THERE ARE many times in life when one earnestly beseeches one’s maker with the question ‘‘why me?”’ The most intriguing assignment of the week past was the editor’s request that I review Stan Persky's new book, Mixed Media, Mixed Messages. Why not Doug Collins, who would roll through it like a bull- dozer in a rose garden? Why not Bob Hunter, who would despair that Persky, awash with intellec- tual meanderings, missed yet another opportunity to save the world. Why not some journalistically ambitious Cap Coilege grad, who would be grateful for a chance to wreak revenge upon a teacher? With curiosity, rather than en- thusiasm, we picked up Stan’s trade paperback (New Star Books, $13.95). Visions of Persky on television, resembling a rumpled lump that fell cff the back of a laundry truck, interfered with concentra- tion. Modern TV production has deteriorated to a ‘‘round up the usual suspects’’ mentality. ff there is a war or an economic crisis, panels of professors will be hastily assembied. If the subject is politics, Stan Persky will be sitting on the left, flippantly injecting precisely the same remarks that he made two decades ago. This book is not original. We searched in vain to discover a theme. It is a coliection of Per- sky's media columns from The Vancouver Sun, enhanced by a sprinkling of articles from other media. The Sun's assignment to Persky is to cover media. It is apparent from the content that this is loose- ly defined... . Only by surveying many col- ums is there an opportunity to see a pattern. The discovery here is that there is no pattern. It seems to depend upon whatever thunderbolt hit the author during the course of a week. He confides in the book about occasions when his editor painful- ly asked what possible connection the text had to his media beat? There is a tiresome obsession in this book. We suspect even Persky would be surprised if he counted the references to gay and lesbian matters, including his own homosexuality. Over and over again, whether the subject is the AIDS death of a friend or merely the frequent cor- ny “out of the closet’’ jokes, this becomes the author’s most deter- mined mission. He wrote about the even-hand- ed media treatment of the World Gay Olympics in 1990: ‘*As a journalist with the vested interests in the erotic preferences of the Gay Games players —— ac- tually, in my mellowing middle- age, I consider any preference something of a personal triumph." And, referring to the gay and lesbian campaign within the Unit- ed Church of Canada, he said they ‘found themselves asserting, in one way or another, the reason for wanting to be a member of a group that didn’t want you, was that it should want you.”’ Stan Persky emerges from this collection as a gentle man, with an artist's view of his society. He chides the Georgia Straight for its movie-star covers, forgetting its revolutionary and community af- fairs past. He doesn’t like perfume sam- ples erupting from magazine Pages, and he chastises media moguls for concentration of own- ership, a self-evident oligopoly, contrary to public interest. He paraphrases educator Nigel Postman’s concern about modern imagery. “‘What stands out on TV is discontinuity. You are shown 5,000 people killed in an earth- quake. That's followed by what Postman calls the two most dan- gerous words in this century, ‘Now This’ — that verbal doodad A Gift Certificate Equal to 20% of Your Purchase. Now until December 23rd with any home furnishings purchase of $500 or more, we'll give you a gift certificate redeemable for additional merchandise of your choosing up to an amouni equal to 20% of your origina! purchase. 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Gary Bannerman Fa, eC a OPEN LINES that switches you from incom- prehensible death to your need for beer, pizza, cholesterol-free french fries.”* Within another discourse. he says there is one major drawback to applying for a Canada Council grant: “Lying makes me uncom- fortable."” Apparently enjoying a grant at the time this advice was written, Persky adds: ‘‘As far as the Canada Council in Ottawa is con- Sunday, December 8, 1991 - North Shore News - 9 # Persky messages enhanced by misdirection cerned, I’m on a kayak some- where on the Skeena River, be- tween Terrace and Hazelton, B.C., investigating grizzly bears or somesuch.”’ And then he complains that he'll have to tell some chap in Or- tawa about how the kayak tipped over, and so on. Perhaps the best column con- tained in this volume concerned a conference of the Learned Societies of Canada, which took place in Victoria. Some 81 organizations dedicated to knowl- edge and intellectual pursuits met in virtual anonymity at the Uni- versity of Victoria. The Vancouver press failed to notice. The nuances of writing accu- rately conveyed an image of quiet but accomplished people, striving to achieve cultural enrichment, enduring benigi: neglect from superficial and mercantile media. Persky observed: ‘‘It takes a Journalistic decision that, in fact, something important is happening. Just as they decide that any guitar-plucking narcissist who passes through a focal saloon rates 20 inches of newsprint to tell us the travails of touring.”’ He took some delight in relating that a week later, The Vancouver Sun reprinted a lengthy Washington Post feature about one of the Victoria conference speakers. Had they attended, they could have dore the interview in person. eoe Yet the newspaper emerges as my hero in this story. It takes more courage today to publish the delicate, probing, and tke philo- sophical than‘it does the pre- dictable diary of our times. We started enjoying Persky as soon as we stopped searching for a focal point. As McLuhan might have observed, the author and the medium are the message. We might have spared ourselves some frustration if we paid more attention to the author's preface: “‘Although it is probably eviden?, it might be useful to underscore the fact that this is not intended as grand theory, sustained argu- ment, or a comprehensive survey of media. At the same time, | : hope to have produced something more coherent than a random col- lection of ephemeral jottings."’ Stan Persky didn’t achieve that in Mixed Media, Mixed Messages. In a curious sense, eccentric mis- direction enhances its worth. ACR ON 2B