“The Suburban Inmate:” Substance over Style

Whether you enjoy Allan Thorn’s self-published book, The Suburban Inmate: A Man’s Guide to Surviving Prison, may depend to some degree on whether or not you’re actually a suburban man heading to prison. The closer you are to facing the situations Thorn describes, the less likely you may be to quibble about his writing style.

My initial impression - being a woman who is not heading to prison - and also used to more formal writing - inevitably had more to do with stylistic issues than with the content of the book. “I really wish he’d use fewer exclamation marks…and he does tend to ramble off-topic now and then, doesn’t he?”

It’s true that the exclamation marks are a bit overdone; I’m not sure anyone really! exclaims! that! much! in normal conversation. Even though Thorn warns prospective inmates that they should get used to yelling (since there’s a lot of that in prison), one would assume that he doesn’t really want to be yelling at his readers.

The occasional off-topic ramble makes a couple of chapters into a more stream-of-consciousness read, which can be entertaining but also a bit distracting. When he returns to the subject, you find yourself thinking, “Oh right, we were talking about that, weren’t we?” And the extensive digression about the lack of proper sex education in schools, and the Catholic church’s problems with celibacy and sex, completely interrupted the flow and didn’t have much to do with the actual intent of the book. Those are valid issues, and whole books could be written about them - just not this book.

So in the beginning, I wasn’t that impressed. But in the end, The Suburban Inmate really does grow on you, as you get to know and like several of Thorn’s fellow prisoners. And there’s a lot of useful information packed into such a small volume, like what sorts of bartering you can do with food items, how to be on good terms with your case manager so you can get a better job while inside, and even the attitudes and lingo to adopt so you don’t appear weak (and therefore, project yourself as “easy prey”).

Nor does Thorn shy away from addressing issues about sex between inmates. He’s as honest as possible about what a person can expect to face while behind bars. And he has a lot to teach about actually turning the prison experience into something almost pleasant, to help you grow and become a better person. If a reader takes away nothing else, Thorn’s optimistic belief that everyone deserves forgiveness and can be (or become) a good person is extremely valuable for someone facing prison.

Which is why my own stylistic issues with the book may not be all that important, after all. Thorn writes to a very specific demographic, and few men on the verge of prison are going to read this book and think, “I’m not crazy about all those exclamation marks.” He’s not giving a speech to a business conference, he’s talking like a buddy, the way he’d talk in real life - exclamations and digressions and all. Most of all, he’s providing reassurance that his readers can survive the prison experience, and furthermore, is offering tips on how to do exactly that.

So while some people (raises hand) may have trouble with the writing style, a young man about to go to prison may devour every word of this book and not care a fig about the style. He’s just looking for a life preserver, and The Suburban Inmate may be just that.

Exorcising our childhood

Who’d have thought I would enjoy an exorcism quite so much?

The idea was simple: people were just supposed to show up at the Gladstone Hotel ballroom, bringing little stories, poems, or diary entries they’d written years ago as children or young teenagers, and be prepared to read the things to a crowd of total strangers. Easy as pie, right?

I can sense you breaking into a cold sweat already, just thinking about it. Me too.

But as a large crowd sat and listened on Monday evening, 15-20 people did indeed get up on stage, one after the other, to read short pieces written during their ancient childhood. The evening, called “Grownups Read Things They Wrote as Kids,” was hosted by Dan Misener, a frequent contributor to the CBC Radio One program, “GO!” He got the ball rolling by reading a plan he’d made when he was 11, called something like, “My Life 20 Years From Now.”

He had everything laid out, including the design of his house on the moon, his prowess as an inventor, and the fact that he would have three children of very specific ages and genders — two biological children and one adopted. The adult Dan expressed relief that since he was not yet 31, there was still time to accomplish the plan.

Then he opened the floor to the other readings. Teenage haikus written to a favourite wrestler in the (at the time) World Wrestling Federation. A letter to Canadian sprinter Donovan Bailey (never mailed, of course). Several poems. Predictable riddles, created by a ten-year old. Two mysteries in the style of Magnum, P.I., by a kid who fancied himself an embryonic international detective.

I’ve never laughed so hard at a public event in my entire life. One woman promised that her poem was “from teenagedom,” penned when she was in grade 10. And the moment she read the first line — “So what if I feel like dying, and the light has left my heart” — we howled till we choked. One likes to believe it’s a bit of a myth, all that talk about teenage angst, but darnit. The stereotype obviously came from somewhere.

Then there was the slightly older man reading a diary entry from 1977, when he had experienced his first acid trip. “I came to two major conclusions,” his 15-year old self recorded earnestly, “which I wrote on the bathroom wall…”

Make no mistake, though - we weren’t laughing at the readers, we were laughing with them. And they weren’t really laughing at themselves either, but at those weird, immature strangers who used to inhabit their bodies. You could almost see the declaration glowing from them as they read: “Isn’t this ridiculous, and by the way — this wasn’t me.“

The exercise was certainly liberating for all the readers. As they read, they shed whatever discomfort or embarrassment might still have lingered from all those years ago. You could almost see them leaving the stage with a lighter step, knowing that they’d come a long, long way since they’d been that funny young person with all those weird ideas.

It was almost a religious experience. Christmas, perhaps. Maybe a visit from the Easter Bunny.

Or, as the young man two seats down from me had written in his grade one notebook - the ESTR BUNE.

I hear there’s going to be another reading night in the fall. I know I have some boxes of old stuff in the closet. I wonder…

“The Sacred” - a Concrete or Abstract Matter?

What if someone asked you to put a pin on the map of your city or town, on the spot you consider your personal “sacred space”?

The different responses to such a suggestion might surprise you. For some, their “sacred space” could be the location of their first kiss. For others, perhaps a peaceful park nestled amongst downtown highrises. For me in Toronto, it’s probably the Distillery District - not the shops, galleries, restaurants, and theatres, but the ghost of the past distillery that lurks behind them all.

These places might not be traditionally “sacred,” but personal judgements may be all we can resort to, since Canada no longer has a single sacred tradition that encompasses the whole culture. That, at least, is the opinion of three authors - two architects and one philosopher - who presented their books last week at the Harbourfront Centre’s International Readings event entitled “Architecture and Sacred Space.”

The evening could almost have been two separate events: the presentation of the books themselves, and then a panel discussion. Because the actual books were not about sacred space, but about concrete. Yes, you heard right. And what does concrete have to do with sacred space? Good question.

The discussions of concrete architecture might have received more in-depth treatment if the books had been considered alone; it wasn’t always clear why they were presented in a meeting about sacred space. Yet as architects Michael McClelland and Graeme Stewart presented short readings and slides from their co-edited book, Concrete Toronto: A Guidebook to Concrete Architecture from the fifties to the seventies, it gradually became obvious that Toronto’s concrete construction during those years had a spirit to it, a thrust not just toward size, but also toward beauty. This suggested a first tenuous connection between concrete buildings and sacred space.

University of Toronto philosophy professor Mark Kingwell, presenting his book, Concrete Reveries: Consciousness and the City, inched a little closer to “the sacred” as he discussed how a city is an organic manifestation of the consciousness of the citizens who build and move through it. He demonstrated, with slides, photos, and maps, how cities exist in a tension between the “planned” (as in the strict grid the original planners tried to impose on Manhattan) and the “inhabited” (where the grid had give way, in places, to Manhattan’s inherent geography, because the island “insisted on itself”).

But it wasn’t until the three authors participated in the panel, moderated by Lisa Rapoport of PLANT Architect Inc, that sacred space was addressed directly.

McClelland envisions the sacred as an ability to pull out of everyday life, in order to dream. He believes one responsibility of an architect is to help create a city’s dreamscape. Yet he, unlike Rapoport, doesn’t believe there is something inherent in any architectural form that promotes this. Rather, any building, even a “sacred” one, is invested with meaning by the beliefs of the culture in which it is created.

For Stewart, people can recast any space as sacred, on a personal or community level. He described an interesting life cycle of how we often view buildings: those of the recent past become “rejected” (e.g. our current view of concrete architecture from the 50’s and 60’s); buildings of the distant past become “canonical” (e.g. Toronto’s Old City Hall, which was once viewed with disdain); and architecture of the future becomes “exciting,” because anything is possible.

Kingwell, too, thinks of “profound possibilities” as being part of how we create sacred space; we cross a threshold into a space that allows us to perceive another mode of being. This can be a large community square, or even an intersection of streets.

The discussion ranged animatedly as the speakers tried to define the sacred and imagine how architecture can help foster this sensibility. But the odd bifurcation of the evening was never entirely overcome, and the relation of “concrete” to “sacred space” was never entirely established.

Do I want to read these books, following the evening’s activities? I don’t actually know. If the evening had only considered concrete buildings and their significance, perhaps yes. But we were left with only tantalizing glimpses of some quite beautiful concrete architecture as it sailed by in the slide presentations. Unable to decide, I remain suspended between the two: the concrete of the buildings and the abstract of “the sacred.”

 

Prince Caspian: a prince worth waiting for

I warn you: I can’t be objective about this movie. I grew up reading and rereading the Chronicles of Narnia, so seeing my well-loved stories made real before my very eyes is a thrill. Here is the word made living, beautiful flesh. The thought gives me goosebumps.

But maybe I can manage some objectivity. After seeing earlier attempts to bring The Lord of the Rings to life - one odious cartoon version springs to mind - I said for years that I’d rather nobody ever tried it, than to have someone ruin it so badly. Yet I can say, about watching Prince Caspian, that I never felt the way I did when I watched that cartoon Lord of the Rings. There was no sensation that this story was ruined and should never have been attempted. So it was probably done right, or very close to right.

I still love the casting of the Pevensie children. All four actors are capable of expressing at one moment the youthful enthusiasms, naivete, or even peevishness of kids and teenagers, and a minute later, the nobility of young kings and queens of Narnia. William Moseley in particular carries off the complex emotions of Peter - the boy who was once High King, but now must pass the torch of leadership to another and attempt a new, harder task: becoming an adult in his own unmagical world.

The person to whom he passes that torch - Ben Barnes as Caspian - believably portrays a dashing, almost fairy tale prince, yet with enough vulnerabilities and flaws that he isn’t cloying. It was an interesting choice, giving him and other Telmarines a loosely Spanish accent and culture, but it made sense, given their ancestors’ origin in our world. For the most part, Barnes pulls it off, adding an exotic edge to his character. In a way, it even augments the tension between Peter and Caspian; the Telmarine prince must seem terribly “foreign” to this very British boy, making it harder to surrender control.

The surrounding characters are also portrayed with convincing, dramatic realism, from the sly, dangerous Miraz (Sergio Castellitto), to the grumpy dwarf Trumpkin (Peter Dinklage), to the deliciously over-chivalrous mouse Reepicheep, voiced by Eddie Izzard.

And speaking of Reepicheep…the special effects clearly are not included just for the “coolness” factor. You never feel that the CGI creatures - centaurs, talking mice, minotaurs etc. - are there to make you look at them; rather, they’re there because the plot demands it. Though I confess…when the trees finally wake up, and the river spirit makes an appearance…it really is spectacularly cool. (Told you I couldn’t be objective.)

One thing people wonder, given Narnia author C.S. Lewis’s evangelistic leanings, is whether his allegorical elements might become overpowering. They’re still there, in Prince Caspian, but more subtly than in the first film. In this movie, we deal with losing faith when apparently abandoned by one’s ideal, yet finding courage to fight through doubt. The faith remains directed toward Lewis’s Christ-figure, but Aslan doesn’t even appear until the end. He stands more as a symbol of hope than as a specific religious figure.

The film is definitely darker and more action-packed than the first movie, but the original story was also darker. The battle scenes demonstrate that the Narnian folk seek something very much worth fighting for.

I can think of only two things I would change in this movie. I would add more wonder and mystery to the discovery that the ancient tales of magic in Narnia were true, and to the reawakening of the powers. Lucy’s dream about the tree spirits comes close, but otherwise there is little of the loss and yearning for those ancient wonders that was there in the book.

My other change is prosaic: we hardly hear the names of the “old Narnians.” They are rarely officially introduced, so we have to rely on someone addressing them in conversation so we know their names. I had to read the closing credits to be reminded that the head centaur was Glenstorm, and the squirrel was Patterwig. But that’s a minor complaint.

On the whole, I’m as delighted as I hoped to be by this film. It was wonderful to see the story that enchanted me when I was growing up become a living, breathing thing before my eyes.

 

If We Are What We Eat…Redux

“Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.”

Thus journalist Michael Pollan begins his book, In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto. And once he makes his case for returning to a diet without processed foods, you see that those three rules are truly as simple as they look.

But first, the complicated bits. Raj Patel recently demonstrated how the agro-industrial complex has almost taken over the world’s food supply, to the vast detriment of, well, everything. (Countries’ economies, small farms, food quality, people’s health etc.) His book, Stuffed and Starved, looked mostly at the macro level of the world’s food systems, from the viewpoint of a former World Bank employee.

Now Pollan delves into the same history, showing us more of the micro level: how the agro-capitalist takeover has undermined the health and well-being of millions of people, and how it’s getting worse very, very quickly.

It’s called the “Western diet.” And wherever it has spread, since the early twentieth century, observers have noted a drastic rise in heart disease, diabetes, and obesity, alongside an astonishing increase in malnourishment. It consists of massive volumes of highly-processed foods (Pollan calls them “edible food-like substances”), marketed by corporations, prepared and eaten quickly, in large portions of non-nutritious, empty calories. (Even supposedly healthy fruits and vegetables now suffer from the same problem.)

And it goes hand-in-hand with what Gyorgy Scrinis labelled “nutritionism” - an almost religious belief in isolating “nutrients” in food, which then requires a scientific high priesthood to decree which nutrients can be processed out, and which must be processed back into our new, improved imitations of food.

The first problem, says Pollan, is that science can only talk about nutrients it’s discovered - and there are thousands it hasn’t isolated yet, even in simpler foods. And food scientists rarely examine how nutrients interact with each other (especially if they haven’t discovered them all), so it’s no wonder they’re always finding a new “essential nutrient” that becomes the latest rage. One year, it’s trans fats (look how that turned out!), another year it’s oat bran; this year it’s Vitamin D.

So nutrients don’t do what they’re supposed to, scientists study more, add other nutrients that don’t seem to work, study again, add other nutrients, and on it goes. You start wondering what logic justifies processing out the original nutrients if they’re just going to have to add them back in again, hoping they’ll work this time. (One guess: huge corporate profits!)

The engineering extends further, back to crops or animals, feeding them simplified, processed food, again ignoring the millions of nutrient reactions they need that science hasn’t discovered - and the original foods, too, become less nutritious despite all this “healthy” care.

As consumers of the “Western diet” have become more and more obsessed with nutrients and “healthy” eating, the more unhealthy they’ve become. Yet humanity ate the whole foods in traditional diets, and maintained excellent health (or they’d have stopped eating them!) for thousands of years before all this “help.” They didn’t know what nutrients the foods contained - they just ate them, and thrived.

Pollan carefully and convincingly traces the history of the “Western diet” and the eager (and profitable) marketing of “nutritionism” while correlating it with the rise in associated ailments. But if that was all he did, a reader might be tempted to despair. However, he suggests ways to return to a diet that produces real health.

Eat Food. Meaning whole, unprocessed food from growers and producers who don’t process their crops or animals. Try farmers’ markets. Or, if possible, food grown in your own garden.

Not too much. Consumers of the “Western diet” really consume- partly, Pollan suspects, because the body keeps trying to find enough nutrients among all those empty calories. He believes it’s easier to be sated if the body is nourished on whole foods without the nutrition processed out of them.

Mostly plants. We can obtain all the nutrition we need (even iron and protein) from a diversity of plants, supplemented if we want by fish and only occasional servings of meat.

Pollan’s book is well researched, clearly and understandably written - and full of dire information. Yet it does not feel dire at all, and Pollan remains cheerfully optimistic that people not only can reverse the effects of the “Western diet,” but gradually reclaim the world’s food production systems. His infectious optimism leaps from the pages of his book and makes you want to go out and find a farmer’s market immediately.

 

Invention Convention: these kids are sharp!

It was one of those cases of almost being too late to catch a really good deal. Which was a perfect illustration of what the Glenhaven Senior Public School exhibits last Thursday were all about. You have to get ‘em while they’re hot - the early bird gets the worm - strike while the iron is hot - and all those other clichés about being just in time.

I caught the students 15 minutes before the exhibit closed down, so we had to talk fast. But Aniththa Umamahesan, the initial spokesperson at the first booth I approached, would have been doing that anyway. She plunged into her pitch like a natural saleswoman: “Have you ever had trouble cleaning your blackboard? Maybe you haven’t, but I have…” Then she and the other two girls in her group, Ayesha Rahman and Paras Shoaib, gave me a demonstration of their invention, the APA Chalkboard Cleaner, that could clean a blackboard without leaving behind any residue.

These grade seven students, and their schoolmates manning other booths along the food and shopping court beneath Brookfield Place (formerly BCE Place) in downtown Toronto, were part of a competition called the “Invention Convention,” put on specifically for grade seven and eight students by a group called The Learning Partnership. This non-profit organization’s aim is to promote critical thinking through programs that will help kids transition into the work world when school is over, hopefully into careers in science and technology, and also to integrate arts into the school curriculum. The organization’s Investigate! Invent! Innovate! program takes students through the inventive process as they identify needs and create solutions to them, and then through the commercialization process as they learn how to bring their product to market.

Even during my incomplete tour, I could see the work these kids had put into their projects. They were required to conceive a product and company name, do some market research (the chalkboard cleaner booth had a lot of graphs), create marketing materials, a sales slogan and sales pitch, and even design their own business card. They presented their materials in an upbeat yet professional manner, and also dressed as professionally as possible.

Next to the chalkboard cleaner was Corporation Mars Inc’s model of a new vehicle with six special features that made it superior to any other vehicle currently on the road. Beside that booth, MJANN Industries presented a revolutionary new type of oven, the El Ovenino, with internal racks that extended outward and lifted up when you pressed a button, so you’d never have to burn yourself again, reaching in. (Believe me - I’d buy that one. And only $750! What a steal.)

While the booths began to be dismantled all around us, Aniththa and her group briefly explained the process, of narrowing down all the groups in the six classes of grade seven students in their school, until the winning groups were chosen to display their booths at the public venues. (Other displays were taking place in other locations at the same time, such as City Hall.) Just as I wondered if groups that weren’t chosen felt envious of those who were, Aniththa confided that some of them were a little relieved too. It’s a scary thing, doing those presentations below a couple of the most hard-core business buildings in the city, for some of the most high-flying passers-by from the financial world. But that’s one of the things I admired about these kids: they clearly knew their stuff, and made their sales pitches with confidence. If they didn’t feel that confident, they’d learned to hide it well.

I was also impressed, even just glancing at a few other booths, to note that most of them considered environmental factors when conceiving their inventions. The El Ovenino packed a double whammy, in fact. Not only was it to be powered by solar panels, but one of its inventors remarked that you could even help the environment by not having to toss so many bandaids into the garbage. Now, there’s a detail person for you.

These kids did such a good job, I was kicking myself that I didn’t go downstairs earlier than I did, to spend more time with them. Just think. I could’ve gotten in on the ground floor…