Seventeen Year Old Girl writes to Kim-Jong IL and asks him to blow up Toronto

Subscribe in a reader

The Perfect Thing

Dear Kim Jong-Il:

How are you? I’m not sure you’ll get this letter, or if you do, if you’ll even read it, but the smallest chance that you will is worth it. My name is Sherry Delgado. I live in Canada, you know, that country north of the axis of evil. Lately it has been outdoing the axis of evil in the perpetration of those everyday acts of evil. I know that sounds strange, but I have a feeling that if anyone will understand, you will.

I’m seventeen years old, and I go to Ted Rogers high school in Toronto. It’s in a neighbourhood called Moss Park, maybe you’ve heard of it? Yes, the school is named after the man who started the telecommunications empire. Corny, I know, but whatever.

I bet you’re wondering why I didn’t email this to you. Well, I would have, but my mother took away my internet privileges because I was chatting up this creepy old man. You know, flirting with him and stuff. I would never meet such a dirtbag; I just tease them to torture them. So here I am, snail-mailing this to you because my mother’s a bitch. I hate her and her new boyfriend. They’re all goo-goo ga-ga over each other, and it drives me nuts. Like, if either of them had a life, they wouldn’t need to dote on the other’s every whim. It’s disgusting.

I should get to the point, because you’re the great leader and probably busy negotiating some South Korean movie star hostage exchange for some nifty weapons technology. That’s right. I’ve heard about your power moves all the way here in Canada ;). Of course, all the papers and the television news here make fun of your size and the way you look. They think you’re pretty insane, what with all the authoritarian communism and stuff. I swear every report talks about how poor the people are in your country, how they’re all starving like they’re robot idiots who don’t even know how to grow rice and vegetables. But I know better; I can see through their dirty propaganda.

My point is actually not a point, but a favour I want to ask of you. I know, you’re probably thinking, who does this little peon Canadian girl think she is, asking a favour of the great leader? But hold on a minute. You might enjoy this favour. When you get your nuclear missiles all ready, and you’re about to shoot on the capital of the axis of evil, could you maybe miss a little? I mean, could you shoot at least one so it falls short and hits Toronto?

Now you’re probably thinking that I’m going to ask to be brought to North Korea and be saved, but I’m not. I want to die with everyone else. Why? It’s complicated.

I hate how people treat each other here. Everyone’s always cussin’ on each other, or fighting, or shooting up the neighbourhood, or shooting drugs into their veins in the park to take away the pain of living in this screwed-up world. Either that, or they try to make someone else miserable so they can feel better about their own lives. I’m sick of it all. I think a clean slate would benefit this place in a big way; a huge white ball of fire and a beautiful mushroom cloud is just the ticket. Do you know that expression? Song-nah at school told me that most Koreans speak English, so I assume a great man like yourself does, but I don’t know if you know all these slang expressions. “Just the ticket” means the perfect thing. Anyway, I have a feeling you would understand me perfectly if you read this letter.

You might wonder why I don’t want to be saved. It’s because I’m part of all the awfulness, and if I lived, I would probably spread it.

If you feel like Toronto doesn’t deserve it, remember that our banks were stable during the recent recession. You know, the worst capitalist crisis since the great depression? Or maybe that’s just another lie. You never know these days who is lying and when. Anyways, if it’s true, then they were probably stable because they were screwing with someone else’s numbers. People can control computers remotely nowadays and everything. Crazy, eh?

I will let you go now because I know you have important things to do. I really hope you get this letter. If you decide to do this little favour for me, thank you thank you thank thank you thank you thank you thank you.

Yours eternally and gratefully,

Sherry Delgado

The Whore Derv Returns! And he's pissed!

Subscribe in a reader

This edition of the Whore Derv of Canada is brought to you by Telefilm Canada, the nation’s organization devoted to financing and enabling the domestic film industry. No, they are not paying me, although they should. I mean rather that this post would not be possible without their continued existence as a state institution. And rather than simply honour an individual of special talent, fame, and appeal, this particular award has been given to an amorphous social group. A mass, you might say.

This award goes to all those fake patriots out there who cheer like mad for Canada during the Olympics, who riot after hockey games, those who wear red and white on Canada Day, who have Canadian Flags tattooed on their body, but who shop at Walmart (where most things are manufactured from abroad), who buy vegetables genetically engineered in Guelph but grown in California, who favour the privatization of Ontario Hydro, and most importantly for the purposes of this award, never go to cinemas to see a Canadian film.

Yes, people, IMAX technology was developed in Canada. Unfortunately, because Hollywood studios have vertically integrated so that they own a large percentage of cinema screens that show the movies, most IMAX films are not Canadian, because such films are expensive to produce and the kind of venture capital necessary to make them are found in places like Los Angeles and New York City. It’s a phenomenon we in the study of communications and in the film industry call “block booking.” That is, Hollywood spends oodles of money producing films, and to ensure they recoup their costs, they book cinemas all over the world with these blockbusters long ahead of time. It’s sort of hit-and-miss as to which films actually blow up, which is why you have disasters such as Kevin Kostner’s Waterworld, or surprise low-budget blockbusters whose revenues are almost purely profit, such as The Blair Witch Project.

Because Canadian cinemas are usually booked long ahead of time with Hollywood Blockbusters, there is relatively little time left to book Canadian films. As such, the kind of promotional campaigns run for big-budget films, which themselves run into the tens of millions on top of the production costs of the film, are basically a waste of money. As a consequence, this mass of Canadians the award goes to rarely hear about Canadian films, except perhaps through newspapers or free weeklies like Now Magazine. Furthermore, because these films aren’t on their radar, they don’t go to see them. Mind you, the situation is improving in the trailer department, especially trailers for DVDs. And I know for a fact some people become interested in films through trailers. I recently rented the film The Messenger, an independent American feature, and it was preceded by a trailer for Trotsky, a Canadian film. Promising, but is it enough? I mean, following the predominant values (deducted from their actions) of this social group, the fact that we need a state institution to support domestic film is alarming at least.

The situation is even stranger because I have a feeling that many of this amorphous social group is not only capable of enjoying, but that they would actually enjoy the excellent films being produced in Canada. Films such as Defendor with Woody Harrelson, or 7 (Les Septs Jours Du Talion).

Therefore, we here at the Invisible Truth offer this award to those who don’t make it a point to go to Canadian films and support the domestic film industry. Congratulations, and thank you for your shallow flag-waving enthusiasm. It has driven most of our film talent (Jim Carrey, Paul Haggis, what’s-his-face from the Austin Powers movies) from the country. Way to clear the room of your precious celebrities!

Howdy Readers

Subscribe in a reader

First of all, I would like to thank all my readers for visiting The Invisible Truth. I apologize for my sluggish summer publishing schedule, but I have been very busy. I am in the process of moving to new digs in Parkdale, a far cry from my current downtown pad. Also, I have been putting the finishing touches on two academic papers to submit to journals such as Topia, The Canadian Journal of Cultural Studies and Film Philosophy. Finally, I've been asked to submit a book proposal to Yorkshire Publishing, so I will be busy with that as well. To keep you all happy, I have dug up a photograph from my archives. I remind you to take a few seconds to click on the google links on the right, as I get a few pennies for that, seeing as I do this blog pro-bono, except for the few pennies I get from google for ad revenue.