Jason Farbman interviewed Wallace Shawn; in part:

Farbman: Throughout the book, you are making structural arguments, and about people being compelled in certain directions. It was interesting to me how you traced this line of thinking to a discussion of punishment, about what to do with capitalists after the revolution.

Why are you thinking about what to do with the rich after the revolution?

Well, I believe in radical change. I don’t think the rich should rule the world, as they do now. But if a different system should replace the current one, the character of the new system will be determined to an important degree by how it treats those over whom it would then have power, the former rulers. I don’t believe in revenge or even really in punishment, and I think that people who take revenge against formerly powerful monsters become at that moment powerful monsters themselves. Of course I’m a member of the bourgeoisie, and so are most of the people I know and love, so you might suspect my motives when I say these things. You could say I’m trying to protect the asses of the bourgeoisie, and my own ass is one of the ones I’m protecting. But I can’t deny my own beliefs simply because someone might suspect my motives. Those are my beliefs.

I don’t believe in punishing the poor. And I don’t believe in punishing the rich, either. I don’t believe in punishing the innocent. And I don’t really believe in punishing the guilty. I realize that leaves a lot of questions on the table that I don’t resolve in the book. For instance, what do we do with serial killers, who are driven to commit murder again and again? There must be some way we can cope with those people. We don’t want them to kill everyone.

Punishment of some kind is a very articulate way for society to express its disapproval of certain actions. There should be some way that society can express its disapproval of what was done. But I don’t really believe in punishment, because I think it’s based on an erroneous idea of how people make decisions. Person A decides to murder Person B. Well, a lot of forces go into what we call “a decision,” and a lot of those forces are unconscious and not under the control of the person making the decision. Blaming the murderer assumes that he could have behaved differently. It’s hard to prove that.

Here’s Oliver, dressed as a cow for Hallowe’en, at age two, and then again tonight, which he chose as an homage to his disappearing youth. Both photos taken at Catherine Hennessey’s house.

Catherine and Oliver and I went to the Jack Blanchard Family Centre this morning for our annual flu vaccination (clinics are being held now across the Island, and the flu vaccine is free for everyone for the first time).

The nurses who administer the vaccine recommend hanging around the waiting room for 15 minutes after receiving the vaccine; usually this time is spent twiddling thumbs and clock-watching, but this year we were handed a survey to fill out on a variety of vaccination topics. It was a thorough and informative survey, to the point where I requested and received supplemental information about the vaccines I might have missed along the way. By the time the survey was done and pamphlets in my hand the 15 minutes were up and it was time to go.

Kudos to PEI Public Health for using otherwise dead time to both gather information and to inform.

My friend Tracy Michael, co-owner of Nourished Kitchen, has released a series of low cost learn-to-cook online courses. I just signed up for “Simple Dinner Solutions” for $10, and watched the first video, a walk-through the preparation of Lentil Tacos.

Tracy’s a good, patient explainer and after watching her make tacos I’m ready to try it myself.

I told Tracy that I feel, cooking-wise, like a musician who can only play 3 songs; so anything that can add a new song to the playlist is a gift.

Oliver has decided that our household Hallowe’en offering has to reflect the diversity of our neighborhood.

So a diverse selection of treats—Haw Flakes! Rice Crackers!—has been acquired. Prepare yourselves.

And the multilingual pumpkin carving has begun.

你好!

Oliver has been exploring cover versions and samples today using the website WhoSampled.com.

While I’m the last person on earth to go out of my way to hear a cover band, especially of the later day “Classic Albums Live Presents Celine Dion’s Falling Into You” type, a good cover can take the manna of the original and transform it into an entirely new and wondrous thing.

Witness Landslide.

Fleetwood Mac released Landslide on a self-titled album in 1975:

Stevie Nicks performed the song live, accompanied by Cheryl Crow, on Oprah in 1988:

In 2002, Dixie Chicks released a cover that is arguably more popular than the original; until recently it was my favourite rendition:

British solo artist Robyn Sherwell released a version in 2015 that was featured in the film Suffragette; it takes everything that was special about the original, and the covers that followed, stretches it out a little, adds some lovely harmonies, and becomes my new favourite:

(Nicks returned to the Oprah network in 2013 for an episode of Masterclass where she explained the meaning of the song).

Another example where a cover transcends the original is the 1983 Talking Heads track This Must Be The Place (Naive Melody):

This song has been the victim of more dreadful covers of perhaps any popular song in recent memory, including a unlistenable cacophony by Arcade Fire. The covers generally fail because they try to out-Talking-Heads the Talking Heads.

The 2009 cover by Shawn Colvin, however, like Sherwell’s Landslide, makes something new out of it by turning it into something completely different.

Another example of transcendence-by-cover is the 1982 Alan Parsons Project Eye in the Sky:

The original is inescapably a product of the early 1980s, good and bad; the 2004 cover by Jonatha Brooke is different enough to almost sever the connection to the original. But it’s wonderful.

Oliver and I didn’t really eat lunch or supper today—which is not to say that we didn’t eat along the way. But by 9:00 p.m. we needed a shot in the arm. And so I whipped up a snack, a selection of things acquired today.

The snack: PEI honey crisp apple (Riverview Country Market), shiitake spelt bread (Angel at the Farmers’ Market), cherry tomatoes (Cranbush Farm at Farmers’ Market), wasabi peas (Naked Snacks from Sears), baba ghanoush (Brighton Clover Farm), and dried mango (Leezen). It hit the spot.

Oliver and I, at long last, timed a visit to Riverview Country Market so that we could enjoy a hot beverage on the front porch.

Oliver had the Riverview Fog, supplemented by a mysterious powder that turned it blue. I had a cappuccino. Both were good, and you couldn’t beat the view (or the weather).

There are 30 people who subscribe to my blog by email (what, hold on, I can subscribe by email!? – sign up here). They all receive a daily digest, at 5:00 a.m. Atlantic Time, of the posts from the previous 24 hours.

Many of my subscribers are obviously early risers, as when I receive emailed comments from them they have “sent” times like 5:43 a.m. or 6:08 a.m. When do they sleep?

I set this up when I stopped pushing notifications of new posts to Facebook and Twitter. Because this.

I use MailChimp, which is free, to do all the heavy lifting: I just point MailChimp at my site’s RSS feed, and it does everything else (this is not a paid endorsement; I just like using MailChimp).

MailChimp provides me with statistics.

I’ve been doing this for 11 months.

Over that time the list of subscribers–MailChimp calls this “the audiance”–has almost doubled in size from 17 to 30:

Over the last 45 days, 53.7% of subscribers have opened the daily email on average, and the average “click rate” (where someone clicks on at least one link in the daily email) is 8.9%. This fluctuates from day to day, but is fairly consistent:

That “open rate” is about twice the MailChimp average, but, then again, I’m not trying to sell anyone a blender.

About 60% of my subscribers read their email on a computer, and 40% on a mobile device.

Of the desktop email readers, half are using Gmail to read their mail.

Of the mobile email readers, a quarter are using iPhones, 7% are using Android phones, and 4% are using a BlackBerry.

Half of the subscribers are in the U.S.A., 46% are in Canada, and the rest are elsewhere.

If you want to enjoy all the benefits¹ of a ruk.ca email subscription, sign up now!

1. There are no benefits. Other than receiving a daily email.