. The methodology described uses two pots and takes 32 minutes to complete. The reason for such complications are because the white of the egg cooks at around 85°C, while the yolk cooks at around 65°C. It's this difference that generally has flummoxed many a home cook. Over a decade ago the sous vide technique lead to the 50-minute egg and became the new standard of eggy perfection. Neither of these methods compare with my Sunday ritual that requires four pots set at three different temperatures and takes six to eight hours, depending on your elevation above or below sea level.

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