Sand, Ships and Sounds - Dune, Reviewed

In 2017, I was very glad to discover that Denis Villeneuve, director of Arrival and Blade Runner: 2049, was going to be helming a new cinematic adaptation of the classic science-fiction novel Dune.

Adapting as beloved and thoughtful piece of work as Frank Herbert's novel, where the traditional sci-fi stalwarts of physics or engineering take a back seat to ecology and sociology, was never going to be easy - past adaptations and attempts can attest to that. But Villeneuve's love of the source material, and his reflective and insightful work on the two aforementioned films really made me hopeful that this Dune would show onscreen some semblance of the scenes constructed in my mind's eye many decades before.

And let me tell you, he is off to a wonderful start.

This is a very faithful interpretation of a story about the conflicts between powers - natural, familial, and emotional - in a world both like and very much unlike the one we live in.

Villeneuve brings an impressive sense of scale to almost every scene in the film, from the massive, skyscraper-sized spaceships with hundreds if not thousands of occupants paraded in front of it, to the arid and sandy landscapes of the titular planet named Arrakis. See this movie in IMAX if at all possible for the full (and often intimidating) effect!

The movie enjoys a distinct and palpable sense of elsewhere - despite the feudal trappings and historic influences in everything from sculptures and architecture we see, there is a sense that life more than 10,000 years in the future is very different from what we know. The exoticism and strangeness is enhanced by the various factions we encounter and their unfamiliar names, like the Bene Gesserit witches and inscrutable Spacers Guild that we glimpse only briefly at an early ceremony on the Atreides homeworld.

The costumes by Robert Morgan and Jacqueline West go a long way to establishing the unique feel of the film, making it seem wholly natural that Duke Leto Atreides and Gurney Halleck (Oscar Isaac and Josh Brolin) should wear futuristic plate mail made from some exotic material, while the mentat Thufir Hawat (Stephen Mckinley Henderson) wears a uniform that wouldn't look out of place in the People's Liberation Army of 1949. The ceremonial spacesuits obscuring the faces of the Spacers engender as much curiosity as fear at what may lay beneath, and the tall headpieces and trailing robes of the Bene Gesserit add both stature and menace to their presence.

But what makes Villeneuve a brilliant director is not just his ability to depict exotic dune seas and immense sandworms threatening mobile factories the size of a NASA crawler, but the skillful way in which he can pick out moments of intimacy and familiarity within such a tableau.

The moments between Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet) and his father the Duke reveal a genuine familial affection that is complicated by duty and the demands of a dangerous and combative universe. Likewise the scenes featuring Paul and his mother Jthe Lady Jessica (a concubine rather than a wife, in a nod to the neo-feudalism that governs the major houses of the future), a woman contesting her love of family with the demands of the Bene Gesserit order she emerged from.

Even within the physical realm of sets and props, for every massive spaceship or walled city we encounter there is an ornate coffee service or fastener on a fremen stillsuit that must be checked and adjusted, or boots that are worn desert-style.

It is a lot to balance, but it all came across to my family clearly enough this past Monday when we watched Dune, and none of whom have read the novel. Villeneuve and screenwriters Jon Spaihts and Eric Roth have wisely left out some of the minutiae that adds so much flavour to the novel (Suk conditioning, laser and shield reactions, etc.) but would have brought very little to the story onscreen.

The challenge is that with so much time to establish all these relationships and this future world of rival fiefdoms and modern-style commerce, after two-and-a-half hours we are barely at the midway point of the book. 

Unlike even The Fellowship of the Ring, there is no big climactic battle to round out the experience on a high note. Much of the story of Dune revolves around Paul's relationship with the desert-dwelling Fremen, who we barely see until the very end of the film. I worry that there is not enough happening to satisfy casual movie-goers expecting a bit more closure, even from a movie whose title screen calls itself "Dune - Part One."

But now that the studio has finally greenlit Part Two (with a release date only two years away, shockingly!) I can tell people who ask me that, yes, Dune is definitely a film worth seeing, provided you don't rest too much of your cinematic experience on closure or resolution. Dune involves an almost unprecedented amount of world-building and scene-setting, but provides an experience that is not only dramatic, but almost experiential, like travel (ah, remember travel?). There is an almost palpable sense of having been elsewhere when leaving the theatre, and I will be glad when October 2023 rolls around and we can once again return to Arrakis.

As Chani (Zendaya), the Fremen girl who haunts Paul's dreams, tells us in the trailer, "This is only the beginning."

Canine Soliloquy

I am sorry if this is startling to you, but it is probably past time that you were made aware that your dog can speak, and it is certainly past time that we spoke.

Well, not speak, per se - it is actually a limited form of asynchronous thought-sharing that canines like myself can achieve upon sufficient exposure to another specific creature, even a biped, under certain special conditions.

No, not telepathy either. I am not able to read your thoughts and much of what you convey in other ways - vocal volume and pitch, mannerisms, body language, and scent - is completely unintelligible to me. Colour? Money? Delayed gratification? These concepts are a closed book to me and my kind.

But I saw you watching me this afternoon at the fenced dog meadow we go to on most days, and I thought you should know that you are correct: dogs can smell through time.

As you are no doubt aware, the canine sense of smell is not only astonishing in its sensitivity but also staggering in its scope. I mean, it only makes sense that a species such as mine, with both its body structure and brain oriented around its olfactory system as well as a predatory nature should excel at tracking other living things. Turning our preying instincts into a means of tracking shared food or human fugitives was a masterstroke of interspecies communication on the part of your kind! Moving from food and capture to the detection of illicit and bad-smelling substances is just grist for the mill at this point.

But if I understand correctly, you have only recently begun to explore how we can somehow detect unwanted malignancies that your tools and devices are unable to find. True, it is not easy or common, but if you were to suffer from the disease-that-eats, there is a good chance I would know - but I don't know that I could make you understand me. Death is also less critical of an event to me and my kind, except when it is actually happening, for reasons that are likely to become obvious.

Now, it is unknown if we smell the disease itself, or if its effects make it detectable in you somehow, or, as I have theorized, if we are able to detect the tragic shortening of time the eating disease causes.

We canines have a different sense of time altogether than you bipeds, experiencing it in a far more holistic and comprehensive fashion, and like most of our other perceptions, it is filtered first through our sense of smell. 

For instance, you live your day-to-day life on a knife-edge, balanced between memory and anticipation, often missing nuances or opportunities provided by your current situation. I would hesitate to call it zen, precisely, but we dogs do possess a focus on the "now" that you would be wise to emulate on occasion.

Dogs are aware that time, largely presumed to move unilaterally, does in fact travel omnidirectionally. Bits of time are carried forward and backward by tiny particles, impossible to see but discernible to a trained snout and a wary brain. [editor's note: is it my imagination or is this dog seriously describing tachyons?]

We smell the future and the past on every breeze and in every spot we encounter - what you sometimes no-doubt perceive as an infatuation with scents left by another animal (and I confess that yes, sometimes this is indeed the case) is more often a highly-enriched space for us, brimming with both recall and premonition.

Such it was in the park today, when you saw me sniffing this way and that as though looking for a predetermined spot. In a way I was; the scents told me then that at some point in the future I will have defecated in a spot near here and eventually I was able to determine the precise place. I did what I needed to do, right where I was meant to do it. 

The fact that I was able to do so at all after you came by so quickly afterward to collect it and put it in that freestanding collection vessel makes it a rather accomplished feat, if you ask me.

At any rate, when I saw you standing there, looking at me afterwards, your head cocked slightly to one side, I suspected you were gleaning more about the truth of the situation than many of your kind do, and wanted to confirm your suspicions.

I also wanted to take the time to let you know that although I miss the people I knew closely in my former life, I also have opportunities to experience them again in the past, when the wind is right. I am actually quite happy here with you and our family for the most part, and am also aware that this happiness will continue on for much of my life. I don't think about the future in a conscious manner the way you do (thank goodness - it seems quite worrisome at times), but have sureties of the future visited upon me from time to time via the scents I encounter.

At any rate, I can sense your primary brainwaves slowing [editor's note: can dogs sense alpha waves? sensorimotor rhythms?], so I think whatever rich-smelling fermented sugars were in that glass you had after supper must be wearing off, and that will bring our time of communion to an end, at least for now.

I'm glad we talked, and thank you again for all the belly rubs.

Ferdinand - No Bull

I've had a special relationship with the book The Story of Ferdinand since I was in first grade. Being kind of a precocious reader, I was chosen to read the book aloud during a school presentation while another first grader acted out the various scenes. (remember, this is pre-internet, three tv channel times.)

It's one of Audrey's favourites too, one of a handful of books she had as a child and re-bought as an adult. She even bought a Ferdinand toy from the movie that came out back in 2017 with John Cena as the voice of the titular bull, despite not enjoying the film very much.

The 1936 book, for those unfamiliar, was written by Munro Leaf and brilliantly illustrated by Robert Lawson. It tells the tale of a gentle bull on a farm outside Madrid who would rather sit beneath his beloved cork tree and smell flowers as opposed to fighting with the other bulls. 

Mistaken for a true killer by visitors unaware that Ferdinand has sat on a bee, he is taken to the bull ring in Madrid, but they cannot make him rekindle his earlier ferocity. 

It is a lovely book, and it has been said that perhaps there out of four adults who buy it do so for their own enjoyment, and not necessarily as a child's gift. At face value, it is a humourous tale with a positive message about being true to oneself, but as Audrey informed me tonight, one notable historical figure really did not like Ferdinand in the slightest.

Adolf Hitler.

Perhaps this is unsurprising, but I was still stunned at her discovery (via Ferdinand's Wikipedia page) that Hitler found this tale of a pacifistic bovine to be "degenerate democratic propaganda" and banned it from Germany. Coming out as close as it did to the Spanish Civil War, perhaps it is not as surprising that it was also banned in Spain for its pacifism, and that ban was not lifted until Franco died in 1975

On the other hand, it was not only immensely popular in the United States and Canada, it was also the only American children's book in Stalinist Poland.

It turns out that people have applied all manner of metaphorical and allegorical baggage on poor Ferdinand's horns. In 1938, Life magazine said "too-subtle readers see in Ferdinand everything from a fascist to a pacifist to a burlesque sit-down striker," while The Cleveland Plain Dealer accused the book of "corrupting the youth of America."

More recently, the New York Times profiled the story for its 75th anniversary in 2011, and characterized it as a parable about exclusion, and lionizing the title character as "an icon for the oustider and the bullied," which feels much closer to the mark for me.

Following D-Day, British Air Transport auxiliary ferrying in aircraft to Europe as non-combatants used Ferdinand as a most appropriate call sign. And after the end of the war, 30,000 copies were printed out and distributed free to German children as a sign of encouraging peace.

This is a book that, in addition to never being out of print (as of 2019 anyways), has been a fond memory for both Audrey and I for much of our lives. I am grateful to Wikipedia (and another article from Sotheby's I have yet to get into) for the opportunity to learn so much about the hidden history and controversy surrounding a popular children's book.

Goodbye Mr. Bond - No Time to Die, Reviewed

 And so, Daniel Craig closes out his 15-year tenure as the world's most famous undercover intelligence agent (wait, what?). It's been nearly six years since we saw him (in 2015's so-so Spectre) making this the second-longest gap between Bond movies in the franchise's history. Most of this was due to COVID, of course - the original release date was November 2019 - but securing the contractless leading man, switching directors and the production issues and injuries that plague every Bond film all played a role in the 23-month delay.

So is No Time to Die worth the wait? Is it an appropriate swan song for the character as well as the actor who portrayed him for a longer period than even Roger Moore?

Yes - but maybe not for everyone.

Beyond even a characterization or trope, Bond is an archetype, an institution. The 25 Bond movies produced by the Broccoli family are practically their own genre, and you tinker with that formula at your peril - and to the delight of a subset of moviegoers who want more than a rehash.

No Time to Die includes three or four things you have never seen James Bond do (or fail to do) before. I found this thrilling, but I kept picturing my late Dad reacting to Daniel Craig expressing a legitimate emotion other than anger by shaking his head and saying, "Not bad...but not Bond."

Every other Bond iteration has been largely episodic, returning to something resembling the status-quo at the end of each installment. Craig's run has actually sketched out an arc of sorts, starting with his investiture as a double-O agent with a license to kill in Casino Royale, and following through four films with themes of loyalty and betrayal, both organizationally with MI-6, Quantum and SPECTRE, and with the women in Bond's life, like Vesper Lynd and Madeleine Swann. As far as I know, no other Bond film has ever acknowledged a film as an actor's last prior to its release, let alone attempted to provide a satisfactory conclusion to that performer's residency.

So right away, some people (e.g. possibly people like my dad) will be disappointed that there is any sort of  conclusion, regardless of whether that closure is good or bad.

Notwithstanding those objections, I think it is safe to say that NTTD is one of the better Bond movies. It touches back on every previous Craig outing and references or homages other classic Bond moments throughout the film. For example, moving from the signature Aston Martin DB5 winding its way through a scenic road in Italy to its interior for Bond to tell Madeleine "we have all the time in the world" put literal gooseflesh on my arms. (Let me say though, that I honestly felt that havng four different Aston Martins in a single Bond movie felt like a bit much - but that may be an unpopular opinion.)

All the things I personally want in a Bond movie are present in this one: an evil villain (or two), a menacing heavy, a diabolical plan and confident, competent femmes fatale. Director Cary Joji Fukunaga brings an artist's eye and a variety of shooting styles to the picture; we get the clear pans across scenic vistas and exotic locales, but handheld action sequences in a foggy forest or concrete tunnels feel appropriately claustrophobic.

Most notably, at 2 hours and 45 minutes (the longest Bond movie to date), NTTD feels briskly paced - we linger on poignant and declarative scenes in order to better soak them in but never overstay our welcome before moving swiftly on to another moment of rising tension or frantic action.

Hans Zimmer's score is brilliant (as anticipated), bringing fresh arrangements to familiar cues and orchestrations, which is fantastic when you consider he was another replacement for an outgoing composer.

Lashana Lynch is fantastic as Bond's replacement, with a balance of charm and menace to rival Connery's, but Ana de Armas is in the running for my all-time favourite Bond belle despite having only a brief turn in the spotlight as Paloma, a potentially overwhelmed new contractor who teams up with Bond in Havana via Felix Leiter (Jeffrey Wright).

Rami Malek's villain Lyutsifer Safin is given great motivation and a surprisingly plausible origin, but whose megalomania and lack of scale drive him to the cartoonish end of the pool (move over Thanos) despite a measured performance; not quite a disaffected sociopath, nor someone who sees themselves as the hero, but whose ruthlessness feels omnipresent.

But, for a change, it's the story that feels like the real star here. All the cars and spy-fi flourishes are present, but there are moments of genuine emotional resonance and real tension where you know this is probably the  last outing for this crew, so just how far are they willing to take the stakes? The writers (including Fukunaga) take pains to point out that Bond is an emotionally blunted individual but who has regrets and desperately wishes he could change, and we hear this from Bond's own lips, which felt extraordinary to me.

Like all the Bond movies since 2006's Casino Royale, No Time to Die puts far more emphasis on characters and action than on quips (fear not, there are still some to be had), but also tries very hard to stick the landing - and I think it does. But the very fact it has a landing, and draws upon four other films to achieve it, will probably disappoint folks like my dad, who want a simple adventure where the good guys and bad guys are easily distinguishable. 

Even that morality, present but sometimes blurred in this most recent arc of films, gets muddied up a little in this one, with real questions being raised about what ethical lines remain in play when you are defending a nation - or the freedom that it ostensibly stands for.

In the final analysis, I think Barbara Broccoli and Daniel Craig and a host of others have left us with a wonderful subset of Bond films that have dared to be different and as a result, done what many said was impossible: successfully reinvented James Bond for the modern era, even after characters like Austin Powers have taken the mickey out of him. It's a pity Craig didn't have more of Ian Fleming's material to work with, but I think his nuanced delivery in Casino Royale, Skyfall and No Time to Die could see his Bond eventually enshrined alongside Moore's and Connery's.

Now to wait and see if EON Productions can do it all over again; I actually stayed past the end credits just to see these reassuring words on screen:

"JAMES BOND WILL RETURN"

Earthly Remains, Part Two

Seeing my sister and her husband in person for only the second time in 22 months was a joy, but the occasion was bittersweet, as we finally carried our mother's ashes to the same place in Jasper that we took our father's. 

Mum passed away two years ago this December following a stroke; the cruel mercy of the speed of it all is still staggering to believe. It was a mere 29 days from her friends taking her to the emergency room to her eventual passing, with Tara and I by her side.

Tara and Jerry returned to Houston and their lives there just after Christmas. The plan had always been for them to return in the spring or summer, as they always did, so we could take Mum's remains to Maligne Canyon and scatter her ashes as we did Dad's.

But in March of last year, the pandemic measures kicked in, and all travel became more difficult, particularly international. The two of them finally made it up for a brief visit in July, but with our girls in Churchill, we elected to wait until more of the family was on hand.

But a part of me will always wonder if we weren't fated to make this reluctant pilgrimage on the same weekend as we did it before - we scattered Dad's ashes on October 6, 2012, the Saturday of the Thanksgiving long weekend.

Audrey and I dropped off Mum's Jeep in Leduc on Thursday night so that Tara and Jerry could have wheels while in town and for our sortie down the Yellowhead, the two of them flew in to EIA Friday night, and we all met up in the parking lot of the Tim Hortons in Edson on Saturday morning.

Hugs all around as they had not seen their nieces in almost two years, plus Audrey and Tara were gobsmacked to discover they had unknowingly purchased the exact same eyeglass frames despite living 3500 km away from each other. 

It was cool but bright and sunny in Edson, so we lingered and caught up a bit before getting back on the road, reconnecting at the parking lot for Maligne Canyon's Fifth Bridge. Tara and Jerry had proceeded up the canyon from this point on their last visits to pay their respects to Dad, and figured it to be a bit easier than walking further down from the main parking lot and then a considerable way back up.

We crossed the bridge and started up the uneven ground that ran roughly parallel to the churning waters of the Maligne River. It was far cooler and shadier here than it had been in Edson, but most of us had to shed our coats or sweaters following our exertions from challenging the elevation changes. I was surprisingly quick-paced for much of it - was I so eager to get things over with? Scattering Mum's remains was not something I was exactly looking forward to, but the appeal of the closure was undeniable.

That said, I was only too happy to take rest breaks in order to catch my breath, admire the astonishing scenery and reflect with Tara and the others, particularly at just how little Mum would have enjoyed this route, with its sharp edges and proximity to potentially calamitous falls. But Mum, like Dad, loved the mountain scenery and we agreed that she would have enjoyed looking at the waterfalls and rock formations and maybe even the mosses that captivated Fenya and Glory.

Following an extended muddy patch caused by recent rains and a final climb up a steep and rocky incline, we finally arrived at Fourth Bridge. 

Again I was dumbfounded at the beauty of the spot, something I had only partially recognized 9 years ago, but finally clued into when the girls and I visited in 2019. We rested for a bit, waited for other visitors to vacate the bridge (a one-way viewpoint off the pain trail) and then extricated Mum's scattering vessel from the backpack we had carried her up in.

I had brought along a multi-tool in case there was a plastic bag within the cardboard tube (as there had been with Dad's), but this time a new indignity prevailed upon the occasion: after removing the lid and opening the perforated circle in the end of the vessel and upending it over the shallow but fast-moving water perhaps 5 metres below, Mum wouldn't budge from the container. Did I really hear my sister mutter "Stubborn so-and-so" under her breath? Surely not...

Tara handed the rainbow-decorated scattering vessel back to me, and I tapped the side of it exploratorily, then dropped it from a couple of inches onto the thick railing of the bridge, generating a percussive and non-resonant thud. It seemed that my mother's extended time in this most temporary of containers had resulted in her really settling in, as it were. I had a pretty good idea of what needed to come next. 

I glanced at Tara and got the kind of nod that says, "whatever it takes," I re-lidded the vessel, grasped it firmly in both hands around the top half and thumped it heartily against the bridge railing. "Sorry to have to beat you up one last time here, Mum," I murmured, generating a couple of dark chuckles from my surrounding family. It didn't take long for the clump to break up, but not before Glory wrinkled up her nose in mock horror and said "gawd, Dad..." to which I replied, "it's our own fault for not sticking a brown sugar bear or something in there with her when we had the chance."

We re-wrestled the lid back off of the vessel (a bit more difficult now that the neck of it was gritty), returned to the centre of the bridge to upend it, and were relieved when the ashes poured out. Some carried forth on the wind but the majority drifting down to the water at the bottom of the canyon.

And of course, no sooner had we started decanting her when other sightseers made their way onto the bridge. 

Well, fair enough - it is not only a public space but a popular national park on probably the last good weather long weekend of the year. If we'd wanted privacy, we would have had to come in the dead of night, which brings its own share of complications. Just as it was with Dad, so it went with Mum: each of us taking a turn, working in fits and stops to accommodate sightseers until all her earthly remains had descended into the Maligne River, almost exactly nine years after she had helped us do the same with Dad.

There was a long pause afterwards. There were a lot of thoughts of Mum, and I reflected on how grateful I was that she hadn't lingered on our mortal coil any longer than she had wanted to, and how frustrating she would have found this pandemic. But I also just tried to soak in the space, looking again at the colour and textures around me; closing my eyes and hearing the rush and churn of the gravity-powered waters below me carving their way through air and limestone.

Then there were some final hugs and we made out way back down to the Fifth Bridge parking lot. We gathered at a picnic table for a drink before heading on into Jasper and the hotel rooms we had booked for the night. We talked about Mum a bit, but also about the beauty of the park, and the privilege of having it so nearby. 

But mostly we talked about family and how grateful we were for the opportunity to get together for the first time in a long while, even on an occasion tinged with sadness.

Miss you, Mum - we all hope you are at peace.

A Nickel's Worth of...What, Exactly?

The advance polls open tomorrow for Edmonton's municipal elections, and I am in a quandary regarding the selection for mayor. I know who I want to vote for, but I am worried about vote-splitting allowing a less-desirable candidate to waltz in. 

I was in a similar predicament in 2004 and voted my heart in that election, giving Stephen Mandel the win over incumbent Bill Smith and Robert Noce. The former I had viewed as a tired status quo, while the latter had displayed a number of weasely tendencies over their campaign. I considered voting strategically to keep a weasel out of the office, but was dissuaded by a timely column from the Journal's municipal affairs columnist (and later councillor) Scott McKeen.

At that time, I chose optimism over pragmatism, and maybe I should again - I have less than no interest in having Mike Nickel as my mayor.

Portrait by Tim Mikula

Nickel has a well-deserved reputation as an outspoken city councillor, and whose blunt and confrontational manner has seen him brought to council's attention on multiple code of conduct violations but has escaped censure every time as this requires 9 council votes. Marketing reports (described in the article linked above) show how many voters see Nickel as “says no,” “an I-told-you-so guy,” “frustrated” and “irritable,” now of which are flattering and all of which are easy to ascribe to him.

He is a hard-working and experienced campaigner, and there is no question he is winning the battle of the yard signs, at least from my perspective here on the North side. I saw him canvassing door-to-door a couple of weeks back, and hoped he would come to my step so I could speak my mind, despite my general aversion to confrontation.

He did not, but here is what I hoped I would have said to him:

Mr. Nickel, a part of me is sad you are not running for council again, as I think these bodies work best when they represent a multiplicity of perspectives. I think it is good to have someone on council who can always be counted on to ask, "but what is that going to cost?" and "where is the benefit to this?"

But a good mayor has to build a consensus out of those perspectives, and I have seen absolutely no demonstration that you possess any diplomatic inclinations whatsoever. You bad-mouth city staff and administrators and even endorse council candidates against incumbent councillors that you may end up having to work with! I can't decide if this is naked opportunism ar just short-sightedness, but neither of these endear you to me as a candidate.

If I add that to your frankly bullying and harassing ways on social media, I can't help but think you would be a bad choice for mayor.

I mean, who knows how far I would have gotten before he realized there is no way to get my vote and he walked off, at which point I might have added, "Is this the kind of interaction I can expect if you do win? To walk away from opinions you don't agree with?"

In the end, though, this discourse remains a fantasy, and my difficult choice for mayor remains.

My two favoured candidates are both former councillors (I would have a hard time voting in a mayor with no council experience). I have been a fan of Kim Krushell from her tenure of council from 2005-2013, particularly her standing up to the Kingsway Business Association (and all their money) and their dogged determination to keep the municipal airport open. 

She had my vote until former Trudeau cabinet minister Amarjeet Sohi announced his candidacy four months later. I like Sohi; prior to his council term, he was a city bus driver, and this working-class perspective is often left out of elected office. And his name recognition gives him a serious edge over Krushell, out of the public eye for almost a decade now. - in fact, a Leger poll in late July gave Sohi a significant lead, but at that time, 43% of those polled were undecided. 

A friend in the know also tells me that a private poll now shows Nickel ahead of Sohi.

So these are the horns of the dilemma on which I find myself - if my primary goal in this election is to keep the least desirable candidate imaginable out of the mayor's seat, do I:

i) vote my heart and hope many others do the same, risking splitting the vote and giving Nickel an easier path to victory, or

ii) vote strategically for the early frontrunner since I feel they would also be a good mayor?

My optimism is struggling to overcome my pragmatism, and more than anything else, I dearly wish we had preferential balloting for municipal elections.

As it sits, please feel free to share your opinions about my decision either in the comments or with me directly; at least the election isn't until October 18 so I have time to decide, if not a methodology for doing so!