Charloween

Now that the government's gotten involved, it's anyone's guess when the strike will end. Rather than having negotiations that could see it end this week, the employer gets to force my union into a ratification vote. Union reps have said they want to see the vote happen this week, the University apparently wants this to happen around the 21st. It's not soon enough for whoever burned down the wind shelter/shack at my picket line. Which was a totally mature thing to do, by the way. Congratulations.

If the University hadn't broken off the talks, and a resolution was found, classes could potentially resume by the time the University wants to see the forced ratification vote go down. (The University has also reduced the amount of time between the end to the strike and the start of classes from 48 to 24 hours. FYI, undergrad f'listers.)

But the Toronto Star thinks it knows what the problem with York is: it's a "wild child of the Sixties" that "can't shake reputation for loud, lefty activism". Ah, good to know. It's the communists and hippies at fault. (I knew it!)

( I'll make a note that the hippies are always to blame )

In what was yet another lovely Evening With The Roommates, we sat around the tv, ate veggies with homemade bean dip (and chocolate frosting right from the can) and watched us a pile of Arrested Development.

Then the thunder started and the rain started and now I've got stereo sound: the rain outside and the Satie concertos on the computer. "Gymnopédies" = Win.

...

Also = win is The Pillowman, a play by Martin McDonagh. It's Win in a creepy, creepy way. Jim Profit might even be a bit bothered by some parts of it. That's how creepy it gets. For those of us with a soul, it's downright fucking disturbing. Probably didn't help that I was imagining the various actors who've spoken those lines in the roles. (watch out for that link: spoilers) It's both awesome and scary to anticipate how actors would interpret the words and actions. Awesome because excellent actors are fun to watch, and imagining them in other roles is v. fun. Scary because it puts a substance and texture to the characters in a fucking creepy play.

It's a fantastically well-crafted piece of work, such that just reading some of the stage directions sent chills down my spine. And that's why you should hunt it down and read it: it's a well-made piece. What really freaked me out (after the second scene in the first act, which made me put the play down and stop reading for a few days) was how McDonagh started working in jokes by the end of the piece. There were a couple moments where I'd almost laughed out loud. On a line about massacring babies. ...and this isn't a comedy. It's a nightmare! A police interrogation in a totalitarian state straight from Kafta, and McDonagh manages to make the play more about the nature, reason and purpose of storytelling than any comment on police states.

I'll probably grab a copy of it if/when I find one of my own (the one I read is back at the library by now) just to be able to tease out all its bits and pieces. To take it apart, categorize it, leave its bits in tidy piles that I can start to get my head around... make it less scary by knowing it. You know what I mean.