In poetry, anything that can be eaten can also be read.
All poets are liars, and I love liars.
In poetry,
proximity equivalence
Saturday, February 28, 2009
Friday, February 27, 2009
Fast Food Saved My Life
I'm basically an average cook, and if I really want to, I can pull out the stops and create a pretty great meal, provided I follow some kind of recipe. Problem with me though, is I'm totally freaking lazy. I won't cook unless I have to, and with so much fast food available, I basically never have to really cook.
But what I want to mention here in this blog post is the issue of nutrition. Basically fast food restaurants have been honing their "meal deal" choices for the past 50 to 60 years. A balanced meal at a fast food joint consists of a burger, fries, and cola. I don't know how long exactly it got them to perfect the Big Mac / Whopper / Papa Burger to the point where it has all those veggies on it. The point is, they did, and if I were to want them to take the veggies off, I'd have to specifically ask.
"Meal number 1, please" is all I have to say in order to get an absolutely complete meal, with no missing pieces. Whereas if I'm cooking at home, even if I'm trying hard, sometimes I just forget to include certain elements, or sometimes I'm out of things like lettuce (truth be told, I'm never out of lettuce, the tomatoes get eaten much more quickly, the lettuce is more likely to rot in the crisper because I'm too lazy to rip it up). Fast food is better at giving me all the essential ingredients than I am. Nutritionists actually do work for these chains. No one works for me.
Now, maybe I do get higher than recommended levels of sodium, fat, saturated fat, trans fat, sugar, carbohydrates, and calories from fast food, oh wait, all those things are what food is made of! Those are the things that keep my muscles powered so I can live my life and go to work. Even if those were bad things, at least they would be outweighed by the fact that I'm getting enough of what I actually need, even if I'm getting too much of some things. Right?
But what I want to mention here in this blog post is the issue of nutrition. Basically fast food restaurants have been honing their "meal deal" choices for the past 50 to 60 years. A balanced meal at a fast food joint consists of a burger, fries, and cola. I don't know how long exactly it got them to perfect the Big Mac / Whopper / Papa Burger to the point where it has all those veggies on it. The point is, they did, and if I were to want them to take the veggies off, I'd have to specifically ask.
"Meal number 1, please" is all I have to say in order to get an absolutely complete meal, with no missing pieces. Whereas if I'm cooking at home, even if I'm trying hard, sometimes I just forget to include certain elements, or sometimes I'm out of things like lettuce (truth be told, I'm never out of lettuce, the tomatoes get eaten much more quickly, the lettuce is more likely to rot in the crisper because I'm too lazy to rip it up). Fast food is better at giving me all the essential ingredients than I am. Nutritionists actually do work for these chains. No one works for me.
Now, maybe I do get higher than recommended levels of sodium, fat, saturated fat, trans fat, sugar, carbohydrates, and calories from fast food, oh wait, all those things are what food is made of! Those are the things that keep my muscles powered so I can live my life and go to work. Even if those were bad things, at least they would be outweighed by the fact that I'm getting enough of what I actually need, even if I'm getting too much of some things. Right?
Monday, February 16, 2009
Poet Laureatism
I just did a quick web search on "poet laureate" trying to understand what this title means and what the job entails. Obviously people who are poet laureates know what it is they're supposed to be doing as such, but I think most Canadians don't really know what a poet laureate does. Even though we don't know what it is that poet laureates do, the title itself carries a great deal of weight and distinction. When we hear the words "poet laureate" we are all immediately very impressed.
It seems though that poet laureatism has always been a kind of vaguely defined description, indicating that someone who has a government job has taken an interest in a particular poet. The first poet laureates were just the literary types who happened to hang around the court of the monarch. They needed an official title and reason for being there, so a position was created. I think a lot of positions were created this way, but we've lost a good many of them over the centuries. I guess it is a sign of its significance that the post of poet laureate hasn't changed as much as other ceremonial positions.
Until recently, poet laureatism was something that played out on a national stage, or at a state level. A country or state could have a poet laureate, but it has been a little bit more rare for a province, or a city to have a poet laureate. Yet in recent years, it seems that more and more smaller political units have been appointing poet laureates.
The good thing about this is that it shows smaller and smaller units claiming identity, which I believe is a move in the right direction. The best form of identification is as the individual, and the worst form is the nation. Anything that breaks the nation down closer to individuals is good. Creating a poet laureate is a step towards nationhood, and the more and smaller nations we have in this world, the happier I will be.
On the other hand, legitimacy is a sort of a shackles for a poet, and to recognize one person as more officially poetic than another, this rubs me the wrong way. I don't mind government appointing official archivers and recorders of poetry, but to recognize an official creator is to denounce everyone else who is creating. Obviously, the smaller the territory, the less of a problem this is. I'd much rather have each city of 100,000 have its own poet laureate than the nation of 30,000,000 presume to have a single person who manages to speak for all of them.
Still, no poet can speak for 100,000 people.
It seems though that poet laureatism has always been a kind of vaguely defined description, indicating that someone who has a government job has taken an interest in a particular poet. The first poet laureates were just the literary types who happened to hang around the court of the monarch. They needed an official title and reason for being there, so a position was created. I think a lot of positions were created this way, but we've lost a good many of them over the centuries. I guess it is a sign of its significance that the post of poet laureate hasn't changed as much as other ceremonial positions.
Until recently, poet laureatism was something that played out on a national stage, or at a state level. A country or state could have a poet laureate, but it has been a little bit more rare for a province, or a city to have a poet laureate. Yet in recent years, it seems that more and more smaller political units have been appointing poet laureates.
The good thing about this is that it shows smaller and smaller units claiming identity, which I believe is a move in the right direction. The best form of identification is as the individual, and the worst form is the nation. Anything that breaks the nation down closer to individuals is good. Creating a poet laureate is a step towards nationhood, and the more and smaller nations we have in this world, the happier I will be.
On the other hand, legitimacy is a sort of a shackles for a poet, and to recognize one person as more officially poetic than another, this rubs me the wrong way. I don't mind government appointing official archivers and recorders of poetry, but to recognize an official creator is to denounce everyone else who is creating. Obviously, the smaller the territory, the less of a problem this is. I'd much rather have each city of 100,000 have its own poet laureate than the nation of 30,000,000 presume to have a single person who manages to speak for all of them.
Still, no poet can speak for 100,000 people.
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