Waves & The Both Of Us

I have to be very careful not to let Vh1 ruin music for me. The first problem is the lack of competition – I watch Vh1 because I like music videos and I’m not often awake before 5:00 AM (which seems to be about the only time MTV plays videos anymore). The second problem is that Vh1’s program directors work so hard at niche marketing (my demographic, I’m afraid: They’ve got me hooked) that the playlist is ridiculously small. Of course this results in the entire problem with mainstream music marketing – we hear the same song over and over again until we’re so sick of hearing it that we can’t take it anymore. I swear, even just the opening bars of ‘Chasing Pavement’ by Adele sends me to twitching. I’m positive I would still like Adele if she had stayed over on my Britpop station….

All of this to say that I nearly missed ‘Charlotte Sometimes’. Her debut ‘How I Could Just Kill A Man’ hit me at the wrong time – because I really wanted to kill a man, and the song was a bit….. whiney. Cry baby Cry? Hell no. I want to hear about how you Could Just Kill A Man!! Besides which, when I first heard the debut introduction, a part of me was hoping that someone was remaking the Cypress Hill hit… And if you’ve heard any Charlotte Sometimes, you know she’s a looooong way from hardcore Latino hip hop.

I found myself listening to a Vh1 interview with half of my attention while getting ready one Saturday morning. My ears perked up for the discussion about how the band got it’s name. Lead Singer Jessica Poland recounted that her middle name was Charlotte, and that she had developed kind of an alter-ego using the name. So she found herself being Charlotte, sometimes….I thought it was very clever, but something kept nagging at the back of my mind.

One day, browsing through my local used CD and book store, it hit me. Back in the 80’s, The Cure had a hit called ‘Charlotte Sometimes’. Now fully intrigued, I went ahead and downloaded the album ‘Waves and the Both of Us’ (Released in May 2008 on Geffen Records) and was delighted. Turns out that Charlotte, Sometimes (both the song by the Cure and the band in question) were inspired by a young adult novel by the same name, written by Penelope Farmer back in 1969. The story is about a girl Charlotte, who finds she has mysteriously traveled back in time 40 years and is inhabiting the body of another girl, Clare. The girls switch identities and lifetimes at night while they sleep, and they can only communicate by writing notes to one another. I haven’t read the book yet, but that review is coming shortly, I’m sure.

If a catchy (but appropriated*) song name and the street ‘cred’ of a Cure connection brought me in, Charlotte’s melodic hooks, great rhythms and haunting vocals helped me to stay. Whereas Made of Bricks was a heartbreak album, ‘Waves and the Both of Us’ is about letting go and moving on – to happier places. The title track is my personal favorite, but most of the songs on the album are addictive. There are a few notable exceptions. Toy Soldier is over-produced to the point of losing it’s focus, and I find AEIOU a bit sharp, but overall this is a solid effort. This is the kind of artist whose work I can put on the iPod and the next thing I know an hour and half has gone by and the house is clean… Charlotte Sometimes is engaging and (dare I say it?) a bit uplifting.

Aside from ‘Waves & the Both of Us’ , I particularly like ‘Ex Girlfriend Syndrome’, ‘This is Only For Now’, and ‘Build Me The Moon’. Not to mention ‘Pilot’, which should be featured in an episode of Grey’s Anatomy any minute now. Say what you will of the show, the music directors are incredibly on-point. I can also see future Timbaland collaborations. Yep, this girl is that talented. Mark my words…

Charlotte Sometimes: Waves & The Both of Us:

The Cure ‘Charlotte Sometimes’:

Cypress Hill ‘How I Could Just Kill A Man’:

I never would have imagined sitting down to write a review of an underarm deodorant…. but I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. One of my earliest articles, submitted 10 years ago to my University newspaper ‘The Gauntlet’, referenced Secret’s advertising campaign ’strong enough for a man, but made for a woman’. At the time, it offended my feminist sensibilities to the point that I vowed never to use their product again.

The truth of the matter is that I’m not a big fan of deodorant. Most women’s underarm products are too strongly scented – usually with an undertone of baby powder. Why does our culture want women to smell like babies? Do we need to mask the evidence of real physical exertion with the scent of pure innocence? Well, in a schizophrenic society, if my only two options are to aspire to be a virgin or a whore, I’m gonna have to choose……. well, not virgin. I despise the smell of baby powder.

Imagine my surprise upon finding a line of new deodorants by Secret, one of which (the ‘Asian Pear’) having completely captivated my nose and my loyalty. It’s scent is fruity and light (kind of reminds me of a good Bath and Body Works product), and it’s a reasonably good ‘invisible’ solid. The scent is so different from the norm that I actually find myself surruptitiously taking a sniff mid-day. I keep trying to convince myself that I’m checking to see if it works, but the truth is, I’m kind of thrilled by the smell. I could beat myself up for selling out my feminist ideals, but my therapist has me working on positive self-talk, so I guess I’ll just have to forgive my underarm indescretion. Give it a try girls, you won’t be disappointed!

© Copyright 2008.

All Rights Reserved. All Wrongs Avenged.

I’m really particular about where I get my news. I get so frustrated with the ‘talking heads’ on the large news networks that I end up missing what little message they’re actually capable of distributing. Besides which, in the words of the great Ani Difranco, ‘the media is not fooling me‘. But a girl has to keep apprised of world and community events, so the only thing left to do is to become a wise consumer of the various media offerings.

Fareed Zakaria. All This and Brains Too!

I like ‘All Things Considered’ on NPR…mostly because it reminds me of the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) radio I grew up listening to. Something about the tone and structure of the program just feels wise to me, as it did when I was a child. Of course, it helps that I’m rather Liberal minded…

I subscribe to RSS feeds for a couple of news blogs – which you can check out over there on the left of this page – but in terms of television, there are really only two places I get my news. The first is Comedy Central, with the always on-point programming of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. Can we really call that news? OK fine – I guess I get my television news from only one source – Fareed Zakaria’s GPS (Global Public Square) on CNN.

Fareed Zakaria is the long time editor of Newsweek International, as well as a regular columnist for the Washington Post. I was first introduced to Fareed via The Daily Show, and I was instantly impressed by his clarity and optimism. GPS airs on CNN every Sunday at 1:00 PM EST (check your local listings) and offers ‘a comprehensive look at foreign affairs and the policies shaping our world’ (www.fareedzakaria.com). Each week, Fareed invites foreign leaders, as well as news analysts and reporters from around the world to discuss current events. Each week I find myself thinking about the stories of the day in a new light.

He dissolved parliament earlier this week. Pretty interesting, eh?

It’s so easy, living in America, to become myopic. Americans tend to stay informed only of news that relates to America. That shortsightedness means that sometimes we find ourselves seriously at odds with a foreign nation – like Russia, for instance – seemingly all of a sudden. The truth is never so simple as it is portrayed by the news media. We do not operate in a vacuum. Another effect is that news stories are rarely probed in depth. Stories have a very short shelf-life, and the few bits of international news we see are reduced to sound bytes and never heard from again – until they become a part of the weft and warp of the American pattern. Here’s a quiz for my American readers – who is the Prime Minister of Canada? No googling allowed…

In addition to foreign journalists and international leaders, Fareed often interviews business leaders. I’ve been catching up on some old episodes, and came across one I had saved in which he interviewed Bill Gates. He made a very interesting comment about not leaving his children his vast fortune when he dies. He is working hard these days to give his money away, and to plan for what to do with his fortune once he is gone. He likened allowing his children to inherit his incredible wealth to choosing political leaders based on the abilities of their grandparents. In other words, money equates with power – and the people with the power should be those who earn it. Not those who are given it by right of birth. Wise man, that Mr. Gates. I’m guessing he’s not much of a W. fan.

Fareed Zakaria’s Free Podcast:

The Post-American World (Unabridged):

The Future of Freedom: Illiberal Democracy at Home and Abroad Unabridged:

© Copyright 2008.

All Rights Reserved. All Wrongs Avenged.

by Lewis DeSoto

So I’ve recently been depressed. I am not talking about your garden-variety down in the dumps. Oh no, as with everything else, if I’m gonna do it, I’m gonna do it big. In any case, as a side effect of my depression, I lost the attention span to read. The fact that this loss didn’t totally devastate me is an indication of how lost in the woods I was. Well, I’ve healed, thanks to therapy, drugs and a few close comrades. About mid-way through my climb back to sanity, reading came back. At first I could only read books I had read and loved before – it was like reconnecting with old friends, sorely missed and deeply needed. In time I became ready to branch out to new material. I had never stopped buying books – a deep seated need – so I had a rather hefty to-read pile from which to choose. Why, why, why I chose to read this book remains a mystery. It was recommended to me by a close friend from Canada, whose tastes in reading have been rather similar to my own. If only I had stopped to recall what those tastes were. As a good Celtic Canadian, melancholy was neither a new nor an unwelcome emotion. Many great Canadian authors have a broad streak of despair in their novels. So…. Spoiler alert. I’m about to tell you how this book ends.

‘A Blade of Grass’ is the beautifully written story of an unlikely friendship between two women. Marit is an orphaned British woman, who moved to South Africa with her new husband to run a farm. Tembi is a slave on her plantation. The novel is set during the death-throes of apartheid, and Lewis DeSoto does a positively lyrical job of describing the country, the people, and the terrifying conflict. Apartheid did not go easily. Power is never relinquished without a fight, regardless of how illegitimate its origins.

I found myself relating rather a lot with Marit. She is a young woman, once hopeful and optimistic, who systematically loses everything that gave her life meaning. When her husband dies, and war erupts in the community around the farm, Marit and Tembi are the only two left, and they make a heroic effort to save the farm, and their lives. Literally, at every turn they are thwarted. Now I wasn’t worried at first. They were strong, and resilient, and their friendship, though complicated, was true. I honestly can’t bring myself to recount the list of tragedies these two women endured. The novel was almost completely bereft of any happiness. As it progressed, and I got closer and closer to the end, I got more and more worried. There just wasn’t much time left. If things were going to look up, they’d better hurry.

Sadly, it was not to be. At the end of the novel, all is lost. The only person who remains is Tembi, and she will go on mostly because the only other choice is choosing to lay down your burdens – literally. Turns out the first book I picked up after a debilitating depression had a character who I identified strongly with. And at the end of the book, she drowns herself in the river.

Even after an emergency visit to my shrink (God Bless Her, really) I still couldn’t take a bath for a couple of weeks….just to be on the safe side. I’m sorry if I ruined the ending for you, but you were fairly warned. If you have an interest in South Africa, Apartheid, female relationships or politics and world history you might love this book. Just so long as you’re happy when you read it. Trust me, you’re gonna need a buffer.

© Copyright 2008.

All Rights Reserved. All Wrongs Avenged.

Who doesn’t love a sale? I grew up in a ‘lower middle-class’ family with a mom who clipped coupons and who, years later attested that she had been environmentally conscious long before it became vogue. I shop at consignment stores, online and at wholesale clubs. But never once have I shopped on ‘Black Friday’ (nor it’s Canadian equivalent, Boxing Day – the day after Christmas). There has always been something about the idea of a shopping orgy that disturbs me.

When I was about 10 years old, Cabbage Patch Kids became popular – and just like every other little girl of my age, I coveted the doll. I remember my parents recounting to their friends the frenzy at the local department store. Even as a child I recognized the particular brand of greed that accompanies desperation shopping. Finding a deal just isn’t fun when you have to work that hard at it. I told a friend of mine, over an after-Thanksgiving dinner cocktail, that I would rather chew my leg out of a trap than get up early the next morning to hit the sales.

Photo property of CNN

How very upsetting this year, to hear that three people lost their lives on Black Friday. One, a Wal-Mart employee, was trampled to death. Two others were shot at a Toys ‘R Us. Yep. This is where we find ourselves. Armed shopping at a toy store.

We’re a country in recession largely because we’re so very materialistic that massive unsecured debt has become the American norm. We want it all, and we want it now. We get confusing messages from our government, who tell us that our spending is the root of the problem, and whose cure to the problem will likely be another economic stimulus package which they will encourage us to spend – to get the markets moving again.

If I may be so bold as to suggest America, this might be a great time for us to parent our children in a new and unusual way. Rather than showering them with the latest video games and American Girl Dolls, perhaps it is time to show them what it is to live within our means. And remember the oft-misquoted adage…  it is the love of money that is the root of all evil.

© Copyright 2008

All Rights Reserved. All Wrongs Avenged.