Pióro

What’s this? Stereolab with a new album on the way. Sloan, too. And the nerds are into Robyn. (OK, me too, a bit.) I guess this means I should be tree planting.

When 500 ducks landed in a tailings pond near Fort McMurray, Ed Stelmach was on a tour of the United States.

The Stelmach government—which was selling itself in Washington as environmentally responsible when the incident occurred—is facing accusations of a coverup for refusing to release photos of the ducks.
The provincial government is also being skewered for summarizing its U.S. junket as “Mission Accomplished.”

I can’t imagine why Stelmach and friends are catching flak for hyping their tour as “Mission Accomplished.” The dead ducks in the oilsands wastewater show that the premier and his crew appreciate the phrase in a way similar to George W. Bush, as the president spoke on an aircraft carrier in 2003.

The backlash to the Baltimore scene’s flagship collective Wham City, which consists of Dan Deacon, OCDJ, Videohippos, Ecstatic Sunshine, Ponytail et al, has hit Wikipedia.

Over the last week, some sulky editorializing has made its way onto the collaborative online encycopedia’s Wham City entry.

On May 22, an anonymous user wrote, “This page was written by the same art school losers that run “whamcity”. Because, really, if we didn’t act like what we were doing was a big deal, no one else would either.” This passage was deleted later that day with the note, “Someone’s a crybaby.”

On May 23, an anonymous user with a different IP address posted, “Now, [Wham City] is comprised of mostly boring suburban art students who have gentrified Baltimore City. They are lame and pretentious.” This bit came down on May 28.

Dan Deacon, Wham City’s main attention getter of late, added new tour dates around the same time the sulk hit the wiki. Someone’s definitely feeling left out.

Polish journalist Ryszard KapuÅ›ciÅ„ski, who died in January at the age of 74, is the latest public figure to be “outed” as a communist-area spy. The Polish version of Newsweek ran a cover story this week on the late writer revealing that his ability to travel to Africa, Asia and Central America throughout the ’60s and ’70s was the result of a deal he made with the secret police. During that time, KapuÅ›ciÅ„ski was the only foreign correspondant for PAP, Poland’s official news agency. He covered over 25 revolutions in what he called the “liberation of Africa” from its colonial past. Many readers detect allegories of his communist-controlled country in his writings on other political struggles he witnessed abroad.

“No U.S. reporter had to work with the CIA in order to be allowed to leave the country,” said Ernest Skalski in the Globe and Mail.

Skalski, a long-time friend and fellow reporter, also added, “KapuÅ›ciÅ„ski had to. … If he didn’t agree, he wouldn’t have written his books. There would be no KapuÅ›ciÅ„ski.”

Evaluators of KapuÅ›ciÅ„ski’s files say his reports did not provide significant information and did not seem to hurt anyone.

The journalist’s “outing” is the latest in a processes started in February by Jaroslaw Kaczynski, Poland’s Prime Minister, and his twin brother Lech, the President to cleanse Poland of its communist past. Lech Kaczynski signed a law banning people who collaborated with the secret police from working as judges or high-level civil servants. Poland’s former president, Aleksander KwaÅ›niewski, was a minister during the communist era. He also worked to bring his country into the EU in 2004.

Germany’s Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung writes:

The Kaczynski brothers wrote ‘lustracja’ — that is lustration, or illumination of the secret police past of their politically unpopular contemporaries — on their flag. However this whole movement of plundering the files has now reached the limit of people’s tolerance. This is made clear by the predominant reaction of rejection and outrage at the rampant scandal-mongering that you see these days in the discussion forums of the major newspapers on the KapuÅ›ciÅ„ski case.

Today, our own Naomi Klein writes on the Guardian website about Shawn Brant and the Mohawks who blockaded the Kingston/Toronto CN line two weeks ago. In an act that seems designed to suppress the growing militancy of native groups, the OPP arrested Brant despite an agreement between police and demonstrators that gave the latter immunity if they ended their blockade peacefully. Assembly of First Nations National Chief Phil Fontaine should work on a strategy to counter such tactics during the national day of action, proposed for June 29 of this year.

The American Food and Drug Administration approved a pill that minnows may find worrisome.

On Tuesday, the FDA passed a drug called Lybrel, which stops a woman from menstruating. The Washington Post reported that it is designed “for women who find their periods too painful, unpleasant or inconvenient and want to be free of them.” While the FDA said the risks of this pill are the same as any contraceptive, an endocrinology researcher at UBC said the menstrual cycle is not understood well enough and the consequences of suppressing it are unknown. Others feel this pill reinforces negative attitudes and taboos surrounding menstruation.

Also on Tuesday, a team of Canadian and American researchers revealed that spiking a Northwestern Ontario lake with synthetic estrogen really messed up the minnows. The male fish started developing eggs instead of sperm. The level of estrogen was the same as that found in water discharged from sewage treatment plants in Canada and other countries.

While I don’t know how the dosage of estrogen in the menstruation-suppressing pill compares with current contraceptives, aquatic life near sewage treatment plants should probably start lobbying for better filtration.

When I arrived at Lee’s Palace just after midnight on the night of the 19th, three hours after the doors had opened, the bouncer checked my ID, but strangely no one on the inside asked me to pay cover. That’s what happens when you’re so late that you miss the whole event.

I mulled around by the stage for a bit wondering how I could find out who won, when I recognized Glen-airy Glen Rock, the winner of the Toronto Open Air Guitar competition.

“How did it go?” I asked.

“Good. I won,” said Mr. Glen Rock.

For this event, he aired to The Cult’s Love Removal Machine. The win means he’ll be representing Toronto at the national competition, which I believe will be held right here in Toronto. If he wins that, it’s off to Finland.

I’m thrilled to announce my air guitar memoir in today’s National Post. The print edition features photos from my man Scott Morgan.

For more than an hour before things got started at the El Mocambo, music heavy on guitar—like Pantera’s Respect and Weezer’s Hash Pipe—came through the speakers. Friends stood in groups and often someone would mime playing a guitar or bang his or her head to the music. These were mostly spectators, not competitors in the Toronto Open Air Guitar competition.

The event is the first of four air guitar competitions that will be held in Toronto in the coming months. The last one, happening sometime in the summer, will draw from regional winners across the country to determine a national champ. The champ will go on to represent Canada at the Air Guitar World Championships in Oulu, Finland, an event near and dear to my heart. Last night’s event got a little boost from Björn Türoque, the perpetual second greatest U.S. air guitarist.

Björn Türoque (Be-yorn Too-rock) was in town to promote Air Guitar Nation, a documentary about the rise of air guitar in the U.S., which opens March 23. Björn Türoque, née Dan Crane, had appeared on The Edge and Much on Demand, and would speak to the CBC crew covering last night’s event. For the Toronto Open competition, he would judge and demonstrate his air guitar skills.

Björn Türoque entered the bar wearing a thin bandanna amid a few “whoos” of recognition from the crowd. He headed towards the table near the stage where he and Barb Seaton from EMI and music writer Karen Bliss would hand out figure skating-style scores for 60-second performances to songs chosen by the competitors.

The first round, with eight air guitarist plus five late entries—some of whom were obviously waiting for the liquid courage to kick in—was far from Oulu’s standards. One stand-out was Glen-airy Glen Rock, who, after announcing that “my business is rock, and business is good!” made a fine performance to British Sea Power’s Apologies to Insect Life. The Quebec air guitar champion, Rad, had the lights dimmed before he came on stage looking like a cross between Dracula and a member of Star Trek’s Borg. His finger lights looked pretty cool as he worked an Ozzy Osborne song. The whole effect was totally satanic.

“You gotta have a look or a gimmick,” said Brad Pelman, co-president of Maple Pictures, the company bringing Air Guitar Nation to Canada. Pelman’s advice is true, but the shtick can backfire. Kaptain Kozmic, dressed as an astronaut complete with a confetti-spewing pack, found his fish-bowl helmet rotating and blocking his face with every bounce. Hurricane Andy, wearing a full nun’s habit, had to fight the head covering out from in front of his face. The generally generous Björn Türoque awarded Hurricane Andy a 4.666. Neither Kozmic nor Andy made it to the final round.

Unfortunately, only a few women competed. Also unfortunately, they all felt that unzipping and often removing a layer would make for good air guitar. Only 2Cute2Compete moved on in the competition.

After the intermission and a solid performance by Björn Türoque, the six competitors of the final round assembled on stage to hear the song they’d all have to perform to: Rage Against the Machine’s Killing in the Name. With the start of the final round, the atmosphere in the crowd became pleasantly less frat housey as the competition on stage became more serious. Stephanie, who performed as Astro Girl in the first round, bet me that her favourite, the shirtless Schmidt Lad, would finish ahead of Glen-airy Glen Rock. She had faith in her competitor. After all, she had run her hand through his chest hair backstage.

Rad still looked super bad in the second round, but his gimmick didn’t work well with the new song. Dracula Borg had painted himself into a bit of a corner. Master Yoshi, a Grade 2 teacher who claimed to “rock out with his cock out” (though he kept his routine totally PG) did well, as did The PK, who definitely had the most, or at least loudest, fans in the crowd. In the end, I was a dollar richer as Glen-airy Glen Rock got the highest score and won the night to prostrate “we’re not worthy” bows from The PK and Master Yoshi.

The Toronto contest didn’t compare with the inaugural Canadian air guitar event in Whistler last December, where 500 people attended and at least 100 were turned away. Roughly 80 people came out to the Toronto event.

“It wasn’t amazing, but it was a good regional,” said Björn Türoque at the end of the night. If Toronto wants to send one of its own to Oulu, or even crown a national champ, it’s got a lot of work to do.

Rudy Wiebe received the $25 000 Charles Taylor Prize for Literary Non-fiction for his work Of This Earth: A Mennonite Boyhood in the Boreal Forest in a ceremony at the Windsor Arms Hotel in Toronto today. The three member jury chose Wiebe’s memoir of growing up in rural Saskatchewan from a set of three finalists, which also included Citizen of the World: The Life of Pierre Elliott Trudeau, Volume One: 1919 – 1968 by John English and The Judgment of Paris: The Revolutionary Decade That Gave the World Impressionism by Ross King.

Named for the essayist and member of The Globe and Mail editorial board, the Charles Taylor prize has been honouring works of Canadian non-fiction since 2000.

Books eligible for the prize were works of literary non-fiction written by Canadian citizens or permanent residents, published between November 1, 2005 and October 31, 2006 and widely available across the country. The jury, which included Senator Laurier LaPierre, Dr. Margaret MacMillan and Jan Walter, made the shortlist from a record 98 books submitted by 23 publishers.