On the curious pleasure of getting sick of something

July 18: I haven’t been in the classroom in more than three months, and I am starting to feel a familiar itch. It’s about wanting summer to be over so that I can be occupied with teaching and associate term-time work, and that’s not because I’m bored with summer, I think; it’s because the pressures of summer become unbearable after three months. “HA!” you guffaw, “PRESSURES? What “pressures” do you have? You get almost five months off!” Ah, dear reader, the rub lies therein: We don’t “get five months off.” We don’t have to teach in the summer, and this is precisely when we’re most expected to be productive in our research role. I’ve been (finally) doing interviews for my coffee project over the last couple of weeks and have a manuscript (yeah, just one) close to completion that I can submit to a journal before classes start, and have fallen on a twist to the topic of my last (unsuccessful) SSHRC grant application to resubmit, and I’ve had a lot of committee-/graduate-defense-related things since classes let out (including a dissertation defense Monday morning) and I’m on the committee that reviews professors’ performance reports starting mid-August, so I’ve had what I think is a “productive” enough summer so far, but this is the thing about academia: Work is never done. Classes end, yes, but working in a merit-based environment, and one in which, in principle, even tenured professors can be fired for a lack of productivity, the treadmill is never off. We get 4 weeks of actual “vacation” time that nobody ever claims because we’re all expected to take it during summer.

So when classes start, yes things get a little exhausting and forget the idea that we (academics and our families) can take any breaks during those 26-30 weeks, depending on the school, when classes are in session. But nobody really expects you to do anything but your concrete (ah, concreteness!) teaching and service obligations during the school year. I find this a bizarre relief, sort of like how people with stressful home lives are happy to be at their offices, or in their cars or on transit for their work commutes.

I actually have had some interesting insights on the third wave of late, thanks to interviews with baristas and one local roaster, and it’s this: Whatever the social “glue”that binds this subculture, there are huge differences in terms of what I might call “business models” and how the businesses that the third wave comprises are run. I’m writing about the “role” that equipment plays in helping to organize sociality in third-wave shops and I might be guilty of making it look as if there are more commonalities among these shops than my observations can allow me to claim. In fact, they can be run very differently with management’s styles running from laissez-faire to the organizational form of a well-oiled machine. This is precisely the sort of learning that I could only glean from interviews and it’s a great lesson. One can only set about opening a “third wave” shop with so much specificity beforehand, because the shop’s operation will probably be unavoidably idiographic. Does this mean that there is no “subculture” here? I think to answer that I have to wrestle with the sense, reference, and even controversy surrounding the term “subculture.” I didn’t anticipate that this would be a problem focus for this project and this is one advantage of, you know, listening.

As I write this I am happy to report that my sister-in-law (Brian’s sister) Grace, her husband Shubhash, and their three teenagers, Ishan (who starts at U of Western Ontario next month), Chandini and Varij are blessing us with a visit from Trinidad. They are right now with Uncle Brian en route home from the Royal Tyrrell Museum in Drumheller, the famous dinosaur museum, and we’re heading out for Vietnamese (a cuisine that is off the radar in TT). It’s a challenge to have so many people in a 2-bedroom house but I appreciate their effort in coming out here very, very much; I feel honoured. That’s a nice summer feeling that I don’t want to lose.

The pre-hiatus hiatus is on hiatus. Off to Berlin!

Like I just posted as my facebook update, “if you wait long enough, everything happens.” I first heard about this conference, on interdisciplinary perspectives on design, last summer, and here we are, less than 24 hours to my departure. I’m on Lufthansa for the first time in my life (Germany ‘81 was on KLM, the first plane trip of my life, and then on what I think was a Sabena city-hopper from Amsterdam to Brussels- might have been KLM but regardless, definitely not LH), flight 0495 nonstop Calgary to Frankfurt… and therewith also the longest nonstop I’ve ever taken from Calgary. I arrive at 7am and am then boarding an ICE train (Deutsche Bahn’s version of the bullet train) at 8:50 to Berlin. That takes about 5 hours. So- long trip, but while it would have been faster and likely cheaper to fly FRA-Berlin on, say, AirBerlin (especially since I am going first class on the ICE- special NON-REFUNDABLE deal online, just €99 so if I miss this train I am screwed and out about C$160), but I covet the train sooooo much. We don’t have intercity service, period, in Calgary, well, aside from insanely expensive tourist trains I mean. So this is a treat I couldn’t, and wouldn’t, pass up no matter how much it cost or how tired I was after a 10-hour flight in coach.

I would rather have stayed night 1 in Frankfurt and had planned to, seeing as the conference (and my presentation in it) doesn’t start until Sunday, but the world’s biggest consumer goods trade show is taking place in Frankfurt this week, and every hotel room in the city has tripled, quadrupled, quintupled their rates for it. So I decided to head straight to Berlin. Now what I wish I’d done was to head to Krefeld straightaway instead to visit my former Gastbruder, Manfred, with whom I’ve recently reconnected and have been iChatting, but that reunion came way after my travel plans for this trip solidified. So my itinerary is like this:

Depart tomorrow, LH 0496, 1:35, arrive Frankfurt 0700 (Friday)

ICE 872, dep 09:13, arr Berlin 13:35 (after an 8:50 regional train from the airport to the main train station)

Staying at Hotel Elba in Berlin 13-21 February

Conference is at UdK (University of the Arts) Sun-Tues

Depart Berlin Saturday 21 Feb, TBA

Staying at Hotel Hamburger Hof in Frankfurt, 21 Feb

Fly home on Sunday, 22 Feb, LH 0494, dep 09:55, arrive Calgary 11:55

I did a test run of my presentation and powerpoint in the dangling last 15 minutes of yeterday’s soci 423 lecture and thank my students for their feedback of course. It looks good- I did a similar presentation as a deparmental COSEP (I talked about this a few posts back) but it was more theory oriented and, really, very provisional; this one is more about “design” to the extent that I talk about how MACHINES constitute important symbolic, discursive and “practical” elements of the third-wave coffee subculture and part of that is showing examples (Synesso, LM Mistral, and Calgary’s own Fratello Roasters’ new “Slayer” espresso machine) of low-profile, high-end machines that facilitate and even militate possibilities for social interaction–because of their size and shape–not possible in, say, Starbucks, which uses high-profile superautomatic espresso machines that separate customer and employee.

More on that later. This project feels like it’s finally coming together and as I’ll almost definitely get a publication out of this (as conference proceedings, but they are single-blind refereed, so it’s all good)  I can get my foot in the door for funding and that book contract.

Pics to come, here and/or on my picasa site and/or facebook.

Man(zo) at 45

Today’s my birthday. 45.

I’m still happy when my birthday rolls around- all the unsolicited (well, mostly unsolicited, some shamefully solicited too I confess) greetings from well-wishers and just that idea that today is my special day. It’s not the Christmas morning feeling I had when I was a kid, but neither is Christmas anymore.

It’s my special day, still, so I’m going to get all Jean Shepherd-y and reminisce about what it meant for me as a kid. The fondest memories I have were around birthdays, oh, 12 or 13, because those where the Army Navy Surplus years: My mom would take my twin brother and me downtown (that’s downtown Hammond, or as Jean Shepherd would say, downtown Hohman)- my mom has never learned to drive so I suppose my dad or my older brother dropped us off and we’d each have a certain amount of cash to spend on what would always end up being blue jeans from the overflowing piles that they had at Army Navy. Brands that I can’t remember anymore with bell bottoms and rainbow detailing; I remember one that I cherished that had leather strips along the side pockets, pure 1970s chic. We’d snag maybe three pairs each and I was always so proud to show them off at school until the sad day that I realised I’d outgrown them. I also recall money spent at a place called- oh, memory, please don’t fail me- Wayne’s Trick Shop (somebody confirm! Please!) where in 6th grade (for Canucks: Grade 6) I bought a fake booger device and stood in front of Mr Huss’ English class with the plastic appendage hanging from my nostril, getting the peals of laughter that I still live for whenever I’m in front of a group of people…

On my (our, with Paul, my twin brother, who died in March 2005) special day, we would always have lunch at Cam Lan, the first Chinese resto of my life. I remember being about, oh, five years old and being awed at how there were ACTUAL CHINESE PEOPLE roaming around there, a fact I announced loudly to my mortified mother. We’d get one of these private room-like booths and I remember feeling like the worldly belle of the ball on my 13th (I think) birthday when I ordered some exotica called “chicken almond ding” instead of the pork chop suey I always ordered. Paul always got fried shrimp from the American side of the menu (and I remember as a little kid having hamburgers from that side- I can practically taste the oddly sesame-oil accent buns as I write this); my whole family, except for me, was (is?) addicted to fried shrimp, a food I only found palatable drowned in cocktail sauce. But my “authentic” Chinese was, oh yum! What a world awaits me! Birthday magic took place that moment, even though it was marred by my being in the throes of the flu, but I also remember feeling almost cured on departing Cam Lan that cold January day.

Okay, this might not be the sort of prose that I’m best at, but I like to remember stuff. Cam Lan is long gone as is any semblance of retail in downtown Hammond, and the internet is sadly littered with these sorts of reminiscings. But they’re better than nothing.

Back to the present- I’m giving a COSEP (Committee on Scholarly and Educational Presentations, I think) talk at 3:00 this afternoon titled “Coffee Talk: The ‘Third Wave’ Coffee Phenomenon, Connoisseurship, Sociality, and a Sociology of Taste.” I’ve gone completely against my instincts and written the thing out word for word but am sure I’ll find room to ad-lib. For this talk I’m only discussing empirical findings (or insights, or notions) at the end; most of it is about accounting for why “coffee” is a valid topic for sociology and interrogating some lines of inquiry alternative to my own, which is of course ethnomethodological/grounded. This done means that I have a very good head start on prepping my talk for Berlin (I leave in a mere 22 days), so I’m happy to get it out of the way now.

Tonight Brian is treating me to a Flames game, versus hapless Columbus, so I hope the good guys pile on the presents.

If it doesn’t bleed, it doesn’t lead, so… make it bleed.

It’s been 35 days since the last murder in Calgary. Calgary is a city of 1,042,000 people.

You’d think that this extended period of relative calm (“relative” since it’s not as if some incompetent gangsters haven’t tried to kill each other- in fact there was a bona-fide, if brief, gunfight in Chinatown a few weeks ago, and shots fired at a car on the Deerfoot yesterday) might merit mention in the news- I mean, if CRIME grabs the headlines, then NOT CRIME should be an even better thing to tell people about.

Nope. Newspapers have no interest in appeasing fears, because “news” is “crime news” even in the midst of what are (1) FALLING crime rates (in Canada at least), including murder rates, and (2) rates of urban crime that are among the lowest in the world, and absolutely lower than those in urban settings in the US; which is important, because part of our moral panic around crime stems from too much exposure to US media and too much acceptance of a mythic, nonexistent connection between their urban experience and ours here in Canada.

News outlets hate lulls like this. HATE them. So it was with glee, I’m sure, that the always-reliable Calgary Herald managed this bit of fear-mongering in regard to that Deerfoot shooting:

Another chapter in an escalating war between two rival gangs unfolded Saturday night in a drive-by shooting on Deerfoot Trail that has prompted police to warn those in any relationship with gang members are at risk of becoming victims.

Several shots were fired from a dark-coloured car into an SUV as the two vehicles headed north on Deerfoot Trail near the Calf Robe Bridge around 9:45 p.m. Saturday. A man and a woman in the SUV were struck by the bullets, while a third person escaped unscathed, said Acting Staff Sgt. Gord Eiriksson of the organized crime operations centre.

The driver continued on to a hospital where the pair have been receiving treatment. Neither of their injuries are life-threatening, Eiriksson said.

Confirming the two victims are known to police and the organized crime section, Eiriksson said the targeted shooting is gang-related and part of the escalating feud between two gangs that have been locked in combat for years.

The growing war has reached the point that anyone involved with gang members is in danger, Eiriksson said.

“These two groups have escalated to the point now that if you are a member of one of these two gangs, if you’re an associate, if you’re a girlfriend, if you happen to be in the same vehicle with members from these two groups, you are at risk of being a victim of a shooting or a homicide,” he said.

“I don’t know how much more plain we can be about that.”

Already, the war has claimed the lives of more than a dozen people, he added.

The fear for police is that it will reach a point where an innocent victim will be killed.

“When things like this happen — an opportunity arises — they decide to initiate a shooting, then we’re all at risk,” he said.

“I don’t think it’s going to stop.”

The fact that this latest shooting occurred as the vehicles were driving on one of the busiest thoroughfares in the city shows the gangs’ disregard for public safety, he added.

I can’t dispute any of the facts of the matter here, and of course shooting guns on an incredibly busy stretch of freeway (Deerfoot Trail is a stretch of Alberta Highway 2 that’s Calgary’s version of the 401 or, say, I-80/94 etc. in the Chicago area) demands police response. What I am so tired of is not just the panic-inducement but also the sheer uselessness of this report. Yes, it’s news and yes it’s bad news. But warning people to avoid gangs? You might get SHOT AT? Does Sgt Eiricksson really think any prospective gangbanger or the stupid, stupid girls attracted to that sort of human detritus are really going to change their minds/tastes based on his interview with the Herald?

Second… a battle between two gangs? No kidding? And after making the odd decision to mention (and enshrine) the ongoing disputes between the FOB and FK groups in Calgary, you’re now keeping these a secret? What is the public supposed to take away from any of this?

Ah yes, of course. The fear. The fear and the blood-lust and the “our damn justice system” and the pessimism and the “this goddamn city is going to hell” and the “Calgary is a murder-happy shithole” and all the racism, add that to the top of the pile. But so what- crime IS out of control, so who cares about “sensitivity” and who cares how this message is couched?

This is the thing. The “crime wave” is a media invention and it’s fueled by alarmist, inflammatory reporting (this isn’t unique, at all, to Calgary as any CRITICAL self-aware reader of that rag known as the Toronto Star should know, but I live here, not in Toronto) that has ZERO offer of perspective and ZERO effort to GAIN perspective. And when you’re talking about things like “crime rates” and you’re describing a situation as “gang warfare,” you NEED perspective.

So here’s some perspective for ya.

Calgary had a murder rate of 3.14 per 100,000 persons last year. That was 4th highest among “major” (500,000 or greater CMA population) Canadian cities last year. Highest among “majors” was Winnipeg. Among all cities? Saskatoon. That 3.14 was fully 70% higher than the national murder rate. Nothing to be proud of there.

But I like my perspective a little more expansive and like to look to the US for it, since I’m American (still) and since the perspective it offers is terrifying and fascinating and very, very instructive.

Calgary’s rate was 3.14- let’s say 3- per 100,000. 4th worst in Canada. Real hell-hole. Did any US cities fare worse- I mean, if we’re in the midst of a gang war (and with 30 murders so far in 2008 we might top last year’s rate, I must add)… so we must be on par with other gang-war-addled cities, right?

No. Not even close. Here are some cities that had murder rates higher than Calgary’s last year, and what those rates were (again, the rate is the number of murders per 100,000 inhabitants- it’s standardized, in other words, so population differences are accounted for):

New Orleans: 95
Gary: 73
Camden: 53
Youngstown: 52
Detroit: 46
Baltimore: 45
St Louis: 40
Birmingham: 38
Newark: 37
My home town of Hammond, Indiana: 19.

I could go on and on… and on and on and on and on. You can get your own perspective here. Among US cities of 250,000 or more, among which there are 70, only TWO had murder rates lower than Calgary’s last year: Honolulu, and Plano, Texas, a suburb of Dallas. SIXTY-EIGHT had rates of 3 or higher- some, as you can see, many, many times higher. The murder rate in New Orleans was THIRTY TIMES- that’s 3000%- higher than Calgary’s.

But, the haters reply, things are so much worse here than they used to be!

No. The murder rate peaked here in 1992. 1992, with a rate of about 5 per 100,000, back when this city was still a backwater of homophobia (the first attempt at a gay pride parade was only in 1991, remember), where “diversity” was still a dirty word, where none of the purported causes of our current ineffectual and pathetic “gang war” (hear that, Lee Richardson?) were extant. Times were WORSE then for everyone but the hicks. But what was “better,” in Calgary and elsewhere, was that “bleeding” didn’t always entail “leading.”

Those days are over.

I told you so.

A few weeks ago I posted about the unfounded meme/urban legend to the effect that Calgary had (1) the largest proportion of Americans of any city outside the US, and (2) 80,000 Americans, specifically, residing here. Today I got this gem in my comments:

Interesting insight, good article… but where are YOU getting your numbers? And what’s with the chip on your shoulder…why are you so sure Tiajuana has more permanent residents? It may be true that Calgary is a diverse city, but to say Calgary is one of the least Republican cities in Canada is to have blinders on…compared to the rest of the country, Calgary is universally considered “most American, more capitalist, more conservative”, and if you have seen Alberta’s election results you should know that.

Okay, this isn’t a research paper but I’ll just say I didn’t pull these numbers out of my proverbial  ass and I didn’t reference anything that’s not public domain. But at the end of the post I said, “I GUARANTEE that when a poll on the hypothetical ‘votes’ of Canadians is done, Albertans and Calgarians will demonstrate that, as conservative as Alberta might seem by Canadian standards, this is not REMOTELY a ‘red state.’ I guarantee this.”

And, of course and as always on matters like these, I was right. A survey (NOT a phone-in poll or any other stupid non-scientific, non-probability instrument) conducted by Metro News found, on US election eve, that fully 79% of Calgarians would, given the choice, vote Obama. That jibes with returns from, for example, San Francisco County (California, of course) which saw 80% of voters choose Obama. How’s that for “Republican”?

But, you aver, if Calgary saw levels of support that high, then the rest of Canada must have been even higher. Actually, no. According to a nationwide Decima poll from September, overall Canadian support was 66%. Now, the Decima poll gave voice to the undecided, so we might surmise that the rates reported in the two surveys are not comparable, which is fair. But the prediction I made was completely accurate, and supports completely my argument: Calgary is not “conservative,” at least not in an American sense. And it’s sadly this “American” sense that too many Canadians, and Calgarians, presume it to have.

I predicted something else that would happen that I’m very sad to have been right about. In my May 15 post, I said, ” California just kinda-sorta legalized same sex marriage (until a referendum nixes that- don’t start partying now, kids.” And we all know what happened when the loving, liberal, tolerant people of California went to the polls. Here’s a fun fact: African-American support for Obama was a shocking (well, not all that shocking) 95%, and 70% of Californian African-American votes- that’s about 5% of the voter pool- voted AGAINST same-sex marriage. Measure won by 400,000 votes, about 4%. So if these voters had voted in what could be argued a consistent manner- for Obama, for SSM- the measure would have lost, and lost healthily. Does this mean that the “fault” of this “win” was that of African Americans? Well, of course, with plenty of qualification: The measure was the subject of a horrifically misleading campaign by its detractors. The measure was buried under too many others on the ballot. People might not have understood what “yes’ and “no” meant. But regardless, I have to express my disgust at anybody who voted in line with identity politics on one hand (and most of the people who said that race was “important,” per exit polling, voted FOR Obama, not against him), especially where those politics embrace notions of liberation and all the good things associated with having a black-ish US President, and who on the other hand actually believe that it’s good and right for them to deny somebody like me the right to marry somebody like my Brian.

Mind-boggling. Meanwhile back here in “conservative” Calgary, a MAJORITY of voters surveyed after Harper came on board said that they DIDN’T want the same-sex marriage debate re-opened. And my Conservative (big-C) MP, Lee Richardson (somebody I have huge issues with in some areas but not, obviously, on this one) voted in line with those wishes. Imagine any Republican voting that way. Hell, imagine the majority of Dems voting that way. Ain’t gonna happen, because, for Christ’s sake, this is CANADA. Calgary is still part of CANADA.

So there you go. Obama wins, and that’s great, amazing. The rest- just getting it off my chest.