By the end of the opening credits of the first episode of MTV’s The Buried Life, the concept seems so attractive, so engaging, so right now, that it’s easy to imagine the studio meeting where it was pitched:

Okay, here’s the setup: four twenty-something guys make a list of 100 things they’d like to do before they die, and we send a film crew to capture their exploits. Maybe they’re in a van — no, a bus — cruising, listening to hip hop. They’re kind of rascally, a little outdoorsy, a little West Coast. They’re smart, not self-indulgent. Maybe they’re even Canadian. Here’s the kicker: every time they accomplish something on the list, they help a stranger they’ve met along the way. Boom! — everybody’s happy.

Apparently, everybody was. MTV ordered a pilot, then a full eight-episode season, with premises ranging from standard-issue fluff (“ask out the girl of your dreams”) to the startlingly sincere (“help deliver a baby”). Since its January 18 premiere, The Buried Life has received killer promotion and, relative to cable standards, record-breaking audiences. In a front-page article, the New York Times cast the show as “MTV for the era of Obama.” (No kidding: tonight’s episode is about an attempt to play basketball with the U.S. president.) There’s nothing else like it on television.

The Buried Life is created, produced, edited and even promoted by its four stars from British Columbia: Ben Nemtin, Dave Lingwood, and brothers Duncan and Jonnie Penn. The bucket list? They started it in 2006, and crossed off twenty-four items in the making of an independent documentary that caught MTV’s attention. The show’s name? Inspired by an 1852 Matthew Arnold poem. The foursome’s bus, christened Penelope? They bought her from a nudist in Vancouver.

During a recent conference call with the castmates, Ben describes the eight-episode run on MTV as only the latest turn for a project that has already grown beyond the quartet’s wildest imaginations. “We were offered a show in 2007, but we turned it down because we weren’t going to be able to control the creative process. We started this [project] as a way to showcase the potential of a group of friends, and it was crucial for us to maintain that vision,” he tells me. “This time MTV came to us and said, ‘We want to pick up what you’ve been doing for the last four years, and we won’t touch it.’ So we produced it, we edited it, we chose the music. It’s still our baby.”

Indeed, The Buried Life has a degree of warmth and familiarity that’s absent from most of its neighbours in the reality television ’hood. (“We have difficulty calling this a reality show,” Jonnie politely interjects when I raise the term. “It’s more of a docu-series — Gonzo cinema.”) A few years ago, a series this earnest might have come across as schmaltzy. But the world is different now. “In the past two decades we’ve had boy bands and George Bush, and we know where all of that led,” Jonnie says. “Now people are asking for something else.”

The Buried Life might be the first big-deal youth program to focus on that “something” — to study it, cater to it, and harness its potential. From the very beginning, the group’s website has invited visitors to comment on the original list and, better yet, build new lists of their own. Related Facebook and Twitter pages offer additional means for contact. “People are craving a different kind of connection, a more interactive one,” Jonnie says. “It’s clear that young people want to participate; they jump at the opportunity to get involved. It’s not enough anymore just to watch.”

Each member of the group has his favourite list item and, likely, his favourite part of their newfound fame. All four have similar things to say about the way their list addresses happiness, satisfaction, and accomplishment. “Those things aren’t destinations. You don’t just get there and everything’s perfect,” says Duncan. “Maybe the thrill is in the chase, maybe it’s not, but that’s what was missing from our lives before — we didn’t take chances. We were craving the opportunity to do more, but we weren’t doing it.  Now we’ve made it to a different place.”

Jonnie concurs. “This is bigger than us, and it’s something anybody can relate to, connect to, interpret. That’s why the project found success: it transcends generations and gender,” he says.

Can it really be so simple? Ben reminds me about list item no. 53: make a television show. “We’re proud of what we’ve done, but at the end of the day [the MTV series] is just an item on the list,” he says. “Hopefully it will be a good way to get the word out on the project, but what keeps us going is support from our online community — people posting their own lists on our website or Facebook, the conversations we start and the connections we make.

“We’re just getting started. We’ve got big plans.”

(Image courtesy of theburiedlife.com)

1. "Greening the Games" by David Suzuki | The Mark
Canada’s preeminent environmentalist compares the carbon footprints of Olympic Games past, present, and future.

2. “16 Years of International Hockey Memories” by Mike Chen | From the Rink
On the eve of tomorrow’s shinny showdown — Canada vs. USA on the big pond — look back on the best of Olympic and World Cup men’s hockey since 1994. (Or worst, depending on rooting interest: the video gallery begins and ends with Sweden winning gold.)

3. “John Babcock, 1900–2010, R.I.P.” by Milnews.ca | The Torch
Contrary to hasty reports, Gordon Lightfoot endures, but this week still ends with one less hero. Rest easy, John Babcock, the last Canadian veteran of World War I.

4. “Bowerbirds / In Our Talons” by Jeff Hamada | Booooooom
Booooooom notices an old-but-very-good video for Bowerbirds’ infectious “In Our Talons.” Director Alan Poon employs stop-motion animation to maximum effect here — and again in Zeus’s “Marching Through Your Head,” a more recent project that he co-directed with Walrus contributor Adam Makarenko.

5. “Road scholarship: the slippery facts about road salt” by Nick Taylor-Vaisey | This Magazine
Everything you never wanted to know about the substance that’s been officially considered harmful to the environment since 2001, yet shows no sign of disappearing from winter roads any year soon.

6. “Way Too Similar?” by Jörg Colberg | Conscientious
Literary plagiarism is easy to spot; artistic poaching is harder to prove. Vancouver photographer David Burdeny is under scrutiny over similarities between several of his pictures and earlier compositions by several of his peers. Click this link to decide for yourself.

7. “In defence of Jim Jones” by Shaun Usher | Letters of Note
Nine months before Jones orchestrated the mass suicide of more than 900 of his cult followers, San Francisco politician and gay activist Harvey Milk sent this odd letter of support to Jimmy Carter: “Rev. Jones is widely known in the minority communities here and elsewhere as a man of the highest character, who has undertaken constructive remedies for social problems which have been amazing in their scope and effectiveness.” Milk’s unrelated murder happened ten days after the Jonestown Massacre.

8. “The Hidden History of Resistance in Womens’ Prisons” by Danielle Maestretti | Utne Blogs
In The Walrus’s March issue, Marian Botsford Fraser writes about prisoner Renée Acoby in the feature “Life on the Instalment Plan.” In this post, Maestretti points to related stories — including one of her own, about prisoners who self-publish zines — in recent issues of New Politics and the Utne Reader.

9. “Four Infographical Morsels No. 4” by David McCandless | Information is Beautiful
There’s a lot to recommend in this post, but the dazzler is “Timelines,” an elegant, painstaking survey of films and television shows that mess with time travel.

10. “NBC confuses Terry Fox and Michael J. Fox” by Craig Silverman | Regret the Error
Hey, America: Bill Clinton sucked in Parliament, and George Clinton was your second-worst president ever.

(Photo by focusedcapture available via Creative Commons license)

1. “CNN Un-Dobbed!” by Leslie Savan | The Notion
In spite of CNN’s obsession with “technoverkill,” as demonstrated by its endless use of the Magic Wall, Savan praises the network for its return to something resembling old-fashioned journalism in the post–Lou Dobbs era. CNN’s coverage of the Haiti earthquake and its cross-platform investigative series, The Stimulus Project, are prime examples of how journalistic integrity can survive in the era of the politically charged twenty-four-hour news cycle.

2. “Four world records Canada should be ashamed to hold” by Kim Hart Macneill | This Magazine
I do not feel any different about my country because the Olympics are being held in Vancouver. I do not subscribe to the blind patriotism our media is promoting in the lead up to the Winter Games. No doubt, Canada is one of the best countries in the world, but there are serious problems we must face as a nation. Macneill presents four issues that have been glossed over in the Olympian hype.

3. “Can Walmart Compete With Whole Foods?” by Andrew Price | GOOD Blog
Everyone’s favourite big box is getting into the organic food market with a program that sources produce and meat from local farmers. Directly in Wal-Mart’s sights is Whole Foods, the organic grocery retailer that has become every foodie’s preferred choice. When compared head to head, products from Whole Foods win the taste test, but products from Wal-Mart win the price test.

4. “Forgive us, Haiti” by Amy Goodman | Rabble.ca
One month has passed since a magnitude 7.0 earthquake devastated much of Haiti. In the aftermath, media coverage has focused on relief and recovery efforts, with very little explanation about how Haiti became the Western Hemisphere’s poorest nation in the first place. Goodman provides the necessary background.

5. “Saving Haiti’s Cultural Treasures” by Bonnie Czegledi | The Mark
Looting has become a major problem in Haiti following the earthquake. Though looters are thus far mostly focused on securing food and other survival items, some observers worry that attentions will turn to the country’s valuable cultural artifacts. In a pre-emptive response, UNESCO has banned the import, export, and sale of Haitian treasures.

6. “Tweaking reality — Photoshop turns 20” by D.B. Scott | Canadian Magazines
Adobe’s ubiquitous image-editing software celebrates its twentieth birthday next week. The application has endured its fair share of controversy, yet it has become an indispensable tool for the publishing industry. Scott delves into the creation of the program — and links to an amusing site dedicated to horrors of over-Photoshopping.

7. “Stephen Harper delivers paen to patriotism in B.C. Legislature” by Jane Taber | Bureau Blog
Though the content of Steven Harper’s speech to the B.C. Legislature on Thursday was little more than one last chance for rah-rah patriotism before the Vancouver Games, the circumstances surrounding the address were fraught with controversy. First of all, shouldn’t he have delivered this speech to Parliament? Oh yeah, it’s been prorogued. Second, did the province’s Speaker of the House, Bill Barisoff, even invite the PM to come?

8. “Chip-and-PIN is broken” by Cory Doctorow | Boing Boing
If, like me, you’ve been annoyed by the new “Chip-and-PIN” technology in credit and debit cards, here is more fuel for your fire. Turns out these new cards aren’t as safe and secure as advertised: rather, they’re ridiculously easy to use fraudulently.

9. “Where People Still Love Newspapers” by Danielle Maestretti | Utne Reader
Kenya, that’s where. The East African country’s appetite for daily newspapers is so strong that some newsstands offer rental services, charging US$0.13 for thirty minutes of reading time to those who cannot afford the fifty-cent purchase price. Though dailies are in major trouble all across North America, new titles are popping up in Kenya on a regular basis.

10. “Mammoliti’s Curfew: Scapegoating Toronto’s youth” by BerBer Xue | Shameless Wire
In response to what he perceives to be a rash of youth violence plaguing the city, Toronto mayoral candidate and city councillor Giorgio Mammoliti is pushing a mandatory curfew for the city’s teens. Responding from the youth perspective, Xue points out that Mammoliti is playing on the fears of the populace and not providing a real solution to the problem.

Design is everywhere. As I sit at my desk and look around, everything I see is the result of design: my coffee mug, my business cards, my computer monitor, the format of these words on my screen…everything. All of these products required designers of one form or another, people whose lives are devoted to making things in the best way possible. All too often, though, the considerable talents of designers are devoted to Western consumer fluff. I am virtually certain that a very talented and creative person spent countless hours designing, fretting over, and redesigning the slightly irregular handle of my mug. While this detail does slightly improve my drinking experience, imagine what could be done if that same designer focused instead on ideas that could accomplish real good for the world.

Of course, many designers are already doing exactly that. Their work is celebrated by Emily Pilloton, a San Francisco–based product designer and founder of Project H Design, a non-profit group that “supports, inspires, and delivers life-improving product design.” The following are five products featured in her recent book, Design Revolution: 100 Products That Empower People.

The Hippo Water Roller
Fetching water is one of the most important and difficult tasks for people in the developing world. Simply put, water is a fundamental part of life; the problem is it’s rather heavy. Compounding the issue is the fact that the job is often assigned to women and children who can typically carry between ten and twenty litres per trip. Buckets and jerricans are inefficient and can lead to physical ailments: imagine how your neck would feel after carrying a twenty-litre bucket of water on your head for up to eight kilometres. Now imagine doing this several times a day, for your entire life.

The Hippo Water Roller redefines the experience of fetching water. The barrel can hold up to ninety litres of liquid, and since it is designed to be pulled or pushed instead of carried, it has an effective weight of only eighteen kilograms. A price point of US$90 means limited availability for people in the developing world, but those interested in donating to the project can head to Hipporoller.org.

Adaptive Eyecare
There are approximately one billion people in the world who require vision correction but remain untreated. The primary obstacles to receiving treatment are cost and access to doctors. The Adaptive Eyecare system provides a solution to both of these problems. Designed by British physicist Joshua Silver, it features glasses with lenses made of two fluid-filled flexible membranes that can correct up 90 percent of all vision problems. Best of all, the prescription can be adjusted by the wearer at the time of fitting with little-to-no medical supervision. Combined with a low price point of only US$10, the Adaptive Eyecare system offers affordable and accessible eye care. The only thing lacking is style.

Antivirus
Contact with improperly secured, contaminated needles causes 260,000 HIV and 23 million Hepatitis infections every year. The problem is that needle users lack the proper methods of safely separating the needle from the syringe. Antivirus offers a clever solution that takes advantage of a product with near-universal availability: aluminum soda cans. A simple plastic cap is permanently attached to the top of an empty can. After performing an injection, the user inserts the tip of the syringe into Antivirus and breaks it off, safely sealing the needle inside. Standard cans can store up to 400 needles each, allowing for reusability.

SkySails
You’ve heard it before and I’ll say it again, green technologies will not be adopted en masse until there is a significant monetary incentive to do so. Hello, SkySails. Maritime shipping, while being the most efficient means of transporting cargo, is also one of the largest producers of carbon dioxide, producing approximately 813 million tonnes per year. Unlike traditional, mast-mounted sails, SkySails are attached to the bow of the ship by a retractable cable, pulling the vessel in the direction of the wind. By using these large-scale, paraglider-shaped wind propulsion systems, shipping companies can reduce annual fuel costs by up to 50 percent. Cutting that number in half could only be a good thing. SkySails save money and the environment, a win-win scenario if there ever was one.

Plumpy’nut
In the battle against malnutrition, taste may be one of the most important weapons. While there are many foods designed to provide maximum dietary value to the undernourished, children often balk at the flavour. Plumpy’nut delivers 500 calories and fifteen grams of protein per serving, with a taste enjoyed by children around the world: peanut butter. Perhaps the most attractive part of this product is that it can be manufactured by local franchises in developing nations. This not only keeps the price low (around US$0.06 per bar), but also provides much-needed employment in poverty-stricken areas.

(Images courtesy of hipporoller.org, adaptive-eyecare.com, yellowone.dk, skysails.info, and nutriset.fr)

Twenty years ago today, in the single most important moment in 360 years of South Africa’s blood-drenched history, Nelson Mandela walked away from Victor Verster Prison a free man. February 11* is a hallowed day in the local calendar. It may therefore seem inappropriate to profile a noisy, profane rap act named Die Antwoord (Afrikaans for “the answer”) by way of celebration. But, as Mandela marched out of jail into the future, he knew that his release posed a difficult question: Can South Africa transform into a nation united and governed by principles other than race? Die Antwoord, who appear to occupy an entirely different universe from Mandela, are the most articulate answer he could have hoped for.

Over the course of the past ten days or so, the band have been propelled by the likes of Boing Boing, Twitter, Pitchfork, Reuters, et al into the very maw of Fame 3.0. As lead rapper Waddy, a.k.a. Ninja, puts it: “Look at me now! All over the interweb.” Indeed, only two weeks ago, Ninja and his sidekicks Yo-landi “Rich Bitch” Vi$$er and the flabby DJ Hi-Tek were paying dues; now they’re rolling in nunchaku. For their international fans, Die Antwoord are exotic, furious, and, most importantly, new. But what their lyrics mean — or what they stand for precisely — no one in Brooklyn or Paris or São Paulo can say.

Ninja is, at first glance, your typical white trash rapper. He wears his hoodie low; his rangy body is marked with crude tattoos. It takes a second or two to realize that Run-D.M.C. were playing Applebee’s buffets by the time they were of Ninja’s vintage: he is closer to middle age than middle school. He raps in a scattershot mixture of English and Afrikaans; his accent is unfathomable. His lyrics reference the minutely specific to the hip-hop generic: “If you don’t like funerals, Ninja says don’t kick sand in his face,” recalls a South African peanut-butter commercial from the ’80s; “too hot to handle, to cold to hold,” fist-bumps vintage MC Hammer. The clue to Die Antwoord’s raison d’être hides in the intro of their astonishing debut album $O$, where Ninja informs us that, “I represent South African culture. In this place, you get a lot of different things…Blacks. Whites. Coloureds. English. Afrikans. Xhosa. Zulu. Watookal. I’m like all these different people, fucked into one person.” Then Ms. Vi$$er pipes in, dismissing him with a high-pitched “Whateva, man.”

For her part, Vi$$er has a voice like a band-saw powered by helium. She is, even by hip hop’s lofty standards, shockingly profane. (Afrikaans audiences have been appalled, which one assumes is the idea.) Diminutive, and weighing in at less than 100 lbs., she stalks the stage like a heavyweight boxer just before the knockout punch. When she spits out, “I’m the richest bitch with the nicest ass,” we’re inclined to believe her only on the second point. Vi$$er — like the band she raps for — is Afrikaans white trash elevated to performance art.

Zef-rap, the musical currency Die Antwoord have invented and trade in, is born of the badlands that seethe behind Table Mountain in South Africa’s second-largest city, Cape Town. Centuries before apartheid was institutionalized, the Cape flats were seen as the solution to what successive regimes considered to be the city’s most pressing problem, the so-called “coloured” population. The Cape coloureds are a racial mixture of the Khoisan people, white settlers, Malay slaves brought in by the Dutch, and blacks from other areas of southern Africa; their language reflects this mélange. They have long been considered a bastard race, and banished accordingly. (The most tragic of these instances was the razing of District Six that began in the late 1960s.)

The flats lie on a swathe of bitter, barren plateau. Its hoods are defined by rows and rows of single-storey brick houses, rusting chain-link fence, and coils of barbed wire. The streets are owned by the walking dead — crystal meth addicts, drunks, AIDS-emaciated wraiths. There is a vibrant gangland culture, a fuming streak of Islamic fundamentalism, and thousands of good families trying to make a go of it in the mayhem. As such, it is an incredibly rich cultural environment. Zef rap was birthed here, an ungodly potpourri of Top 40 hip hop, chintz house, rave music, DIY beat making, and bad techno. And this is where Ninja spent years, mining for meaning among the violence, the misery, the strong familial bonds — developing not just a style, but an entire persona.

What, one wonders, is an aging white musician from Johannesburg doing biting coloured style from the flats? Ninja’s story, like so many South Africans’, is defined by violence. His father was murdered in a carjacking; his brother committed suicide shortly after he matriculated. Before coming to Die Antwoord, he was a known entity in South African music, most notably with the intellectual hip-hop act Max Normal. Legend tells us that Ninja had his eureka moment when heard an awful beat thumping from a pimped ride driving out of the flats. He moved into the adjoining suburb of Durbanville, starting hanging with gangsters, got some prison tattoos, and gave himself the cheesiest sobriquet he could come up with.

“Rank cultural tourism!” wail the haters. In a country where the wealthy from Johannesburg’s northern suburbs take mini-bus tours of Soweto, a mere twenty minute’s drive from their homes, this sort of criticism is understandable. On Die Antwoord’s latest free download, “Jou Ma se Poes in ’n Fishpaste Jar” (don’t ask), Ninja tells us, “I hang with fuckin’ coloureds coz I am a fuckin’ coloured if I wanna be a coloured. My inner fuckin’ coloured just wants to be discovered.” Which is clearly more of a challenge than an explanation.

Yet understanding why Ninja chose the flats is essential to understanding Die Antwoord. There are, after all, other forms of South African rap, mostly notably kwaito, which had its coming-out party in the Oscar-nominated film Tsotsi. Kwaito belongs to the pantsula — the noble gangsta of the Highveld townships like Soweto and Daveytown, near Johannesburg. The form derives from the bubblegum pop of Brenda Fassie, the sharp horns of Hugh Masekela-era fusion, and gangsta rap.

Kwaito would — could — never welcome an Eminem. Music from the Cape flats is by nature more absorptive. Nonetheless, Die Antwoord take a culturally perilous left turn because Ninja has one more item on his agenda: He is trying to bridge two difficult, disparate musical legacies — coloured music with white Afrikaans hardcore.

When most people, South Africans included, think of Afrikaners, they conjure up a homogenous community blindly following the apartheid über-mind. Not so. There has always been a vibrant Afrikaans protest movement. André Brink and Breyten Breytenbach protested in poetry and prose, Rian Malan in prose and rock. After apartheid, Afrikaans culture predictably split into two cultural streams. One was nationalistic and confrontational, as in the hugely popular anthem lauding the Boer War Afrikaner hero Koos de la Rey. The other was an attempt to redefine Afrikaans culture and create a space outside of traditional nationalistic discourse. Bands like Fokofpolisiekar brought a hardcore punk sensibility to the conversation, and anti-art movements like Bitterkomix undermined Afrikaner nationalism and exceptionalism, viciously lampooning the rugby, barbeque, and lager set.

Die Antwoord are a rap act, certainly, but they are also a way-station along the lengthy road of this punk ethos. The links are clear — members of Fukofpolisiekar and Afrikaans junk-rapper Jack Parow guest on the album. But the differences are telling. Die Antwoord use the patois of the Cape flats, which swallows all, as their idiom. When the Guardian hastily compared Die Antwoord to London white trash garage rap, the paper missed the nuances of Ninja’s brilliant appropriation of Cape flats culture. Die Antwoord remind us in $O$ that South Africa is a mash-up nation. No South African community embodies this more than the Cape coloureds. They are black, white, English, Afrikaans, everyone. By moving to the flats and buying wholesale into local gangsta culture, Waddy is reframing South Africanism anew. While Afrikaans punks positioned themselves in opposition to the ultra-conservative, Calvanist ethos of die volk, what Die Antwoord are doing is not an act of rejection, but an act of embracing.

Ninja has sculpted, both with his flesh and his music, the ultimate South African. He is everything in the country, “fucked into one person.” That he is willing to go so far to embody this idea is thrillingly, gloriously radical. It is also an essential step for the South African generation tasked with healing, so that future generations can answer Mandela’s question — Can we one day unite and govern outside of race? — with a resounding “yes!” Every time Waddy’s wiry form grips the mike and he channels his “inner coloured,” Die Antwoord become an articulation of the country’s potential. I cannot think of a better way to celebrate this, the twentieth anniversary of one of the greatest days the world has ever known.

(Photo by Sean Metelerkamp)

1. “Humanoid robot from GM and NASA” by David Pescovitz | Boing Boing
Robotic technology is advancing by leaps and bounds, and automakers are at the forefront of development. Honda and Toyota are already producing humanoid robots that have enough manual dexterity to play musical instruments. Now General Motors, in partnership with NASA, is getting in the game by manufacturing robots designed to assist astronauts. Does anyone else think this “Robonaut” looks like a busboy from the Mos Eisley Cantina?

2. “Why did the police take aim at pedestrians?” by Dylan Reid | Spacing Toronto
January saw a rash of pedestrian deaths in the city of Toronto, with fourteen accident-related fatalities within the first twenty-five days of 2010. City police have responded by cracking down on the pedestrians themselves. Reid points out how this action ignores the other half of the equation, namely the behaviour of drivers.

3. “District 9’s Director on What Aliens Will Look Like” by Morgan Clendaniel | GOOD Blog
Neill Blomkamp, director of last year’s critically acclaimed District 9, discusses why the alien creatures he created for his film do not reflect his view of what “real-life” aliens will look like. Most interestingly, he discusses why he believes our civilization may just be the most advanced in the galaxy.

4. “Integrity Isn’t Just a Military Value” by Laura Flanders | The Notion
Flanders applauds the direction that Barack Obama is taking on the U.S. military’s controversial “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, but goes on to explain that what America really needs is a comprehensive, nation-wide law that applies to all professions — not just the armed forces. In many states, it’s still legal to fire someone based on sexual orientation.

5. “2010 Olympics Inspire Wave of Vancouver Books” by Jenn Laidlaw | Beyond Robson
Vancouver is set to enjoy its moment in the international spotlight that is the Olympics, and the publishing industry is betting that the attention will translate into book sales. As a young city with a relatively meagre population (compared with other North American metropolises), Vancouver has never really received its due in the book world, other than predictable coffee table tomes that celebrate its geographic setting. Laidlaw examines two new books that look at Vancouver in ways never before explored in literature.

6. “Facebook’s Six-Year Evolution” by John Hudson | The Atlantic Wire
In 2009, Facebook surpassed MySpace to become the most popular social network in the world; on Thursday, it surpassed 400 million users. In the six years since the site went online it has endured its fair share of controversy, focused mainly on privacy issues and user revolts against its many redesigns. Hudson provides commentary on and links to other retrospectives of its unrivalled success.

7. “Auteur Directors Directing the Super Bowl” by Kurt Halfyard | Row Three
Super Bowl XLIV will be played this Sunday in Miami, pitting the Indianapolis Colts against the New Orleans Saints. This video by director Andrew Bouvé asks and answers the question: what if Quentin Tarantino, David Lynch, Wes Anderson, Jean-Luc Godard, or Werner Herzog directed the Super Bowl? Funny how they all wind up looking like NFL Films productions.

8. “Shackleton’s Whisky Dug Up in Antarctica” by Robert Mackey | The Lede
Whisky lovers and Antarctic history buffs rejoice! A team of researchers has found three crates of Scotch whisky (and two crates of brandy) buried by polar explorer Ernest Shackleton during his failed 1909 bid to reach the South Pole. Now a crack squad of whisky scientists has the chance to analyze the samples and recreate the long-lost recipe for Shackleton’s preferred blend of Whyte & Mackay whisky.

9. “Liberals Wouldn’t Have to be So Condescending if The People Who Disagreed With Them Weren’t Such Idiots” by Nick Gillespie | Hit & Run
Don’t be taken by the cheeky headline. This is deep thinking about a guilty secret of many liberals: the condescending inability to comprehend conservative and neo-conservative viewpoints.

10. “Is redesigned Monopoly the worst thing ever?” by Mark Medley | The Ampersand
Monopoly, the venerable board game born out of the Great Depression, is about to celebrate its seventy-fifth anniversary. To mark the occasion, Hasbro has completely redesigned the game. Set to be released this fall, Monopoly: Revolution features a circular board and inflation-adjusted prices (ex. $2 million for passing Go). Is it the worst thing ever? Probably not, but for some die-hard fans, it certainly seems to be.

PARIS—So, uh … can I please get some more fake money?

This is the portentous question that I had to ask, recently and quite sheepishly, of the King of the Walruses. See, I don’t ever like having to ask His Tuskiness for more fake money. I ask him for fake money all the time (hey, I’m a writer, we’ve got expensive fake-whiskey habits to bankroll). But typically, after a little demonstration of heaving and moaning to remind me who the boss is, he comes through.

It’s perfectly analogous to me being a television teenager from the 1950s hoping to take my “main squeeze” on a big date, only in this case the keys to the family car are actually a wad of fake money, my stern-but-lovable father is actually a 2,000-kilogram mass of tusks and blubber, and my best girl is the Super Bowl.

Also, I don’t actually want to play patty-cakes with her in the backseat of my pa’s Ford Galaxie, I want to bet money on a bunch of different little esoteric things that I think she might do. The Super Bowl, I mean.

Yes, it’s that time of year again, the Sportstrotter’s third annual “Top of the Props” column, a foray into the exciting, perilous world of Super Bowl prop betting. Prop betting is when, instead of gambling on the total outcome of a sporting event, you bet on very specific micro-games within the game. If that doesn’t make sense to you, click here for a more thorough explanation.

In 2008 I did pretty well with my bets, turning 100 fake “Trotterbucks” into 131.46, the cherry on the sundae of watching the New York Giants upset the previously undefeated New England Patriots, 17-14. In 2009, the game was another winner, with Mlle Trotter’s beloved Pittsburgh Steelers winning a wild one over the Arizona Cardinals, 27-23.

You know who wasn’t a winner last year? I mean, other than the Cardinals, and 30 other football teams and what the heck let’s throw the Leafs in there for good measure? Yup, that’s right: me. I managed to turn the previous year’s fattened bankroll into, like, 2 Trotterbucks. It wasn’t pretty. Not nearly enough holdover fake money to have any fun with this year. Plus, I think I lost the change (the coins have King Kaufman’s face on them) in my couch.

Hence, I found myself grovelling to the Blubber-Ball with the Beastly Bicuspids: King Walrus himself.

“Blaargh you? Sportstrotter? What are you doing here?” he belched at me, when I finally tracked him down on a rocky islet off the southeast corner of Baffin Island. His breath reeked of fish, but I sure as hell wasn’t going to be the one to tell him.

“Please, sir. I was wondering if I could have a little bit more fake money? You know, to wager on the Super Bowl?”

“Blaargh don’t you mean the Grey Cup?”

“No, sir,” I said, a little bashful. “Nobody wants to read about me betting on the Grey Cup. They already played the game several months ago. Plus, how can you take a football game seriously when the contest’s defining play is a ‘13 men on the field’ penalty?”

“Blaargh good point, Sportstrotter,” he said. “So how much do you need?”

At this point, I knew I had to play it cool. I had King Walrus right where I wanted him, but if I overshot, I would surely end up looking like an overcooked order of Sportstrotter Spaetzle strewn all across the King’s rocky ledge. “Uh, how much fake money did you give to the Bironist last year when he was handicapping last year’s Giller Prize favourites?”

“Blaargh two-hundred Bironbucks. And I can’t believe he bet it all on the Peter Pocklington biography ‘I’d Trade Him Again!””

Neither could I, to be honest, but I saw my opening. “I’ll take half what he got. One hundred Trotterbucks. Er, if you please, sir.”

He thought about it for a minute, and then – I swear I saw this, with my own two eyes – the Walrus King reached up with his flippers, grabbed his left tusk, and spun it around till half the tusk came loose, like an old-school fountain pen. He tipped the hollow half-tusk upside down and out fluttered a perfect, crisp one-hundred-Trotterbuck bill.

“Blaargh one last thing before you go, Sportstrotter,” I heard him say as I scooped up the money and ran for my life. “You’re not going to piss away all that money on hopeless long-shot wagers again this year, are you?”

*

So with the words of the venerable King Walrus still ringing in my ears, coupled with the grim prospect of returning next February (not the ideal time to travel to Baffin Island) to ask for more money should my bets go sour, I’ve decided to forego the laundry-list of wacky proposition bets this year, and just bet on the outcome of the game itself. Not the games within the game – just the game, people.

Plus, after all the work I put in getting the money, and all the work my buddies Odom and Matty put in trying (and failing) to get the Las Vegas Hilton to release an electronic copy of its seminal list of 400-strong prop to me (apparently, as of Friday afternoon the only way you can get a copy of the prop list is to march into the Hilton sports book and grab a paper copy yourself – update: Matty located a copy late Friday afternoon!), I just can’t motivate myself to care whether Saints backup tight end David Thomas will gain more or less than 9.5 yards on his first reception of the game (take the under, though).

So here’s my analysis of Super Bowl XLIV – Indianapolis Colts versus New Orleans Saints:

Both of these teams were 13-0 this year, and then each floundered a bit down the stretch after taking their foot off the gas pedal (I guess we can be pretty certain that they weren’t driving a Toyota HEY-OHHHH!!!).

In the playoffs, the Saints and the Colts each destroyed a one-dimensional team in the divisional round. Then the Colts came from behind to beat a team starting a rookie quarterback who had a very average season, a team that lost its starting running back during the game, a team that lost games this season to the Bills, the Jags and the Dolphins (twice), a team whose own coach thought they were mathematically eliminated from the playoffs with two weeks to go in the season. In short, the Colts squeaked one out against one of the weakest teams to appear in an AFC title game in recent memory, albeit one that played hard and gave the Colts a run for their money.

The Saints won the NFC title against a team that most sportswriters considered the best team in football when the season began. So why does everybody with an opinion on this game automatically think that the Colts are unbeatable and the Saints are flawed and that Manning is the best so therefore the Colts will definitely win?

So I’ll take the Saints to win, like I did (get ready, I’m about to blow your mind!) … back in SEPTEMBER, in my NFL Preview column.

And not just to cover the spread, which is currently at Colts by 5. To win the game outright. I mean, why wouldn’t I pick the team I pegged at the start of the season to win the Super Bowl when they’re playing a team I didn’t even think was good enough to make the playoffs in the Colts (uh … this is embarrassing … hey, look, what’s that over THERE!)

Wager: New Orleans Saints to win (money line bet), 100 TB at +180, for a potential win of 180 TB.

And if I’m wrong, well, I guess I’ll have plenty of time to work on my grovelling skills before next year’s visit to Baffin Island.

(Image courtesy Boston.com)

An actor achieves immortality through his face, a singer through his voice. An author is able to live eternally through his writing, but for some, the finished words are not enough.

The critical notions surrounding authorship have been contentious since the 1960s, when developments in literary theory upset accepted notions about art. Critics such as Roland Barthes and Michel Foucault (two names sure to make any humanities graduate student cringe) dismantled the axiom that the author was the architect of a literary work’s interpretive possibilities. Barthes went so far as to declare “the death of the author,” urging scholars to seek out a text’s meaning in its language, rather than in the intentions of its author.

Despite Barthes’ obituary for the author, the cult of authorship persists. Publishers around the world are breathing fresh life into deceased famous authors by posthumously releasing their “lost” works. In 2009, new books by Vladimir Nabokov, Mark Twain, Kurt Vonnegut, Lucy Maud Montgomery, and in a delicious twist of irony, Roland Barthes, hit the shelves. On the slate for the next couple of years are posthumous works by Ralph Ellison, Jack Kerouac, David Foster Wallace, and Roberto Bolaño. (Bolaño’s corpse is proving to be staggeringly prolific, with as many as four releases on the horizon.)

Meanwhile, J.D. Salinger’s recent death has sparked an enormous level of speculation over the wealth of writings he might have been hoarding. At the time of his death, the notoriously cagey author hadn’t published in over forty-five years. It’s long been reported that he wrote upwards of fifteen manuscripts during his self-imposed exile. Despite Salinger’s militant protection of his privacy and apparent desire not to see these writings in the public sphere, it seems all but inevitable that at least some of them will be snatched up and published in the years to come.

While the frenzy surrounding authorial necromancy is infectious, few of these publications live up to the hype. Take last November’s publication of Vladimir Nabokov’s The Original of Laura, which was heralded in some quarters as the literary event of the year. Before his death in 1977, Nabokov instructed that the unfinished novel was to be burned if he should die before it was completed. Going against his father’s instructions, Dmitri Nabokov chose instead to have it published. In his introduction to the book, the son explains that “despite its incompleteness…[the writing] was unprecedented in structure and style,” and as a result, he “could no longer even think of burning Laura.” He justifies his decision by reasoning, “[I do not think] that my father or my father’s shade would have opposed the release of Laura once Laura had survived the hum of time this long… Should I be damned or thanked?”

Dmitri soon got his answer. Despite the flashy packaging — the 138 index cards on which Vladimir composed the fragments are replicated and perforated for the reader’s punch-out pleasure — the book was a flop. Although critics recognized faint glimmers of the brilliance that defined such masterpieces as Lolita and Pale Fire, Laura was ultimately dismissed as uneven, disjointed, and muddled. Tellingly, the final card reads, “efface, expunge, delete, cut out, wipe out, obliterate.”

While readers and critics alike have condemned Dmitri Nabokov’s decision to disobey his father, this same community has been very forgiving of similar betrayals when the final product has been more to its liking. It has long been said that Virgil insisted that the unrevised manuscript of The Aeneid be burned upon his death; his trusted friend Varius chose to release it anyhow. Similarly, if Max Brod, Franz Kafka’s literary executor, had obeyed the writer’s instructions, The Trial, The Castle, and Amerika never would have seen the light of day.

It’s difficult to dispute the opportunistic nature of posthumous publishing. Dave Rosenthal of The Baltimore Sun suggests that the practice is, at its worst, “grave-robbing, crass exploitation to make a few bucks,” with publishers, executors, and academics seizing the chance to capitalize on unseen works by established names. Readers, too, have an almost mystical fascination with the novelty of posthumous literature. It is a means to engage with the dead, or partake in a kind of literary time travel — it is the chance to experience new work by writers who might have died before you were born, and whose voices now appear to be echoing from the mystic beyond.

Unfortunately, it’s rare that a posthumous publication dazzles its audience. Sure, you might argue John Kennedy Toole and Roberto Bolaño are primarily known for their excellent posthumous novels (A Confederacy of Dunces and 2666, respectively), but neither of them were established authors until after their deaths. Generally, it seems that when famous authors make deathbed warnings not to publish something they’ve written, there’s a good reason.

Unfinished novels are also problematic — they are inevitably compared to other works that their authors had the chance to revise and polish. The work-in-progress is frequently edited and modified after an author’s death in order to make it a cohesive product. This is a doubly troublesome, as it both dilutes the original text into a heavily edited shadow of a novel, and simultaneously deprives readers of the immersive experience that exploring an unfinished project can provide. Drafts, notes, and manuscripts are fascinating pieces of ephemera, like journals or correspondence. But like the personal papers of an author, unfinished writings are literary artifacts, not literary works; they lack the finality and the intent that define a finished product. Left untouched, they are valuable glimpses into the author’s writing process, but as artifacts, they should remain untouched and unedited: in no way should they be touted as examples of the author’s artistry.

One example of a published work-in-progress gone awry was Ralph Ellison’s Juneteenth, published in 1999, five years after the writer’s death. The only novel Ellison published during his lifetime was 1952’s sprawling masterpiece, Invisible Man, and he spent the next forty-odd years toiling at his next novel. At the time of his death, he left 2,000 pages of his manuscript; Ellison’s literary executor, John F. Callahan, determined to publish his friend’s work, whittled the stack into a 368-page novel. His effort was met with tepid reviews. Michiko Kakutani wrote in the New York Times that Juneteenth “feels disappointingly provisional and incomplete,” and that Ellison’s executor had “effectively changed the book’s entire structure and modus operandi. Instead of the symphonic work Ellison envisioned, Callahan has given us a flawed linear novel, focused around one man’s emotional and political evolution.”

Now, eleven years after Juneteenth’s publication, Callahan is trying again. Last week, the scraps and versions of Ellison’s unfinished opus were published as an annotated, 1136-page work-in-progress entitled Three Days Before the Shooting… This release presents Ellison’s manuscript more or less the way he left it, offering the reader a non-traditional foray into the author’s mind. By contextualizing and accepting the text instead of attempting to finish it, Callahan is finally letting it live.

In the end, the controversy surrounding posthumous publication will endure as long as the publications themselves. Despite the hit-and-miss — mostly miss — nature of the practice, for every Original of Laura, there is a Confederacy of Dunces, a treasure that might have never been unearthed, and for that reason, life after death will continue for many authors who leave unfinished business.

But instead of pouncing on a work that will sell copies for its author’s reputation alone, publishers need to use discretion in terms of the strength of the work, independent of its byline. Continuing on our current path of fetishizing departed authors, we’ll soon see fancy editions of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s grocery lists, or leather-bound copies of Virginia Woolf’s to-do reminders. Needless, opportunistic posthumous publications such as those serve no one, least of all the author. In his Slate review of Laura, Aleksandar Hemon quotes Vladimir Nabokov as once having said, “In art, purpose and plan are nothing; only the results count.” By their own shortcomings, the published results of the author’s last, embryonic manuscript proved him right.

(Images courtesy of Random House)