Can the EU be saved?

By Jason Kirby and Michael Petrou - Friday, August 19, 2011 at 8:00 AM - 16 Comments

Reuters/Yiorgos Karahalis

Until recently, the tiny German town of Guben was best known—to those who knew it at all—for two things. With only the narrow Neisse river separating it from the Polish town of Gubin, it is one of few place where Germans and Poles live so close together. That, and Guben is also where the controversial anatomist Gunther von Hagens, famous for his museum displays of skinless human cadavers seated at poker tables, set up a factory six years ago to treat and preserve corpses.

Now Guben’s mayor, Klaus-Dieter Hübner, has set off alarm bells in Europe by calling for border controls to be put in place to stop Polish “criminals” from looting German businesses. Since 2007, when Poland joined the Schengen zone, a border-free travel area consisting of 25 European countries, Germans and Poles have freely criss-crossed into each other’s countries to shop, dine and work. With his call for security checks at the border, Hübner has challenged one of the pillars of modern Europe: the free movement of people and goods between nations.

Taken on its own, the border squabble in Guben is a seemingly minor concern, but it comes as the twin forces of economic stagnation and surging nationalism threaten to tear Europe apart. Even as European leaders struggle to halt the spread of the debt crisis—a task that they increasingly appear unable to handle—a wider backlash against European integration poses an existential crisis for the continent. Europe is failing, both economically and politically, leading to the question: can it be saved, or is Europe destined for the embalming slab in Guben?

Continue…

RAM parts

By Colby Cosh - Friday, August 19, 2011 at 5:47 AM - 7 Comments

I hope no one will be offended if I take a moment to publicize the design submissions for the new home of the Royal Alberta Museum. Maclean’s is aware that the R-word is irksome to many Canadians; in the contemporary parlance of sexual abuse treatment, it can be a “trigger” for unwelcome memories of colonial worthlessness. But we are stuck with the accepted name of the RAM, so I must trust in the reader’s courage and forgiveness.

The architecture buff will quickly perceive that the province asked four builder-led teams to submit designs for museums and instead ended up, unaccountably, with what look like leftover plans for office buildings. One supposes it is still impossible for a museum façade to declare its purpose in the aggressive classicist manner of the Field Museum in Chicago. But was it too much to ask for the building to be visible at all? Ellis-Don has hidden its imaginary structure behind sheets of mesh and inexplicable metal forests that can provide neither shade nor shelter.

Graham-Jardeg, by contrast, got Richard Meier to design something that looks like a giant industrial refrigerator. Ledcor basically wrote “MUSEUM” on the side of a pile of boxes; somehow, looking at the actual building, one almost feels there has been a mistake, and that the words should read “UNCHALLENGING COMMUNITY COLLEGE”. PCL’s different arrangement of boxes plays up the rooftop garden element while somehow remaining both sinister and cockeyed as imagined from street level. The teeth, certainly, do not help. Public buildings are always an expression of power, but the postmodern suspicion of right angles often introduces a slight element of dementia that makes one crave a soothing dose of Euclid.

It is hard to find anything to love in these drawings, and the locals aren’t having much luck. But maybe violence and political uncertainty have driven Edmontonians to unfounded premature despair, and other Canadians—Canadians with tourist dollars who might one day patronize this museum—will react more warmly. At least we are unlikely to end up in the predicament Calgary faces with its Glenbow Museum—a marvelous institution in its own right, but one torn between heritage and contemporary-art mandates while it struggles for oxygen in an unfriendly concrete caisson.

Cormier gets 18 years in prison for kidnapping, sexual assault

By macleans.ca - Thursday, August 18, 2011 at 4:43 PM - 0 Comments

Romeo Cormier, the 63-year-old New Brunswick man who was convicted last month of six charges, including sexual assault and kidnapping, has been sentenced to 18 years in prison. New Brunswick judge Zoel Dionne called Cormier’s crimes “horrendous” and said that the veteran criminal will most likely never be rehabilitated. Cormier abducted his victim, whose name is protected by a publication ban, at knifepoint outside a mall last year and kept her prisoner in a rooming house for nearly a month while sexually abusing her. The crown had hoped he would get a life sentence, while the defense fought for a term of 10 to 12 years. Cormier will serve his time in a federal penitentiary.

CBC News

Tony Bennett: behind the scenes

By Paul Wells - Thursday, August 18, 2011 at 3:41 PM - 1 Comment

This is mostly just to tell you folks that our Brian D. Johnson has a fantastic profile of Tony Bennett, based on extended and unusually close access to the great singer during his recent visit to the Montreal International Jazz Festival. Jessica Darmanin shot nifty photos that day too. I attended that Montreal concert, as it happens. Bennett was in excellent form, better than when I last heard him in New Orleans in 2009.

I am just irrationally fond of Tony Bennett, as I have demonstrated at least once in the magazine and a few times on the blog.  Much of it has to do with how seriously he takes this music. That comes up more than once in Brian’s profile. Mostly it’s just his voice, which reached a new expressive peak in the late 1980s and has barely declined, in the sixth decade of his career, from that summit. Anyway, enjoy the read.

Fair or Unfair to Conan?

By Jaime Weinman - Thursday, August 18, 2011 at 2:30 PM - 3 Comments

This Wall Street Journal piece on Conan O’Brien at TBS is obviously written to be as negative as possible about how he’s doing. For example, it compares his current numbers to the numbers he got in his first month, even though the debut of any talk show has numbers that are wildly inflated – nobody actually expected O’Brien to keep getting 2.4 million viewers an episode. And the author spends a lot of time quoting TV executives about O’Brien’s “niche appeal,” which sounds suspiciously like old NBC executives kicking him while he’s down.

The piece still makes a fair point overall, since O’Brien is probably not doing as well as the network expected. He’s running into the same problems he ran into at NBC: He’s falling behind his competitors in overall audience, and while the network can and does point to his success with young viewers as a reason for keeping him on, his numbers are heading in the wrong direction. It’s a strange, low-budget replay of the NBC situation, with Stewart and Colbert replacing Letterman as the established comics who are beating him. As with O’Brien’s supporters at NBC in 2009 (yes, he had them) TBS points to the fact that O’Brien attracts the youngest median age of any late night comedian, and claims that the advertisers are still interested for that reason; his detractors take to the media to claim yet again that he’s a niche performer whose appeal stops once you reach 34. Both arguments are probably valid.

And just like at NBC, O’Brien’s problems are increased by the problems of the network. O’Brien comes off, both on the show and in articles, as a guy who is doing what he’s good at and hoping people will watch. TBS comes off as a network that had all kinds of grandiose plans to expand, but no real idea about how to do them beyond buying up a lot of sitcom reruns. (They outbid FX for the cable rights to Big Bang Theory, but you can’t build a network brand on reruns of a show that’s going into syndication all over the place.) TBS’s attempts to create an original programming brand have been haphazard and generally unsuccessful, except for the Tyler Perry shows, which are bad but popular. Recently they’ve tried getting away from half-hour comedy and getting into one-hour comedy or dramedy, like the failed ’80s nostalgia show Glory Daze. These shows are expensive to make and aren’t particularly popular with young viewers, who would rather watch the light hour-long shows on TBS’s sister channel TNT. Meanwhile, TV Land, BET and FX have in their different ways managed to launch inexpensive half-hour comedies, stealing away a lot of the young comedy-loving audience that TBS was trying to get.

The head of TBS sort of sums it all up in the article when he says the following:

“We want TBS to be a leading comedy brand,” Steve Koonin, president of Time Warner’s Turner Entertainment Networks, which includes TBS, said in an interview. The company is still working on fleshing out its strategy. “How we get to that destination we don’t have 100 percent mapped out today,” Mr. Koonin added.

So it’s not that Conan, let alone the recently-canceled George Lopez Show, are fulfilling all of TBS’s hopes. But the network seems to be another example of how cable networks sometimes try to launch themselves as major players without having a real plan to make it happen: TBS snapped up Conan because he fit in with what the network wanted to become – a young, hip network for young, hip people who love to laugh – but didn’t surround him with shows that fit. O’Brien probably is a niche performer whose primary appeal is to people under 34. But this is primarily a problem because the network expected him to deliver an increased audience almost on his own.

I also find it mildly funny that the piece uses an anonymous source to say that NBC urged Conan to broaden his appeal. I would have thought this was a matter of public record. But now I can’t remember if anyone went on the record in The War For Late Night to say that he asked Conan to be broader.

That old deficit war re-revisited: the tale of the taxes

By John Geddes - Thursday, August 18, 2011 at 12:25 PM - 16 Comments

How much can a government afford to cut spending if economic growth is tepid? It’s a question Finance Minister Jim Flaherty must be asking himself these days, poor guy. No doubt Flaherty would like to keep cutting to shrink the deficit, but as the economy weakens, he’s coming under pressure for another round of stimulus spending.

This was not a problem then-finance minister Paul Martin faced back in the mid-1990s. In those days, economic growth was bettering all expectations, and spinning off more tax revenues that Martin’s fiscal strategists foresaw. I’ve argued this helped him mightily in his deficit-shrinking task, easing the need to reduce spending.

My colleague Andrew Coyne says I’m wrong. Continue…

Christine O’Donnell Is Still Around

By Jaime Weinman - Thursday, August 18, 2011 at 11:52 AM - 7 Comments

Here’s yesterday’s now-famous moment when Christine O’Donnell walked off Piers Morgan Tonight. O’Donnell has been mostly forgotten since 2010 (when she was one of the few Republicans to lose a major election, along with Sharron Angle), but now she’s back with a book, and even if it wasn’t planned, this scene will get more publicity for the book than just appearing on Piers Morgan. It seems like every time we have a chance of forgetting Piers Morgan Tonight exists, something happens to bring it back into the spotlight for a day. O’Donnell’s follow-up comment – “I only agreed to go on the Piers Morgan Show because he promised not to hack my cell phone” – was reasonably amusing. But her performance on the show had the unfortunate effect of making Morgan seem sympathetic, something previously considered scientifically impossible.

Vancouver Police hire U.S. experts to analyze riot footage

By macleans.ca - Thursday, August 18, 2011 at 11:41 AM - 0 Comments

The Vancouver Police have over 1,600 hours of video footage from the Stanley Cup riots , which they are now handing over—along with $160,000—to experts at the University of Indianapolis. Police Chief Jim Chu announced Wednesday that a 50-member riot investigation team will be working with the non-profit Law Enforcement and Emergency Services Video Association at the University’s Multimedia Evidence lab to identify rioters. Sgt. Dale Weidman, leader of the riot-investigation team, says the processing lab may save the police department millions of dollars. Since the riots, only two charges have been made—both in relation to a stabbing incident—and 268 suspects have been identified. 41 people have turned themselves in. Chu says the police will launch a riot focused website to keep the public informed on the status of the investigation. The site will feature photos of 150 new suspects.

The Vancouver Sun

Biden highlights economic ties during Chinese trip

By macleans.ca - Thursday, August 18, 2011 at 11:36 AM - 0 Comments

Amid mounting tension over American debt, U.S. Vice-President Joe Biden called for greater economic co-operation between his country and its largest foreign creditor, China, this week. Chinese state media have been harshly critical about recent U.S. economic woes. After the recent debt-ceiling crisis, analysts now believe China may be worried about holding so many greenbacks. In Beijing, Biden’s Chinese counterpart, Xi Jimping, told the vice-president that “China and the United States have a responsibility to strengthen macro-economic policy co-ordination and together boost market confidence,” according to state media. Biden, meanwhile, called cooperation between China and the United States “the key … to global stability.”

BBC News

Jihadist calls for Letterman’s tongue

By macleans.ca - Thursday, August 18, 2011 at 11:33 AM - 0 Comments

A frequent poster on an online jihadist forum has called on American Muslims to cut off David Letterman’s tongue. The late night television host earned the extremists’ ire by telling jokes about Osama bin Laden’s replacement during his monologue on June 8. “To the righteous Muslims in America: Isn’t there a man among you … who can cut off the tongue of this lousy Jew and silence him forever?” wrote the poster, identified as Umar al Basrawi in an article by the New York Post. Letterman is not Jewish. The threat was first identified by the Middle East Media Research Institute, an organization that monitors jihadis online.

New York Post

Libyan rebel forces capture Zawiya oil refinery

By macleans.ca - Thursday, August 18, 2011 at 11:27 AM - 0 Comments

Rebel forces in Libya have reportedly captured the Zawiya oil refinery, a key lifeline for beleaguered leader Moammar Gadhafi and his supporters in Tripoli. Forces loyal to Gadhafi had been fighting rebels for several days in and around the coastal refinery, just 50 kilometres west of Tripoli. The refinery supplies Tripoli with oil and gas. The BBC’s Matthew Price said that losing Zawiya would be a psychological blow for Gadhafi and his supporters.

BBC News

U.S., EU dangerously close to recession: Morgan Stanley

By macleans.ca - Thursday, August 18, 2011 at 11:24 AM - 0 Comments

The United States and the eurozone are “dangerously close to recession,” a Morgan Stanley research note released Thursday said. The note, which added to market jitters, cut the U.S. GDP forecast to 3.9 per cent growth from 4.2 per cent for 2011, and to 3.8 per cent from 4.5 per cent for 2012. It also predicted the European Central Bank would soon cut interest rates in a bid to stave off negative growth. “Our revised forecasts show the U.S. And the euro area are hovering close to a recession — defined as two consecutive quarters of contraction — over the next 6-12 months,” Joachim Fels, from Morgan Stanley’s global economics team said in the note.

Reuters

Federal government goes after 32 more foreign fugitives

By macleans.ca - Thursday, August 18, 2011 at 11:19 AM - 0 Comments

The federal government is enlisting the public’s help in identifying and detaining people wanted on immigration warrants, the CBC reports. Public Safety Minister Vic Toews revealed the government’s plan Thursday, one that focuses on arresting 32 foreign fugitives believed to be hiding in the Toronto area. These 32 are in addition to the previously released list of 30 fugitives determined to have violated the Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act. The government launched the website in July with descriptions and photos of the fugitives, calling for any information of their whereabouts. Toews says the suspects have been convicted of criminal offenses in Canada and were to be removed from the country prior to their disappearance.

CBC News

Deal is off between Duceppe and CBC

By macleans.ca - Thursday, August 18, 2011 at 11:06 AM - 0 Comments

Former Bloc leader Gilles Duceppe will no longer appear on French-language CBC radio once a week in order to discuss lifestyle, sports, social issues, and, if given the opportunity, politics. Just two days after the announcement that Duceppe was to begin a career in broadcasting, the CBC announced that it requires a two-year “cooling off” period before former politicians can report on politics. Duceppe did note that as the child of a famous actor and a father of children involved with theatre, as well as an avid sports fan, he would have many things to discuss other than politics. But according to Radio-Canada, it was Duceppe who made the decision to call off the deal.

Toronto Star

Week in Pictures: August 15th – 21st 2011

By macleans.ca - Thursday, August 18, 2011 at 10:51 AM - 0 Comments

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Week in Pictures: August 15th – 21st 2011

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Anti-corruption protests in India

A supporter of veteran Indian social activist Anna Hazare shouts anti-government slogans while blocking a police vehicle carrying Hazare after he was arrested by police in New Delhi, India on August 16, 2011. Police arrested Hazare on Tuesday, just hours before he was due to begin a fast to the death, as the beleaguered government cracked down on a self-styled Gandhian activist agitating for a new "freedom" struggle. (REUTERS/Adnan Abidi)

1 of 14 Photos

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Obama calls for Syrian president to step down

By macleans.ca - Thursday, August 18, 2011 at 10:40 AM - 0 Comments

U.S. President Barack Obama called for the resignation of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad Thursday. It is the first time the U.S. has called for Assad to step down amidst continuing violence against demonstrators in the Middle Eastern country. Meanwhile, Obama has issued an executive order allowing for additional sanctions to be implemented against Syria which will be outlined by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who is scheduled to speak Thursday. An administration official told the New York Times that “this very tough action will lend additional force to the president’s words.” So far, Assad has dismissed international criticism and calls for him to relent in his crackdown on demonstrators. He maintains Syria’s military is fighting domestic terrorists.

New York Times

Six dead, 12 wounded by attackers in southern Israel

By macleans.ca - Thursday, August 18, 2011 at 10:36 AM - 0 Comments

At least six people were killed and about a dozen wounded in three separate attacks Thursday near Israel’s southern border with Egypt. Armed with guns, explosives and anti-tank missiles, the attackers targeted a passenger bus, an Israeli military patrol and a private car, officials said, adding that a “large number” of assailants were working in multiple groups. The violence comes amid growing concerns over lawlessness and violence in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, which borders Israel. Israeli officials said the attack originated in Egypt. Last week, the Egyptian military sent thousands of troops into the area after a spate of attacks on police outposts and an oil pipeline in the Sinai. There is also a growing presence of Islamic radicals there, many of whom flocked to the area after breaking out of prison during Egypt’s revolution that overthrew the government of Hosni Mubarak. Egyptian officials, however, denied that the assailants in Israel came from Egypt.

Associated Press

Why the U.S. needs to take a long, hard look at the size of its government

By the editor - Thursday, August 18, 2011 at 10:20 AM - 0 Comments

Reuters/Larry Downing

Prohibitions against shooting the messenger have been forgotten in the midst of the current financial crisis.

Last week Standard & Poor’s credit rating agency expressed publicly what everyone has been thinking for some time: that the United States does not have a credible plan to address its mounting deficit and debt. Net federal government debt as a percentage of GDP is predicted to rise from 74 per cent to 85 per cent by 2021. (Canada is at 34 per cent.) As a result, S&P stripped the U.S. of its AAA credit rating.

Reaction from the White House was furious. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner said, “S&P has shown really terrible judgment and they’ve handled themselves poorly, and they have shown a stunning lack of knowledge about basic U.S. fiscal math.” Yet any complaint that the rating agency is being too tough on Washington is the height of hypocrisy.

Continue…

Steppin’ out with Tony Bennett

By Brian D. Johnson - Thursday, August 18, 2011 at 10:15 AM - 4 Comments

Photograph by Jessica Darmanin

“Bap! . . . Bap!” Tony Bennett’s unamplified voice, loud as a snare drum, bounces off the back wall of Place des Arts as he tests the acoustics at an afternoon sound check. Standing next to him at centre stage, looking out at the 3,000 seats that will be packed for his evening performance at Montreal’s jazz festival, I ask if some audiences are warmer than others. “The audience is never cold,” he says. “If they’re cold, that means you’re cold. You gotta walk out there energized. Sinatra taught me that years ago.” Energy? It’s not the word that comes to mind when you think of an old master crooning The Shadow of Your Smile or I’ve Got You Under My Skin. But when I gently broach that notion, Bennett gives me a puzzled look. Obviously I’ve never seen him perform.

That night, from the standing ovation that greets him as he bounds onto the stage to the one that bids him farewell, Bennett’s energy is miraculous. This, after all, is a man who would soon celebrate his 85th birthday on Aug. 3. His scuffed velvet voice seems enriched, not diminished, by age. Still muscular and elastic, it ranges from intimate jazz detours to flights of operatic grandeur—reminiscent of Sinatra, but infinitely warmer. Bennett works the microphone like a musical instrument, pulling it close for a confidential aside, but holding it just above his waist much of the time. At one point, he has the soundman turn off the mikes, then sings Fly Me to the Moon a cappella and unplugged, beaming his voice to the upper balcony. Near the end of the song, he opens the throttle. He hits a note, holds it, and his voice fills the hall like a floodlight, with a power that seems to come out of nowhere.

Oh, and he also dances. Occasionally, he’ll finesse a phrase with a pirouette, a switchblade flash of Vegas that draws a roar from the crowd. When his 37-year-old daughter Antonia comes onstage for a duet, Bennett joins her in a nimble soft-shoe. Throughout the show, he almost never stops smiling. And why not? His music, plucked from the Great American Songbook, summons up a golden age, when jazz and pop were happily married. Spanning Gershwin, Cole Porter and classic strains of Hollywood and Broadway, it exists in an emotional utopia—a wonderful world with skies of blue, where love comes just in time, little cable cars climb halfway to the stars on the sunny side of the street and the best is yet to come. It’s how America was meant to be.

Continue…

Race to win, or die trying

By Cigdem Iltan - Thursday, August 18, 2011 at 10:05 AM - 0 Comments

Caleb Kenna/The New York Times

While this year’s Spartan Death Race competitors included everyone from marines to doctors, firefighters and teachers, race co-founder Andy Weinberg says the 155 participants had at least one thing in common: “It’s a small, intimate group of lunatics.” They gathered in the forested mountains of central Vermont this summer to spend 45 straight hours testing the limits of their physical and mental strength, but only after they had signed off on a concise, chilling waiver: you may die.

While no one died on the course, there were plenty of broken bones, gashes and hypothermia cases. One woman was taken away in an ambulance after she was found knocked out in the woods. The range of injuries isn’t surprising given the tasks assigned: swimming in 10° C water, crawling under a maze of barbed wire, hiking upstream through chest-deep river rapids, doing hundreds of squats with a boulder and dragging a log up a snarled mountain trail, to name a few. Veteran adventure racers Weinberg and Joe DeSena say they conceived the Death Race six years ago to fill a void they saw in the endurance racing world. There are no water stations; competitors carry their own. And there is no start or finish line; every element of the obstacle course is a surprise. The race is designed to emulate life, they say. “They have no clue what’s going to be thrown at them the weekend of the race,” Weinberg says. “We try to frustrate them, we try to break them down mentally.” Most don’t make it to the end: Weinberg boasts a 10 to 20 per cent finish rate. The annual Death Race is part of a growing trend of fitness and adventure events that make marathons look like grade school cross-country runs. Others include the Antarctic Ice 100-km race and the 217-km Badwater Ultramarathon, which stretches from Death Valley to Mount Whitney, in California.

In the months leading up to the event, 29-year-old Montreal lawyer Dan Grodinsky chopped wood, attracted stares sprinting up and down Mount Royal with a backpack full of weights, and watched YouTube videos that taught skills such as how to pack a parachute, should he have to jump out of a plane. Since the race itinerary is kept secret, participants have to use their imaginations to prepare. “They think I’m nuts,” Grodinsky said of his friends and family, before the race. “I don’t think a single one of them really understands why I’m trying to do this. But I’m not sure I do either.” He registered after completing the Spartan Sprint and Super Spartan, which are sister events geared to more average athletes that take place several times a year, including in Canada.’

Continue…

Ramesh Chandra Sharma

By Alex Ballingall - Thursday, August 18, 2011 at 9:45 AM - 2 Comments

Illustration by Julia Minamata

Ramesh Chandra Sharma was born in New Delhi on July 5, 1954, the second of 10 children raised in a Hindu family in the Yusuf Sarai neighbourhood, which in those days was a poor area of India’s capital.

Growing up, Ramesh, who always took great care in making sure his clothes were perfectly ironed, had a reputation for being the best-looking kid on his street. Neighbours called him “the movie star.” And he caught the eye of Charan Kabba, a girl who lived across the street. “He was very handsome,” she remembers. Over time, the pair fell in love. “He was very nice and he had good manners,” says Charan. “I loved him too much.”

It wasn’t easy for them to be together. Ramesh came from a Hindu family, while Charan’s family was Sikh. Charan’s parents didn’t approve. In 1980, Charan followed her sister to Canada. Ramesh, who had graduated from Punjabi University with a bachelor of arts degree, stayed behind and worked at the Japanese embassy before moving to Oman, where he found work as a security guard. During their separation, Ramesh wrote Charan more than 100 letters. Each one began the same way. “Dear darling sardarni,” he would write, referring to Charan using the religious title for a Sikh woman. In 1982, when back in India for a visit, the two eloped and were married in an unofficial ceremony. Ramesh was eventually able to join Charan in Victoria, where they had an official wedding in 1986.

Continue…

Get ready for Armageddon

By Mark Steyn - Thursday, August 18, 2011 at 9:45 AM - 98 Comments

Diego Azubel/EPA/Keystone Press

Previously on Apocalypse Soon . . .

It was the worst of times, it was the not quite so worst of times. The predecessor to this book was called America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It, and, given the title, you may be tempted to respond, “C’mon, man. You told us last time it was the end of the world. Well, where the hell is it? I want my money back. Instead, you come breezing in with this season’s Armageddonouttahere routine. It’s like Barbra Streisand farewell tours—there’ll be another along next summer.”

Well, now: America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It was about the impending collapse of all of the Western world except America.

The good news is that the end of the rest of the West is still on schedule. The bad news is that America shows alarming signs of embracing the same fate, and then some.

Continue…

For people who are afraid of cooking

By Julia McKinnell - Thursday, August 18, 2011 at 9:41 AM - 0 Comments

Getty Images; iStock; Photo Illustration by Lauren Cattermole

“Fear of cooking is a real thing,” says chef Todd Mohr from his home in North Carolina. “It’s called mageirocophobia.” He immediately starts to spell the word as if it’s something he’s often asked to do. Mohr may be the only chef-teacher in the world whose classes (at webcookingclasses.com) are designed to help phobic cooks. “The people I’ve seen in my cooking school and the thousands of people who take my classes online tell me basically the same four or five things.”

First off, says Mohr, “They fear undercooking things and making people sick.” Because “it’s a lot worse to serve a chicken breast that’s pink in the middle than it is to serve a rubbery one, people just keep cookin’ it and cookin’ it. Then of course the food is lousy.”

To solve the problem, Mohr tells students, “Buy a thermometer. No really,” he stresses. “This old wives’ tale: if the steak or chicken is as soft as your cheek, it’s rare. If it’s a little firmer like your lip, it’s cooked medium. If the item is as firm as your chin, it’s well done.” But everyone’s cheek, for instance, isn’t the same. “Does this mean that the steak I’m cooking is still rare on my cheek, but well done on yours? Well, you can quantify your cooking with a $5 digital thermometer. I have a steak number. It’s 128° F. I don’t have to gash it, poke it, do anything. I put a thermometer in it. When it reads 128°, I take it off. I say this about a hundred times in class.”

Another manifestation of cooking phobia is “fear of it not being perfect,” says Mohr. He describes a dinner he was once invited to at the home of a “Martha Stewart-type” woman. “You could see she didn’t really enjoy it.” At one point, Mohr told the host’s husband, “ ‘Boy, this is really wonderful.’ He turned to me and said, ‘You know she made it three times and threw out the first two.’ I thought, oh my, that does sound like a pathology worthy of a long Greek word.”
Continue…

Cardboard forts for grown-ups

By Joanne Latimer - Thursday, August 18, 2011 at 9:24 AM - 1 Comment

Photograph by Roger Lemoyne

Step right up and meet Sherwin Sullivan Tjia! By day, he’s a medical illustrator. By night, he’s a modern-day P.T. Barnum. The Montreal-based impresario behind Chat Perdu Productions has hundreds of followers for his Honeysuckle Strip Spelling Bees in Toronto, Montreal and Ottawa (that’s strip spelling). Other popular nights include Crowd Karaoke, Sock Puppet Party, Idea Adoption Agency, Arcade Choir and Slow Dance Night.

“My events are more intimate than zany,” said the 35-year-old Tjia, who is a published poet, graphic novelist and trained painter. “I prefer events that are unpredictable, like Love Letter Reading Aloud or the Bawling League, where people tell sad stories. There were 34 people crying in a small space. It was the strangest event I’d ever done.”

Continue…