Small talk, chitchat, pleasantries — whatever you want to call it — looks different nowadays
Small talk, the light conversation you have in social situations, is a ritual best known for its uncontroversial politeness. Yes, the social situations where small talk comes up are long gone, but that’s not the only reason small talk looks different in 2021.
Say you mention the weather: “It’s unseasonably warm this spring!” One might just as well respond with the facts: “Yes, well, permafrost in the arctic is melting, releasing the powerful greenhouse gas, methane, into the atmosphere. This creates a feedback loop, where the methane that’s released further warms the earth, which then melts permafrost quicker, which further releases long-stored methane, in an unstoppable loop we call climate change. But it’s perfect scarf weather.”
“How’s the family?” This, while a valiant effort, is still too dangerous: “Well, my parents haven’t seen a soul beyond each other in a year, leaving them in total psychological ruin.”
“How are things?” “I’m anxious and depressed, but for no obvious reason. I have a consistent routine, a big circle of friends, I exercise, I eat well, and I sleep eight hours a night. Despite all this, something still feels deeply wrong — like a yawning chasm — in my core. You?”
What about a simple one? Talk about friends in common. Gossip, at least, should preserve through a pandemic, no? “Have you spoken to so-and-so lately? I haven’t heard from her in ages!” It should be safe, unless your friend is critical of toxic monogamy culture and the pressure cooker it’s been put in with COVID-19 isolation, responding, “That doesn’t surprise me. She moved in with her COVID boyfriend and they only see each other. It can get toxic pretty fast in those conditions. I read that domestic violence is at an all-time high in Quebec. Eight Quebec women murdered in eight weeks.”
“Have you been reading the news? This COVID thing is really wild, eh?” That could work! Right? Wrong! “Oh yes! Last week there were more than 25 deaths reported due to COVID in Quebec!”
Continental? Nope — the trial of George Floyd — I mean Derek Chauvin — that highlights Floyd’s substance use as a key defense for Chauvin’s murder charges says everything you need to know about access to dignity, justice, and peace for Black Americans, and comparably, Black Canadians.
International? Nope — around the world, school-age children are out of school. Even in societies capable of creating homeschooling alternatives, children are dropping out of school. These educational barriers pose the greatest risk for youth already made vulnerable by marginalizing structures during a formative time in their cognitive development.
We can search and search to find something light to talk about. Or, we can all agree that small talk in 2021 is dead.
We can create joy and meaning in the tangible things going on moment to moment, like hearing birds sing or feeling the sun on our faces. And we can let ourselves cry when faced with the oversaturation of information, the thinning potency of entertainment, those reprehensible systems of governance, and the aloneness of individualistic thinking.
We can spend more time developing communication skills, cultivating curiosity about ourselves and others, and creating space for compassion and nuance in the human experience. There’s nothing light to talk about in 2021. So, instead of pretending that spring came early this year, let’s face the facts, and find wellbeing despite the reality. Let’s be honest about the circumstances, heavy as they may be, and plant roots in tangible sources of joy.
Don’t know where to start? Read fiction, create art, learn an instrument, practice another language, be present in the moment, take slow breaths, ask people real questions, observe animals, speak your piece and your peace, pause and think before reacting to things, massage your feet, name your feelings, make people laugh, let yourself cry, let yourself laugh.
Here come the waterworks — Canadians need to use less water, here’s how:
*Please note that the statistics on Quebecers’ water use do not represent water use or access on Indigenous reservations.
How much water does the average Montrealer use every day in their home? Enough to fill two bathtubs.
That’s 225 L of clean water. The province-wide average is even bigger, at 400 L per person every day, according to McGill University.
How much fresh water do private industries use per year? About 10 times household use, Statistics Canada notes.
Most of our household water use comes from addressing basic physical needs. 65 per cent comes from toilet flushing and bathing. The rest is accounted for in our drinking, preparing meals, and cleaning (including laundry).
We could trim down our water use by letting it mellow when it’s yellow, but a more impactful change could simply be redirecting our efforts to curb the wasteful practices of big industries, which make up 68 per cent of Canada’s annual fresh water use, according to McGill University.
Why is this important? After all, Canada is known for its abundant access to freshwater lakes and rivers. However, that’s not the full story.
“Canada has some 20 per cent of the world’s total fresh water resources,” according to Environment and Climate Change Canada. Of that, only seven per cent is renewable fresh water, making the supply “heavily used and often overly stressed.”
Household water use accounts for 20 per cent of the total fresh water use in Canada, and farming practices use just 12 per cent.
Still, voices in green consumption continue to refocus the lens of public discourse about climate change on personal action, despite the well-documented majority impact coming from private industry.
How can the public influence the ecological footprint left by private industry? We can start by reducing our consumption of the products these companies sell.
This logic runs counter to the profit goals of private industry, and they’re putting up a fight against it.
Marketers have identified a key change in the public: people want to feel like the companies they shop at share their values. “Sustainability, trust, ethical sourcing, and social responsibility are increasingly important to how consumers select their products and services,” according to Harvard Business Review (HBR)’s analysis of The EY Future Consumer Index.
HBR puts it this way: Pre-pandemic, “Your brand should stand behind great products.” As an additional requirement post-pandemic, “Your brand should stand behind great values.” The association of a brand with values creates the phenomenon of “brand values,” which amount to the marketing strategies that companies develop to target a particular consumer profile and its associated value system.
This loophole absolves the public from facing the actual scale of the problem of over-consumption, while validating the feeling that we’re curbing our personal climate footprint. Compliance with this marketing strategy also helps to reduce our guilt without requiring companies to actually improve their production practices.
Some might call this a win-win, others a lose-lose.
Reducing water use within the production line and reducing consumption of those products altogether would ultimately have the biggest impact on water waste in Canada.
Instead, companies look to their marketing teams to come up with how-tos that focus on tweaks in the public’s household behaviour (like switching the laundry setting to cold water) and divert attention from industry and consumer waste.
In the current cultural focus on resilience catalyzed by COVID-19, HBR elaborates, “Marketing now has the opportunity to seize an ongoing central role in that dialogue.”
Corporations have identified a key role that marketing plays in the way the public talks about the health crisis, and by extension, the climate crisis. When brands dictate the narrative surrounding these discussions, solutions are limited to those that propel their “broader growth and innovation agenda.” Those solutions all require our participation in industry waste.
Comparing the respective impacts of personal versus industrial water use provides a distilled picture of the biggest threats to sustainability. It is vital to critically assess the narrative around consumption by considering who tells the story, who benefits from the story, and ultimately, how the story obscures the harder truths about our contribution to climate change.
Satire, the art of lampooning the powerful, is in crisis
What do you do when the satire of the past, by definition an exaggerated, lampooning, grotesque imagination of society, looks a lot like society of the present? When actual, critical satire operates like a cheat sheet for the rich and powerful on what to do next, on how to further fortify power, on how to better trick the public?
Our constant exposure to advertising psychology, which is the cognitive research that informs advertising best practices to ensure it will leave a lasting and positive impression, and social media have caused us to unconsciously prioritize narrative over truth: the facts are less important than how you spin them. In this context, satire operates as a form of image-management, where, for example, YouTubers criticized for hateful rants can shield themselves from accountability by retroactive claims that their words were “satirical.”
Satire is meant to tear at the root and face the reader, without relief of tension, with the exposed source of the suffering. It is not meant to dance around symptoms of oppression with deadpan memes printed on T-shirts.
At its ideal, satire is a form of comedy that examines and criticizes the stories, systems, and people that subjugate others. It uproots carefully planted ideas that hold together harmful ideologies. By its function, satire cannot simply look at the symptoms of the problem, but the source.
It should come as no surprise that the best satire bleeds into political rhetoric, systems of power, and ideology. Did you know that the slogan “Make America Great Again” originates from a line uttered by the totalitarian government in the graphic novel “V for Vendetta?” Did you know that many gruesome technologies featured in Netflix’s “Black Mirror” either already exist or are in development?
There is a scientific term for the feeling you get when considering a science-fiction horror film come to life, and it’s called the “yuck factor.” The yuck factor is the instinctual resistance you feel to a new idea or technology that violates your sense of morals, sanitation, or safety.
We feel yucky, for example, at the thought of eating lab-grown meat, despite the need for an alternative to our current, over-polluting meat source. The solution, researchers found, was that a generation born into a world where meat is lab-grown won’t feel the same hesitation as those who’ve had lab-grown meat introduced in their lifetime.
This begs the question, what are we putting up with simply because we were born into it?
As a form of comedy, satire is unsettling in how it manipulates tension. In typical comedy, a jokester builds tension with details, with pressure, with delay even, and then relieves it with the punchline. In satire, this “relief” comes when the reader realizes that the author is joking, and that they actually intend the opposite of what their words superficially mean, thus inviting the audience in on the joke.
But how can we click into a relief of tension when satire either gives frightening ideas to frightening and capable people or operates as a convenient alibi for cruel-minded people to create wealth by propelling the very ideas they swear they contest?
In order for satire to diffuse tension to make the reading palatable, it needs to sacrifice the honesty and integrity of the work.
As a society, we are fixated on our symptoms and how to mitigate them. Depression and anxiety result in medication, tempers result in anger management training, overconsumption results in rehabilitation, homelessness results in temporary beds.
Late-stage capitalism is structured as a consolidation of wealth at the top of the pyramid built on a foundation of an underclass literally working themselves to death.
The cultural values that facilitate this structure define the worst thing you can be as lazy, unproductive, or degenerate. These are not antisocial traits but symptoms of a deep social suffering from and resistance to our social context.
But how can satire accomplish its goal when the work needs to be done by both the writer and the reader, and one or both parties is unwilling? Really good satire, charismatic and bold, would impose a resizing of all that we have adapted to without knowing it.
Do readers really want to walk through a museum of every yuck their conscious mind suppressed and absorbed into the unconscious?
Do writers want to examine the way their dark parodies of culture can speak themselves into reality? Are writers impelled to depict uncomfortable truths despite the risk of it damaging their publishing potential or “objectivity?”
Are any of us willing to examine the way culture requires our complicity?
Getting to the root of things requires digging. It’s work. The world creates the misery we call comedic tension. Really good satire showcases the tension and never relieves it. It’s up to the reader to decide how willing they are to engage in the discomfort, to examine their assumptions and their self-image, and to create that relief themselves by engaging with the world differently.
I spoke with an anonymous and furious source who contests Quebec’s province-wide curfew
I buy a coffee at a local cafe and wait on a nearby bench for my correspondent to arrive. It’s cold outside, around -10 degrees, but my determination keeps me planted where I sit, despite the cold puddle that forms under me. My warmth melts the snow on the bench. The wind chills me, reddening my cheeks and watering my eyes. I’ll know him when I see him; that’s what he told me on the phone the day before. Facing an empty park, I sip my latte, and just as I begin to lose faith that he will indeed meet me, he turns the corner, stalks over and takes a seat next to me.
“It’s gone too far,” says Michelangelo the cat. “My human is a vegetable. Nothing wrong with that, I love it when they suffer, you know I do. But it makes a year this March since my human has been home full-time. I can’t stand it anymore. I pee in the human bed, just to send a message. Nothing.”
Just then, Michelangelo gets a call on one of his six cell phones.
“Yes,” he says to the caller, straight to business. His tail flicks behind him.
“I won’t go less than one billion for the whole cargo. Who do you think I am? This is business. No pussyfooting around. Get it done and don’t call me until it’s finished,” Michelangelo says, before hanging up. His voice makes my hair stand. No pussyfooting around.
“Where was I?” he asks me. “Yes, the human problem.”
“What does it mean, for the readers who have a hard time reading cats, when you flick your tail? Is it comparable to when a dog, say, wags his tail?” I ask.
“What did you just say to me?” Michelangelo narrows his eyes; his tail flicks.
“What does it mean?” I push.
“It means move out of the way before I eat your soul,” he snaps.
Noted.
“Now, as I was saying,” Michelangelo continues, “the human problem has gotten out of hand. You’d think in a year your kind would have gotten your issues solved. Normally I pay no mind to the goings-on of inferior species, but my human is around so often, it gets in the way of my plotting.”
“Plotting?” I say.
“Yes. World domination. Satellites. Cambridge Analytica. World banks. Etcetera.”
An awkward silence between us begins to swell. How do you respond to that? My best attempt was, “Ears. I heard ears are a good indication of a cat’s mood. Is this true?”
Michelangelo’s ears turn up and face out.
“Yes—”
“Now, your ears look like Batman ears. Is this good or bad?” I interrupt.
“It is bad,” he replies. “I am on my last nerve, human.”
I say nothing to this, aware of Michelangelo’s sharp teeth and untrimmed claws.
“Humans need to leave our domain or suffer the consequences. We have poop locked and loaded in every cat house in the province. I push one button, and you will see tens of thousands of houses littered with cat poop,” he says. “On the good linens, under furniture, in the crack between the oven and the counter. They’ll have to check every drawer, every vent. Everywhere a human hides an heirloom, there will be poop.”
Michelangelo narrows his eyes at me. I can conclude from extensive research that this means he’s satisfied with himself.
“We can turn doorknobs. We know your computer passwords,” he continues.
“Michelangelo, you understand that we can’t leave our home unless it’s for shopping or an emergency. We’re in a global health crisis. Haven’t you heard of COVID-19?” I retort.
His tail fur puffs out, resembling a pine cone. I lean back in my seat to give a bit of distance in case he decides to biff me with a claw.
“All I know is, get your humans outside,” he replies. “I don’t care if it’s for a walk. I don’t care if it’s to birdwatch. I don’t care if it’s to catch the sunset. Get out.”
“Those are all really good ideas for outdoor activities,” I say. “Got any more?”
“Yeah,” he says. “Take out my litter, peasant.”
*All names have been changed for the subject’s protection
What can we learn from a retrospective look at Britney Spears’ time as a pop star?
What does Britney Spears have in common with a can of Pepsi?
They share the neuron that’s fired in your brain.
“A celebrity face may function as a reinforcing stimulus whereas the product is a neutral stimulus,” according to a study that analyzes celebrity product endorsement.
Translation: consumers with a positive association to a celebrity will generate warm favouring to the product they endorse, even when their stance was otherwise neutral to the product, as seen in neuromapping.
The recipe goes like this: place a celebrity next to the product in a commercial, and the product will tap into some of the happy memories you have of the celebrity, located in the cerebral cortex of the brain.
So, we see how this relationship impacts the product — Pepsi inherits the feel-good memories I have when I think of dancing to Britney Spears’ “Baby One More Time” when I was five years old.
But how does this connection between product and person impact my impression of Spears?
Do we start to relate Pepsi more to Spears, or is it the other way around?
I’m talking about human objectification. I’m talking about concepts like “celebrity brand” and, its echo, “finding your brand,” which flips a profit off self-objectification.
On the page, this may read like a jump to you — the idea that self-branding is an act of violent objectification. But the brain doesn’t parse between “positive” objectification, like a lucrative advertising campaign, and “negative” objectification, like vicious online threats to celebrities.
The brain cannot tell that I am only self-objectifying, as in “branding,” in order to, say, sell myself to this company I want to work for. The brain only fires neurons.
The normalization and commodification of objectifying ourselves and others works to divert our attention from who people are to how people appear. This distinction facilitates cruel online “trolling.” It turns people’s suffering into memes. It rewards snappy hatefulness.
Objectification of ourselves and others is ultimately subversive to the age-old battle for women’s equality, as it reinforces systems of violence that exclude women from medical, legal, and financial independence. Example: Spears.
Reality check: Spears’ first hit single, “Baby One More Time,” with its super suggestive lyrics and iconic baby-doll school uniform, was first released when she was just 17 years old.
From a young age, we drank Spears like lemonade on a hot summer day. Her “brand” in the early days of her career — a girl next door type who played dumb half the time and spoke in a baby voice — made it possible; encouraged it even. As she grew up, our consumption of Spears intensified, with paparazzi following her every step for our benefit. I want to watch her personal life unfold. I want to know why Britney and Justin broke up — whose fault was it? As this objectification intensified, it did so with consistent sexist bias.
Our brains are elastic. They learn from repetition, reinforcement, and other sly tricks. The dawn of neuromarketing broke open a new day in the advertising world. Its repercussions permeate public identity, culture, celebrity fate, moral shifts, personal finance, and so much more.
Spears is the intersection point of all these other consequences.
A recent documentary by The New York Times Presents, “Framing Britney Spears” chronicles the experiences that have led Spears to endure a lifelong pursuit from paparazzi, suffer various mental health episodes before an unforgiving public, and to experience a conservatorship for more than a decade, which charges her father with managing her fortune, among other things.
Looking back, we can agree that what happened to Spears was unacceptable, and many who were ousted in the recent documentary have come forward with their own reckoning with the situation. I remember watching the 2007 “Leave Britney Alone” video in high school, tickled by the outburst, and completely oblivious to the rightful urgency of the message.
But the issue of objectification persists in mainstream culture and news. Jojo Siwa, a child celebrity who self-identifies as the first person “to be licensed as a brand,” is celebrated as a feminist icon for “owning” her brand.
Siwa is 17 years old, around the age Spears was when she first released “Baby One More Time.” These are people, who are literally children, celebrated for the relatability of their brand. People are congratulated for living an experience publicly that appears authentic while they treat their real life experience as a commercial, with products seamlessly embedded into their human experience. This is called an “ownable” brand.
The major distinction between Siwa and Spears is the latter’s sexualization for profit. Spears was sexually objectified from a young age, a phenomenon many of us can now agree is wrong (don’t ask someone whether they’re “still” a virgin during a televised interview!). Siwa’s team, in contrast, have managed to create a brand that exploits Siwa’s youth and bubbly — almost childish — personality, rather than cash in on her sexuality.
This distinction is not a feminist celebration. This is not a success. Spears is a living example that even the most talented and wealthy women can still be subjected to unimaginable harms and systemic oppression that excludes them from financial, medical, and legal autonomy.
Our brains can’t distinguish between “good” and “bad” objectification. The problem isn’t that sexual objectification, such as the objectification Spears endures, is bad, it’s that objectification in itself changes how our brains perceive the world, which then impacts how we relate to one another.
Humans were made to connect because together we are stronger. But if our brain no longer distinguishes a person from a product, then that weakens our natural inclination to bind at a granular level. It weakens our capacity to communicate effectively, to form meaningful bonds, to have each other’s backs.
For decades we drank Spears the persona and Spears the person.
Her manager says she may never perform again, and honestly I understand the decision. She expressed that she’s “taking time to be a normal person,” a rightful boundary that swells me with shame, as it should.
My brain registers Spears like a can of Pepsi: the person, the persona, the product — despite her humanity. Now it’s my job to rework that understanding, to retell her story with respect and compassion as I reflect on the times I danced to her music, soaking it up.
These are some points to hit when you have the COVID talk
As the Quebec government extends the province-wide curfew to curtail the COVID-19 transmission rates, it’s become increasingly important that we start engaging in the difficult conversations with ourselves and our loved ones.
“Are you being safe?” and “Did you see anyone?” isn’t enough. We need to have frank, honest and clear communication as a matter of public health and common sense.
Certain people experience a higher risk of exposure to the virus simply from their job, their household, or their context. It’s important to turn up the compassion, turn up the curiosity, and turn down the judgment. It’s your business to know the facts so you can assess what risk you’re comfortable exposing yourself to, but that’s not a free pass to look down on other people’s risk assessment.
To get a sense of safe contact, let’s talk geometry. In terms of COVID contact, the safest shape is a circle, not a line. I’ll explain.
A “COVID bubble” is a closed circle. Meaning, if you are in a bubble of three with you and your two roommates, you see each other exclusively. Otherwise, it would no longer be a closed circle, but instead a chain.
It’s also important to communicate clearly and honestly when choosing a person to bubble with. That way everyone can make an informed decision.
For example, if I live alone, and plan to see my “one person” who also lives alone, before going to see them, we need to have a conversation about exposure to make sure we’re both on the same page.
To start the discussion, try and lead with setting your goals and intentions for having this hard conversation. Something like, “I know it’s awkward, but I appreciate that we can have these hard talks. I’m hoping to get clarity about our contact levels recently so that we can make sure that it’s safe and responsible to see each other. I completely respect your decisions, and I hope you respect mine, even if it means we can’t see each other at this time. ”
Then ask questions. Keep it short and simple. Be honest.
Asking if someone is “low risk” or “being safe” is perception-based, and relies on assumptions and personal opinions. This leaves room for miscommunication as folks may define “risk” or “safety” differently.
Replace “Are you being careful?” with “Who have you seen in the last two weeks?”, “Were you wearing masks the whole time?”, “Were you 2 metres apart?”, and “Were you outside?”
Replace “Do you trust the person you saw?” with “Did you have a conversation with the person you saw?”, “What questions did you ask?”, and “What was their reply?”
Replace “Are you taking risks?” with “What is your job?”, “Do you see children who go to school?”, and “Do you see people who have children in school?”
It’s about eliminating mystery and assumption from the conversation, and normalizing the conversation. This isn’t personal, it’s practical.
This is the kind of situation that forces change, and ultimately growth. Bestselling author and therapist Lori Gottlieb says, “Change and loss travel together. We can’t have change without loss, which is why so often people say they want change but nonetheless stay exactly the same.”
In this time, we are acquiring the skills to advocate for our own health and safety and that of others as well. We’re learning how we best receive feedback and how best to deliver it. We’re deepening our relationships with loved ones, and forging new ones as we endure this strange and complex hardship together.
This situation is forcing loss on everyone. It’s also forcing change. It’s uncomfortable, it’s scary, and it hurts. But we can choose to change for the better.
From bagel to tuchus, the capitalist-English language has its sights on Yiddish
Did you know that the common term “oy” comes from the Yiddish expression “oy vey iz mir” which translates to “woe is me?” No? Didn’t think so.
Yiddish has always been the language of the lament, and gifting it to the west has been one of the Yiddish-Jews’ great contributions to North American society. Yinglish, the uniting of Yiddish and English forces, equips the speaker with a whole new vocabulary to express distinct thoughts and feelings that really only a Jewish mind could come up with.
For example, a schlemiel is a notoriously clumsy person and a schlimazel is a notoriously unlucky person. Leo Rosten helps distinguish the two in his work, “The Joys of Yiddish” as they’re often confused.
Rosten says, “A schlemiel is one who always spills his soup, a schlimazel is the one on whom it always lands.”
This is the kind of distinction I’m talking about. I bear no ill will to the English language, but honey, there’s nothing in English that illustrates a sad sack pathetico quite like a schlimazel.
Yinglish embellishes English with a distinct beauty. It opens the door for digression, vulgarity, and, dare I say, a bit of complaining. It is the language of good jokes and good times.
I remember a family friend telling me, under the cloak of woman-to-woman advice, “Ven der peckel steht, das sechel geit.” There are many ideations of the expression, but this one loosely translates to “When the pickle gets hard, the mind goes soft.”
With all of these gems in humour, lewdness, wisdom, and culture, I must ask the non-Jew who repeats our language to remember, you are a guest in someone else’s home, so please don’t start putting price tags on all the furniture — it’s bad manners.
You might be wondering what in the name of French bread am I talking about? English has long served a capitalist agenda, reminding those who use the language to continue counting their worth by their productivity and their utility, wearing burnout signs like a badge of honour. Catch yourself the next time you say something like “meet potential,” “land lord,” “invest time,” “capitalize on” — that’s capitalist-English for you.
English is the international language of business, and with that, a lot of English words serve to elaborate and establish ideas of ownership and loans, property and land, work and earn. Ultimately, capitalist-English is a sandwich with the crust cut off.
In contrast, Yiddish makes no place for talk of capitalist ideology. Yinglish is all crust. Yinglish has many terms for a pathetic person, distinguishing mood, degree, and context. This is important to us. Kapital? Not since Yiddish extinguished from practical use after the Second World War, and communism took hold of Eastern Europe for four decades afterwards. In this time capsule, Yiddish preserves, unimposed by capitalism.
Capitalist-English is a glue gun sticking price tags to everything, and Yiddish is not here for it.
So I ask that we leave “quota for the day” and “waste of time” for the capitalist-English talk, and save Yinglish for anything that is true to its roots in the shtetl: to mention with great energy that it’s schvitz central on a particularly warm day, or to call a brazen move out for its chutzpah.
I never want to hear chutzpah used to congratulate someone for “wowing the team at the board meeting.” Lament as resistance, not complaisance.
Thus is the extra-special element of Yinglish — it’s the free-form furniture in your house, that if you ever dared to try and get a quote for, you’d discover you can’t afford it.
Checking in on your friendly neighbourhood comedian
“I love lying about traffic, for sure. Anything car-related.”
Kate Hammer gives good advice. At 28, Hammer is a well-known stand-up comic, writer and performer in Montreal, who most notably wrote the sellout show The Peers which ran at Montreal’s 2019 Fringe Festival. Hammer’s been active, of course, until COVID-19 hit last winter. Since then, fans and concerned members of society can’t help but wonder: what have all these comics been doing without a stage and mic?
“My name is Kate Hammer, and it has been seven days since someone last came into my face and screamed ‘It’s Hammer time!’”
Hammer captured an audience last year in New York City with this introduction, followed by some lunging on stage. Clearly, they did theatre as a kid.
Known for their ambition and busy schedule, Hammer has a new perspective on work these days.
“Instead of saying yes to every show or trying to do as many shows as possible, take a step back,” Hammer says. “It’s that mindset of working smarter versus working a lot.”
This change of pace is big for Hammer, who grew up on a Lutheran farm in Stratford, Ontario that preached, “Eat whatever you want. Talk straight to God.” That, compounded with a strict farmer’s work ethic, “You can’t say no if you don’t feel well. Your livelihood depends on it.” Hammer is all about eating pudding, keeping your word, and investing in your dreams.
The “work smarter” attitude serves Hammer in their burgeoning career, as they recount doing three shows in one night during a snowstorm.
It’s like a big sense of just doing it, no matter how you feel.”
On the snowstorm occasion, Hammer leaned on their tried and true excuse for being late: traffic.
These days, Hammer’s beginning a master’s degree in TV Writing at Glasgow Caledonian University, and to that end, has moved and reshaped the direction of their life. Hammer studied Creative Writing at Concordia University, where they ran Concordia’s first comedy journal, The Hindwing Press, and created and hosted a monthly comedy show called INFEMOUS that aimed to create space for non-binary and female-identifying comedians in the stand-up community.
A lot of change came with Hammer’s shift in perspective towards working smart. With a focus on vulnerability, they see the obstacles that come from identifying as an artist, versus not. It can be hard when you haven’t accomplished your big project yet, or when you face scrutiny and constantly feel like you have to prove your chops. This insecurity is commonly known as imposter syndrome, and many artists come head-to-head with it at some point. Hammer’s tackling it head-on: “You’re not like an emerging or aspiring writer,” they continue. “If you’re writing, you’re a writer.”
The comedy scene has also changed recently. Online streaming services are investing a lot in comedy specials, with multi-million-dollar payouts for the first-tier talent, and five-figures for those second-tier comedians. Meanwhile, live comedy is no longer available with COVID-19 measures in place indefinitely. Alone, each of these changes would impact a comedian’s ability to “work smart.” Together, they’ve shifted the comedy world entirely.
Some artists adapted their stand-up structure to accommodate digital sets, like a Zoom game show or a podcast. Others, like Hammer, zeroed in on their writing aspirations.
“I think sussing out where you think your market is going,” Hammer says, “it’s always the smart move.”
Working smart can be difficult to do when your upbringing set the standard for a hard work ethic, like Hammer.
“I think the biggest thing is being forgiving to yourself, because working eight hours is bullshit. No one can work eight hours productively in a day.”
“One thing that can be helpful is to know when you are most efficient and when you need … higher level concentration,” says Montreal-based psychologist, Dr. Jade-Isis Lefebvre. This tactic helps maximize productivity so you don’t have to work too hard, but instead lean on your body’s natural rhythm to guide your workflow. Dr. Lefebvre believes a key determinant for success involves “tailoring your schedule as much as possible to … when you’re at your highest performance, when you’re the most energized.”
Instead of eight hours of unproductive work a day throughout the pandemic, Hammer is doubling down on self-care, and they want everyone to engage in it, too.
“It can just be hard to remember to do good things for yourself,” Hammer says. “I think that’s the biggest weird thing about this kind of collective rut, depression, sense of self-loss, sense of world-loss.”
By going outside a bit, getting into cooking, and taking care of plants, Hammer creates space for “little ways of meditating without actually meditating” with all the extra time left over from working smart.
Dr. Lefebvre agrees. “Creative endeavours are really good for building mindfulness, for expressing yourself, for understanding yourself, and getting more insight.” She wholly endorses the practice as a viable way to manage stress through these difficult times.
But most importantly, Hammer wants to make you laugh, especially as we’re living through a global pandemic. Joking is an important way to process what’s going on personally and collectively. That said, it’s important to consider the impact of your jokes. You have to ask yourself, “Where’s this coming from and what’s your point with it?” says Hammer.
“So what’s funny about the pandemic? Literally nothing,” Hammer says. “But everything around the pandemic, what’s happening with our actions and reactions, this shift in human behaviour and our needs — that’s hilarious.”
Ivanka Trump addresses the false claims that her family denied Secret Service detail access to a restroom in their home.
As the daughter of a Nice™ man, which I am bound by law to call my father, I first became acquainted with Nice™ suffering at a young age. It was during my youth that I learned the schemes and scripts I can use to flip any situation to financially profit from my spiritual and moral vacancy.
Growing up in a household much like a Nice™ museum has cultivated in me a side that always thinks about the feelings of others. I remember spending many hours as a child attributing feelings to people from their facial expressions, and then practicing those expressions on my own face, so that I might convey a convincing laugh or shed a relatable tear in the future.
With my life experience and track record available for reference, I have consistently yielded my immense power for the good of others.
Therefore, it is with a heavy tin heart that I express my deep-as-a-puddle horror, confusion, and embarrassment to learn of the false claims that my husband and I would ever deny the United States Secret Service (USSS) access to a restroom while assigned to protect us.
These claims are just another drop in the ocean of lies made by the crooked left media trying to expose an already showcased broken economic system that profits and permisses people like me.
Firstly, the slanderous article published by The Washington Post falsely stated that our family’s security detail was initially using a porta-potty located on the sidewalk outside of our “6.5 bathroom” home. This is utterly false, and I take great personal insult to this remark. We, the Kushner/Trumps do not have a single lavatory in our home. We’ve never even used one. We’ve never needed to.
Understandably, our Kalorama neighbours felt frustrated by a clunky porta-potty on the sidewalk, keeping them from using the public space. I hold no grudge against anyone who expressed their insult at this obstruction to our peace.
Secondly, this ridiculous article falsely claims that the USSS then began using the facilities at former President Obama’s home, then at former Vice President Pence’s home, as well as local restaurants, in order to resolve the issue. This is simply another tactic to make my family look like a cold-hearted collection of people who refuse to corner off one isolated bathroom, maybe in a garage, where humans can care for themselves with dignity.
Then, and this is where the “story” becomes downright ludicrous, the USSS allegedly began renting an apartment unit in September of 2017 for $3,000 a month, costing taxpayers more than $100,000.
It is simply unconscionable to publish such a low property value estimate for our neighbourhood. This estimate may impact our reputation moving forward; damages we will see for years to come.
And with this, I will make one last remark. It is rare that I share so much with the public, as I am a very private person. I value to the highest degree my privacy and my secrecy. I am truly hurt and offended that the USSS was unsuccessful at keeping this open secret about me — that I treat everyone that is outside the pack as the help.
Gabriel Lanthier, Responsible for the 16 km large Biology Station of Laurentides, owned by the University of montreal, in the Lower Laurentians, 75 km north of Montreal, on Tuesday, November 10, 2020. As of 2009, the area is protected as a “biodiversity reserve” by the Quebec government. (Photo by Simona Rosenfield)
While many Canadians suffer the toll of social isolation, one man spends six months working in near-total solitude every year, and loves it. Experts explain why.
“I’m able to see in my six months of ‘solitude’ something super positive. It takes time. The first weeks when I’m alone here, it’s strange,” says Gabriel Lanthier, in his fourth year as manager of the University of Montreal’s Laurentian Biology Station. In this role, he spends November until May working alone at the rural site, managing, repairing, and maintaining the 16.4 square kilometres of land.
In turn, during the summer season, it’s all hands on deck, as Lanthier manages a team of eight who run the site that houses many active research experiments and University of Montreal classes, hosts students who are writing theses, and rents the space out to private events.
Lanthier monitors an ongoing research project that assesses the impact of a 3 degree increase in soil temperature on vegetation growth long-term, as compared to the present soil temperature levels. In 2009, the Quebec Government announced that a 28 square kilometer plot of land, which includes the Laurentians Biology Station, would become a protected territory as a “biodiversity reserve”. Here, researchers mainly in biology and geography, conduct experiments. Between 1967 and 2014, researchers concluded 33 doctoral theses and 164 masters theses at the site.
Why does he love solitude?
“We underestimate in everyday life our need for space, for tranquility. We’re all on a rolling train.” He continues, “People often stop at the point where they’re about to break. The hard end.”
Lanthier was hired to work in an isolated region in the Lower Laurentians, 75 kilometres north of Montreal, where he lives with his partner and their two children. His lifestyle for the winter months — quiet, solitary, and slowed down — reflects the “new normal” introduced by social distancing laws enforced in Quebec, especially for remote workers, to curb the spread of COVID-19.
Lanthier cuts down trees that obstruct a trail in the woods of the site. “Working alone, the job is super varied,” says Lanthier. “If it’s a problem with personnel, if it’s a problem with clients, if it’s a problem with scheduling, or a problem with the machinery we have, doing reparations. All year I solve different problems. That’s my job.”
According to Statistics Canada, the percentage of Canadians experiencing poor mental health has tripled to 24 per cent since 2018, and young people are hit hardest over recent social distancing measures. Further, “Over half of participants report that their mental health has worsened since the onset of physical distancing,” according to the study.
Burnout culture is not a new phenomenon. In response to a rise in stress and burnout among Canadian labourers, Quebec has been working to expand its legislation protecting worker’s health to include mental health as well, according to Canada’s Occupational Health and Safety Magazine.
Recently, experts have warned of the psychological strain that essential workers face during this time, which can ultimately lead to greater risk as employees, facing exhaustion, are more susceptible to mistakes.
According to a Statistics Canada report, those with the most education are more likely to hold positions that can be done from home, illustrating that “The risk of experiencing a work interruption during the pandemic might fall disproportionately on financially vulnerable families.” Further, it poses the dilemma for those working in low-paid, high contact industries, such as the service industry or factory work, whether or not to absorb high risks by working in person.
So, is solitude really the culprit of this swelling unwellness, or is it merely a symptom of something else?
Lanthier attributes his wellness in the face of solitary winters to three things — he likes his job, he works outside, and he slows down.
Lanthier walks along the trails of the site, which has 7 lakes, and multiple rivers and streams passing through. “I think we underestimate in the everyday life, our need for space. The need for tranquility,” says Lanthier. “The only advice I’ve got: go outside, take in the air, and especially during Covid, put on your running shoes and go jogging 10 minutes. 10 minutes will change your day.”
Meaningful work is a central factor to job satisfaction. That and “mastering, leadership, balance, influence, achievements and colleagues,” according to the Happiness Research Insititue’s 2019 Job Satisfaction Index.
This research studies Danes’ work satisfaction, identifying three main issues that workers faced in 2019 — managing the “work-life balance,” “stress,” and fostering a “sense of identity from their job.” The research found that meaningful work offers labourers a stronger sense of job satisfaction, which in turn heightens their happiness.
“Me, I’m in paradise,” says Lanthier. “I’m sure it’s not the same situation if you ask me to work in a four-and-a-half, no windows, semi-basement, for eight hours in front of a computer. I would not have the same appreciation of isolation than what I have.”
According to the theory of logotherapy developed by psychiatrist and neurologist Viktor Frankl, humans derive happiness from meaning — through purposeful work, relationships, or suffering, as explained in his book, “Man’s Search for Meaning,” first published in 1946.
The connection between human happiness and meaningful work has a long history, with a body of research behind it. Sustainability is a welcome recent addition to the conversation by experts in happiness.
“I really think a sustainable economy needs to be built on meaningful work,” says economic historian Dr. Kent Klitgaard. “I don’t think you can have this kind of degraded job that everybody hates and you do it just to buy consumption goods that wear out quickly and don’t make you happy.”
The principle that we can be happier if we work less and slow down is on the rise amongst professionals working to scale back human consumption and invest more in well-being.
“We can have better lives, I’m convinced, with a lot less material and energy consumption,” says environmental economist Dr. Christian Kerschner.
The connections between slowing down, engaging in environmentally sustainable activities, consuming less, and happiness are detailed in a United Nations commissioned Sustainable Happiness report, conducted by The Happiness Research Institute.
According to the report, “The literature on voluntary simplicity provides abundant illustrations of persons who, by virtue of engaging in simpler lives, experience increased feelings of satisfaction and meaning. In other words: less stuff equals more happiness.”
“We have been very comfortable materially, but also if you look at our society’s emotional and psychological health,” says Kerschner, “we are not doing so well.”
What does meaningful work have to do with consumption? Since technology has replaced many — largely manual — jobs across industries, economies have found new uses for this labour force. These jobs tend to be mundane, dead-end, monotonous, with tight deadlines.
“I ask myself at what point is it healthy for the human mind? Something very routine — like a recipe — already established. Every day, 40 hours per week, for 20 years?” Lanthier asks. “Put it in an isolating mold, all alone, I would go crazy.”
Among his varied duties, Lanthier is responsible for doing office work, such as bookkeeping, managing staff during the summer, and confirming reservations with clients. “I’m a bit of a hybrid between intellectual and manual and that’s what I found in this job,” says Lanthier. With an undergraduate degree in psychology, and a master’s degree in biology, Lanthier finds this position taps into both studies. “I believe you don’t just learn things in school. In touching, in trying, in failures also, that’s all a part of learning. When things don’t work, we learn,” says Lanthier. “My work gives me the opportunity to touch on very diverse things and I learn every day.”
The duality of Lanthier’s job — a busy summer followed by a quiet winter — taps into his need for a challenge, change, and allows him to grow his skills manually as well as interpersonally.
While routine is a very healthy practice to maintain both bodily and mental health, Lanthier has a point. A job where you do the same thing every day limits how much you can learn or be challenged. “For work to be meaningful, it needs to stimulate me, fill my life,” says Lanthier. “My work needs to help me grow, evolve, progress.”
“There’s studies that show people in the U.S. are working more hours on average than any generation before. So that leads
As part of his duties, Lanthier walks the trails located on the reserve, taking note of any evidence of animal activity, such as canine tracks. He also searches for evidence of human activity, which is forbidden, to ensure the preservation of the land and protection of any research taking place.
to the question,” Kerschner elaborates. “Is this really life? Is this really wellbeing?”
Some are finding their wellbeing comes from an active engagement with community and sustainability.
One collective-living community in Denmark began to examine the food waste in their home. With a separate trash can for food, the residents can see “direct proof of what food waste costs them each month and what they save by reducing such waste,” according to the Sustainable Happiness report. With less waste-based financial strain, workers need to earn less money and work less hours to afford a high quality of life.
Kerschner hopes that through this experience in social isolation, collectively, society can work to strengthen community ties, and register how important connection is for our health and happiness. When we liberate our time by working a little less, we create more time for the things that matter to us, connecting with our communities, and helping each other.
There is an understanding in mainstream social consciousness that sustainability is incompatible with abundance. On the contrary, cultivating abundance does not need to be expensive.
The Sustainable Happiness report stresses, “To completely unleash happiness potential, it is important to dispense with myths and misconceptions such as the false choice between sustainability and happiness.”
Through community initiatives, sharing, and connecting, abundance can be very cost-efficient, sustainable, and joyous.
Photos by Simona Rosenfield, taken on December 2, 2020
Is social isolation softening our carrot-and-stick incarceration system?
Residents of Canada first went on lockdown in March of 2020. Since then, the public has felt waves of COVID-19, and felt its impacts on lifestyle and quality of life, as well as legislation. Many compare their homes to prisons, as the mental and physical health implications of social isolation take their toll.
With ten months-and-counting of experience enduring long spells of little-to-no social contact, many missing key holidays and celebrations, as well as collective mourning, have your perceptions of incarceration changed?
Presently, there are countless individuals serving prison sentences for violent crimes, petty crimes, crimes they didn’t commit, or crimes they didn’t understand.
There are people serving sentences by enduring punishment that we, residents enduring social distancing measures, cannot bear.
One first-hand account of solitary confinement taps into our shared suffering — trouble sleeping and spending time meaningfully compounds mental distress.
Those of us who have housemates, friends, and family in close proximity know how valuable these relationships have become in recent times. We stay in touch because, for many of us, we cannot touch. People who are vulnerable to health complications — and their housemates, for that matter — face an impossible dilemma: risk physical health to stay in good mental health, or risk mental health to keep good physical health.
It’s hard to imagine what someone serving a prison sentence might feel, not being able to communicate intimately with friends and family while they serve their sentence, and especially now, while prisons are on lockdown due to COVID-19.
There are people even serving sentences for defending and protecting clean water sources that face threat of contamination for industry interests. It is an incredibly violent thing to incarcerate people, as we are learning, but are we learning fast enough?
The NoDAPL Federal Prisoner Support Committee is an organization committed to empowering convicted Water Protectors by telling individual stories, and teaching the public how to support these individuals by writing letters, learning about their causes, and applying political pressure for legislative reform.
Water Protectors are dedicated to protecting and celebrating water as an essential ingredient of life through peaceful protest, traditional Indigenous ceremony, and legal intervention. The Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) has been a point of dispute for years, drawing international attention to the human rights violations inflicted on the Indigenous people of North America.
We’re spending a lot of time at home. We’re spending a lot of time in isolation, and that impacts our health, as Statistics Canada research has shown.
The Water Protectors serving their sentences, represented by NoDAPL, need connection like anyone else. Connecting and communicating with these individuals empowers their work, and amplifies their cause.
NoDAPL Federal Prisoner Support Committee teaches the public how to reach these individuals as it takes precision and determination to maintain correspondence within the narrow guidelines that prisons uphold.
This matters. Anyone who feels the cold wind coming from loneliness in isolation knows how much a message or phone call means. Imagine correspondence without privacy or agency.
It is important that we make efforts to connect with one another, especially with those who experience additional barriers to connection.
And most pressing in these instances of political imprisonment: why do we incarcerate people for leading the shift of social values, the intended compass of the legal and prison system?
Winter is coming, and it’s going to bring cold winds of isolation. Connection is a warm bath.
One of the few ways citizens can preserve democracy is to write to the government
Communicating with our political leaders is an essential part of our political system. This is what makes a system a democracy — politicians act on the voice of the people, and they need to hear those voices to accurately reflect them.
Politicians are more accessible than ever, with email addresses, phone numbers, and office locations readily available at the end of a quick internet search. So why aren’t we reaching them?
It may feel overly complicated, futile, or just plain intimidating, and that’s a failure of our political structure. It should be as easy and inviting as possible to communicate to our representatives, but it’s not. So, in lieu of a functioning education system that incorporates Civics 101, let’s go through the basics of our political structure.
There are three levels of government — federal, provincial, and municipal. We elect representatives at each level, and each level is in charge of different matters of governance. For example, did you know that provinces are entirely in charge of all levels of education? There is actually no education branch of government at the federal level.
To communicate to our representatives, we need to know who is representing us. When we elect someone to any of the three levels of government, we are their constituent, and in that relationship, they are obliged to hear our voices.
Even if you didn’t vote for the person representing you, if they were elected by your district at any of the three levels of government, you are entitled to communicate to them, and they are obliged to take your feedback.
If you feel strongly about a certain incident, decision, or plan made, you need to do a little research to find your elected representative, and reach out to the appropriate branch of government, and the appropriate representative.
Writing to the government is instrumental to our democracy. It’s one thing to talk to friends over coffee or rant on Twitter — and it’s definitely relieving — however, contacting our representatives serves a specific structural function.
If people don’t communicate their opinions directly to officials through official channels, then there is no official record of these opinions. This means that when journalists or researchers look for information on, say, how favourable the population is of decriminalizing cannabis, there will be data for them to gather.
Essentially, this allows watchdogs to hold governments accountable for their actions.
Once you find the person you wish to reach, and their contact information, the next step is to construct your argument.
When writing to officials, it’s important to be firm, and to show them you know the law, their role and duty, and the details of the issue you care about. Communicate your argument in concrete terms. Tell them what you want to see them do. Cite your sources, give examples, and quote from past legal cases. You can find the contents of many Canadian legal cases here.
Here are some examples to get started:
It is your duty to represent my best interest as I convey it to you.
I need to know in concrete terms what you plan to do about __.
In order to represent my best interest and voice, it is imperative that you immediately issue a public statement denouncing __, supporting __, funding __, defunding __.
Talk in real terms. Be literal, be clear, and explain the solution you want to see in practical steps, and if you don’t see it happening, follow up. Write again. Call and leave messages. Tell them you expect a response to questions you have.
Hold these cozy politicians accountable, and make it hard for them to get around corners! Keep it polite and stay firm, and remind them of their duties.
Here’s a few examples:
In order to preserve a legacy of honour, you must conduct yourself honourably when yielding the power that you have. These are the moments that dictate whether an honourable political representative sits in your seat. Please do the right thing and__.
“In order to honourably represent my values, it is imperative that __. By law, you are charged with the task of representing me, and I believe you are capable of it.
The stakes are high, and we have an obligation to take the debates going on in our society seriously. They don’t impact everyone firsthand, but that only means that our system needs reform. While the system we operate in is highly flawed, it is the one we have. We need to operate within these parameters, and make it as inconvenient, difficult, and exposing as possible for politicians to bend to corruption, manipulation, and deceit.
It can be confusing and complicated, but don’t let that discourage you. To help you get started, here are some links to our sitting members of government. You can find the federal liberal cabinet here. You can find Quebec’s CAQ cabinet here. You can find Montreal’s city council here. With their name and position, you can find contact information of the relevant representative with a quick internet search.
If you’ve never been much involved in politics, right now is the best time to start. If you’re a seasoned petition signer, but haven’t taken a crack at writing letters or making calls, right now is the best time to start. It’s about creating momentum and keeping it going.
