An evening with Stuart McLean

A Master Story-teller

Last evening's concert ranks as one of my favourites.  Denise and I saw Stuart McLean and his accompanying musicians at the Tidemark in Campbell River.  Because I have wanted to see him in person for so long, I made sure to get to the ticket counter when it opened, many months ago: Denise and I sat front row centre.

Stuart was taping a show to be aired on CBC's The Vinyl Cafe on the last Sunday in November.  Behind the stage was an enormous map of Canada, and on it were push-pins and names of the places he had been on this tour.  He seems to have started on the eastern sea-board, and has made his way across Canada, visiting little towns like 'Iqaliut' in the North-west territories, 'Drumheller' in Alberta, and 'Smithers' in BC. 

Stuart McLean, if you do not know of him, is a master story-teller.  We were lucky to hear two new stories last evening, stories that involve, as all his stories do, a fictional family living in southern Ontario.  Stuart weaves into his stories a combination of humour and humanity. His characters are flawed, sometimes impossibly funny, and often very, very sweet. I listen to Stuart on those wonderful Sunday's when I have found time to mow the lawn, weed the garden, work in my shop, and focus as Stuart takes me by the hand to another place.  Sometimes I have to sit down and simply give myself over to a fit of laughing, trying to catch my breath, as Stuart tickles me relentlessly. Other times, I need to brush away a tear before anyone around me notices.  Stuart can do that to me inside of a few minutes: I'll be laughing uproariously, and then find that I need to focus intently on something on my work bench.  I think the power of his stories lies in this particular recipe.

I think that we are set up as a species to enjoy hearing someone tell us stories.  When my children were little, we seemed to spend hours everyday reading stories.  In fact, they would prefer having a story read to them over just about anything else.  They wanted to cuddle up, one under each arm, listen to my voice, and look at the pictures as we all embarked on an adventure.  For some reason, they seemed to prefer books that we had read over new books.  Sometimes Kira would comb the hair of a doll as she listened, grooming her baby, seemingly unaware of the generational link between father, daughter, and dolly. 

In some way, and although difficult to prove, we might be genetically hard-wired to listen to stories as a way of learning our primary languages.  Our babies want to listen to stories perhaps as a way to continue the seemingly impossible task of learning a language from scratch within a couple of years. However, the joy of listening to stories stays with us beyond childhood.  We spent a couple of million years as food foragers sitting around camp-fires at night, presumably listening to people tell stories.  Socially, such events may have been a 'social glue', bonding together ever more strongly the group.  It could be that those individuals who did not care for taking part in such social exercises, and tended rather to go off on their own, fell out of the gene pool from which we are all descended.  Also, such stories helped to explain mysteries, such as why things were the way the were, where things came from, what it is all about. And so, story-telling may have allowed us to learn language, bring our group of people closer together and therefore give it more survival power, and explain those things otherwise unexplainable.  In short, it might not be too far a stretch to say that we are human because we like to hear stories.   

Stuart McLean is light-hearted, funny, and he seems to have a knack for discovering the quirkiness and generosity of the human spirit. In a way he steps out of time.  He might indulge in a modern colloquialism, but when he does, it is to make some sort of point.  He appealed to the 89 year old in our audience, as well as to the youngest, a five year old girl named Ella, and everyone in between.  His skill in developing pace, tension and a really good joke builds a trust between him and his audience that his plot lines will resolve, that irrelevancies will be minimized, and that there is an overarching theme to his stories.  He allows the people in his audience to simply sit back, relax, and let the master weave his wonderful story.  Although telling his stories in 2010, one can imagine him telling similar stories to a group of kinsmen sitting around the fire in 2,000,000 BC.

A Pro Forma World

Stuart McLean

I have been noticing lately that our society is increasingly treating certain things as mere formality.  The obvious example of this is tipping a waiter at a restaurant.  It seems that we are expected to tip at least 15%, regardless of the service.  A friend of mine who happens to be a waiter has told me that getting 'stiffed' by a customer (not getting tipped), is a huge financial blow.  Not only are the base per hourly wages very low, but the person who has not tipped has taken the time away from a customer who would have tipped.  This means that in order to show that we are very pleased with the service, we need to tip in excess of 15%.  In real terms, what it means for me is that when paying the bill, I simply hit the '15%' button for the tip, the calculator works it out, and I sign on the dotted line.  Gone, it seems, is the reward system for exceptionally good service.  It has all become institutionalized. 

Last evening, Denise and I went to see Stuart McLean (more on him in the next post) in concert at the Tidemark theatre in Campbell River.  Stuart (I call him by his first name, because he feels like a family member) has an easy way about him, and entertained us with various stories, and his accompanying musicians played wonderful blues music throughout the evening.  Granted, his performance was different than other performances in that it was a CBC radio broadcast to be aired on the last Sunday of November, but nevertheless, Stuart did something that I have not seen in a very long time: he did not do an encore.  Instead, he thanked the audience for our support, he had his supporting musicians take a bow, and thanked all of the people working behind the scenes to make it work.  Then, after Stuart had the musicians and the audience sing a few choruses of 'You are my sunshine', he gracefully left the stage, the house lights came on, and we all left.

Many in the audience, it seemed, wanted, or at least expected more, and they stood and clapped, even though the house lights were on and people were moving out of the exits.  One could almost hear them saying: "Really, Stuart, this is not how it is done.  You leave, we stand and clap, you come out for some more, then leave, we stand and clap, you come out for one last kick at the can, then leave again, and then we clap... at that point and not one second sooner, the house lights come on." 

However, Stuart is unwilling to go through the pro forma, perfunctory and silly formalities that have accreted to the edges of modern entertainment.  The last thing he said to us before he left the stage was: 'Go home to your families.'  Good for you, Stuart.

Food Foragers and Institutionalized Religion

!Kung bushmen of the Kalahari

Today's lecture in cultural anthropology covered the characteristics of the food forager way of life.  Our ancestors carried on this way of life for at least 2 million  years before we began, a mere 10,000 years ago, producing food.  Midway through the lecture I was struck by something out of the blue. 

Before the momentous switch in subsistence, food foragers lived as those who still exist live now.  Today's food foragers live in small groups, cooperate with each other, share all their food, are egalitarian, have little to no personal possessions, are nomadic, and pursue for most of everyday what we would call leisure activities, including story telling, dancing, and singing. 

Sometime after the beginning of food production, when our populations became more sedentary and started to rise dramatically, we began to 'institutionalize' all sorts of things like politics and religion and markets. The thought bubbling under the surface today was that there are many many similarities between the food foraging way of life and the kind of life prescribed by many institutionalized religions today.

For example, it seems that institutionalized religions are intent on bringing adherents together into communities, many of which are at a small scale (a parish, for example), and the people of these communities are encouraged to cooperate with each other, and help each other out when and where possible.  Such religions also preach an equality of people under a god/s, or goddess/es, and some of them profess the importance of not getting too attached to material objects.  Such religions also have rituals that include story-telling, dancing, and singing. 

It seems that, at least in some ways, institutionalized religions attempt to bring us back as much as possible to the lives we spent as food foragers for over two million years.

And taking this a step further, I wonder about Judeo-Christianity's Creation Myth set in the Garden of Eden.  Adam and Eve are happy gatherers until the fruit is eaten, at which point they are banished to a life of tilling the soil and raising livestock, or in other words, food producing.  Perhaps within these pages we see the 'paradise' of food foraging, and the punishment of food production, and perhaps a religion's goal to bring people somehow back to a not completely forgotten paradise of the food foraging way of life. 

The Real 'New Year'

I can understand why January 1st was chosen to mark the beginning of a new year... it must have had something to do with the tilt of the earth, and days becoming noticeably longer by January 1st after the nadir of the winter solstice.  It could be that on this December 31st, as I sit with friends and family and we reminisce and make resolutions for the coming year, I may feel differently than I do now.

However, at this point, the beginning of September seems a far more realistic 'New Year' than a cold, dark, rainy January day.

Most of my life has been spent gearing up for a new session in September, either as a kindergartener, high schooler, university student, or professor.  The rhythm of the year naturally tends towards relaxing as far as can be done in August so that one can be as fresh as possible for the all important first few weeks in a term.

The day after Labour Day is a time of rejuvenation: people at work are inspired, full of energy, and hopeful for the future: there is nothing quite like the feeling of the first few weeks at a college.

Also, the kids have begun school and their various after school activities. A new season of soccer for Aidan is in full swing, and Kira's karate begins next week. 

Last, but certainly not least, my favourite TV shows begin their new seasons soon, including NFL on Sundays, House, 30 Rock, and Glee.

Relative Expectations

Our tent camp (shot and stitched by Trent Rouse)

One of the themes of the Jordan dig of 2010 was that our appreciation of things tends to increase with a similar decrease in expectations.  We all stayed in tents that we brought from Canada, so that the beds in the hotel rooms on the weekends were all the more comfortable.  Although our cook, Aladdin did an amazing job preparting our meals, nevertheless, the Movenpick ice cream on weekends was particularly wonderful.  If the beer on the dig was sometimes warm (or even frozen solid), somehow even warm beer can taste good if it is the only beer available. 

Our dig spanned the last 2/3 of the World Cup of Soccer in South Africa, and it is probably this tournament more than anything that set into relief our lowered expectations.

I had managed to watch a few games at home before we left, but the very fact that we could not easily watch these games in Jordan gave them much more added importance.  We managed to watch five games.  Luckily, our first weekend break in Aqaba was spent during the group of 16 stage of the tournament, and so we were able to watch three games, including England/Germany, US/Ghana, and one other I cannot remember.  After this, I contacted Hussein, the Manager of the Eco Lodge where we stayed last summer, and although we had nothing to do with the Eco Lodge this year, he invited us to the Reception centre in a nearby village so that we could see Holland play Brazil in a cracker of a game.  We also were able to listen to two games on my shortwave radio in camp.  Finally, we arranged our last weekend so that we could watch the final in our hotel rooms in Aqaba. 

Justa, our lone Holland representative, singing the Dutch anthem

The game took on a festival atmosphere.  We all piled into Trent and Lynne's room, and Justa painted faces in her native Holland colours.  Most people there did not seem so interested in the game, but there were enough hard core soccer fans to keep the focus on the game.  Spain won in extra time in a thrilling finish. 

Trent and I watching the final (Justa hated my Spanish jersey)

The World Cup experience of 2010 was particularly wonderful because our expectations were low. 

Summer, 2010

We have just returned from our summer holidays.  Kira and I were in Jordan for 30 days, and met Denise and Aidan at the airport in Cairo.  We stayed for 12 days in Egypt, and on our way back home, stopped over in Germany for 6 days.  We stayed with relatives in Hagen, in North-west Germany.

The following posts reflect some of the insights of this wonderful summer sojourn. 

The Road

It has been a while since I have sat down to write a post to this blog.  I have been madly trying to get things ready for our dig in Jordan, less than two weeks away, as well as prepare 10 students adequately for what is about to come. 

The other night the kids and I sat down to watch 'The Road'.  This is a film adaptation of a book by the same name by Cormac McCarthy that came out a couple of years ago.  I really liked the book, and thought I would like the movie as well.  However, while the stark, dire, grey, punishing post-apocalyptic world of the book was somehow bearable, after two hours of watching the film adaptation, I had had enough.  In fact, it took some time to process what I had seen.  While the movie making was marvelous, I'll neither watch the film again, nor will I recommend it to anyone else.  I am not convinced that we must necessarily experience something so starkly different in order to appreciate all we have in our own reality.

Motorcycles and Castles

This morning over breakfast, Denise and I talked about why it is that we like castles. Our conversation meandered here and there and included a discussion of Pirsig's 'classical' and 'romantic'.  1974, Robert Pirsig wrote Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, and in it he describes a motorcycle journey across the US.  Throughout the book, he enters into deep philosophical discussions, and relies often on two very different concepts: the 'classical' and the 'romantic' ways of looking at things.

He first uses these concepts in a description of riding his motorcycle. In the classical realm, his motorcycle moves forward according to Newton's laws of motion.  Fossil fuels are ignited by a spark that fires cylinders that drive cams that turn a chain that compels the back wheel to spin.  An alternator collects energy from the motion and charges a battery that provides energy to create a spark, as well as run a headlight and honk a horn.  The rider turns directions by changing the trajectory of the front wheel with the handle-bars, increases speed by compressing the accelerator that then provides more fuel to the engine, and stops by engaging a front and rear brake. And on and on.

In the romantic realm, the process of riding a motorcycle can evoke in the rider a feeling euphoria: the rider has 360 degrees of vision, can accelerate and slow down easily and quickly, can smell the flax in the fields, feel the heat of the sun on one's skin, the pull of gravity ascending a hill, and the bumps along the highway.  The rider feels liberated and powerful.

As for castles, from a classical standpoint, they were designed to keep people out.  If the defenders could keep a besieging army outside a castle's walls for a year, eventually the besiegers would give up and go home.  However, if the defenders could breach the walls and the inner keep, the castle had failed its primary purpose, and the inhabitants inevitably would meet a nasty end.  The eventual use of gunpowder rendered castles useless at keeping people out, and nobles stopped building them. Today, the castles of Europe are either in ruin or rebuilt and inhabited by wealthy people like J.K. Rowling: however, they are no longer used to keep out attacking armies.

The Keep at Warkworth castle, Northumberland 

But there is something much more to a castle than a series of thick walls designed to keep people out. While doing my graduate work in Newcastle, I got to know many castles in Northumberland.  My favourite, by far, was Warkworth castle.  It is in semi-ruin and maintained by the National Trust.  The keep (inner part) is virtually intact, and because there is not so much tourism in that part of England, one can explore it alone most of the year.

Warkworth's floor plan
(1: vestibule; 2: hall; 3: chapel; 4: great chamber; 5: kitchens; 6: pantry and buttery)

While the architecture of this castle is intriguing, this castle is far more interesting from a romantic standpoint.  Perhaps a castle somehow reminds us of what it was like to live in a womb where we were protected, safe, happy, and warm. Looking through the windows of Warkworth's keep at rolling, green hills and the frigid North Sea beyond, one feels completely safe.  But there is more to it than security. Because castles sometimes were besieged for a year at a time, they had to be 'liveable' or people would have been driven to the depths of depression. While big, strong thick walls were necessary, a castle also needed 'light'.  Rather than cookie cutter floor plans, architects designed each floor on a different plan of very different characters, connected to each other by a grand staircase and also 'hidden' staircases.  One such hidden staircase is in the back of the kitchen fireplace, another in a 'garder-robe' (toilet). Castle architects needed to be creative and imaginative, using the resources and topography available to them. The castles of those long dead people were interesting then, and continue to be interesting today.

And there is one more thing.  As a kid I and my friends and siblings made all sorts of different forts. Over those long prairie winters I would sometimes collect all sorts of stuff around the house and make grand forts in the living room. Sometimes if there was enough snow, we would tunnel down into the snow-banks and make forts. I even remember the occasional attempt at an igloo. In the summers, we would head off into the woods and make tree forts.  There seems to be something in us that compelled us as kids to make forts.  It could be that by doing so, we satisfy a need to nest.  Who knows. Whatever it is, I have had the same feeling inside Warkworth's keep that I did inside a fort made of pillows and bed-sheets in my boyhood living room.

Indeed, castles evoke in me something that goes far beyond glacis, moats, baileys, and all the other cool aspects of castle architecture. While castles are very intriguing classically, they are far more interesting from a romantic point of view.

Technology's heady pace

Lately I have been preparing for the dig in Jordan this summer.  Well into Spring session, I lead a seminar on Monday mornings in which I and 10 students (and Kira) discuss things Jordanian and archaeological.  I am also making necessary purchases and trying out new software and hardware.  What strikes me most is the difference in data collection software and hardware over the last few years.

In 1998 I purchased a TDS data collector for the Total Station survey instrument used in archeological survey and excavation. I used it in 1998, 1999, 2000, twice in 2002, twice in 2003, and finally in 2004. Last year for our survey in Jordan I purchased an 'Archer' data collector with Microsurvey's 'Field Genius' survey software. Even though just 11 years had passed, the difference in technology between the Archer (and software) and TDS is astounding.

The TDS collected five fields of data: point number, northing, easting, elevation, and three letter descriptor for the point. That was it.  All of the spatial and artifact points were collected as discrete, individual points.  That meant that hours upon hours of manipulation of the data was necessary at the end of each day in order to get it ready for GIS (Geographic Information Systems).  All of the spatial points needed to be connected into 'shapes', and all of the artifacts needed to be tagged in a spreadsheet with additional information.  All of this was done by students who had spent the day in the hot sun, and mistakes were inevitable. 

In contrast, the Archer sits on a Windows CE platform, and so all of the wonderful Windows applications become available. The data collection allows one to customize the menus in two broad categories. The first is the collection of artifacts.  For example, a menu might allow the user who has chosen 'ceramics' to fill out a number of screens that correspond to the fields used later in analysis. The user might be asked if the sherd is 'diagnostic', and if so, whether it is a rim, base, handle, lug, or perhaps if it is incised, painted, glazed, coloured, and on and on. The same sorts of menus can be designed for lithics (stone), metals, faunal (animal bones), shells, human bones, coral, jewelry, teeth, etc. The user at the Total Station will simply input this data upon collection rather than passing it along down the data stream to a brain-dead student wishing he or she was somewhere else doing anything other than inputting data into a spread-sheet.   

The other set of menus allows the user to collect 'space'.  Modern archaeology is based on the concept of discrete three dimensional spaces in which artifacts are set in a matrix.  It is important to at least collect the perimeters of the surface and bottom.  The Archer and software allows one to collect a point in space that is then visible on the screen. When the next point is taken, a line is drawn between the two.  When the rim of a pit, for example, is defined by perhaps 10 points, the user then 'closes' the 'polygon'.  This perimeter is now a discrete unit, rather than a series of points that need to be connected later.  Again, menus will prompt the user for the context number, whether this is a surface or bottom perimeter, and what kind of 'space' it is, such as a pit. 

When the day's work is done, two files will be exported.  One will be an artifact 'shape' file, the other a spatial 'shape' file.  These files are then imported directly into GIS. 

Nautiz X-7

This year's data collector goes beyond the Archer.  The Nautiz not only collects artifact and spatial data in the same way, but it allows one to take a picture of the artifact.  The picture is then linked to the artifact by its point number, and both are then easily exported to GIS.  The Nautiz not only has Bluetooth, but also LAN (WiFi) capability, and so one simply connects back and forth from a laptop via a router.  To top it off, the Nautiz has a built-in GPS receiver. 

The next generation of data collectors must surely fry eggs, or perhaps shovel snow in December. 

The Canucks broke my heart

Canucks trying to deal with Chicago's forwards

Predictably, the gifted, brilliant, mercurial Canucks went down in defeat in the sixth game of the second round of the Stanley Cup play-offs last evening.  In fact, they lost the game and the series on the same day exactly one year after they lost in six games to the same Chicago Black Hawks in the second round of last year's play-offs. 

For those of you out there who care even a little bit, the following lists excuses for why the Canucks lost yet again.

1. The Stanley Cup play-offs are a war of attrition, and the Canucks were beaten up.  Most teams play 7 defencemen in the play-offs, and the Canucks were down to three active defencemen last night, one of whom two days before suffered what many believed to be a 'ruptured testicle' after he blocked a shot in front of his net.  Yikes.  Injured Canuck defencemen include Sami Salo, Alex Edler, Willie Mitchell, Aaron Rome, and Nolan Baumgartner.

2. Roberto Luongo is sometimes a brilliant goalie, and other times very ordinary.  In three of the four losses against Chicago, my son Aidan might have stopped more shots than Luongo, and Aidan is a soccer player.

3. Chicago is filled with skilled players who build from the back and come across the blue line in waves.  This is an extraordinarily talented hockey team.  Many times in this series I sat back and simply marveled at the skill of the Black Hawks.  They are a wonder to watch. 

4. Chicago is better coached.  Joel Quenville knew that the Canucks were hurting on defence, and made sure that his big forwards like Byfuglien (pronounced 'Buff-lin') hit the Canuck's defencemen every chance they got.  When Shane O'Brien got cut by a stick across his forward, and then had it glued and stitched so that he could return, a Chicago player sought out O'Brien and punched him right in the stitches.  This is simply smart hockey. 

5. Next year the Canucks will celebrate 40 years in the NHL, with only two Stanley Cup finals appearances to show for it.  Like the Boston Red Sox, the Canucks are cursed.  Won't someone please slaughter a goat?

The Mythical Hyrax

Watch out for the yellow-spotted rock hyrax: he's got a mean streak!

My friend Mike is obsessed with two animals found in Jordan: the hyrax and gerboa. I remain skeptical that they even exist at all. However, Mike is adamant that they do, as is someone who wrote articles on them in Wikipedia (it could be that the author and Mike are the same person). The story on hyraxes goes something like this:

Hyraxes are any of four species of fairly small, thickset, herbivorous mammals that live in rocky terrain across Africa and the Middle East. They are furry, rotund creatures with a short tail. Most measure between 30–70 cm long and weigh between 2–5 kg.

They are well-adapted to the arid regions of Jordan. They have complex, multi-chambered stomachs that allow symbiotic bacteria to break down tough plant materials, so that they can digest just about any kind of plant. They also have efficient kidneys that allow water retention, and their feet have rubbery pads with numerous sweat glands, helping them grip rocky surfaces.

Hyrax males have a mean streak.  Antagonistic behavior is often displayed by a single male against his rivals when protecting the territory of his small family group. He will growl and chew rapidly and loudly at them. Where there is abundant living space, the male may dominate multiple females, each with their own range. One can only assume that the greater the territory, the nastier the hyrax alpha male.  The remaining males live solitary lives, often on the periphery of areas controlled by larger males.

Where did these alleged creatures come from? The order first appears in the Eocene fossil record over 40 million years ago, and for many millions of years hyraxes were the primary terrestrial herbivore in Africa. Imagine that!  There were many different species, the largest of them about the weight of a small horse, the smallest the size of a mouse. Their numbers began to fall during the Miocene when they competed head to head with recently evolved bovids.  However, despite being pushed into more marginal areas, the order remained widespread, diverse and successful until the beginning of the Pleistocene (2 million years ago). 

The descendants of the really big hyraxes evolved in different ways. Some became smaller, and gave rise to the modern hyrax family. Others appear to have taken to the water (perhaps like the modern capybara), and ultimately gave rise to the elephant family.

Yup. Hyraxes are often described as being the closest living relative to the elephant. They still share numerous features with elephants, such as toenails, excellent hearing, sensitive pads on their feet, small tusks, good memory, high brain functions compared to other similar mammals, and the shape of some of their bones.

Sure thing, Mike.  Yup, mouse-like elephants.
 
 

Mike also really likes unicorns and insists that, like the hyrax, they too exist

History's lessons

Hernan Cortes

Spain’s empire in the 16th Century saw ships laden with gold and silver sail from her many world-wide colonies back to the mother country. Some estimate that 16th C Spain had the equivalent of $1.5 trillion (USD, 1990) in gold and silver. Having access to such largesse was not necessarily a good thing. Such wealth contributed to ultra-inflation in Spain in the last decades of the 16th century, and made Spain overly dependent on foreign sources of raw materials and manufactured goods. The silver and gold whose circulation helped facilitate the economic and social revolutions in the Low Countries, France and England and other parts of Europe helped stifle them in Spain. In a way, all of her money positioned Spain as a ‘consumer’ country, and condemned her to a Late Medieval world that saw aristocrats all the more unwilling to get their hands dirty in something as base as manufacturing. Spain simply consumed, while so many other countries of Europe entered with aplomb the industry of the Renaissance period and became global ‘producers’.


What is the point, I hear you ask? My dear uncle Allan has been traveling around the world for a few years now, and is, I think, on his third lap. The last time he came to Campbell River, he told us that traveling west from North America to the Far East was a revelation. On this side of the Pacific we see the fruits of those eastern manufacturing juggernauts in our stores. However, when in the Far East, he sees the very source of such prolific industry and manufacturing. He argues that even if America’s economy is presently still bigger, at this rate it will not be long before it will be eclipsed by these manufacturing and producing economies. It is simply a matter of time.

Already we are the consumers, and the Far Eastern economies are the producers. On this trajectory, we are doomed to repeat Spain’s history, and slide into economic and political obscurity, while the Far East continues to rise in economic and political power. If history does indeed repeat, we are witnessing the death throes of American power and influence.

Why is this important?  As flawed as our western-style democracies can be (George W Bush's administration represents, perhaps, the nadir), even the worst democracies have got to be better than the best autocracies, let alone theocracies.  With the passing of economic and political power to countries such as China, the western democratic powers will lose political influence in world affairs.  This might mean the passing of hard fought world legislation on human rights issues like the treatment of women, First Nations, homosexuals, to name just three.  Will a politically powerful China be at all concerned about basic human rights?  Will it not simply flex its muscles when it is displeased?

Dr Zeuss' 'Who-ville'

The Economist magazine ran a story this week on a group of islands called Socotra off the coast of Yemen. Dr. Zeuss might have been inspired by this place.

The Sucotran archipelago is on the right side of the above map

The beaches and sea around these islands are filled with giant lobsters, turtles, and dolphins. Because these islands are whipped throughout the year by gale force winds, the beaches have dunes of white sand that rise hundreds of metres high.   

White dunes surround this very odd place

Beyond the beaches and cliffs, the islands comprise limestone plateaus cut by gorges of rushing streams, and spiked by granite towers rising to 1500 metres.   About 50,000 natives live here, subsisting off mostly fish and goat.  They speak four dialects of a 'sing-song' language intelligible only to the people of these islands, and they live in caves often cut into the granite towers.  They follow an ancient Socotran calendar based on 13 months.

'Dragon's Blood' tree

The people live among 700 species of flora and fauna found only on these islands.  A species of tree called 'dragon's blood' can grow up to 15m in height and can live up to 500 years.  It oozes red sap and looks like a 'cross between a steroidal mushroom and a monster broccoli'. A breed of wild cat wanders about the limestone terraces, and a species of cows stand only a couple of feet high.  

'Bottle' tree

 One day I'd like to visit this place.  Perhaps while there I'll meet 'Yertle the Turtle', or 'Bartholemew Cubbins'.  

Women in power

Two years ago at our college, all but one person on 'President's Council', the group that wields the most power, were male.  Due to retirement, just about every one of these positions has changed hands, and presently, only one of the males remain.  This might represent a growing trend across our society.


I see it.  I look out at my classes of thirty students, and all but three or four of them are male.  While anthropology is rarely the choice of these students for a profession later on in life, it is through anthropology and other social sciences and humanities that students will become lawyers, architects, politicians, judges, psychologists, professors, and a host of other professions that carry influence and nurture our cultural heritage.  While I don't have empirical data in front of me, it seems at any rate that just about all of this cultural heritage and responsibility seems to be changing hands from males to females in this generation.


How important is the passing from one gender to the other the reins of power and influence?  In 1989, Chairman Mao was asked to assess the influence of the French Revolution at its bicentenary: he replied that it was too early to tell.  It could be the same for the issue of females in our culture gaining positions of power and influence: we simply cannot properly assess its importance at this point.


However, there is a very good chance that it could be as critical as some of the most important developments in western civilization spanning roughly three millennia.  Because I am feeling rather rash and irresponsible, as well as deliriously happy at finishing the marking for this term, I am going to throw a Mao-like discretion to the wind.


I think that the move away from patriarchy in our society is as important as any of the following things:  the setting aside of pagan gods and the embracing of Christianity in about the 4th C AD; the embarkation of European hoodlums and fanatics eastwards into the Middle East in the Crusades, and later westwards towards a 'discovery' of a New World; the re-discovery of the ancient texts during what we now refer to as the Renaissance; the breaking away from Scholasticism in the 18th C into a new world of unfettered enlightenment; a new method in science that has allowed us to answer efficiently age old questions at a dizzying pace; the setting aside of Newton in favour of a relative approach to physical things; the science of the mind and all those other cool ideas developed first by Freud and Jung;  the exploration and analysis of space, and the realization that we are simply on an insignificant rock in a vast universe. 


It is fun and exciting to think of our culture on the brink of a Brave New World, this time run by females.  Perhaps my daughter will be Empress.

Revisiting Sport's Leap Year

Earlier this year I posted a piece on Sport's Leap Year. 

So far, so good.  I was really happy that the Saints won the Super Bowl, even though I appreciate the genius of Peyton Manning. 

Canada Men's Hockey, Gold Medal Triumph

Now in an Olympic's aftermath, the only thing for me that really went beyond stamp collecting of medals for many sports that I have never tried nor ever seen in real life, was hockey.  The Canadian men and women's teams won gold in hockey, and because of this, the Olympics were a stupendous success.

As expected, the Sedins have been brilliant in these play-offs

The Canucks have found success early in the play-offs, defeating the red-hot LA Kings in 6 games to advance to the second round of the play-offs.  They will now meet Chicago Black Hawks, their nemesis of last season.  Last year, the Canucks came within a couple of minutes from going up 3-1 in the series against Chicago, but the young, speedy, and skilfull Hawks prevailed and won the series 4-2.  This year, the Canucks seem to relish playing the Hawks again, perhaps for the sweet taste of redemption, or perhaps because revenge is a dish best served cold. 

Arsenal still has a wonderfully talented core group of players

Arsenal - brilliant, meteoric, beautiful - crashed out of the FA Cup, Champions League, and are now mathematically eliminated from winning the League Cup.  Oi vay.  The good thing is that they have locked up third place, and so have guaranteed entry into Europe next year for Champion's League play.

Lionel Messi: the best player of our time

Tomorrow I will sit back and watch Barcelona's smooth-as-silk style of play triumph over Bayern Munich and then the winner of Lyon/Inter for the Champions League title. For those of you who do not know, this Barcelona team might be the best soccer team ever assembled.  Even if you do not particularly like the sport, try to catch a glimpse: it is simply a joyous celebration of the beauty of sport.  Lionel Messi might be a god.

Hotel room in the Crystal Hotel, Aqaba, Jordan

The World Cup of soccer is still coming up.  I and Kira will be in the Middle East, and apart from the odd game on weekends, will suffer an almost total eclipse of this most important sporting tournament.  My hope is that on those precious weekends, my daughter, some of my friends, and I will gather around a hotel tv for a game: we will watch beautiful soccer, eat nuts, and drink more Amstel than we really ought to.   And then we will watch another game.

Mark, Mark, Mark... life as a hair-lipped dog

I have just marked the last final exam, and this term is finally over. 

I have been marking constantly for the past 2 months.  First were rough drafts of the first essays in Liberal Studies, then final drafts.  Next came midterms in first and second year anthropology.  Then came the essay outlines and then essays for first and second year Anthro.  This was followed by rough and final drafts of Liberal Studies essays, and then final exams for the Anthro classes.  Not a day has gone by in the last two months that I have not sat down and marked something, be it an exam or an essay.  Today, I marked my last final exam, posted the marks, and now look forward to Spring session beginning next Monday as we prepare to go on a dig to Jordan for a month.

All of this marking takes its toll.  I find that after a session of analyzing, interpreting, judging, and then finally giving a grade, I tend to think differently.  Aidan's job of cleaning the kitchen after dinner is about a C+, Kira fed the fish at an A level, Denise's desk sits at a C- and only with hard work and diligence can she bring it up to a B level.  American Idol is on tonight, and Simon is a wonderful salve to Ellen's happy ignorance and Randy's eternal optimism.  I like House because he too tends to grade everything in his world.  Because Arsenal blew their last 3 games, rendering them out of contention for the Premiership title, they have gone from an A to a B- on the year. 

After so much grading fatigue, at this time of the year I usually seek out tasks that limit the amount or scope for assessment.  I need to start running again, meditating, taking long, luxurious baths, reading fun and exciting novels, riding my bicycle.  After a few weeks I will stop grading life so much.

I give this post a 'B'.

The Canucks will break my heart

Sigh

I know it.  It happens every year.  Everyone I know who enjoys hockey and supports the Vancouver Canucks in the play-offs, inevitably spends time in mourning this time of year. 

And this is odd, because they tend to do so well in the regular season.  They have won their division two of the last three years, and over the last decade have had an impressive win-loss record. Every play-off season, we all hope that this year is going to be different, and the Canucks will figure out how to win when they are behind.  Last year they bowed out to a brilliant Chicago Black Hawks in the second round. That they lost three out of the four games having had a three goal cushion was like a kick in the gut.

This year they are playing the Los Angeles Kings in the first round.  The Kings' line-up is comprised of young, fast, strong, committed players that had a wonderful regular season.  The Kings are now up 2-1 in a best of seven series that might just go seven games.  The two teams are very close.

There are many variables in hockey.  The play-offs are long and gruelling, and the eventual Stanley Cup winners will have played at least 16 games, and possibly 28 games to win it.  It is a contact sport that is played at a dizzyingly fast pace.  Inevitably there will be injuries to key players, and the good teams are those with enough depth at every position to see them through.

However, since their entrance into the NHL in 1971, the Canucks have made it to the finals only twice, in 1982 and 1994, and lost both times.  A Stanley Cup is a good idea, nothing more.  Given their 39 year track record of mediocrity, there is one thing we can count on: the Canucks will break peoples' hearts.

The Treme

I began watching 'The Treme' on HBO because my friend Mike, a New Orleanian, wondered whether it would make him cry (see his post).

I can't decide whether I like this mini-series. The plot line follows several characters and how they are dealing with a post-Katrina New Orleans.  Some of these characters are compelling: the Big Chief of the Black Indian Mardi Gras is willing to commit murder to preserve what he has.  Janette runs a restaurant that is doing very well but nevertheless is in dire danger of going bust. 

However, some of the characters are simply annoying.  Creighton Burnette (John Goodman) is loud and abrasive and perfectly predictable.  He lashes out at the world constantly, and by his third scene in the second episode, I was searching for the remote to skip to the next scene: this character is altogether too wooden, too predictably angry, too stock.  Davis McLary is a DJ and hotel concierge (I think), and is fired from both jobs because, among other things, he cannot control his earnest and burning desire to reveal the 'true' New Orleans to everyone.  I find his character more and more tedious. 

At the same time, I find it interesting that there is so little link between the characters and their very separate plot lines.  It could be that they will all be woven together later on in the series.  However, for now, it is as if they are all individual tesserae in a large mosaic with many pieces missing.  In a way, I suppose, this is fitting, because it stands as metaphor for a city that had suffered such a huge natural (I hear Creighton yelling 'Man Made!') disaster. 

So far, and in terms of character and plot line, The Treme does not come even close to other HBO miniseries like 'Deadwood', 'Six Feet Under', 'Rome', or 'Carnivale'.  However, I'll hang in there for a few more episodes and allow the series to gestate.  If for nothing else, I'll continue watching for the wonderful music, be it in a strip club, a recording session with Elvis Costello, a funeral, or a street parade (Wild Tchoupitoulas gonna stomp some rump!).

'Selling the play' in sport

Skill-testing question: Which one is most likely a legitimate injury? (Answer: boot to face.)

During the Olympics, one of the aerial competition commentators, a former olympic competitor herself, answered the question as to why every competitor jumps for joy after a jump. She said that there is always a chance that the judges might be swayed by the reaction of an athlete to his or her own performance. In effect, the competitor is compelled to 'sell' the jump to the judges.

Lydia Lassila celebrates convincingly after a jump

We also see this tendency creeping more and more into other sports. The World Cup of soccer is marred every tournament by players rolling around on the pitch holding their knees or ankles, and then miraculously jumping up and running perfectly if the referee is not buying. 

It is even happening at the youth level. This last weekend, Aidan's soccer team played a tournament in the competitive pool for his age group in Victoria. His team played two games on Saturday, and two games on Sunday. We saw the 'selling of the play' a few times in the tournament, and on three occasions our team got burned.

In the third game in particular, Jason, one of our midfielders, had a wide open net off a deflection at very close range. He hit the ball, and the opponent's keeper dove backwards and caught the ball that was clearly over the goal line. However, his players praised him loudly for his save, and he immediately stood up and threw the ball to an open player. He and his team had 'sold' the save very well. At the same time, our players did not celebrate the goal at all, and instead waited for the ref's call. The call never came, and play proceeded.

Later on in the game, the opponent's right back, a bruiser of a 13-year-old, cracked a 40m shot at our goal-keeper. It was a very good shot that threatened to duck just under the cross-bar. However, our keeper got enough of it to bounce it off the underside of the cross-bar, so that the ball came down directly onto the goal line and then into the keeper's hands. After the game, several spectators watching along the goal line told us that all of the ball did not go in. (The rule is that the ball must be completely over the line for it to be counted a goal.).  Nevertheless, the other team went nuts, high-fiving, shouting, jumping for joy, and ran back immediately to their half for the kick-off. Our team again waited for the ref's decision, and even though he was 50m from the goal and could not possibly have seen the ball go over the line, acquiesced to the screaming and celebrating opponents. We lost the game 2-1. Perhaps if we had tried to 'sell' our goals, or defense against goals, we may have won 2-1.

In the second half of the fourth game, the ref blew her whistle to stop play because she thought that one of our boys had committed a hand-ball foul in our 18 yard box. Fully a second after the whistle had blown, one of the opponents' players struck the ball into our goal. Again, the opponents screamed and shouted and ran back to centre for the kick-off. The referee counted the goal.

This was the most egregious act of 'selling' the play all weekend. Once a whistle is blown, play must stop. If a player strikes a ball after the whistle, particularly when very close to an opponent's keeper, the player sometimes receives a yellow card for dangerous play and unsportsmanship. At the very least, the ref, having blown her whistle, should have disallowed the goal, and allowed the other team to kick a penalty shot at our keeper, who had saved an earlier penalty kick in the tournament. Instead, unbelievably, she decided to allow the goal.

While typing this post, I have been jumping up and down maniacally to convince you of my position.  I hope I have sold it well, and that you are buying.

My debt to Monty Python

Monty Python's comedy sketches are very much a part of my life. Decades ago, when I first began watching them, like so many others, I found them hilarious. However, even though so much time has passed, I continue to draw on their insights in every day life. It has been a long time since I sat down and watched anything by this group, and yet I think about their sketches all the time. While their art was at first an attempt to find humour in life, it seems now for me that much of life tends to imitate the art of Monty Python. It seems that on some days there will be several times that something reminds me of a Monty Python sketch.

I even rely on Monty Python to lighten up my classes from time to time. For example, one aspect of Cultural Anthropology is 'economics', wherein we examine three broad types of exchange, including reciprocity, redistribution, and markets. To show students how price-fixing often works in a face-to-face market system, I show them the following sketch from The Life of Brian. In this sketch, Brian finds himself in a Jerusalem market while trying desperately to escape some pursuing Roman soldiers. Brian stops by a stall to buy a fake moustache and beard, and even though he is desperate, the merchant will not sell anything to Brian until he 'haggles' for it first.



When we cover 'spatial orientations' in Psychological Anthropology, we consider how it is that various cultures perceive individuals in space. Hopi will perceive themselves as a cog in the natural environment, while we in the west see ourselves as individuals in houses, municipalities, states, nation states, continents, planet earth, our solar system, our galaxy, and on and on. To illustrate this really well, Eric Idle sings us the 'Universe Song'.



As discussed in a previous post, in Liberal Studies we cover the Malleus Malificarum, a dark 15th C work that instructs authorities how to find, try in court, and execute witches. In the 'Witch' sketch in The Holy Grail, Monty Python sums up beautifully the absence of logic, the fear, and downright ignorance of people living at a very dark time in western civilization. The logic in this sketch actually has a name: it is called the 'fallacy of the consequent'. In other words, 'A' is 'B', 'B' is like 'C'. Therefore 'A' is 'C'. A witch burns and so does wood, so a witch is made of wood. Wood floats and so does a duck, so wood is like a duck. And so, "If she weighs the same as a duck, she is made of wood, and therefore, a witch!" This logic is not too far off that prescribed by the real life Malleus to find witches.



We also cover the culture of the 'Yanomamo' people of the Brazilian rainforest. Politically, these people arrange themselves in villages that are in constant competetion with other villages. Villages must strike alliances with other villages close to them, or eventually they will come to blows. Often, a smaller village will attempt to strike an alliance with a larger village. When this happens, the smaller village plays down the importance of the alliance, as well as the fact that it needs the alliance more than the larger village. The smaller village will constantly deny its weaknesses while putting up a brave front, continually calling into question the strength of the stronger village. To illustrate this point, we sometimes watch 'The Black Knight' scene from 'The Holy Grail'.



Many, many thanks, Eric Idle, John Cleese, Michael Palin, Terry Gilliam, Terry Jones, and the late Graham Chapman.

Three German Words

Sometimes I listen to Denise talking with her relatives in German, and convince myself that I am able to understand some of what is going on. I don't really. Sadly, my comprehension of the language comes down to just a few words. Having said that, I really like some of those words a lot.

Perhaps my favourite is schadenfreude, which refers to the pleasure we derive from the misfortunes of others. There really is no English word for this, and yet, I for one indulge in it every day, and am pleased that there is a word for it, even if it is in a different language.  For example, I was really happy when the Calgary Flames did not make the play-offs, because I have seen them beat the Canucks in the seventh game of a play-off series a few too many times.  Were the Flames organization to undergo a massive scandal, with much heart-ache for management, players, and fans, I might be even happier.  I was also pleased that Real Madrid fell out of the Champions League, because this year they picked up Christiano Ronaldo, who has to be the most despicable athlete in the world today.  Ahh, schadenfreude.

Another is doppelganger, which is a ghostly double of a living person that haunts its living counterpart.   Seeing one's own doppelganger is construed by some to be an omen of death.  Others use this word to desribe a feeling one has when one has glimpsed one's own image in peripheral vision, even though there is simply no way it could have been a reflection.  Again, there is no English equivalent.

My third favourite German word is zeitgeist.  Someone has defined zeitgeist for Wikipedia as 'the general cultural, intellectual, ethical, spiritual, and/or political climate within a nation or even specific groups, along with the general ambience, morals, and sociocultural direction or mood of an era'.  During the Neville Chamberlain era of Britain, the zeitgeist may have been to appease the upstart dictators so as to lessen the chances of conflict.  During the George W. Bush era, the zeitgeist in America may have been that the world is full of enemies, requiring Americans to root them out, capture, imprison, and kill them.  Again, we lack an English equivalent to describe such a cool concept.

Two Close calls with Agony Bags

I have had two traumatic experiences with bag pipes in my life.

The first was while I was studying in Newcastle in North-east England, and some friends and I decided to spend a weekend at the Rothbury Folk Festival in the northern part of the County of Northumberland. I like their folk festivals. There were twelve pubs in the town, and each one was a venue for live music throughout the weekend. On Saturday evening, we all gathered for a ceilidh in the church hall, and then retired to our tent camp for the evening. On Sunday morning about 10:00 AM, we found ourselves with a pint in front of us, again in one of the local pubs, when we heard the strains of a pipe band passing in front of the pub. Like so many rats of Hamel, we filed out of the pub and followed the pipe band as it made its way to the village green. Once there, and as one, the band stopped, turned, and started marching towards us. Although its pace was not quick, still, we had to find a way to get out its way, and decided to file along the side of the buildings to the other end of the green. Now safely behind the band once again, we all listened until the band abruptly stopped, turned, and started to march towards us again. At that point we ducked into the nearest pub and ordered a pint.

Over twenty years later, I still wake sometimes in the night, covered in nervous sweat, having once again been pursued in my dreams by a slow but relentless pipe band playing 'Amazing Grace' or some such thing. I escape with my life, only to be pursued again, and again...













The second time was in the Roman city of Gerash in Jordan. Gerash was part of a system of ten Roman cities (the Decapolis) that spanned the eastern frontier of the Roman empire in the eastern part of the Mediterranean. All of these cities competed with each other, and because of this, Gerash had a hippodrome (race track), theatre, odeon (music hall), and wonderfully paved streets and a religious temple area. Gerash is somewhat unique in that it does not have a modern city built on top of it. One can roam the ancient Roman streets without all sorts of other historical distractions.

Kira and I decided to sit for a while in the theatre, and climbed the many steep steps to the top seats. And then it was there again... the tortured strains of a bagpipe. We made our way down the steps to get a closer look, just as two Bedouin soldiers marched in. They were wearing their full-length gelavias, with stripes on their arms and epaulets on their shoulders, and full head-dresses. One was carrying bag-pipes, and the other a bass drum. They took their place in the middle of the stage, and began playing Beethoven's Ode to Joy. They ended their song riffing on an Arabic ditty.

It was at that point that I nearly collapsed under the weight of such cultural disparities. This was a Roman theatre in an Islamic country. The musicians were Bedouin in the oddest looking military uniforms. They were playing bag pipes and a bass drum. They were playing Beethoven in a ruin. Yikes.

Have a listen to the video below. The screen below is blank, but if you look you will see a 'play' button.


To this day I wince at the strains of the accursed Agony Bags.

Bull Fights and Pult

A bull fight in Puerta Vallarta (courtesy, John Belshaw)

On our run last Friday, my colleague and friend John Belshaw had lots to say about his recent holiday with his wife Diane to the Mexican west coast resort of Puerta Vallarta. Westjet, a Canadian airline company, has been making runs from Canadian cities to Puerta Vallarta directly for a few years now, and John said that the local entrepreneurs have adjusted to the change in tourist demography in dramatic ways.  Instead of vendors hawking blankets on the beach, they now sell ponchos with 'Saskatchewan Rough Riders' stitched onto the back, or 'Vancouver Canucks', or 'Calgary Flames'.  Pubs sell Molson Canadian beer, and Labatt's Blue. 

John and Diane also went to a bull fight.  Happily, the bull had been drugged to reduce the chances of yet another Picador getting gored.  The stands were filled with both locals and tourists.  John and I discussed that this was kind of odd, because in the mother country of Spain, bull rings have been replaced almost completely by soccer stadia.  Cesc Fabregas and other Spanish soccer stars are the new Matadors and Picadors.  In Puerta Vallarta, the locals are hanging onto something Spanish, perhaps because they want to maintain such cultural links to the 'home' country, or perhaps because they are accommodating tourists' stereo-types of things Mexican.  If I close my eyes, I can picture row upon row of tourists with really big sombreros and ponchos with 'Saskatchewan Roughriders' sewn on their backs, cheering while drinking far too many Molson's Canadian beer.  Later on that day one of them just might go back to that hotel gift shop and buy the really special onyx chess set, the one with stone work on the back in the shape of a maple leaf.

The accursed pult

And this all reminded me of 'pult'.  Pult is a Swedish dish that my mom made when we were kids in a bid to celebrate the Swedish heritage of my father's side (see previous post).  As I remember it, pult was kind of like a dumpling, and like so many things Swedish and Christmas-sy, almost devoid of any taste or texture.  Another winner was Luttfisk:  herring cured in lye so that the tissues are broken down to the atomic level (an un-Swedish uncle once described it as 'boiled snot').  Imagine a plate full of tasteless dumplings and Luttfisk: Christmas dinner at our house was special. 

Luttfisk (on the right) is another Swedish culinary delight

I was on an archaeological expedition in Jordan three times with Lisa Soderbaum, a Swede with a great sense of humour.  One day I told her about pult, and how we ate it every Christmas when I was a kid. She informed me that her grandmother had eaten pult when she was a child, but that no-one in Sweden had eaten the stuff in probably three generations.  Like so many else, immigrants to a new country will hold onto cultural things and freeze them in time, while the mother country's culture continues to change, embracing new things, discarding other things. (I think there is a word for this: if you know it, please let me know in a comment to this post).

Perhaps in the same way that some Mexicans continue to slaughter bulls for fun, long after the mother country has found a little white ball far more interesting, we continued to eat pult generations after real Swedes had said goodbye to all that.

Pave paradise, put up a parking lot

A Walmart somewhere in the world

At the bottom of the hill near our house Walmart is building a store, and although the Grand Opening date has not yet been posted, it looks as though it will be ready soon. Hundreds of empty pallets littering the parking lot suggest merchandise is being placed on shelves.

About two years ago the city erupted in a display of defiance and civil disobedience when Wal-mart had made public its intentions to purchase estuary lands. City Council voted 3 versus 2 against the selling of the lands.

Undaunted, Walmart signed a deal with one of the local First Nations Reserves to build on several hectares of estuary on First Nations land.  Perhaps as a token of its victory, Walmart decided to build a 'mega' store instead of one of its regular, run of the mill behemoths.

Part of our Campbell River estuary lands

I don't like Walmart for many of the reasons other people don't. They pay their employees very little money, the profits leave the country, the merchandise is all made in China, they put the 'Ma and Pop's' out of business, they seem to have an ultra-conservative agenda, and of course, they could care less about the ecosystem of a marshland estuary.

Those estuary lands were home to bird species that would winter along the Amazon, and summer only in our Campbell River estuary. Some plant species grew only there. Fish spawned, frogs hopped, and sea otters frolicked. Bald eagles still sit atop their tree, but now look over a parking lot full of pallets.

There is more to it than this. Walmart is emblematic of a complete rejection of art.  The new building at the bottom of our street is a box surrounded by pavement. If one were set the task of designing a building devoid of esthetics, one would be hard pressed to best a Walmart mega store. It is as if someone took the basic design and wrung it like a wet rag to squeeze out all of the art.

Walmart is only one of many corporations that make such horrible box stores.  Some of them (Costco) even require a membership for the right to shop at their horribly ugly stores.  Why do they build such ugly buildings?

Another bloody Costco

We as consumers are conditioned to seek out and buy only those items 'On Sale'.  We are attracted to big box stores because we suspect that there will be more cheap things in them than at the smaller, family run businesses.  Further, we suspect that if the corporations have put zero money and effort into architecture and esthetics, somehow merchandise will be even cheaper. In essence, we as consumers have traded away art for cheaper stuff. This period may well earn us the dubious distinction of having the ugliest commercial buildings in the history of our culture. 

Gaudi architecture in Barcelona: what it could be like

Our mega Walmart has replaced something special with something lacking a soul. In a word, our Walmart is profane.