Green plan for Paris squares
Cities As part of her stated aim to “reinvent” the city, Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo (shown here) plans to transform seven major squares in the French capital. Over the next four years, they will become both greener and more pedestrian- and cyclist-friendly. “This is about rediscovering the history of Paris and its squares,” she says. The squares in question are Place de la Bastille, Place de la Nation, Place du Panthéon, Place d’Italie, Place de la Madeleine, Place Gambetta and Place des Fêtes. In each case, what is currently a space dominated by cars will become a pedestrian haven, often with the addition of trees and green spaces. Hidalgo has set a budget of €30 million for the project, which some say is optimistic, as a similar scheme by her predecessor to transform the Place de le République cost €24 milllion. The plan is one of many introduced by the mayor to cut the number of cars in the capital. Other schemes include making the Champs-Elysées car- free one Sunday a month and an annual car-free day.
Startup tackles food waste
Food According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation, around one-third of all the food produced around the world goes to waste. But now an ambitious startup based in Bremen, Germany, has developed a novel way of addressing the problem. FoPo’s idea is to collect fruit and vegetables that would otherwise be discarded and freeze-dry them into powder, thus extending their shelf life by up to two years. “It’s an absurd situation that in the 21st century so much of the world’s food is wasted while 800 million people go hungry,” says FoPo’s co-founder Gerald Perry Marin, a graduate in food innovation and product design who founded the company with two fellow students. During trials in the Philippines, FoPo has been using surplus pineapples and mangos supplied by local farmers. The powder retains between 30 and 80 per cent of its nutritional value and can be used in baking, for making smoothies, or just sprinkled on ice cream or yoghurt.
The ozone hole is healing
Environment The hole in the ozone layer above the Antarctic, long a symbol of the harm that mankind is doing to the environment, has started to heal, according to a study in the journal Science that suggests restrictions on the use of ozone-depleting chemicals have been effective. “It’s really a remarkable achievement for society,” says the report’s lead author, Professor Susan Solomon of MIT.
Heroes
Rescue on Everest Just 500 metres from the summit of Everest, British climber Leslie Binns was hours away from scaling the world’s highest peak. But he turned back to save the life of a fellow mountaineer. When the twice-decorated ex-serviceman (pictured) came upon Indian climber Sunita Hazra, who had run out of oxygen and was unable to descend on her own, he decided he had to help. “I told my Sherpa we were not going up and that we would give Sunita my spare oxygen bottle and take her down,” says Binns, 42, who lost the sight in one eye while serving in Afghanistan. After an arduous and dangerous descent, he managed to get her back to his camp. “He’s the reason why she is still alive now,” said Hazra’s brother, Kingshuk Chatterjee. “He is a very brave man.” Binns says simply, “I am immensely proud that I helped Sunita.”
15 Minutes with Rick Mercer
Reader’s Digest: You’ve been doing your stage show A Nation Worth Ranting About for a while now. How do you keep it fresh?
Rick Mercer: Essentially, it’s a reflection on where I’ve been. That means going from coast to coast, and it also means not just going to major cities but also going off the beaten path. I talk a lot about my different adventures, different parts of the country and where the country is perhaps going.
What do you think more Canadians should be ranting about?
Everyone’s opinion is valid. We talk about how this is a big year in politics, and we know now that more young people voted in this last election than have voted in any previous election. The increase was phenomenal. In the elections before that, there was an uptick with young people that was important, but it was a tiny one.
What concerns you the most about Canada in the next few years?
When I think of major issues, I think of household debt, housing prices, climate change and the oil sands. I would say that in the next couple of years, they’re all going to be reaching their critical points. Baby boomers are going to start needing a hell of a lot more care than they have right now, too.
What inspires you to continue doing The Rick Mercer Report?
I never take the show for granted. I love going to work and I’m aware that the vast majority of people aren’t in a position to say that. Years after my father retired, he told me he didn’t like his job, and he managed to keep that fact from his children. If I had to write down on paper what my dream job is, it essentially would be what I’m doing today.
Are there any new avenues you’d like to explore on the show?
Luckily it’s my show and so I can go down whatever avenue I want to go down. That said: if it’s not broken, you don’t try to fix it. There’s certainly an interest for me to do long-form interviews though–sit down and chat with people for a long period of time. Maybe at some point in my career, I’d do that on radio.
How do you feel about the Trudeau government so far?
I think it’s been a honeymoon like we’ve not seen before. I also think they’re incredibly lucky. Their opposition is in disarray. The NDP has a lame duck leader right now. The Conservatives got their heads beaten in, and it takes a while to get off the mat for the ringing in your ears to stop. No one knows how the Liberals would be doing if they had an effective opposition. When you have no opposition, life is easy.
The Rick Mercer Report returns for its 14th season on Tuesdays at 8 p.m. (8:30 NT), beginning Oct. 4.
15 Minutes with Writer Emma Donoghue
Reader’s Digest: Since your early 20s, you’ve made a living as a writer-mainly of novels, including your big hit, 2010’s Room, which you then turned into a screenplay. Do you ever fantasize about less wordy pursuits?
Emma Donoghue: It wouldn’t really occur to me to spend my time on earth on anything but words. I have no other skills. This is it, so it better work!
Your new book, The Wonder, is about a girl in 19th-century Ireland who’s lived without food for months-or so it seems. Most of the story takes place in a small bedroom, a similar setting to the one in Room. What’s the appeal?
You would think I’d had a very strange upbringing! I’m interested in isolating certain relationships and moving up very close, but it was only once I stepped back that I thought, “Oh, it’s another ‘trapped in a room with a child’ book!” I find motherhood to be very intimate and at times claustrophobic, so I think that’s mostly what sent me off on this riff of exploring near-captive conditions.
Why set this book in the past? Eating disorders are very contemporary.
Nowadays, we’re good at labelling psychological phenomena. A century or two ago, these issues were much muddier. There were competing models-superstitious, religious, scientific. So you get diversity, sheer confusion, which is great for fiction.
Earlier this year, you snagged an Oscar nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay for Room. Screenwriting is working out for you, then.
It’s great to try on a whole new kind of writing in your 40s, because it makes you feel like a beginner again.
You don’t find that uncomfortable?
It’s fatal to be comfortable when it comes to writing. Emigration has been handy to me in that way. I feel like an outsider in France, where my partner is from, a different outsider at home in Canada, and a different outsider back in Ireland, where I was born. That sort of oblique vision lets you see things oddly and newly; the less cozy and comfortable you are, the better.
One of your upcoming projects is a kids’ book called The Lotterys Plus One. How cozy was that process?
I feel like a rank amateur. Children can be very harsh. They aren’t polite the way adult readers are-they have to be gripped on every page.
A character in the book has dementia, which your mother suffers from. Was that difficult to write about?
I’ve never been to therapy and I think it’s because anything in my life that’s remotely painful I work through in fictional form. There’s little we can do about dementia, so writing about it has felt hugely helpful. Many children’s books that touch on the subject do it in a saccharine and dreary way. I made it my personal mission to use dementia without having the whole book grind to a miserable halt.
Were your kids your initial readers?
I bribed my son, now 12, and some of his friends to be my first focus group. My nine-year-old daughter is reading the proofs and offering last-minute suggestions. They’ve been extremely useful-and occasionally I’ve been able to distract them from an oncoming tantrum by saying “Oh, we put this bit in the book.”
Her new book The Wonder comes out on Sept. 20.
Meet the director and cast of It’s Only the End of the World
Director Xavier Dolan on making a movie about a dysfunctional family:
“There’s been nothing in my life that could give me any particular insight or inclination towards the dysfunctional family. If you want to describe [the characters], you’ll say they’re loud, brash, brutal and petty. But you can also say that they’re very vulnerable, fragile and concealing a lot of pain. To me, those are the stories that I want to tell and those are the characters that I want to portray. It’s what interests me-how flawed people are. People can relate to these flaws. They think, “That’s me.”
Actor Gaspard Ulliel on playing a character with very little dialogue:
“There are infinite ways in portraying and inhabiting silence. At some point, you think of silence as the basis of an actor’s work. Before talking, there is silence, reflection and introspection, so in the end, it wasn’t that different from another role with more dialogue. It’s all about being the character and reacting to the moment.”
Actress Nathalie Baye on working with Xavier Dolan:
“I’ve had the chance to work with wonderful directors, but Xavier is for me in the top three. He does everything. He writes the script, he directs actors perfectly well because he’s also an actor, and he does the editing by himself too. He even writes the English subtitles. He knows exactly what he wants. And he’s the youngest director I’ve ever worked with. When we were shooting [our previous movie together], he was only 23.”
Gaspard Ulliel on filming a movie made up mostly of close-ups:
“You feel like you have to adapt your acting to these tight shots, because everything is amplified. But at the same time, it’s very comforting and reassuring to know that every breath, every quiver, and every twitch is going to be captured on camera. And when you watch a movie that’s 90 per cent close-ups, the slightest movement becomes a potential explosion. It keeps the audience on the edge of their seat.”
Actress Léa Seydoux on playing emotional scenes:
“The emotion comes from the body, and you just need to stop thinking, basically. It’s not intellectual at all. You go for a very deep emotion, and for me, cinema is all about emotions.”
Xavier Dolan on casting actors against type:
“Something that baffles me about this industry is that we go to the same people for the same parts. “Oh, she’s so good as the alcoholic mother, so let’s give her another role as an alcoholic mother.” What’s fulfilling for an actor is that you are far from your own self. To me, it made sense to get actors who are willing to do anything, and probably can do anything. That’s the aspiration that a lot of directors have-you and the actor going somewhere else, not somewhere you’ve already been.”
Xavier Dolan on the Toronto International Film Festival:
“It’s actually a pleasure to get back into the mood and atmosphere of this film, talk about it, and see the cast again. There have been many beautiful moments at TIFF for me. Also this is a festival that’s way less stressful to be a part of. Here in Toronto, I feel home. I’ve always loved my experiences here.”
It’s Only the End of the World hits theatres in Canada on Sept. 21.
