Category Archives: Jenny Aitken

Technology helps us manage ourselves

The Virtual Self: How Our Digital Lives Are Altering The World Around Us

McClelland and Stewart

$19.95, 229 pages

Reviewed by Jenny Aitken

Nora Young is a well-known Canadian broadcaster and writer who lives in Toronto and hosts CBC Radio One’s Spark, a program that focuses on how technology affects the world around us. In 2012, she released the book The Virtual Self: How our Digital Lives Are Altering The World Around Us, which has since gone on to become a national bestseller. She also visited the University of Victoria recently to discuss the implications of technology with students.

In The Virtual Self, Young explores the concept of self-tracking and how technology is changing the way people manage and register information. Using examples that range from Benjamin Franklin’s journal entries to the social media posts that helped pinpoint the location of a pipe-bomb in 2010, Young identifies different methods of self-tracking that increase self-awareness and make people more accountable for the way they spend their time.

One thread of this self-tracking relates to weight management. As Young explains, the web is rich with services to help people lose weight and stay fit through recording diet and exercises. In the book, Young identifies several technologies that are helping people shed pounds, such as FitBit, a small wrist monitor that tracks calories, exercise and even sleep by using 3-D motion sensors. There are also countless websites, such as FitDay.com, dedicated to giving specific information about the nutritional information for different foods in order to make it easier to keep tabs on how many calories users consume in a day.

Although Young discusses the benefits of these technologies, she acknowledges the concern that if people are too vigilant about their tracking, the danger is that “sources of bodily delight and physical expressiveness, such as running or eating a meal, are reduced to stats driven, objectified activities.” By demonstrating the positives as well as the negatives of these budding technologies, the reader is given a comprehensive look at the technological tools available today.

I appreciated that Young not only describes these technologies, but also tries them herself, creating authenticity and character in a research-driven book.

In The Virtual Self, Young examines surprising uses of tracking technology that could greatly improve the health of users. From the asthma inhalers that have a GPS to better monitor where flare-ups occur, to Twitter feeds that pin-point and monitor the spread of infectious diseases, tracking technology offers many opportunities to advance our health.

The Virtual Self is well-written and packed with historical and contemporary examples. It opened my eyes to opportunities available to me, many readily accessible through the Internet or my iPhone. Several books already outline how technology is shaping our society, but few do it with such a fresh voice or attention to detail. Young puts it nicely, “Self-tracking is our gin. It’s an almost impulsive desire to document the actual states of being and physical presence.” If that’s the case, we can all drink up.

Jenny Aitken is about to enter the technology-rich job market after finishing her undergraduate education.

 

 

The Question I Dread

By Jenny Aitken

Now that I’m in my final year at university, I’m being asked The Question on almost a daily basis.  It is The Question every undergrad dreads, especially ones studying creative writing.

People look at me expectantly, “So, what’s your plan for after you graduate?”

It happens everywhere now. The grocery store, the library, when I run into an old family friend, anytime I speak to my Grandpa on the phone…

People ask The Question. I just sigh.  And I wrack my brain for an answer that will A) satisfy their concern that I will not be homeless and unemployed, but still B) be a dull enough response to receive no follow-up questions.

“I’ll probably attempt to get a job in journalism. When that invariably fails I will work at Tim Horton’s, and spend the majority of my time stuffing free donut crullers in my mouth to compensate for making minimum wage.”

Somehow I doubt that will satisfy them. No, I have to be optimistic, yet not too optimistic. Answering the Dreaded Question actually becomes quite an art form.

“I’ll probably move back in with my parents and look for work. Something stable so I can get some experience. Work my way up from there.”

That should do the trick.

I hate The Question because it is so loaded.  My interrogations squad doesn’t mean what am I going to do post-grad in terms of where will I go eat or will I frame my diploma. No, my persecutors mean what is my plan for my life.  For my career. How do I plan to make money, pay off my debts, put food on the table? And the real answer, the one I desperately want to say but never do, is that I don’t know. I don’t. After four years of university I’m still not entirely sure what I want to do, other then avoid all talk about “my future”.

Worse still are the Five-Year Planners. Not only do they expect you to know what you will do upon graduating, they also expect you to have a whole five years of your life mapped out, with goals and accomplishments to be achieved at specific times along the way.

I always wonder how they would feel if our roles were reversed.  What if I answered right back with where they think they’ll be in five years? What their plan is?  “So Joe, think in five you might have finally got the courage to leave your wife?” or “Margaret, what’s your plan now that your company is letting staff go? Think you’ll make the cut?”

But of course I would never do that, because people aren’t trying to drive me crazy with The Question. They’re asking because they care about me, want me to succeed and probably feel like they have to.

Maybe from now on I should just quote Timbuk3:  “I’m doing all right, getting good grades, the future’s so bright, I gotta wear shades.”

This will not answer The Question, but maybe, if I’m lucky, it will allow me a bit more time to figure out the answer.

Jenny Aitken is a student at the University of Victoria.

Murder-mystery cares about environment

Business As Usual
By Michael Boughn
Published by NeWest Press
354 pages, $22.95

Reviewed by Jenny Aitken

Michael Boughn, who has written plays, books of poetry and a young adult novel grounded in myth has now tried his hand at a new form: the mystery novel. In Business as Usual, Boughn weaves together a multi-faceted plot line that includes illegal toxic waste dumping, amateur detectives, Mafia, murder and a whole lot of intrigue.

Like most mystery novels, the story begins with a crime – a murder to be more precise. But it is not the police or criminal detectives that step forward to save the day; in fact no one seems to care about Bernie Donatello, the truck driver who went missing along the 89 highway in Toronto. No one, that is, except Clare Dumont and her boyfriend David Sanders. After receiving a call from a friend, Clare, a professor of botany, agrees to investigate the sudden plague that has befallen her friend’s grape vines, seemingly overnight. Her boyfriend David, a struggling poet in need of some excitement, begs to go along. Reluctantly Clare agrees, and they set off for Niagara Falls.

When the pair discovers an abandoned trailer, along with evidence of toxic waste having been emptied into the quarry surrounding the vineyard, they are left with more questions than answers. Is someone purposefully using the quarry as a dumping ground for poisonous chemicals? And if so, why leave a licensed trailer as evidence? Clare wants to let the mystery remain just that, but David, hoping to get a publishable story out of the find, coerces her into looking for answers. And so the two set out to discover the truth, jokingly imitating Nick and Nora Charles. Little do they know that it will throw them into the path of the Mafia and a corrupt cabal of government officials.

Boughn’s novel may follow a “business as usual” approach to a mystery, starting with a violent crime and then introducing the unlikely heroes, but despite its occasionally formulaic nature, the vivid descriptions and lively characters more than compensate.
Business as Usual is bolstered by thorough and engaging character descriptions, and the protagonists are endearing and complex. Clare is a levelheaded professor, but also practices martial arts and can deliver a Charlie’s Angel style spin kick. David, on the other hand, is excitable and goofy, more willing to go head to head against a member of the Mafia than to clean his own apartment.

Despite the witty repartee and exaggerated circumstances throughout, Business as Usual still works as a reminder of the danger of treating the environment like your own personal dumping ground. Without being preachy or melodramatic, this novel demonstrates the importance of paying attention to environmental issues, and the dangers of going one on one with the mob (although I suspect most of us probably knew that.)

Jenny Aitken enjoyed this novel after her end-of-semester assignments

How Should a Person be?

How Should A Person Be?
By Sheila Heti
Published by House of Anansi
306 pages, $18.95

Reviewed by Jenny Aitken

The cover of this book describes it as a novel from life, and it is certainly that. The novel opens with the protagonist, Sheila, posing a time-worn question: How should a person be?

In How Should a Person Be, Heti fictionalizes actual events and conversations she and fellow artist friends experience over the course of one year, as she grapples with her identity. A combination of autobiography and fiction, the novel is written as freeform prose, weaving in transcribed conversations and actual emails throughout.

The “novel” begins with the protagonist deciding to divorce her husband after realizing they were together more out of convenience than love: “It was like we were afraid of hurting one another. We never fought or pushed, as if the world was hard enough.” After the divorce, Sheila forms a close friendship with a painter named Margaux, despite neither woman having ever sustained a female friendship.

As Sheila struggles to write a play commissioned by a feminist theatre, she looks to Margaux for inspiration, deciding to tape their conversations. Their discussions focus primarily on art and what it means to be an artist, because Margaux, “is made impatient with conversations about relationships or men.” The narrative follows the two women, as they spend their days working in their shared studio, and their nights drinking in hopes of finding inspiration at the bottom of the glass.

Sheila feels worthless in her inability to write and takes on a sadistic lover named Israel, despite knowing – in fact, largely because – he wants nothing from her but sex. She finally ends the relationship by purposefully degrading herself to the point that neither of them could ever feel sexual desire towards the other.

Desiring to create a work of beauty, despite her writer’s block, Sheila begins working as a shampoo girl at a hair salon, where she revels in the opportunity to work at a job where she feels competent. Sheila decides to use her Margaux recordings as source material, which leads to an argument between the friends. Unequipped to deal with the conflict, Sheila succumbs to her usual avoidance patterns by taking off to New York City, leaving the broken friendship behind. Sheila comes to realize, “Margaux was not like the stars in the sky. There was only one Margaux – not Margaux’s scattered everywhere through the darkness.” This realization leads to her return to Toronto, where she fights, and succeeds, at re-establishing their friendship.

Although the use of transcribed conversations added to the novel’s raw, confessional feeling, the lack of structure or clear narrative arc made it seem disjointed and scattered. There were often long segments that failed to move the action forward, including several pages spent describing a nightmare, and a ten-page transcription of a conversation between Sheila and the man at a copy store.
Nonetheless, this novel is unabashed and quirky, and although Sheila realizes the impossibility of determining how a person should be, she discovers – along with the reader – that the process of asking is more important than any answer. As for her own life, it dawns on her, “I made what I could with what I had.”

Jenny Aitken is a regular reviewer for the Coastal Spectator

 

Down With The Downward Dog!

By Jenny Aitken

No. I don’t do yoga. Yes. I am aware that it is good for you, and wow it can even be done in warm temperatures, how neat, but I am also aware that I will spend the entire time in fear of farting and trying not to laugh at the symphony of mouth breathers. That’s deep breathing, you say; it’s good for you. So are brussel sprouts, but you don’t see me trying to shove them down your throat. My friends do yoga, and I swear for every minute they spend in warrior pose, they spend five minutes bragging about it to me after. My whole body just feels so loose right now. I don’t really know what that feels like, but it seems slightly terrifying.

As for the “yoga clothes,” it would be nice to be able to walk into a store like Lululemon without the peppy preaching of a sales employee, or random enlightened yogi, on the benefits of ooommmming and aaahhhing. All I want is a tank top that doesn’t require me to wear a bra, and a pair of those spandex pants that actually make me look like I have a butt. Instead, I am besieged with upbeat life lessons on the importance of stretching. I am reminded to take a few minutes out of my day to breathe. Pretty sure I do that all day, every day. It’s called being alive.

But yoga is s relaxing, it soothes the mind.

Personally, I don’t find it soothing watching people bend their spandex-clad bodies into contortionist pretzels while I struggle to even touch my toes. The only soothing part comes at the very end, when they just let you lie there and the instructor uses that wispy voice and says things like, “Feel your body sink, sink, sink into your mat.” But, why should I suffer through 50 minutes of discomfort and boredom to get there? It’s called lying on my bed. Done.

Jenny Aitken is third-year writing student at UVIC

 

Spirited memoir rejects victim stance

My Leaky Body

By Julie Devaney
Published by Goose Lane Editions,
342 pages, $22.95

Reviewed by Jenny Aitken

It takes skill to centre an entire novel on bowel movements, and in My Leaky Body, Julie Devaney does just that. This memoir chronicles Devaney’s battle with ulcerative colitis, from her initial diagnosis to the surgery removing her large intestine years later. Devaney is unflinchingly honest about her inflammatory bowel disease, describing in detail the humiliating enemas, invasive treatments and the hours spent imprisoned in her own washroom.

I was hesitant to pick up this book, thinking, why would I want to read about that? The first few pages showed me I was wrong. Devaney’s conversational tone and dark humour makes her subject accessible, offering the reader an unfiltered view of her passage through the health-care system.

In her early twenties, Devaney attempts to juggle her diagnosis while dealing with the normal stresses of relationship, social life and grad school. Explaining her absences to professors, Devaney meets both hostility and suspicion. She worries, “I’m afraid that people will think I’m faking it – exaggerating to get attention – or, worse yet, that I’m actually ill and someone to be pitied.”

As her symptoms worsen, Devaney must decide whether to continue living in Vancouver or to move in with her family in Toronto: “I’m terrified of staying in Vancouver. But I’m even more afraid that people will be mad at me or judge me for giving up.” Although she wants to stay in school, the lack of support or understanding from her department make this impossible. After much pleading from her family, Devaney moves back to Toronto, acknowledging that she can’t be a full-time student when she is still a full-time patient.

Readers travel alongside Devaney through the overcrowded hospitals and frigid exam rooms. We are with her when she is left in a broom closet because there are no patient rooms available, or when a resident continues a procedure despite her screams that the drugs haven’t kicked in. We are outraged when she is accused of faking and exaggerating her pain, and shocked when she is left for eight hours after a surgery without being allowed to see a doctor or her family, and triumphant when she removes a tampon for a procedure in front of a disgusted medical student.

This memoir does not simply recount one dreadful medical challenge after another; instead we see Devaney when she is just being herself – planning her wedding, visiting her friends, enjoying DVD marathons and even starting to consider chronicling her experiences for this very memoir.

After finally receiving a surgery to remove her large intestine, Devaney questions how to feel sexy with a colostomy bag. Her insecurity builds until her husband makes love to her in a hospital shower.

Despite her harrowing experiences, Devaney remains good-natured throughout, never asking “Why me?” and instead focusing on how she can create positive change.

After recovering from her surgery, Devaney creates a critically acclaimed one -woman show; adorned in a patient’s robe, she recreates some of the most painful and humiliating moments of her life. Devaney also begins providing health-care workshops, to prod doctors and hospital staff to develop more respectful bedside manners.

Through her humour and frank honesty, Devaney demonstrates the importance of viewing patients as human beings rather than as broken bodies. This memoir is not just about illness, or the health-care system or therapy or love. It’s about all those things; it’s about being a patient without being a victim – and it’s about unceasingly rejecting the label “broken.”

Jenny Aitken is a UVic writing student

Lorna Crozier pays tribute to the essence of objects

Lorna Crozier’s latest book, The Book of Marvels, was published this Fall by Greystone Books. Student Jenny Aitken visited Crozier’s cozy office at the University of Victoria to discuss the creation of this new work, which will be launched October 3 , 7:30 p.m. at the UVIC Bookstore.

Q: How was it different describing household objects as opposed to characters?

I have probably had more fun writing this book than I have [had] writing any of my other books. When you become obsessed with something outside of your self, it is a release because you leave behind your worries and concerns and the stress of what you’re going through. I got to look at an object like a bowl or a doorknob and try to get to the heart and essence of it. I didn’t want to overdo that literary trope, so I tried to let the objects speak to me and show me what they were — beyond the human context but also involved in a human context . . .

Q: What gave you the idea of writing an entire book about often-overlooked objects and how did you choose which objects to include?

I actually got the idea about three years ago with the coffee pot. I was doing a writers retreat in Saskatoon, and we had to share a kitchen with a coffee pot and I was getting more and more annoyed at the person who wasn’t making the next pot. I was always getting the last black burnt inch on the bottom . . . One day I went back to my room and wrote a short piece about the coffee pot. I tacked it on the wall and everyone loved it, so I thought why don’t I keep going? After about 15 objects I thought maybe I should cover the whole alphabet. So I had to ask myself what interesting objects start with X? With Y? If you look those letters up in the dictionary, they don’t get much space. (laughs)

Q: How did the writing process differ in a book of prose like The Book of Marvels compared to your memoir Small Beneath the Sky?

In some ways the memoir was actually my inspiration for writing in this form. My memoir consisted of short chapters that were interspersed with prose poetry. For the poems, I gave myself the task of writing short pieces describing the essence of the prairie landscape, like the dust, gravel and snow. Writing those compact pieces made me obsessed with that format, which led to me using that same form in these object pieces.

Q: How did you plan on balancing fact and comedic observation in this book?

I didn’t plan on it, it just happened. Sometimes I did a bit of research because I wanted to learn more about an object. I didn’t know, for instance, that LeRoy, New York, has its very own Jell-O brick road. Those facts were fun to stumble upon, and I wanted to incorporate them with my own experiences with the object. For me, Jell-O brings back memories of jellied salads at church suppers. I have a passionate stance on jellied salads because I have always hated them. (laughs) I think these facts added another texture and livened the pieces, so whenever I could incorporate them, I did.

Q: It seems the narrator looks back when describing the objects; were you aware of this approach?

They are mostly written in the past aren’t they? I definitely look back on the objects that are central to my childhood but hard to find now, like the Yo-yo or linoleum. People don’t even talk about linoleum anymore. Or even an eraser: someone interviewed me on the radio and told me they had never even used an eraser; I was shocked because as writers I think we are always using them. I didn’t deliberately set out to write these poetic essays with nostalgia; it wasn’t a conscious effort, but sometimes it just happens . . . There is something compelling about objects in that we know many of them will outlast us. I could die tomorrow but that wooden table could remain; even my coffee cup could have a longer life than the animals and people I love. I think because of that objects are animated with specialness and I think we endow them with meaning but some of the meaning is their own.

Witness to a Conga and Other Plays

Witness to a Conga and Other Plays
By Stewart Lemoine
Newest Press
206 pp; $19.95

Reviewed by Jenny Aitken

Stewart Lemoine’s most recent collection of plays demonstrates the comedic timing and wit that earned him the position of resident playwright at the Teatro la Quindicina housed in Edmonton’s Varscona Theatre. Over the past few decades he has written over 60 plays, yet his work remains poignant and fresh.

Published plays like these are crucial because they offer the reader and audience member a chance to appreciate the quality of writing as well as the quality of acting. Published plays also function as exemplars for students and aspiring playwrights to demonstrate that character, depth and humour can be revealed through dialogue.

The book begins with Happy Toes, a fast-paced comedy featuring five characters but focusing on two. Lemoine’s characters are cleverly constructed; there’s Edgar the middle-aged clarinet teacher with a crush on his bank teller, and his friend Alex, who fears he may be the “other man” in his relationship with Janine. The drama comes to a head during one of Edgar’s orchestra recitals, when a screaming match between Alex and Janine delivers the energy and pizzazz the orchestra lacked. “Happy Toes” is like your Uncle Alfred, quirky and even a little weird, but likable nonetheless.

As for the second play, The Oculist’s Holiday, I can see why it would be sandwiched in the middle. Set in Toronto in 1934, the story unfolds through Marian Ogilvy’s recollections of her vacation in Switzerland three years earlier. Although I appreciated the explanation of her position as storyteller – that she is a guest speaker at a graduation of a Women’s Business College – the monologues grew tiresome nonetheless. That being said, there was still humour throughout, as when Marian discloses information of her sexual encounters despite the “windmill gestures” being given to her by the college’s teachers.

The book closes with Witness to a Conga, truly saving the best for last. In preparation for their upcoming wedding, Martin’s fiancé Laura has asked him to prepare a list of people he wants to invite. Unfortunately, he can’t think of anyone. Told entirely from his perspective, this play chronicles Martin’s relationships with the people who have affected him most: There’s his now-deceased mother Eleanor, who left Martin’s father for another woman. We learn of his father Walter, whom he calls once every couple of years, and finally there’s Sheila, a former professor he probably shouldn’t still be thinking about. As Martin faces these “ghosts” from his past, he also must decide if he is the type of person who leads a conga, or someone who just sits and watches.

I found this book exemplified the quick and occasionally pointless manner in which we speak. Although the dialogue seemed random and unconnected at times, it worked because of the offbeat nature of Lemoine’s characters. Witness to a Conga and Other Plays is very much like a conga line – sure it may seem silly at times, but if you jump on board, chances are you will have a good time.

Jenny Aitken is a third-year creative writing and journalism student at the University of Victoria. She grew up in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, and has written for the University’s student paper, The Martlet, and for Boulevard Magazine.