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 I followed this lady around Toronto (or did she follow me?)
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Selected Writing The New York Times Last Words, a compliation of executed inmates last statements for the Op-Ed section Featured many places, including: Boing Boing, Andrew Sullivan's Daily Dish in the Atlantic Monthly, The Michael Smerconish Show and NPR's national show 'Here & Now' hosted by Robin Young. The Rumpus No Love Lost: Damien Hirst Face the Old Masters What Will Become of the Word "Ponzi"? (reprinted below) Interview - Trucker Desiree Bookninja Interview with Andrew Pyper (podcast) Guest-blogger Globe & Mail Review of The Parabolist by Nicholas Ruddock Review of The Carnivore by Mark Sinnett Review of The Good Parents by Joan London Review of Zeroville by Steve Erickson Review of Tell Everything by Sally Cooper Review of The Double Bind by Chris Bohjalian Review of The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly A lost connection with a cherished critter Gremolata London Cafés and Northern Ontario Diners (reprinted below) Halifax Chronicle Herald Road trips are more than sticky seats and cows National Post Wish You Were Here (Ode to Kurt Vonnegut) Truck Stop Book Tour The Ottawa Citizen The Truck Stops Here (about my truck stop book tour) |
| Featured Articles Below are two reprinted articles. The first is my speculation about the future of the word "Ponzi". The second is an ode to fry ups. What Will Become of the Word "Ponzi"? (from The Rumpus) When Bernard Madoff described his investment business as a ‘giant Ponzi scheme’, he gave a somewhat obscure phrase, used to describe a swindle that pays early investors using money from later investors, a huge boost. That day in December, the word Ponzi leapt into the public conscience and seemed to become contagious. For a while everyone was using the word. Ponzi, Ponzi, Ponzi, it bounced around sounding like a slightly deflated ball. I couldn’t surf the web, read a newspaper, or have a conversation on the street corner without someone saying Ponzi. And since Madoff’s confession, many more Ponzi schemes have been laid bare by the bad economy. The billionaire Allen Sanford, Madoff’s neighbor Donald Young and a Tennessee financial adviser and are among the many that have been accused of running Ponzi schemes. But when the economy recovers and the accusations dry up, what will become of the word Ponzi? Will it continue to thrive? In search of answers, I look to Richard Dawkins. In his seminal work, The Selfish Gene, Dawkins coined the term ‘meme’ (rhymes with cream) to convey cultural ideas that transmit between people. A meme can evolve in a process much like natural selection. Ideas, like genes, replicate when moving from one mind to another. For example, if I hear a new phrase, I might write it in an email to a friend. The email could be forwarded to a group and the phrase passed around Twitter, only to spread further and, depending on its strength and usefulness, change and proliferate. Aaron Lynch built upon Dawkins’ theory by suggesting that a meme can elicit behavior from its human host that will help to spread the idea. A flu that makes me sneeze, for example, will spread to you more easily than a flu that does not cause spray. This leads me to wonder if we can test phrases or words with meme theory to judge the likelihood of their continued use. What might make the word Ponzi proliferate? According to Dawkins, there are three conditions that are necessary for evolution to occur 1) variation, or the introduction of new change 2) heredity or replication, or the capacity to create copies 3) fitness, or the opportunity to be more or less suited to the environment. As the word Ponzi has not been in the public conscience for very long, it makes sense to test the conditions for evolution on an established example. On August 31, 1997, the day Princess Diana died, a word was thrust into our lives with a comparable force: Paparazzi. 1. Variation, or the introduction of new change. Paparazzi is an eponym, a name derived from a person, from the character named Paparazzo, a news photographer, in the 1960 film La Dolce Vita directed by Federico Fellini. The word came to be commonly used in the plural, paparazzi, as freelance photographers searching for sensational stories often travel in clusters. A single photographer may now be called a ‘pap’ for short, while the act of having your photograph taken by such a person is called ‘getting papped.’ 2. Heredity or replication, or the capacity to create copies. Paparazzi, which sounds like a sneeze when shouted, spread as it became a convenient response in the absence of a definitive answer. Who was responsible for Diana’s death? Paparazzi. How could this happen to someone so full of life? Paparazzi. How did we come to this? Paparazzi. 3. Fitness, or the opportunity to be more or less suited to the environment. Diana’s death was a defining moment in our relationship with celebrity. As the shock wore off, it became apparent that Diana had sometimes courted the attention of the media. Instead of a simple parasite and host relationship between the celebrities and the press, a more complex, symbiotic relationship came to light. Add in the growth of interest in celebrity since 1997, fuelled by magazines, websites and blogs, and we see how the word has prospered. What happens if we apply the same test to the word Ponzi? 1. Variation, or the introduction of new change. Ponzi is an eponym, a name derived from a person, coined in honor of Charles Ponzi who promised clients a huge return from postal coupons. The phrase, Ponzi scheme, is already frequently shortened to Ponzi and sometimes used to describe Hedge Funds. Ponzimonium describes the large numbers of Ponzi schemes uncovered during the financial crisis of 2008-2009. 2. Heredity or replication, or the capacity to create copies. Ponzi, which sounds like a cough when shouted, is a word that has become a convenient response in the absence of a definitive answer. Who took all my money? Ponzi. How could this happen to me? Ponzi. How did we come to this? Ponzi. 3. Fitness, or the opportunity to be more or less suited to the environment. The uncovering of Madoff’s investment fraud was a defining moment in the financial crisis. As the shock wears off, it becomes apparent that the seized credit markets make many leveraged businesses look like Ponzi schemes. Perhaps the definition will become broader? What if a bank’s investments sour and it needs to solicit new deposits to cover old promises? Does the social security system need more young workers to pay for the old? Add in the government efforts to spend and borrow our way out of the financial crisis and what seems like our collective conviction that buying and selling each other houses will make us all rich—what do you get? Ponzi. Yes, I’d say the future for the word Ponzi looks pretty healthy. London Cafés and Northern Ontario Diners (from Gremolata, a Toronto-based Food & Wine website) I was living, and eating, in London while I wrote my first novel, The Line Painter. The story is set in Northern Ontario. I've always wondered why, while living in one of the greatest and busiest cities, I chose to write about a small patch of Highway 11, somewhere between Hearst and Kapuskasing. I don't have a conclusive answer, but I do know it has something to do with craving what you don't have. In London, that was open space. But, I also found inspiration through my stomach. It wasn't, however, the great restaurants or markets that inspired me. It was a working class cafe called Butt's. Bill Marsan wrote that the British Empire was created as a by-product of generations of desperate Englishmen roaming the world in search of a decent meal. Those who have visited the London recently, know that the search is finally showing signs of success. Shedding its reputation for the boiled and soggy, the capital is in the grips of a food renaissance. Will it be Moorish tonight, or the new Chilean place, or maybe even French? If you can't decide, there is always fusion. The outside influence has also prompted the locals to pull up their socks. The markets are brimming with organic veggies, fresh earth clinging to the roots. The butcher can tell you the name of the farmer who raised the lamb. Our fishmonger wouldn't let me leave without an involved discussion of how I would cook his precious catch. However, this rebirth hasn't touched every tier of society. If the Brits are a nation defined by distaste for revolution, the working class cafe is the stronghold of the resistance. By way of orientation, a British cafe (pronounced caff, not café) looks like a greasy spoon. They fleck the streets of London like spots of fat from a pan. The menu, the paper heavy and the cover oily, contains a broad range of spelling and grammar errors. Recent updates, say in the last 10 years, are added with pen. The menu lists bubble, squeak, liver grill and blood pudding. You'll find French Fries, as broad as two fingers and referred to as chips, and they come with baked beans. You can order a sandwich, but be advised against it, unless you enjoy your canned prawns drenched in mayonnaise and stuck to a white, foamy bap (bun). Tea is thick and made in a vat, 'with milk' is not a question that gets asked, it's assumed. White buttered bread is a side. The signature dish is the Full English, which sounds more like a tackle than a meal. It is. I had just started writing my novel, when I found a cafe, aptly named Butt's, on St. John's Street in Clerkenwell. I entered and immediately felt homesick. It was a funny sensation as, by then, I'd lived in London for 5 years. I ordered beans on toast with two poached eggs with a side of sausage (I'd gone native). It was, of course, raining outside. I looked around at the Formica tables, the oval dishes with the brown pattern along the edge, the wood panelled walls, the grimy tiles from years of just mopping to the edge of the tables, but not underneath. The smell, grease is the only descriptor I can muster, enforced the memory of the hours I have spent in the diners of Northern Ontario. My nostalgia confused me at first, especially as I hadn't realized I missed the diners of Northern Ontario. In fact, during my years tree planting up north in Hearst, I distinctly remember craving meat that wasn't grey. I longed for pastry that didn't weigh more than the plate that held it. While living in London, I started visiting Butt's regularly. I'd start work early, then take a break and go for a fry up mid-morning. This was purposefully timed, just after the meat packers from the market cleared out, but before the low ranking office crowd filed in. The people in the cafe at that time were builders, postmen, road crew or loners like me. My newly acquired tea habit gave me an excuse to linger and observe. Many used the cafe as a meeting place, like a plaza to stroll through and catch up. The regulars followed a familiar pattern each day, gossip was exchanged in code and assumptions made at a glance. I remember watching rough hands stab with forks, the thick soles of boots impervious to the dirt on the floor, the lines on faces worn in. While watching and eating, mopping up my slurry of beans with a slick bit of sausage, I started to get a clear picture of the antagonist Frank, the man who paints the lines on the road, in my book. It was the contrast of the antagonist's background with my own that helped me formed the central conflict of The Line Painter. I have a distinct memory of the moment I made the connection. I walked up to the counter at Butt's and paid the man at the till with a few pound coins (because that's all it cost). As I reached forward, the light from the heat lamp caught my wedding ring, the twinkle almost a glare. I dipped my hand into his outstretched paw. My skin was smooth and shaped, his like bark. I looked up at him. We paused. His eyes narrowed and he sucked his teeth at me and, in an accent that jerked from cockney and Italian, he said, "You'll get fat." The cafes in London have their roots in Italy. Many Italians, as part of the great migration of the 1800s, made their way to London, via Scotland and Wales, and started up the cafes. You can feel this history inside. They are, perhaps, an adaptation of continental street life, a place to loiter and socialize outside the home. The British, accustomed to using the public space of a pub for a living room, accommodated and welcomed the cafes. There is an irony here, something never lost on the British, that the cafes run by immigrants from a country of culinary repute have become the stronghold of bad British food. But, for the millions of migrants in London, from the English countryside, Europe, Africa or Canada like me, they act as a place to connect in a city that can be both unwelcoming and overwhelming. Whether trying to find a bond in a vast city like London, or in the remote wilds of Northern Ontario, cafes and diners have a place that goes beyond the oily sausages they serve. And, given that London is one of the most expensive cities in the world, a café is affordable if you are a road worker, builder, a low ranking office worker. Or a writer. For more on the architecture and culture of the cafes of London, visit the website Classic Cafes - http://www.classiccafes.co.uk/ |
Claire Cameron © 2009
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