Blog Appearances/It must be Christmas time

Christmas is coming up fast and inevitably I'll be spending less time blogging (and more time watching Christmas movies, listening to my favourite holiday music, eating the chocolate and cinnamon chip cookies I plan to bake today and hopefully figuring out how to kill yet more angry giant insects in Wii game Escape From Bug Island).

Although you won't see me around here as often I'll be making appearances on other blogs during the holiday season. You can catch up with me here:

December 18: Reading is Bliss - Guest Blog
December 23: Juiciliciousss Reviews - Interview
TBA: Books Obsession - Interview

And now I have to get back to listening to that magical Pretenders tune. It's true, it's colder day by day. And listening to Chrissie Hynde sing about diamonds in the snow makes me love that.

Our Lady Peace Canadian Tour

Canadian Our Lady Peace fans probably already know that they're doing an extremely cool Canadian tour this coming March through May where they'll play the Clumsy and Spiritual Machines albums in their entirety on 2 separate nights. The second set will be a selection of songs from their other albums.

As if that's not exciting enough their Toronto dates are at my favourite T.O. venue, Massey Hall. The only trouble is, how to choose between such two amazing albums. And so I pored over the albums and what it came down to is, I can't miss the chance to see OLP sing the song Clumsy live. Maybe they'll play it on the Spiritual Machines night anyway, but well, if I have to choose I've gotta go with the sure thing.

And what about 4 AM for that matter? Can't miss that either. Automatic Flowers. Superman's Dead...But hey, how about Life, In Repair and Right Behind You from Spirtual Machines. Do you see the torture I've been dealing with this morning!

I was an OLP fan before One Lonely Degree but writing about main character Finn and her feelings about Our Lady Peace actually made me an even bigger one and now I can't really hear the band without thinking about her. I almost wouldn't be surprised to see her at the Massey Hall gig in March and, you know, I bet she has better tickets than me and is going both nights. One of the big questions this gives rise to is, who would Finn be at the concert with? I'm going to scope out the first few rows in front of the stage and take a close look at the redheads to see if I can figure out the answer. If anyone catches sight of her on the Spiritual Machines night let me know!

Read more about OLP's Canadian tour and next album on Chart Attack

Finn Kavanagh of One Lonely Degree writes about Our Lady Peace on Shooting Stars Mag before the release of Burn, Burn last May.

Kirkus Closing

I'm sad to hear the news that seventy-six year old American review journal Kirkus is closing. On a personal level I feel very grateful to Kirkus for putting I Know It's Over on people's radar. On a general level I think this is bad for every single author out there.

The announcement was in Publishers Lunch today:

The publishing world's concerns about declining review space will only become more severe with this morning's news that Nielsen Business Media has "made the decision to cease operations" at Kirkus Reviews (as well as Editor & Publisher.) The news came as the company announced the sale of the Hollywood Reporter, Billboard, and six other media brands to Guggenheim Partners and Pluribus Capital Management. Nielsen is retaining ownership of The Bookseller in the UK.

The memo from Nielsen Business Media president Greg Farrar does not indicate what will become of the Kirkus archives, and whether there will be any effort to sell the operation. As Ron Charles at the Washington Post Book World tweeted: "Worst news in a long time: Kirkus shutting down. For me, they were the last reliable source of negative reviews."

That same edition of Publishers Lunch notes that, “Amazon has quietly pushed the [ebook] discounting envelope even further, at least on a small set of delayed big releases. The new books from Sarah Palin and Steven King, both of which release in Kindle format right around Christmas, can now be pre-ordered for the lower-still price of $7.99. That's also the pre-order price for Ted Kennedy's True Compass, which Twelve has apparently decided to release in ebook form after all, also on Christmas.”

I think if life were like a blockbuster movie these things would be some of those (not so) early signs that an enormous meteor (or other cataclysmic life-destroying event) is about to hit the publishing world. And, like in the movie 2012, we sort of knew it was coming but thought we had more time. I'm looking around for John Cusack as I type this, to see if he has any ideas for surviving the upcoming calamity or whether I should just, like, go back to school and become an accountant or something because, you know, once the ebook format takes over (hello bargain basement prices and mass piracy!) it's looking as though authors won't be able to make a living (not that most of us ever really could but there goes the lunch money even!).

Canada Wins Fossil Award

This was in the Toronto Star yesterday:

It's only been one day, but Canada has already garnered its first "fossil" award. The award, which is given to countries who are blocking progress at the United Nations climate summit, is awarded daily by a coalition of 400 international NGOs.

According to organizers, Canada was awarded a Fossil of the Day for its commitment to stand on its targets and not to negotiate them throughout the conference.

At a speech in Montreal on Friday, Environment Minister Jim Prentice said that he “wont be swayed by the Copenhagen hype.”

I'm sure Emperor Harper is still beaming with pride today, as all the rest of the Tories punch the air and rave about how they're not going to get suckered into helping save the environment because damnit that costs $ and we should be able to trash our own backyard if we want to, leave shamelessly heavy carbon footprints, exhaust natural resources etc. And who cares about polar bears, seals and other species anyway, they don't even pay taxes!

Yes, indeed we should be so very proud that our country, unlike more rational nations which would like the planet to continue housing us for a few more years, just doesn't give a sweet damn about anyone or anything except money (which will be used to construct Emperor Harper's future Death Star).

Emperor Harper and one of his minions supervise the destuction of the environment and the creation of dirty fossil fuel at the Alberta Tar Sands.

Darth Harper/Darth Canada

I've been saying for some time now that Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper is actually an evil Sith Lord:

Say Yes to Carbon

What Canadian Voters (Inexplicably) Want

Stephen Harper: Ordinary People Don't Care about Arts Funding

Tories Slipping From Majority

Stephen Harper says, “These Aren't The Droids You're Looking For”

Easter Greetings From Our PM

Funny how that fact seems to be more widely recognized abroad than it does in Canada. I'm not sure whether that means we're not too bright in this part of the world (brain freeze?) or whether we're just too apathetic. Either way, there's no denying that we royally suck.

As one close observer of of international climate change talks said leading up to Copenhagen, “Canada has become the Darth Vader of the G8 in particular. The marks they now get regularly from the environmental groups are last place.”

Yep, not only is Stephen Harper really Darth Harper underneath the suit, tie and wind-resistant hairstyle, if we keep letting Harper get away with steering Canada in the direction of doing as little as humanly possible to fight climate change we're all acting in support of the destructive Empire.

Do we need the Ewoks to come over here and kick our asses in order for us to realize what we're allowing to happen here?