Fame and Celebrity

Ah, the absurdity that is Charlie Sheen's amusing public breakdown...

My good friend Raincoaster linked to me on this video, I will link back to her...'cause while I might have had it cross my sphere first, she posted it first:



I don't know about you, but I've often thought about how little I ever wanted to be famous. Sure, you'd probably be rich, but you'd have to work to preserve your privacy...or let it all hang out, damn the torpedoes! Your public drunkenness, arrests, serial marriages, serial adoptions, drug problems, lust issues, cellulite or just plain bad taste -- all exposed for the world to pick over.

Or worse, you start believing your own hype, what your publicist wants the public to believe, what your sycophants want you to believe...and the last person who has the balls to tell you you're an ass drifts away, lost in the cacophony of adulation -- and you turn your ranting, couch-jumping lunatic self loose on the world.

I just finished reading the Winter 2011 Lapham's Quarterly on the theme of Celebrity...just days before Sheen's spectacular nuttiness. It was a disturbing delight to be inundated with heartfelt opinions, many of them first hand, on all the various permutations of what celebrity can mean, through time.

I still wouldn't choose it.

Lori

Little Known Facts about Canada

When I taught ESL, if we got on the topic of the geography of Canada, I used to love telling them my favourite bit of info: that France is one of our closest neighbours.

Voilà! Saint-Pierre and Miquelon:


I've never been there. Have any of my Canadian readers? (Went to the official website, and it seems they require a passport to visit.)

So, last month, I was at a Rita MacNeil concert with my mom and her friend, a very funny sweet man with strawberry blond hair...born in an Icelandic enclave in Canada. Who knew that a New Iceland Colony existed on the shores of Lake Winnipeg? I didn't, and I thought I knew quite a bit about my country.

Has anyone else been surprised by this kind of tidbit? Tell me about it!

Lori

Students Run Underground Junk Food Trade

The local school board could take the credit if they wanted to -- "See, the students learned a valuable history lesson about how organized crime began in the United States, and learned entrepreneurial skills at the same time!"

(The full story here.)

Some high school students are making money by selling junk food out of lockers at their Burnaby school despite a provincial ban on junk food sales now in effect in all B.C. schools.

The three Grade 11 students — who asked to be identified only as Weeman, The Fern and Goggles — told CBC News they made more than $200 in the first week of school by bulk-buying candy and chocolate bars, then selling them at a profit.

And the beautiful part of the story is that the School Board isn't cracking down...they're a bit proud of them, I think.

Plus, there's an intimation that teachers are taking advantage of the opportunity as well!