Things I'm lovin' right now

A few things on my radar right now:

1) Dine Out Vancouver is coming up. YAHOO! This annual event is truly stellar. There are around 180 restaurants involved this year. Here's how it works: In January and February, Vancouver restaurants used to have difficulty getting people in the door (after Christmas, the purse-strings were tied pretty tight). So, a few marketing and tourism types got together to brainstorm a way to keep the food scene afloat until Valentine's Day. The result? A multi-week extravaganza of bargain-priced table d'hotes that brought foodies out in droves. Some of the city's top tables started offering 3-course meals for $15, $25 or $35. It was a win-win for everyone. Restaurants were packed every night for 2 weeks, and food lovers got the opportunity to sample dozens of restaurants at prices that wouldn't break the bank.

Last year was my first Dine Out experience. I had been working at Manhattan Restaurant the previous fall, so I had an insider's look at how the event was set up and its effect on the local food community. I only managed to make it out to one restaurant, Rain City Grill, but it was absolutely delicious and I couldn't wait until this year. I'm working on reservations right now, but I've left it a little late, so who knows where I'll end up eating. I'll keep you posted!

2) Three great musicians that I'm digging: Jon Holden, DJ Reset and Sweet Electra.

All great electronica, Jon Holden and DJ Reset fall under the modern house category, while Sweet Electra is a little more dance. Fun, catchy tracks that are on my iPod right now:

- from Jon Holden, I'm loving Shadows

- from DJ Reset, Crush has become my new favorite sunrise song

- from Sweet Electra, Firefly totally makes me groove

I actually heard Sweet Electra for the first time last year on the Chillcast, one of my favorite podcasts, hosted by the lovely Anji Bee. For anyone who is in to down tempo world, ambient or great vocals, you should definitely check this podcast out. Anji often gives away free songs featured on her podcasts, and always has links to every single song she plays - talk about dedication.

3) Guilty book pleasure of the moment: The Twilight series by Stephanie Meyer. I read the first two in the series last fall; they are completely addictive but also completely fluffy, making them very satisfying if you like feeling of reading many many pages in a short amount of time. I'm currently on book 3 of the series, Eclipse. The saga is moving along quite nicely and at this rate, I anticipate I will reach the height of vampiric lust in the next couple of days. I love teen fiction.

Three books in December

Over the holidays I had the opportunity to read three great books. They are all incredibly different in style, content and purpose, but each reflects a personal interest of mine. I've always loved reading, but in the last few years I've found that the books that resonate strongest are ones that seem to fill a space in my thinking or reasoning that I haven't thought about before. Sometimes the space is small, and only a few lines from one or two pages stay in my psyche. Other times, whole books help shift my way of thinking!

The first book is Divisadero by Michael Ondaatje.

Ondaatje has been a favorite author of mine since my undergrad (thanks, John Belshaw). I read In the Skin of a Lion for a history class on the Working Class in early 20th Century Canada. The novel was stunning. After, I sought out The English Patient and Anil's Ghost. Each novel was filled with this flowing, melodious prose that moves with perfect rhythm throughout the lines and pages. I was totally hooked. In particular, I have loved what Ondaatje himself represents for the Canadian Literature Canon. Born in Sri Lanka, Ondaatje immigrated to England and then to Canada in the 1960s. He studied in Canada and has written his entire body of published literature as a Canadian. His work, though often dealing with themes or ideas that many other Canadian authors have dealt with, has a distinct timbre that I have yet to find in the works of Canadians of white, European descent. While I must admit that my knowledge of the modern American Canon is quite limited, I have found that the well-known voices of modern American literature tend to have been born on U.S. soil, while the Canadian Canon seems to have a wider array of 'other' voices that are incorporated and lauded by our literary community. I have heard of these voices being present in the U.S. through my readings, but many have yet to break into the mainstream.

Divisadero is a maturation of Ondaatje's style. His prose is still poetic, but not as long-winded as it has been in previous novels. He has mastered the weaving style of his mysteries; they draw you in quickly and then demand patience as the story unfolds before you. Although my current stack of books to read remains quite tall, I plan to add Coming Through Slaughter to it. I can't seem to get enough of Ondaatje and would love to go back and see where it all started.

I next read Islands in the Stream by Ernest Hemingway.

I started reading this one back in May on a trip to Cuba. At the time I figured if I was going to visit some old haunts of Hemingway's, I may as well get a sense of the man. As it turned out, other reading took precedence during my visit and I didn't start the book until my last day there. I quickly became engrossed in the first part of the book, the story of the protagonist Thomas Hudson, during a summer at his home in the Bahamas. His three sons and a family friend come for a holiday visit and partake in fishing, swimming, drinking and a variety of other beach activities. Although there is nothing shocking or spectacular about the plot line, Hemingway manages to completely enthrall you with his terse descriptions of things and his pointed dialogues. During that trip to Cuba, I only managed to finish Part 1 of the story; I set aside the rest of the book for a later time. I'm actually glad that I did, as Part 2 and 3 are much darker and have a tragic tone overall. I finished up the book during my Christmas holidays, not the best time for sadness but appropriate for the darker season. Going from Ondaatje to Hemingway is truly day and night, if you'll excuse the cliche. Where Ondaatje is flowing and melodic, Hemingway is clipped and clinical. Yet, despite the shortness present in his prose, he still manages to paint a clear picture of the scene, the characters and, surprisingly, the emotions that teem under the surface of the story. I've never read anything of this type that drove me along in my reading. Usually, this type of writing and story would make me snore, but I couldn't put it down.

Finally, in a turn away from fiction, I read Hugo Chavez: Oil, Politics and the Challenge to the United States by Nikolas Kozloff.

I had been dying for more information on Latin American politics. With the current world political climate (dominated heavily in our hemisphere by the U.S., no surprise) I had been finding that media coverage of Latin America has been lacking. As in, non-existant. The only mention of Latin America that I've heard in the mainstream media in the last 12 months has been Barack Obama's condemnation of Columbia during the American Presidential Election campaign. So I was very pleased to pick up this great biography of current Venezualan president, Hugo Chavez. The author, Nikolas Kozloff, is a prolific academic writer who has spent many years in South America and writing about the politics of the region. The book discusses Chavez's influence as a power-broker, using oil as his main diplomatic tool in building a strong, left-leaning coalition of Latin American leaders. Kozloff is very damning of U.S. President Bush and his foreign policy team in their dealings with Chavez. It's not surprising: Bush seems to absolutely hate Chavez and most of their interactions have been extremely hostile. Kozloff's main thesis, though, is that the U.S. government, though they may be loath to do so, really does need to pay attention to Chavez and what is happening in Latin America. At the time it was published, the book stated that there was only one American air base in all of Latin America (located in Ecuador, it is the take-off point for American coca-field eradication efforts in Columbia). If the current political climate stays as it is, it will close this year, leaving the American military with no foot-hold in Latin America. Whoa!! While writing this, I came across a new article by Kozloff written this past May about the redeploying of the American Navy's 4th fleet into the Caribbean. If you don't have time to pick up Kozloff's books (yes, there is another one that I will likely add to my shelf soon), I recommend you click here. In some ways, I hope that Latin America stays off the mainstream media's radar - they never get anything right anyway. I also hope that Obama reaches out to Latin America because there are some amazing things happening there now, and most of us up here in North America don't have a clue what they are!