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Death is the Icing on the Cake: Jerry Langton’s Iced-Crystal Meth, the Biography of North America’s Deadliest New Plague

Ever hear a speed addict tell you meth makes you smarter? It seems to be a popular delusion, even among those who had (or once had) a reasonable level of intelligence. Just before they start moaning about hidden cameras and microphones, they tell you how their IQ jumped 30 points. It’s easy to laugh at the obvious incongruity, yet anyone who has loved someone whose life was slam-dunked by methamphetamine knows it’s not funny. They know it’s incredibly difficult to get help, and that recovery is pretty much a delusion, no matter how hard the user tries.

Finally, someone explains the mysterious, monstrous world of crystal methamphetamine. Toronto writer Jerry Langton began his strange journey while writing a book about the Canadian Hell’s Angels. Meth was once the territory of bikers and wartime suicide bombers, but now its bizarre and tragic legacies are epidemic across North America, ambushing all sorts of communities the way no other drug has. Everything they told you in grade five health class about madness, instant addiction, and robbing (or raping) your mother for marijuana has come true- about meth. Iced: Crystal Meth, the Biography of North America’s Deadliest New Plague never gets hysterical though the facts are truly nightmarish. Meth is an epidemic of virulent proportions, spreading rapidly throughout the world, devastating families, police forces, hospitals, and even the environment. It’s a war that shows no signs of slowing down. Did you know that trees near meth labs die? Did you know that houses that were formerly meth labs cause cancer in the new, squeaky-clean tenants? Did you know that hospitals are closing down because the majority of patients in their burn units are meth cooks and their family members, usually people who won’t be able to pay for their treatment after their profits blow up with their faces?

The human mind and body are pretty resilient and stand up to all kinds of abuse and experiment. Langton unscrews your head and shows what’s happening upstairs when you mix meth with your brain. It just might be that fried egg you saw on TV- “this is your brain on drugs.” Well, everyone knows that the odd New Year’s on blow or an occasional hippie-fest isn’t going to kill you overnight and that you’ve got plenty of brain cells to spare. You might end up an addict- there’s no doubt that millions of lives have been ruined by cocaine. But it’s usually not after one hit. Everyone’s different, of course, and that’s a chance you take when you do anything. You might get hit by a bus on the way to work, too. But what if the chances were pretty much certain that after a few times, you, too will be tapping the walls for hidden microphones, convinced your family is not really real, and willingly risk an exploding death to make more crank? What if this drug really does change your personality, not just enhance it or bring out the worst? There’s too much talk about ‘strong minds’ and not enough talk about science. Langton shows the science of meth and it’s terrifying.

“Although scientists anticipated the fact that meth would have a significant effect on brain tissue, few were prepared for what they saw the first time a user’s brain was image mapped,” Langton writes. UCLA’s Paul Thompson told him, “It was shocking, it was like a forest fire of brain damage.” Cocaine prolongs the time that dopamine lingers in the brain- meth forces your brain to “crank” it out. Hence, the high is (apparently) unlike anything you’ve ever felt. There is nothing in nature that will spew so much dopamine. With these massive surges, you DO have heightened senses, sharpened intelligence, supersonic auditory and other sensory abilities. Your brain treats you to feeling like superman a few times. And after that, you have nothing. After that, you may never feel anything again, even on the drug. This is why the depression and suicide rates are so high and recovery rates are so low. There’s no turning back, and there’s nothing left of your mind. Much of the brain damage from methamphetamine is permanent.

Though web sites proliferate on meth and risk management, or harm reduction, the scientific truth is not on this drug’s side. There’s managing the risk of starving to death, which may be the appeal for the diet-obsessed faction who never took drugs recreationally but got hooked on meth. Want to lose your teeth? Though the sites say that “meth mouth” is a myth, Langton observes that “five out of five dentists” know it’s true. Anyone who has watched ‘meth mom makeovers’ on crappy talk television can rest assured those hideous hags are the rule, not the exception. Meth would make Marilyn Monroe look like something out of Michael Jackson’s Thriller.

Langton does his research and lets you decide. There’s not much to refute in the troubling picture he presents. The saddest thing I’m left with is overall hopelessness: a drug that is so addicting, rehab is a joke. There’s not much left of life after meth. Suicide is often the only way out, even for addicts who have shown enormous strength in abstaining. Everyone I know who was addicted to methamphetamine first entered their love affair claiming that meth made them happier and smarter. Not much further into the cycle, even the non-religious ones declared the drug to be the Devil itself, a demon, Lucifer, or hell. This book will help you understand why your loved ones can’t necessarily just decide to get better. When I accused one beloved friend of loving meth more than he loved me, he just sobbed, “Not because I wanted to.” I’m not one to subscribe to the sweeping sentimentality of the Just Say No generation, but Just Say Know has led me to a blanket condemnation of this sick, twisted mind game straight from hell. Meth is not derived from plants and supported in anthropology by happy animals or by shamanic rituals- it comes from poisons underneath your sink. Battery acid, drain cleaner, gasoline, lantern fuel, hydrochloric acid- enjoy.

Will you get addicted if you try it? More than likely, though maybe not. If you’ve already tried it and it “didn’t work” or “did nothing for you”, count yourself lucky. On scales used to measure addictiveness, meth gets a 98 out of 100. “Nothing else, (not even crack) breaks the 80 mark,” Langton writes. Langton knows that drug statistics aren’t always reliable, so he doesn’t use one terrible stat for shock value. He paints with a broader brush, and questions how the stats were measured. But no matter what source he looks to, one thing is clear- even the worst statistics are understatements.



Iced: Crystal Meth, the Biography of North America’s Deadliest New Plague
Jerry Langton
Key Porter Books, 2007


Lorette C. Luzajic is a Toronto-based writer. You can read more or learn about her services at www.thegirlcanwrite.net. She is currently at work on a collection of irreverent essays, due out this fall, and she is the editor of www.ideafactorymagazine.net. Her first book, The Astronaut’s Wife: Poems of Eros and Thanatos is in part inspired by the hell of loved ones addicted to methamphetamine. The book is available through her site, or through www.indigo.ca.
 

For Christmas last year I got Dad a saucy brass belt buckle “Jesus,” a Johnny Cash CD, and a copy of Geez Magazine. My dad’s got a pretty wacky sense of humour but I could tell he was uncomfortable with the belt buckle. I’d looked far and wide for the Christian fish symbol but when I found the garishly tacky alternate I knew I was probably going too far. Dad frowned and said that Jesus was more than a belt buckle. I knew he felt it was something worn too close to netherland for comfort, but I told him it was a unique opportunity to witness for the Lord. I believe God has a sense of humour, too, and mine is one gift he gave me.

Dad and I have different beliefs about God, but not that different, all things considered. He and mom raised us to believe in a loving God, but also to be accountable for our sins. Though I railed against religion for some time in my early twenties, as I struggled to make sense of the wrongdoings of church history and the blanket condemnation of human sexuality and alternate belief systems, you can’t really argue with the ten commandments. When various tragedies nearly broke me, I found myself on my knees, a place I felt God’s comfort when there was little to be had in the platitudes of the world. Where once I had questioned the validity of glorifying the suffering of a misjudged super-man named Jesus, now I felt closer to him in my own pain. Though most churches hold little allure for me intellectually and even spiritually, the deep portraits of the human heart as laid out in the Good Book are a goldmine in historical philosophy and poetry. I often wished Christianity were more inclusive, more contemporary, and more socially conscious. After all, Christ ministered to outcasts and was one himself- wasn’t there room for me to feel welcome?

Then Geez came along. Geez is an absolutely radical Canadian magazine that covers current social, environmental and spiritual issues. It’s tagline reads “holy mischief in an age of fast faith”. This gem doesn’t shy away from all the major issues that are real in today’s world- abortion, environmental destruction, war and what is it good for, spiritual emptiness. Without purporting to know what God thinks about everything, it urges the faithful and the backslidden or even the unbeliever to find a deeper meaning in today’s consumer climate. I was pretty sure its departure from fundamentalist interpretations would make Dad uncomfortable, but we often exchange books with the promise to read them and discuss them so that we can agree, disagree, or agree to disagree. While I believe it’s our spiritual obligation to progress forward in art, literature and science, Dad feels all those steps are empty without God. Geez is like a friend that bridges those gaps and doesn’t hide from difficult questions- kind of like Geezus himself. Best of all, so far Geez does it all ad-free, and will do so for as long as it is able to.

“The idea originated with my colleague Aiden Enns. He was working at Adbusters and feeling like the addition of a spiritual dimension to a counter-corporate magazine would be worth pursuing. When Aiden moved back to Winnipeg after wrapping up his time with Adbusters, he asked me and some others to be involved. We recognized a depth of largely untapped creativity on the fringes of faith and wanted to tap into that energy and nurture it,” says editor Will Braun.

Fans of the Canadian-born Adbusters Magazine laud the forward thinking design, the absence of advertising influence on editorial comment, and the deep reflection on the ills of society. But many criticize the magazine for being unable to offer real solutions for the tragedies of war, greed, and despair. The influence of this great magazine is evident in the design, voice and flare of Geez, but there is a more positive, solution-oriented depth in Geez, an inherent spirituality that may combat the hopelessness of the world’s conditions.

“We are certainly indebted to Adbusters as a source of inspiration. Their use of images and use of a narrative flow for each issue are important contributions to the art of magazine making. We hope to offer some of the same sort of counter-corporate messaging as Adbusters but with emphasis on the spiritual and religious dimensions of how society works. Religion and spirituality are integral aspects of society, and we have given ourselves the permission to talk about the best and the worst of religion. I think we're also trying to have a little more smirk and a little less sneer than Adbusters – a somewhat more upbeat tone,” Braun states.

It’s more than Adbusters goes to church. “We’ve set up camp in the outback of the spiritual commons. A bustling spot for the over-churched, out-churched, un-churched and maybe even the un-churchable. A location just beyond boring bitterness. A place for wannabe contemplatives, front-line world-changers and restless cranks. A place where the moon shines quiet, instinct runs mythic and belief rides a bike,” reads the Geez website.

With campaigns like Make Affluence History and Buy Nothing Christmas, Geez seeks to dethrone the almighty dollar and re-throne the Almighty, providing clues in its extensive coverage to how we might find space for God in this troubled and amazing world we live in.

Future plans include topics like sustainable farming and facing our fears, and past issues have tackled problems with evangelism and seeing wonder in a world full of trials and tribulations. While fundamentalist spirituality may view Geez’s inclusive, humourous text as wishy-washy, Braun doesn’t see it that way.

“ I am a Mennonite farm boy from the Bible Belt of Manitoba. Sometimes Mennonites drive me nuts, but I claim my heritage and identity. I don't really see it as a choice – it's who I am. I believe it is okay to have a love-hate relationship with the church. I don't have to decide if it is all good or all bad. It is both – like me – and I can be part of it anyway. I believe in being connected to other people. It is popular these days to say ‘I am spiritual but not religious.’ I say bunk to that. I am worried that that leads to the individualization of belief – we all just pick and choose our own little beliefs and do our own thing. It can be a rather arrogant, me-first approach. I think the individualization of belief is the end of belief. Faith is about connecting to that which is larger than ourselves, and doing so in humility, recognizing the value of relating with others who have varying beliefs and lives. I believe in organized spirituality. I want to be part of a collection of people that includes different generations, people of widely varying backgrounds, and people with whom I disagree.”

For Braun, the central message of the Bible is loud and clear. Love is much more difficult than hatred but it’s the only answer. “I believe there is great in the Biblical narrative … I am particularly drawn to stories of discovering the mystery of love on the margins of society. There is something vital that cannot be discovered in the halls of power, the very best schools, or among the brightest artists. It is something that can only be discovered among people who are left out, people who have no status. This is integral to the message and lives of Jesus, Gandhi, Henri Nouwen, Dorothy Day, Jean Vanier, Oscar Romero and others. I seek to be drawn toward this mystery of love.”

Geez has ventured forth with new ideas and amazing accomplishments, and one of them is running ad-free. “ I think it is an important experiment. We can't just start with the assumption that advertising is a necessary evil. We're not dead set against any advertising, but at this point we find it very gratifying to produce a magazine in which money and message do not mix, and in which ads do not interrupt the visual flow of the magazine,” Braun says. Other highlights include “Burning $100 to say that maybe money isn't the answer (Geez 02)…Sending the editor (me) on a 1,200-mile bicycle trip to speak on behalf of Geez at a conference. Receiving positive feedback from atheists… Printing the sort of articles that wouldn't really fit in any other magazine we know of. Presenting a taste of the monastic tradition to readers.” In addition to encouraging environmental responsibility in the tone and topics within the mag, the pages are printed on 100% post-consumer-waste recycled paper.

The Winnipeg publication can pat itself on the back for recently winning a whole heap of awards. At the Western Magazine Awards, Geez won for both Best New Publication and Western Canada Magazine of the Year. Last year, Utne Independent Press Awards nominated Geez for Best New Publication and Best Spiritual Coverage. Geez won seven awards from the Canadian Church Press, including Original Artwork, Narrative, General Excellence, and Personal Experience. For a quarterly that has been around less than two years, this is astounding. Evidently this self-professed “experiment with truth” has the Big Guy on its side.

Geez encourages your involvement, through submissions and subscriptions. Head to www.geezmagazine.org for information on subscribing, telling your story, or getting involved in projects like De-Motorize Your Soul. You can be a part of this revolutionary/revelationary action plan: “Because it’s time we untangle the narrative of faith from the fundamentalists, pious self-helpers and religio-profiteers. And let’s do it with holy mischief rather than ideological firepower. We’ll explore the point at which word, action and image intersect, and then ignite. So let’s blaspheme the gods of super-powerdom, instigate spiritual action campaigns and revamp that old Picture Bible.”

All things considered, I doubt Dad will ever wear the belt buckle- perhaps it was in poor taste. But the great Johnny Cash will make for an appropriate soundtrack for dusky evenings after prayer meeting on Dad’s back porch. Johnny’s gravelly soul and the serenade of crickets and twittering birds in the twilight by the farm’s pond is just a perfect backdrop for reading Geez. Our responses may differ, but time together to reflect on them is the most amazing of God’s gifts, and isn’t that how communion/community begins after all?

www.geezmagazine.org

 Lorette C. Luzajic is a Toronto-based writer. Visit her website at www.thegirlcanwrite.net. Her poetry and a personal essay have appeared in Geez Magazine, and a story about her Dad appeared in Adbusters as well. She is the editor of Idea Factory: an Exquisite Quarterly at www.ideafactorymagazine.net and the author of The Astronaut’s Wife: Poems of Eros and Thanatos. She writes regularly for many magazines, websites, and individual clients. Her second book, a collection of irreverent essays, will be available through Indigo or Amazon later this fall.

I cringe when I recall an incident so many years ago in New Orleans, reading poetry for quarters on Bourbon Street.  I fancied myself a wandering bard, a poetic luminary, a traveler without the confines of society’s dictates of what home should mean. In reality, I was perhaps just a delusional street kid at worst and hippie at best, but it stung nonetheless when an irate passerby, with more important margarita and daiquiri matters to attend to, hissed at me that I should get a job. It was a significant chance for me to defend poetry’s importance in illuminating diverse perspectives of humanity, but I flubbed it by sputtering out something about poetry being work. “That’s not work,” the man yelled. “It’s frivolous!”

And work it ain’t: few poets have pocketed more than a few ten-spots if they’re lucky, even those with books. You may labour over it, you may polish and edit and muse. But you don’t do it for bread. I likely made more money selling readings for spare change than I’ve made before or since from my scribbling in a rather lengthy poetry publishing career. But that’s beside the point for most of us: we write because we have to. We write other things for money, or sweep floors or serve coffee or prescribe pills or fix engines. Even Shakespeare knew the burn of the unpaid art- he made his living in the theatre, and thankfully so, but though his sonnets linger centuries later in classrooms and hearts around the world, he wasn’t paid for those.

But frivolous? Yes, I suppose the man was right. It isn’t food and water, and after my pathetic attempts to fund my cross-continent travels reading poetry, I discovered you could do a lot better by scrawling Spare Change for Booze on a cardboard box. For the masses, alcohol is more necessary to daily life than poetry is.  Still, in the beginning of English literature was poetry, and in the end it will remain. From Homer to the Bible to the ubiquitous poetry slams, poetry will never die. There’s something about how bare it lays the human heart. There’s something almost religious in starving for your art. Man cannot live by bread or booze alone.

Perhaps you are a proud supporter of Canadian poets and want to expand your library and put a little sugar in the bowl. Perhaps you know what it means to poets just to be read, even if you can’t fork out a twenty for every new release. If you want to sort the flotsam from the jetsam, there’s a marvelous web site to help you out. That site is www.poetryreviews.ca. The brainchild of Alberta poet Eric Barstad, the site is dedicated to reviewing poetry collections by Canadian authors only, from a variety of presses. Barstad also runs Shadow Box Creative Media, a graphics company that supports non-profits and the arts, and so, for once, we have a lit site that is intuitive- a joy to navigate.

With a whole roster of reviewers who are published poets and editors, www.poetryreviews.ca avoids having a limited voice. Barstad doesn’t want posted reviews to read as hate mail, but is not afraid of supported criticisms, or of praise with the high beams on.  Reviews are thorough, ranging from 600-1500 words. Stephen Morrissey tackles Leonard Cohen’s The Book of Longing, and hipster Canuck literati will rejoice at the proliferation of rob mclennan’s reviews.  Readers will be happy to stumble across the thoughtful reflections of Helen Zisimatos, editor of the gorgeous Vallum, where every poet drools to appear.  Every single review is a quality piece of writing that adds to our understanding of Canadian poets and poetry.

The site itself is so well crafted that the search feature actually works, so you can type in your favourite reviewer or poet and see what comes up. I was thrilled to find a review of George Murray’s A Rush to Here. You can also search by publisher or by date of posting.

One last detail that merits mention is the comments feature, letting readers share their own view of the poetry or of the reviewer’s opinion.

www.poetryreviews.ca provides an invaluable service to Canadian literature by giving us an intelligent and thought-provoking forum. With diverse opinions by a multitude of different literary professionals, and a chance for the public to have their say, we can be guided to explore new or familiar terrain in the Canadian poet’s landscape. It may be trendy to jump a particular bandwagon in verse world, or to trample on certain styles, but poetry is subjective and everyone has different taste. This site helps you find yours, and maybe sample something different. Poetry might be “frivolous,” to the miserable bloke who didn’t break my spirit 15 years ago, but to me it follows caraway rye and gin on the necessity list I keep on my fridge.  For we must also feed the soul, my friend, and that is what I should have said to you.

Lorette C. Luzajic is a Toronto writer and poet. Her poetry has appeared in Quarry, White Wall Review, Caffeine, The Fiddlehead, Geez Magazine, Grain, Erbacce, and many anthologies. She is the author of The Astronaut’s Wife: Poems of Eros and Thanatos, of Handymaiden Editions, available through Indigo or Amazon online. She is also the editor of Idea Factory: an Exquisite Quarterly. Contact her through www.thegirlcanwrite.net.

Let us compare mythologies, urged Canada’s dirtiest monk, Leonard Cohen, a book every good little intellectual carried around during university. Cohen’s brooding growls of poetry, a Tom Waits for the northern climes, resonated with the literati and the folk junkies. His spiritual and intellectual heritage were added bonuses. Some of his works are indeed among the most stirring and gorgeous poems of all time, and his novels- well, we didn’t understand them, but we all knew a handful of Beautiful Losers, or maybe happened to be them ourselves.

With all due respect to a great writer and poet to whom I am most indebted, a thinker who mixed media and explored genres fearlessly, The Book of Longing sucks.

It’s one of the few books of poetry ever to be a runaway bestseller- right up there with Jewel’s. Enough said. I understand that this scrapbook of cheery pencil sketches and scrawled observations, Cohen’s first new material in 20 years, is meant to present the artist’s newfound contentment.  It flew off the shelves and landed an audience, popping up beside steaming lattes on Starbucks tables, wandering the subways in briefcases and Kenneth Cole carry-alls. Cohen has left the beatnik coffeehouses and joined the living dead in their workday, a feat for any poet. Still, I have to maintain that not every scribble should be published just because you’re famous. The tawdry, forced rhymes are bad enough, but they sure beat the hell out of the free verse, which is as about engrossing as the back of the cereal box.

I honestly have to wonder what Cohen would say about the content if he were a lit prof and a student handed it in. He would surely roar at the student to find something worth saying, a thoughtful way of saying it, and revise, revise, revise. I mean, honestly, what is this drivel? “I saw the moon outside/I saw the great uncomplicated thing/when I went to take a leak just now.”  How about this: “He lives in New York City, he doesn’t like it though.”

I’m well aware that I’m treading thin ice, here, for like every other living and most dead poets, I’m not exactly famous despite publishing hundreds of poems. I know that ultimately poetry is subjective and dies unread, eventually ending up in the quarter bin at the Toronto Reference Library sale. I certainly mean no disrespect to the special friend who brought me The Book of Longing. You don’t have to love a book wholly to treasure it. You don’t have to agree on poetry to treasure a friendship

Don’t get me wrong- there are moments of dark humour or wry observation that relieved some of the arrogant, self-absorbed blabbering with a tidbit of wit- I thought Sorrows of the Elderly was cute and astute: “The old are kind. The young are hot. Love may be blind. Desire is not.” I also thought a few lines from I Miss My Mother were not too bad. “She was right about everything/Including my foolish guitar and where it got me.” The old beatnik peace campers from the good old days, those geeks like myself who bought up all Irving Layton’s discards at that library sale, can appreciate the small gem Layton’s Question, when “Layton solemnly inquires/ Leonard, are you sure/you’re doing the wrong thing?”

Last month, the Luminato Festival of Arts and Creativity premiered in Toronto. An integral part of the festival was Philip Glass’s collaboration with Cohen, a chamber music theatrical cabaret described by The Star’s Greg Quinn as “a confusing work of considerable importance.” I’m thrilled that larger names and talents are merging media and experimenting and exploring words, art, sounds. Creative thinkers should be working together to expand audience responses to their work, and nothing in this post-post-modern Simpsonian world thrills a critic and writer like myself as much as reflecting on texts of current culture, especially when those texts merge high and mass cultures in varying ways.

And perhaps that is why I love holding The Book of Longing in my hand and leafing through it, even though the book leaves me longing…there’s something wonderful about Cohen, that great grizzly of bohemian gloom, leaving the stuffy corridors of university analysis and ending up in the top ten of giant book chains.  Too often ‘high’ culture, to adopt the language of my pop-culture anthropology class way back when, is inaccessible to the everyman. Bringing the symphony to the masses, so to speak, is not always about lowering creative ideals, but about changing them. While ballet, classical music and Dostoyevsky may be transcendent, can we not also find transcendence in Seinfeld or trance music?

The answer is yes- anyone who can’t appreciate that the existential angst of Seinfeld is a mirror of our self-centred, absurd lives, and brilliantly comedic, is probably locked in a closet in a tower somewhere. Anyone who sees no merit to electronica, what I call the new classical (though now it’s old and run it’s course, of course) is simply unable to appreciate what marked a massive shift in thinking- music as a universal language, speaking without exclusion, with love at it’s centre. That was before methamphetamine brought aggression and annihilation to the idealist “one –love” togetherness-saturated rave scene. At the same point, those who indulge in Will and Grace marathons without ever labouring through the odd classic or hitting a good play might benefit from new horizons as well.

And so, it makes me very happy that those who may never have cracked open Cohen’s first work, Let Us Compare Mythologies, may well now be comparing them. Turning out a pop tart before you croak is the way to go out with a bigger bang and generate enthusiasm for the forgotten works of himself and others. (Please God, don’t let Cohen immortalize himself with a bullet in the tradition of tormented writers- this is his chance to turn that beat around.) The mass marketplace is now a doorway into the dusty realm of literature that deserves more readers. Indeed, overwhelmed by my own enjoyment of composer Philip Glass, I suddenly noticed the sad disparity of Mozart and Bach in my iTunes. Now I have added some sublime to my Limewire.

Still, mass culture doesn’t have to mean mindless culture. Maybe I’m truly missing something here. The Book of Longing is peppered with the odd burst of beauty or brains, but all in all, it doesn’t feel inspired to me: it feels like the stuff I never finished, littering old notebooks that I hope no one ever touches even when I’m dead. In my mind we’ve just come too far to get away with (though he did get away with it, I suppose) lines like “she entered my foot with her foot.” Furthermore, there is never a reason to use the line “tiny serene people with huge genitalia,” no matter what the context.

Lorette C. Luzajic is a Ryerson Journalism graduate who freelances her writing and editing through her web site, www.thegirlcanwrite.net. She is the editor of  Idea Factory: an Exquisite Quarterly  and the author of The Astronaut’s Wife: Poems of Eros and Thanatos. Lorette is also a mixed-media artist. She is currently at work on a collection of irreverent essays, due out in early fall, and on a cookbook. She lives in her library with her three cats.

I’m not sure it’s morally right for a virtually unknown poet like myself to criticize one of the best, and I’ll surely be lambasted by those who are better equipped to interpret genius. But after anticipating my first Bob Dylan concert with ridiculous eagerness, the crash landing is devastating. I had no expectations of acrobatics and technological bells and whistles, but I looked forward to simply being in the presence of a songwriting idol and being inspired to pen deeper, wittier, more insightful verse. I left the Casino Rama concert in Orillia, Ontario, reassessing whether Dylan is in fact not an inspiration but an arrogant and vain artist who doesn’t want to connect with his audience in any meaningful way.

One of my all-time favourite movies is the screwball Canadian comedy Highway 61, in which Don McKellar is Pokey Jones, the barber. During a road trip to New Orleans, he and his cohort pull up to a small lot. “This is the childhood home of Bob Dylan,” Pokey marvels in his Borat-like accent. “This is where he spent those formative years.” It was the early 90s and I didn’t need much more inspiration than that to jump into a pickup truck and make my own trek down Highway 61. I dutifully blasted Dylan from Memphis to the Big Easy. These were the kind of memories I was high on while heading to see the legend live for my first time. I shared Pokey’s enthusiasm that the man was a genius, and had spent the weeks ahead of the event perusing the Dylan bible of lyrics, a 500 page giant of a book (Bob Dylan- Lyrics 1962-1985).

Naysayers and their niggling critiques of Dylan’s froglike voice never convinced me to share their disdain. Many of my musical idols  “can’t sing” and I like an artist who sounds distinctive. I herald an unusual voice as a mark of distinction, from the gravelly girl-angst of Stevie Nicks to the flat nasal tone of Eminem. I always thought Johnny Cash’s or Lucinda Williams’ unpolished imperfections had more soul than the technically flawless vocals of, say, Celine Dion or Beyonce. As a poet, songwriting with soul is an incredibly important part of artistry, and a strange or unique voice is more likely to hit me harder in the heart than overproduced, slicker sounds. 

However, other camps acknowledged Dylan’s status while maintaining that his arrogance and uncharitable self-importance demean his loyal public, and it’s not too soon to say I now agree. Dylan’s frequently gone on record putting down all music made in the last 20 years. I once thought he was particular; now I wonder if he is just full of himself. While Dylan hails from an era of rock and folk that is indisputably great, I guess he’s deaf to innovation and evolution. Surely the man must believe in U2, or Arcade Fire, or Manu Chau or Madonna, or the lyric-less universality of the new classical, electronic trance and techno? What about lyrical greats like Eminem or Tim Booth? Surely Annie Lennox or Sinead must get some credit for vocal enchantment. Surely the Counting Crows or Coldplay merit at least some passing enthusiasm. Surely he must acknowledge that there are other legends that rival and possibly supercede him- is Dolly Parton nobody in his eyes?

Obviously I wasn’t expecting Dylan to appear onstage in sequined short-shorts and Paris Hilton’s sunglasses. I wasn’t anticipating outrageous choreography and glittering nude circus performers. I was there for the music and the lyrics. I had rather simple expectations and they were not met. Given the constant streaming exodus of concertgoers making an early exit, I wasn’t the only one disappointed. Though the band was stellar and the music rocked, there were major problems with the show.

First, a simple hello would have been nice. I hope Bob is not so inflated with fame and greatness that he doesn’t recall the common people who made him rich. I may as well have watched him on TV- he didn’t communicate, even nominally, with the crowd. Not every performer can be as warm as Dolly Parton, who expresses “I love you” between every song. But it can’t be too hard to look out at those who’ve handed over a $50 or higher, and say, “Thanks for coming out.” I really felt Bob Dylan’s personal disdain for us- he never looked out and so much as waved or smiled. His performance was very wooden, with zero interaction with us peons. Though I’m sure Dylan’s ego perceives himself as the only talent in the room, at least a few in the audience must be worthy in their own way- a good cook, a good mother, a good mechanic, a good doctor. No one is expecting Dylan to turn into an affectionate, blathering circus clown with a bag of tricks. But simply looking up from the stage time to time and saying “Thanks for coming” or “Nice to see you, Orillia!’ wouldn’t skin his back.

Now, initially I wondered if this apparent self-absorption was simply a matter of performance anxiety. I know artists like Barbra Streisand are terrified to perform publicly, and that’s why she didn’t for many years. Streisand is a good example of a haughty perfectionist and an arrogant artist- but she still manages to ooze graciousness and affection. Still, I can understand that an eccentric artist may need to remain inward in order to output. When I write, I need quiet concentration and limited distractions to get anywhere. I could have chalked Dylan’s lack of personableness up to his art and simply let the brilliance of his lyrics take over. The problem was that I couldn’t understand a single word he was saying. Even classics we’ve all memorized sounded like the teachers and parents in Charlie Brown cartoons. I’d been so eager to be present for the supreme storytelling that I believe is Dylan’s distinction. But I couldn’t make out a single phrase beyond “just like a woman” and that was only because I knew the melody. Initially I actually thought Dylan was opening in another language. I wasn’t alone, either- my companion whispered “translation, please” and in the ladies’ room later, I overheard someone say they also needed a translator.

Perhaps everything changed in the last few songs of the night: I can’t know: for the first time in my life I left a concert early. It just wasn’t worth plowing through the exit traffic or waiting it out over a drink when we had such a long ride home.  I hope my poetry will still take inspiration from Dylan’s stories- it’s true that one disappointing evening can’t eradicate a lifetime career of revolutionary writing. But after this lackluster, seemingly hostile and indecipherable performance, things have changed for me.

All of this might be fine and dandy if Dylan presented his own talents as storytelling and songwriting and shunned public performance as someone else’s game. But the legend has been performing for decades and is, in fact, on what is dubbed the Never Ending Tour, an incessant touring schedule since the late 1980s. If Dylan loves performing so much, it sure was hard to tell. It really felt as if he hated it with passion secondary only to sheer revulsion for his fans. An angry brat like Eminem raps praises for his fans who made him, even as his sky-high arrogance fills his records. He’s made a career of dissing every artist, industry and the stuffy values of the middle and upper classes, but he manages nonetheless to maintain a sense of humour and theatricality. While you may argue that Eminem is no comparison to Dylan, recall that Johnny Cash the Great encouraged rap artists to keep rapping- the voice of dissent is what it is, and the times they are a’changin’. We must keep up with those changes, even if our heroes can’t.

Lorette C. Luzajic is The Girl behind www.thegirlcanwrite.net. A graduate of Ryerson University’s School of Journalism is the author of The Astronaut’s Wife: Poems of Eros and Thanatos (available through her site or through indigo.ca). Her second book, a collection of irreverent essays, is due out later this summer. Look forward to meeting a motley crew of weirdos and thinkers that inspired her to wit, wisdom and folly. Lorette is also the editor of Idea Factory: an Exquisite Quarterly at www.ideafactorymagazine.net, a magazine of “modern anthropology for artists and other anomalies.

War rages, orphanages overflow, and the topic de jour is climate change and carbon emissions. A bright spot of hope and laughter hovers over the collective horizon, however, as the planet eagerly anticipates the long-awaited Simpsons movie. I can hardly contain myself, thinking of a few precious hours of laughter and the endless summer days of café talk that will follow, a summer where patios will buzz into the night with analysis and festive gossip over the world’s favourite family ties.

The special gift of The Simpsons is that it lets us see ourselves better. No other postmodernist work comes even close, and certainly nothing compares to Simpsons’ trademark comic wit. While my well-meaning family once banned my kid bro from over-saturating his mind with “that television brat”, both Rob and I believe that no education is complete without The Simpsons. Rob continued to watch the show until Dad came around after watching a few episodes, and like everyone else, saw himself plain as day, poked fun at with affection and accuracy. Rob was only a kid when he assured me he would continue to watch the program. “The only reason they don’t like The Simpsons,” he stated with a keen childish wisdom, “is ‘cause this is the kind of family they’re making fun of.”

I’m not the only one who has hauled a highlighter and Chris Turner’s Planet Simpson off the shelf. Getting ready for the big movie event consists of rolling a stock of fatties, penciling in the ubiquitous DVD and potluck celebrations post-gala, and, well, a bit of academic preparation. Never studied for the Simpsons before? Think about how much The Simpsons have studied you, then gather your textbooks together for the most fun you’ve ever had cramming.

Planet Simpson: How a Cartoon Masterpiece Documented an Era and Defined a Generation, a 400-plus-paged tome, was a runaway hit after its 2004 release. Our very own Canadian Chris Turner created his own masterpiece with this enthralling and witty analysis of culture through Springfield’s lens. Though Kevin Jackson of the UK’s Times Online criticized the oeuvre for being easy on the brain, (“his prose style is not much above the fanzine level” and “his range of cultural reference is at best parochial”) most (including self-important intellectuals like myself) will find Turner’s style refreshing and humourous. “ …In quest of snappiness, he peppers his sentences with cutesy words such as “anyhoo” and “craptacular”,” Jackson moans, but I’m partial to any textbook that infuses information with the homey lingo of Springfield. I’m proud of the fact that the best-ever analysis of our favourite Americans just happens to be Canadian. Besides, Turner won four National Magazine Awards, including the President’s Medal for General Excellence for his pop-culture and technology reporting before spying on Homer and Marge, and his knowledge of his subject is rigorous and thorough.

Seamlessly weaving our own cultural evolution alongside the history, trivia and characters that populate the best show ever, Turner tours our habits and impulses with the practicality of an anthropologist and the oft-neglected wisdom of the everyman. Sidebars highlight episode details even the most devoted watchers may have missed. The cast of writers has boasted a motley crew of academic hipsters, an impressive array of scientists, mathematicians, computer geniuses and more. References are usually verifiably true, even easily ignored jokes about math or history can be researched and come up accurate. By unraveling the complex po-mo layers of the show’s myriad references to art, politics, religion, world events and mass culture, Turner succeeds at making The Simpsons even more enjoyable. There are few shows that get better and better the more you watch the rerun, and Turner cues you to the clues that make this happen.

Not all Simpsons exposés are as readable as Planet Simpson, but several are just as important. While Turner generalizes, other authors specialize, and you can go with them on excursions into Simpson psychology, science, philosophy and religion. There’s as much room for intellectual expansion and spiritual growth as there is for humour, and a few authors help us delve further into Simpsonic layers.

William Irwin et al got there first with The Simpsons and Philosophy: the D’oh! of Homer. This anthology of academic essays was part of a trendy stable of philosophic explorations of pop culture at the turn of the millennium (Seinfeld and Philosophy and Taking the Red Pill: Science, Philosophy and Religion in The Matrix were other staples in the stable). Essays like Homer and Aristotle, Thus Spoke Bart, and A Marxist in Springfield provide useful fodder for late-night cappuccino discussions, though the Snows piece on Simpsonian Sexual Politics regurgitates unfounded worries that Marge and Lisa aren’t equal to the boys- more refreshing insight could argue that men aren’t portrayed sympathetically enough.

Mark I. Pinsky studies The Gospel According to the Simpsons: the Spiritual Life of the World’s Most Animated Family. Wordy but thorough, this delightful volume examines the Catholics, the Jews, the Hindus, the hypocrisy of the church and the reality of faith in modern civilization. The Simpsons are represented as your average, faulty but well-meaning Christians who are bored to death by church but still strive to maintain ‘family values’. The best part is that Ned Flanders, my favourite character (recall that I said my Dad saw himself in Springfield when he watched!) gets plenty of pew-time from Pinsky’s pen.

More recently, Dr. Alan Brown with Chris Logan served got onto the Simpson couch with The Psychology of The Simpsons. It’s a wonderful examination of various themes throughout the show, from gambling addiction to Pavlovian conditioning, a suitable icebreaker for psych practitioners and their patients as well as those who are simply fascinated by what makes us- and the Simpson family- tick.

And finally, don’t miss out on Paul Halpern’s What's Science Ever Done For Us: What the Simpsons Can Teach Us About Physics, Robots, Life, and the Universe. It would be Lisa’s favourite of the bunch, providing a guide to science themes in our favourite show. It illuminates objective realities that get lost in our subjective cultural analyses and teaches us about genetics (is Homer dimwitted by genes?), nuclear power, and the colonization of Mars.

By now you’re ready to lecture alongside professors at university bookstore functions, but I suggest instead it’s time to spark some cannabis with Homer or Otto and spend the rest of the month in hysterics watching the Comedy Network. Before you know it, we’ll be dissecting the summer’s hottest film, languishing at Moe’s Tavern with our neighbours and awaiting another season of Sunday night potlucks.


Lorette C. Luzajic is a Toronto-based writer, marketing her work through www.thegirlcanwrite.net. She is the author of The Astronaut’s Wife: Poems of Eros and Thanatos, available through indigo.ca. She writes for websites, magazines, and individual clients. Lorette is currently at work on her second book, a collection of irreverent essays, due out later this summer. Contact her at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .
 

The Idea Factory aims to inspire and conspire.  The Idea Factory is about ideas explored, examined, cherished, challenged, reviewed, revised, renewed, opposed, imposed, exposed. Change your mind. Learn something else. Explore the world around you. Find a new hobby. Take creativity seriously.  Laugh more. Expand your consciousness. Meet artists and writers and offbeat thinkers. Be inspired to create.

The Idea Factory is one small window to the world.  Look through it. Agree, disagree, explore, pick up your crayons and make something.  Learn something new.  History, spirituality, science, art, literature.  The Idea Factory is modern anthropology for artists and other anomalies.

The IF at Idea Factory Magazine is a brand new forum for creativity on the world stage- with roots right here at home in Toronto. Writers, artists and photographers will especially enjoy its offerings, an eclectic blend of positive curiousity. IF encourages creatives to submit their stuff- visual art, writings, poetry, reviews, interviews with forward-thinking people, photography and more. Or simply get inspired by reading through a medley of diverse material, gorgeously illustrated by talented visual artists.

The current issue features an interview with Toronto poet and songwriter Julie Ann Bertram, as well as a review of her new album and her article reflecting on Rumi. There’s a photo essay on breasts, and a stellar story by Toronto photographer Jay Morrison on the Bethlehem Steel Mills: he shares some amazing pics of the place. Deinstitutionalized shows the photography and reflections of Ian Ference, who specializes in snapping shots of abandoned asylums. Krissy Darch tells us about her work in Ghana, and Star C. Spider’s story about Scotland is told in some of the most beautiful prose I’ve ever read.

In the archive, don’t miss my story Why Marshall Matters, about Eminem as a poet, and Jamyang Khedrup’s story about being a monk in Taiwan. Ontario photographer Kent Waddington showed photos of New Orleans in What’s Left of Me, and you can learn more about Nikola Tesla, who some say invented electricity. Tesla’s statue is erected in Niagara Falls in honour of his discoveries here. I’ll also show you a great poetry web site where you can read a poem a day.

The Idea Factory is all about participation, so get involved by sharing your ideas and adventures. It’s truly a smorgasbord that encourages talent of all kinds to share their best, an oasis for inspiration and connecting with new ideas.

Lorette C. Luzajic is a Toronto-based writer, marketing her work through www.thegirlcanwrite.net. She is the author of The Astronaut’s Wife: Poems of Eros and Thanatos, available through indigo.ca. She writes for websites, magazines, and individual clients. Lorette is currently at work on her second book, a collection of irreverent essays, due out later this summer. Contact her at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Once upon a time, there was a small girl with a big stack of books. She was barely five years old, but had torn through a zillion Golden Books and Disney fairy tales and was stuck at the cottage with nothing to read. Her folks took her to a used bookstore in Parry Sound, where she picked out about 30 yellow-spined Nancy Drew mystery stories. Within days, she was prowling the swamps behind the cottage for clues, making believe that nearby ghost town ruins were castles. With a notebook in one hand, and a flashlight in the other, the girl made relentless notes on the few characters that populated the lake and woods where she was staying. That little girl grew up to be a writer.

I know I’m not the only one anticipating this week’s Toronto release of the film Nancy Drew. Director Andrew Fleming takes Nancy (Emma Roberts) to Hollywood. I sure hope the film can capture the soul of the book heroine and not ruin a legacy.

Nancy’s independent spirit and inquiring mind were early influences on my imagination. Her enthusiasm at solving puzzles in her world let me reason that I could do the same. Though I was not jet setting with my lawyer dad to exotic places, creeping up secret stairwells and hunting for treasures in gypsy camps, I lived as if I were. The world opened up for me when I began to investigate it. Nancy led the way into the great unknown and assured me that the world belonged to me. I learned early from her escapades that girls could be strong, smart and pretty.

By second grade, I was drawing up intricate games with maps, plots and charts for lunch hour adventures. With detailed descriptions of ghosts to bust, pirate treasure to excavate, and doorways to enter, I led my playmates through vivid and elaborate thrills. I was always Nancy, of course. One day another girl protested my assumed leadership, saying she was tired of being Nancy’s plump, meek sidekick, Bess. I hotly told her that when she began thinking for herself, designing the story and the maps, and doing things of her own initiative, she could be the leader. This was an early foreshadowing of a falling-out between us 20 years later: I was eventually unable to bear that this girl just couldn’t think on her own and patterned her every hobby, interest and thought after the paths I had forged from my own imagination. Ms Drew taught me that the world has room for many Nancies, but she must create herself and forge her own spunk and daring. Those without imaginative, passionate risk-taking would be left behind in River Heights while Nancy hobnobbed with lurking lake spirits, dancing puppets, and masked intruders.

Though each beloved tale was formulaic, the formula was a winning one- grab life by the horns, speak up for yourself, don’t be a wallflower, meet interesting characters, take risks but use your brain, and drive a blue convertible. Have a hot boyfriend, as well, but never let that be a reason to stay at home by the telephone. Be smart, be witty, be clever, and be curious. Live life fully. Live plucky.

I always wondered how Nancy could be so fearless in the face of adversary. Not one strawberry-blonde hair (or titian, in earlier renditions) was ever out of place even while Nancy confronted the darkest aspects of human nature and the deepest mysteries of the past. Thirty years later, having lived through a maelstrom of horrors and losses and terrors like early widowhood and clinical depression, I learned that beneath her flippant, fierce confidence Nancy was likely quaking in her boots, just like the rest of us, but went on to solve problems anyhow, not waiting for something or someone else to make sense of things for her.

The winning style of detective work here was simply investigation of the world around her. Sleuthing meant the requisite magnifying glass, it meant tunnels and spooks and ruins and secret rooms. But it also meant the library, travel, and lengthy talks with eccentric locals and yokels. It meant getting to the heart of the matter, learning from different people and places along the way. Every mystery involved exploring a different history from my own- or Nancy’s. The Mystery of the Ivory Charm transported us to India, where we learned something about elephant training in the circus. We clambered aboard the Bonny Scot and learned about figureheads and clipper ships in The Secret of the Wooden Lady. We added “cipher” to our vocabulary and learned about Incan ruins and Peruvian history in The Clue of the Crossword Cipher.  There’s voodoo, Morse codes, archeological digs in Mexico; we headed to Scotland for some bagpipes, tartan lore, and ancient Gaelic. The Mystery of the Fire Dragon took us to Hong Kong. We discovered rare books, the Cyclops, petroglyphs and geology, France, and larkspur cultivation.

Much has been made of our heroine Ms. Drew’s plucky, feisty charm and how it infused proper, delicate, meek little ladies with the adrenaline for adventure and imagination. Perhaps no other influence in history, including women’s accomplishments in science, spirituality, or art was quite as ferocious- Nancy was the preMadonna, the Yes I Can for so many generations of girls. Since 1930, Nancy’s indomitable, globetrotting spirit has captivated and catapulted young imaginations into greater realms. She taught us that you get right back up if you get knocked down.

The message wasn’t contrived or complicated: very simply, Nancy felt that a vibrant life meant a curious one, where education was important behind the scenes and on the field. In other words, living life meant getting off your ass.

The inaugural anthology produced by OCAD’s student press couldn’t be more elegant and smart. Shift: Positions-Thoughts on the Future of Design is an ambitious production by Amy Leaman and Ryan Planche, with editor Gordon S. Grice. This collection highlights forward-thinking ideas and idea of designers who care about the earth, and the zero-footprint production of the text proves this project is more than idealism. The collection features foreword by the iconic Ed Burtynsky, whose film Manufacturing Landscapes drew public attention to what our garbage looks like in China.

Not only is the production reflective of the sustainable solutions content, but the spare, lime-green and beige design by Lima Kim is gorgeous and sleek.

It’s always an honour to work with a class-act like Gonzalo Cardenas, and when he approached me to work on a love story about people and their objects, I could hardly wait to haul out my copy of Dr. Seuss’s environmentalist fable, The Lorax, to pepper our piece with “thneed” anecdotes. The good doctor coined the “thneed” as the thing that everybody needs. The Lorax is a grisly little cartoon fella who speaks on behalf of the truffula trees, which are all felled by the end of the story. Only one seed survives the massacre, a symbol of hope. Is True Love Possible Between People and Products? starts off a sterling selection by asking, “Do we know what to do with that truffula seed?”

A number of writers offer some real options for sustainable design, personal accountability, and a future in which we can breathe. It’s clear from a quick review of blogs and overheard chatter at the June 6 Gladstone Hotel launch that Chris Braden’s Depletism is the favourite. Braden has one-upped The Doctor by coining the term “depletist,” which we should use for anybody who is careless or hateful toward the earth, in the same way we should use ‘racist’ or “sexist’ or other isms. Braden argues effectively that having a vocabulary of accountability is like having a personal and social watchdog. He defines his term in his essay: “An individual or group demonstrating apparently negligent or reckless disregard for the environmental consequences of hs or her actions. An individual or group that exhausts non-renewable resources and rejects positive environmental strategies.” You watch now: the next time you think you need a car in the city or wipe your ass with the rainforest, you’ll call yourself a depletist. When your friend decides to throw out his 2006 computer system because there are new doodads on the 2007, you’ll hiss “depletist!” and not under your breath, either. Braden and the OCAD Think Tank are now full speed ahead with their mission.