Capt. Mondo's World o' Mondo-ness

Reading Generica A fun read. Light and easy, and the author has some real talent. Will keep an eye out for future books by this author. I had heard of the book while watching CBC's Hot Type. A reviewer touted it as being in line for the next Leacock Prize for Canadian humour. But it was the premise that grabbed my attention: a small-time editor at an obscure publishing company gets a self-help book that proves to be a panacea for all of America's neuroses. Naturally, society as we know it starts to collapse as Happiness^TM reins. Great idea, but I found that the book got off to a bumpy start, featuring a narrator who can't decide if he's "in" or not half the time. The character's jump from being characters to caricatures once too often. Also, there’s too much narrative description where some well-turned dialog would have added more. So why did I like it? The premise was well-played out, the satire pointed enough to be genuinely funny (I laughed out loud a couple of times while reading the book), the story absurd enough to almost be believable. A fun summer read. A Canadian author worth keeping an eye on. It is pricey however, at $24.95 for a softcover book. Yow! If I didn't have a gift certificate for the same amount, I would have passed and got something else.

Tuesday, June 26, 2001

Vanessa's First "Graduation"
This morning, my daughter "graduated" from her nursery school. I hadn't realized that there was a little ceremony for it, and since I was working at home that day, I sent in an email saying that I'd be taking some time out, and went to the ceremony with my wife, cameras in hand. Once all of the parents had gathered around, we were treated to various songs from the kids. Vanessa was beaming to see both Mommy and Daddy there in the audience. Once that was over, each child was called out one by one, and were handed their "diploma" on a small podium. All very cute. It's funny how big a deal graduations have become. My big graduations were those in University (first the Bachelor's degree, then the M.P.A. two years after that). I don't remember any real ceremony to graduating from public school (though I do remember getting an academic award -- maybe there was a ceremony and I can't remember it?) and my alternative high school definitely didn't have a graduation ceremony (or Prom for that matter -- thank god for that). Rites of passage are traditionally celebrated with ceremony and graduations are certainly up there, though I sometimes marvel at the seeming depth and expense of such things. I remember being amazed at seeing a bunch of Oakville high school girls in prom dresses having lunch at a local restaurant, and then being whisked away in a half-dozen limos to their school. The mind boggles. Somehow it just seemed out of scale to me. At my alma mater, the Engineering Society spent the better part of the year organizing their graduation Prom, each year trying to out-do the one before it. Still, seeing my little girl smile as she got her "diploma" was a wonderful moment, and I was glad to be around to witness it.