Author Archives: Theryn

Milestones

(Not the restaurant chain.)

I haven’t been very good at marking milestones of late. But apparently it’ll make me happier if I do, so what the hey… I picked up my diploma on Monday. Only 4 months after my degree was official, 8 months after I deposited my thesis, 9 months after I defended, and 11 months after I actually finished writing it. Needless to say, after all that waiting, it was a little anti-climactic (Fall is officially the worst semester* to finish if you want closure!). Hence skipping convocation—well, that and a) I’ve been to enough graduations; I know the drill b) we went up to the Okanagan last Friday instead and c) I do plan to go to my PhD convocation (come on! you get to wear the poofy hat and garish outfit! of course I’m going to that!), so you know, I think that’ll cover it.

Anyhow, when I saw Debbie’s comic this morning and went “Hey! That’s what I did! For reals! It’s even in my TC bio!” (which I guess I need to update now) I knew I had to write this post so I could share the comic.

Blog writerP.S. I do finally have the hard copy of my thesis, but it’s not online yet. !!!

*Actually a trimester. No idea why they call them semesters. (From uni website: “The University operates on a trimester basis with three semesters…” ?!?)

Writing for Nonreaders in the Postprint Era

Maybe this is what I should take this summer…

Course Description

As print takes its place alongside smoke signals, cuneiform, and hollering, there has emerged a new literary age, one in which writers no longer need to feel encumbered by the paper cuts, reading, and excessive use of words traditionally associated with the writing trade. Writing for Nonreaders in the Postprint Era focuses on the creation of short-form prose that is not intended to be reproduced on pulp fibers.

Hmm, let’s see… Do I have the prereqs?

Prerequisites

Students must have completed at least two of the following.

ENG: 232WR—Advanced Tweeting: The Elements of Droll
LIT: 223—Early-21st-Century Literature: 140 Characters or Less
ENG: 102—Staring Blankly at Handheld Devices While Others Are Talking
ENG: 301—Advanced Blog and Book Skimming
ENG: 231WR—Facebook Wall Alliteration and Assonance
LIT: 202—The Literary Merits of Lolcats
LIT: 209—Internet-Age Surrealistic Narcissism and Self-Absorption

Ooh! Looks like I just squeak in there on the merits of Lit223 and Eng301! (Too bad I failed Eng231WR for not showing up to class. ;-))

@McSweeney’s

2: The Mysteries of Pittsburgh

The Mysteries of Pittsburgh by Michael Chabon

The Mysteries of Pittsburgh

Ok, so I really like the movie Wonder Boys. Wonder Boys the movie is based on a book written by Michael Chabon.

At the time I first saw the movie, that name meant nothing to me, but a few years back, I stumbled across a short-lived blog written by Ayelet Waldman (Bad Mother). I’d never heard of her before that, either, but the blog was funny. Anyhow… somewhere in there I learned that she was married to Michael Chabon, who was supposedly a Great Writer. O rly? So I guess I Wikipediaed him or something and made the Wonder Boys connection.

Fast-forward to one of our annual pilgrimages to The Book Shop in Penticton, and I spot The Mysteries of Pittsburgh by Michael Chabon. It’s not Wonder Boys, but I decide to give it a shot. Especially since one of the cover blurbs compares it to The Catcher in the Rye. O rly? How come I’ve never heard of it then? And why is everything compared to TCitR?

Aside: Honestly, sometimes I feel like I’m living on another planet literature-wise. I’ve read a lot of books, a great many of which would be classified as literature, and yet… too frequently the litblogosphere will be fussing all over someone and I’ll be all “who?” (David Foster Wallace) or “obviously I know who he is, but I’ve never read him—am I the only one?” (John Updike). I’m starting to think maybe I have a (perhaps deliberate) blind spot for white male American literary authors with a certain pedigree: the kind of dudes who used to have BAs from Ivy League schools, professorships in English departments, wear tweed jackets with suede elbow patches and smoke pipes and now have MFAs from Ivy League schools, professorships in creative writing departments, wear black T-shirts and well-worn jeans and smoke well, you know.

So anyway… Michael Chabon. The Mysteries of Pittsburgh. Well, first of all, apparently he wrote this when he was 24, so props to him. When I was 24… well, actually 24 was a pretty good year for me. But I didn’t write a novel.

I actually found TMoP pretty entertaining, but not realistic. at. all. It’s about this dude (Art) who’s on the verge of graduating from university and works at a bookstore having a bit o’ an existential crisis. His friends/romantic interests are all quirky oddballs (of course). So far pretty standard early-twenties stuff. Except then it goes all Sopranos. Yes, his dad is a noted mobster. And one of his friends is a low-level enforcer. It displeases dear ol’ dad that he’s associating with such a lowlife. Etcetera. So it ends up kind of surreal. Which may or may not float your boat, but there it is.

As for the comparisons to CitR… I didn’t really find this to be a coming-of-age story so much as an “ordinary person in improbable situation” story. Like Nancy Botwin in Weeds. Except not as deep and with less-interesting characters (esp. the female ones).

In conclusion, I’m not buying the Literary God rhetoric, but I still want to read Wonder Boys.

This is what I thought I heard…

…on the news (Global) last night, but I thought maybe I’d missed something. Apparently not.

The CBC headline and first paragraph (emphasis mine):

Gifted doctor, fiancée killed in weekend hit-and-run in Vancouver

An 18-year-old man is facing numerous impaired-driving charges after a weekend hit-and-run in Vancouver that killed a gifted cardiologist and his new fiancée as they were crossing a street.

Now, this is a terrible story and I’m not in any way making light of it, but… why is the man “a gifted cardiologist” and the woman just “his fiancee”? He was also her fiance and she was… well, I assume she was something besides his fiancee. It’s 2009, not 1909.

Now, I’m aware that pointing out this kind of stuff is why people hate feminists. They call it nitpicking. I say language matters. Framing matters. The fact is, at least two separate news sources reported the story the same way and apparently no one at either network thought there was anything wrong with identifying the couple this way (and the CBC is supposed to be progressive).  I find that problematic.