The Authenticity Hoax

What Stephen Harper could say about the Senate spending scandal

Sat, 18 May 2013 18:16:00 -0400

Look, everyone knows my preference is for an elected Senate. I only started appointing senators when most provinces refused to go along with elections, and the status quo was becoming constitutionally untenable.

I appointed people who I thought would advance the interests of reform, while ably serving the Senate in its current form. Most of my appointments have been successful, but a few have been — quite obviously — a disaster. I regret these appointments, and these people are no longer in the Conservative caucus.

I take full responsibility for these problematic appointments. But I think it underscores this fact: there is no better judge of the character and ability of parliamentarians than the collective judgment of the people.

And so again, I call on the premiers of all provinces to join me in my desire for an elected senate, starting immediately. I will ask for a meeting of all first ministers as soon as possible to try to get an agreement on this. Those who don’t agree will have to answer to their own constituents.

"Sticking to an agenda in meetings is what separates us from the apes. Or should."

Sun, 21 Apr 2013 23:01:03 -0400

“Sticking to an agenda in meetings is what separates us from the apes. Or should.”

- (via meetingboy)

The cock ‘n balls graffito is the inukshuk of the Canadian...

Mon, 18 Mar 2013 21:41:57 -0400

The cock ‘n balls graffito is the inukshuk of the Canadian douchebag tribe.

How to shake a black man’s hand (via The Browser)

Sat, 23 Feb 2013 10:16:20 -0500

How to shake a black man’s hand (via The Browser)

Harlemites react to the Harlem Shake. The best part starts at...

Thu, 21 Feb 2013 22:49:01 -0500

Harlemites react to the Harlem Shake. The best part starts at 2:37.

We Are What We Love yarnbomb

Tue, 29 Jan 2013 09:14:00 -0500

We Are What We Love yarnbomb

When 1992 met 2012, or, Jessica Allen is genius

Fri, 28 Dec 2012 08:41:56 -0500

What would happen if a young couple form 1992 went on a dinner date in 2012? Jessica Allen of Maclean’s imagines how the ordering would go down. It gets more brilliant with each reading:

Woman: Sweetie, look at these little clipboards! Aren’t they adorable?

Man: Everything has bacon in it.

Woman: I think the future sounds tasty!

Fairytale of New York

Mon, 24 Dec 2012 20:50:06 -0500

Fairytale of New York

Ravi Shankar loved George Harrison like a son, but not so fond...

Thu, 13 Dec 2012 10:10:56 -0500

Ravi Shankar loved George Harrison like a son, but not so fond of hippies

Winnipeg: Shithole, ergo, Authentic

Thu, 13 Dec 2012 10:05:00 -0500

The Spectator Tribune has a nice bit of road-warrior angst from Matt Schellenberg of the Winnipeg band Royal Canoe. It’s got some nuggets of insight, from way hipster culture has become franchised to an acute understanding of the standard trajectory of cool:

Word gets around and people flock to see the real thing. First are the true artists, then the less artistic hipsters, then anyone ages 18 to 35 who knows who Arcade Fire is all the way until the invitation is open. This real thing becomes fetishized, and so goes the progression from Harvey Milk to your mom taking a picture of the Amoeba Music sign on Haight by the McDonald’s. Portlandia is my case in point.

But like the guy from Iowa who visits England and finds that everyone speaks with an accent, Schellenberg can’t quite think himself clear of the underlying dynamic. All those other cities might be caught up in the hamster wheel of cool-mainstream-nostalgic-camp, but not his hometown:

Which leads me to why Winnipeg is so great: it’s what everyone is searching for. A bunch of people holed up in their basements during godforsaken cold-as-hell winter making art no-one will ever see or hear. Throwing little art gallery parties that will never be immortalized in film, or have a $135 ticket. Spending your summer biking around with Ben Jones or listening to Smoky Tiger’s incoherent hobby genius.

This is the real shit. It’s a resource you are completely unaware of until you go somewhere else and get a bit of perspective. What’s so great is Winnipeg is too much of a shithole for it to ever be discovered or ironically enjoyed, and it’s all ours.

New World Cosmopolitanism

Thu, 29 Nov 2012 15:00:00 -0500

A complex web of cultural relations had developed between Europeans and American Indians long before Champlain came to the new world. The northern coast acquired a unique trading language, a pidgin speech borrowed from many tongues. Much of it was Basque and Algonquian.

A startling example is the word Iroquois. Linguists conclude that it was a complex coinage in the pidgin speech of the North American coast — a French understanding of an Algonquian version of two Basque words that meant “killer people”. The term was well established when Champlain became the first to publish it in 1603.

— David Hackett Fischer, Champlain’s Dream.

Mine Kafon: It’s probably impractical, but this is a big...

Tue, 20 Nov 2012 08:35:17 -0500

Mine Kafon: It’s probably impractical, but this is a big ball of brilliance for clearing mines in Afghanistan.

athinkingstone: In this episode, we discuss selling out,...

Wed, 14 Nov 2012 22:42:17 -0500

athinkingstone:

In this episode, we discuss selling out, countercultures, and authenticity with Andrew Potter, the author of “The Authenticity Hoax.” Afterward, I eat a Chewie Chewbacca Chocolate Chip vegan cookie and read a study about the sugar high and hyperactivity.

This is fantastic.

Mon, 29 Oct 2012 07:43:49 -0400

This is fantastic.

Is Romney authentic? Does it matter?

Sun, 28 Oct 2012 22:07:00 -0400

Anthony Goodman has a good little OpEd in the Financial Times, exploring the problems that arise when a leader’s attempts at being “authentic” — in either a corporate or political setting — run up against the limits imposed by his or her constituents. The key point, I think:

authenticity can also be awkward when a leader is so wrapped in their own need to be real that they cannot compromise with others.

The link is here.

"[T]hat quest for the authentic, is the very thing that causes the world to seem so unreal and..."

Thu, 18 Oct 2012 16:47:54 -0400

“

[T]hat quest for the authentic, is the very thing that causes the world to seem so unreal and staged.

People can’t stop themselves from competing for status. It is branded into the side of the brain before you are born. As a primate, status hierarchies are a part of life, and when you remove yourself from the competition in the mainstream you just join the competition in the counterculture. As long as there are clusters of people bent on avoiding what is most popular, within those clusters people will compete for status through conspicuous consumption of art and fashion, music and movies, furniture and gadgets, signaling to insiders the quality of their taste or the ingenuity of their search for the authentic, and signaling to the outsiders that they are not one of them.

”

- David McRaney of You Are Not So Smart fame interviews Andrew Potter, author of The Authenticity Hoax.

(As James Thurber famously put it, “Why do you have to be a nonconformist like everybody else?”)

Dear Editor: Update On Aliens. I get reader mail…

Thu, 18 Oct 2012 16:46:02 -0400

Dear Editor: Update On Aliens. I get reader mail…

Death, here is thy sting

Fri, 21 Sep 2012 16:45:21 -0400

Death, here is thy sting:

My review of Christopher Hitchens’ last little book, Mortality.

My city editor went to America and all I got was this awesome...

Tue, 04 Sep 2012 14:16:51 -0400

My city editor went to America and all I got was this awesome t-shirt.

I guess this guy didn’t like his morning paper.

Tue, 28 Aug 2012 13:39:23 -0400

I guess this guy didn’t like his morning paper.