my lost words

like the eye to the lover

2012-02-17T10:56:00.000-08:00

What the eye is to the lover, language is to the patriot. Through that language, encountered at mother's knee and parted with only at the grave, pasts are restored, fellowships are imagined, and futures dreamed.
Anderson

tlamacazapa, atzin, and the dependency economics of susan smith

2012-02-09T11:28:00.001-08:00

re: The Ripple Effect

To the Editor,

Your article on the work of Susan Smith and Atzin in the latest issue piqued myinterest. You see, I had the unforgettable experience of working with Atzin(then Caminamos Juntos Para Salud yDesarrollo) in the 2007. I call it unforgettable because it permanentlycoloured my understanding of NGOs and the motivations of some of those who leadthem.

I arrived in Cuernavaca (a lovely city where Ms. Smith lives– the volunteers without interpersonal skills or the ability to adapt are theones who actually live in Tlamacazapa) after studying in Guadalajara. On myfirst drive to the village, Susan shared some of her wisdom with me.

“The thing you need to understand,” she said, “is that thesepeople have always had a parental figure. It used to be the Catholic Church, orthe government. Now they don’t have those – they have us. They need a parent totell them what to do.”

I couldn't believe my ears. Sadly, this comment wasindicative of the guiding principles behind Atzin: dependency and blindloyalty. Through the well-intentioned contributions of donors, Atzin hascreated a micro-economy in Tlamacazapa that favours and binds those who want towork with the NGO and ostracises the rest. Men with alcohol abuse problems areshamed in public by Ms. Smith; teenagers who leave to work in more lucrativeregions are criticized; and the local government is attacked as ineffective anduncaring. In reality, Ms. Smith has established Atzin as a mini-fiefdom thatfavours her “friends” and penalizes all other sources of traditional support.How many times in this article does she reference the opportunities of supportfrom the Church or the government? Zero. She has rejected them as threats toher vanity project and she does the people of Tlamacazapa a disservice in this.

A final example: I participated briefly in a project tobuild ecologically-friendly outhouses for various families. While the statedgoals of the project are to create a sustainable, capacity-buildingrelationship with the village, it has been an utter failure. Despite a wealthof young men eager to learn marketable skills, Atzin has never trained one toserve as a foreman because it would undermine one of their tenets: dependency.As long as these men as unskilled labourers, Atzin can continue to pay themsustenance levels and rely on their poverty. Without this relationship ofdependency, community members might develop autonomous industries that wouldthreaten the power of Atzin and Ms. Smith.

The reality is that this organization relies on the supportof good-hearted donors to maintain their dominance over this community. Ifthere is a spiritual sickness, as Ms. Smith argues, it’s because this is acommunity being treated like children. Until the time that an external auditorreviews the work, governance and finances of Atzin, I urge all interestedsupporters to turn their generosity to accountable NGOs.

There is a world of need beyond our borders. In these dayswhere every dollar counts, we need to ensure that we support organizations thatlegitimately develop capacity and work with communities to develop sustainablemodels of development. Organizations that promote dependency instead ofempowerment are on the wrong side of history and demand to be dismissed as such.

Respectfully,

the writer

english as a killer language?

2012-02-06T19:50:00.000-08:00

Lately, much of my studies have focused on the role of English in the world. On the differences between learners and users, nations and identities, the historical effects of colonialism and what constitutes the community of practice that defines English today. As second-language learners now outnumber native speakers, we need to find new ways to discuss language identities. Much of the discussion considers the power relations that language spread involve. This is something I worried about in 2009 as a fresh teacher in Ecuador.

I came across the piece below today and was surprised and pleased to see a different perspective on the topic of linguistic imperialism.
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From Global Multilingualism, World Languages, and Language Systems by Salikoko S. Mufwene

It is also noteworthy that the gap between countries of the economic North (including Australia) and countries of the economic South keeps increasing, although polities such as Singapore, Brazil, and China are crossing the divide. Many parts of the world, including large pockets of China, still remain on the margins of world-wide economic and cultural globalization. Even after such countries participate in this complex network, local aspects of their economies will continue to function in their national languages, as is obvious from places such as the Netherlands and the Scandinavian countries. More significant is actually the fact that most of the populations in countries that are on the margins of world- wide globalization are still rural, generally outside of tourist traffic routes, and not directly involved in international trade. Even if school children learn a little bit of English, for them the language is just a subject similar to geography and history; it is not necessarily associated with potential personal benefits of with travel abroad and jobs that require competence in this ‘second’ or ‘foreign’ language. The little knowledge acquired is lost as quickly as that of various other subjects learned in school, which lack practical applications to the subjects’ lives. It is ludicrous to suggest that teaching English as a foreign language in Third World schools is endangering the relevant indigenous languages.

Even in places such as Japan, which have a high glocalization index, the people who take advantage of English classes are mostly those who wish to visit anglophone countries or to get senior white-collar jobs for which competence in the foreign language is an asset. Because English is not needed as an alternative vernacular or as lingua franca for communication among Japanese in Japan, just as it is not in many other countries of the ‘Expanding Circle,’ the majority of learners are not particularly invested in the language, especially since they can earn a decent living in their heritage language.

In countries of the ‘Outer Circle,’ the fact that English is needed only in the small white-collar sector of the industry and the rest of the economy functions in the indigenous languages, compounded by the fact that lucrative white-collar jobs are not likely to increase, has kept in check the spread of English within the overall population. Every person who has gone to high school has undoubtedly learned the (ex-)colonial language, but not everybody feels invested in practicing it, which spells atrophy on the (little) competence acquired in school. Not even call centers in India and the Philippines have contributed to spreading English any further. As large as the number of jobs they provide may sound, one must remember that India and the Philippines are densely populated nations. The market is still very limited, already saturated, and accessible to people who have already invested in English anyway and are apt to learn a stage variety, used only at work but not for socialization with one’s fellow countrymen.

As a matter of fact, the call centers of India and of the Philippines are showing that people do not just decide to stop speaking their heritage language, especially while they continue to live with relatives who still function in them Practical multilingualism for professional purposes does not of necessity spell the death of one’s heritage language(s). Such death occurs insidiously, when the socioeconomic structure of the relevant populations forces them to communicate more often in a dominant language other than their ancestral one, without them realizing what the long-term effect of their communicative practices is, namely loss of the capacity to use their respective heritage languages. In many parts of the Anglophone world, English is no more dangerous to the indigenous languages than McDonald’s eateries are to their traditional cuisines. There are certainly endangered languages in the ‘Outer’ and ‘Expanding Circles’, but (the spread of) English has nothing to do with their condition.
----------------------

Of course, things aren't so simple. Language isn't some lurching giant, smashing down minority languages through an innate strength. Languages are articulations and demonstrations of power - national, ethnic, and cultural. Just as Arabic dominated Northern Africa with the spread of Islam, Spanish, French, Portuguese and English took the lion's share of the developing world with the age of Expansion. Some expansions and their linguistic legacies have been ethnically-driven (if you can separate ethnicity from religion), such as the Han colonization of what is now Eastern China.

Language has been used as a tool of colonization and cultural genocide, but it does not necessitate language death in its spread. Languages become killers when they are used to erase cultural memory and break ethnic links between generations, as occurred in 20th century Canada with the Residential School System.

Some languages die the slow death of economic domination. Still spoken, Aymara and Nahuatl are examples of once-dominant languages that are boxed in by the economic power of their Spanish-speaking countrymen. Living in Tlamacazapa, I noticed how it was the old generation who still spoke Nahuatl, while their descendants had minimal competency in it and used Spanish as their first language. Teachers from outside the community did not speak the language and could not teach it to the children. In Peru, I met people who live on reed islands and speak their ancient Aymara. These families are seeing more televisions installed in their homes and their children travel to the mainland for economic sustenance, and it can't be long before Aymara is lost as a vernacular and recesses into the home life exclusively, and then fades away entirely.

Language death is avoidable. While Aymara is unlikely to regain its position as a dominant regional language, it can continue as the vernacular of the region if it is supported through education and community interest. Children need to be taught the language in school. They need native speakers to practice with, and educators should fulfil this role. Māori language education in New Zealand is doing exactly this, and time will tell the effects of the government's initiative (thanks to Meandering Mary for this tip). Read more here.

Languages are not all the same. The blood of history seeps into language to give it the beautiful flavour that allows the production of art, of music, of literature. How painful does even a pedestrian words like Friday become when we put "good" or "bloody" before it? How do you translate saudade? How to transmit all the historical and cultural connotations of a verb like chingar (to violate) if your country never was?

Languages die from neglect or domination. Dedication to their preservation and their inclusion in education is one thing that can save them.

yoga photography

2012-02-06T19:32:00.000-08:00

status update?

2012-01-27T15:06:00.000-08:00

reading: world englishes (englishai?); the politics of language education in Canadian immigration
shooting: yoga, tattoos, bodies in (and out of) motion
listening: hiatus, bison ("the arcade fire of folk"... heh), and... well, all of this
planning: career move (vertical, not lateral)
laughing: at this breakdown of murakami themes
writing: not much outside academia

If I were to write, I'd write about the lives we lead and wish we led; about breaking bad habits and wanting what we can't have; about forgiving those who look you in the eye and lie; about focusing on the beauty and turning away from negativity; about smelling roses and the perfect way to say que te vaya bien and nothing more.

remembering eleven

2012-01-04T19:56:00.000-08:00

i remember...

dancing through the night and riding home in the shocking cold of january

skimming ice chunks across a frozen lake

looking over vancouver as its light seeps into the night sky

holding eva on my shoulder and feeling love

standing on a rooftop, looking over volcanoes and feeling totally out of place (and loving it)

listening to the prettiest french accent and asking her to dance

chatting with mayan children and showing them how to skip rope

crossing a guatemalan farm, stopping to look into a night sky illuminated with stars

cooking easter dinner for twenty-two friends and re-purposing most of my furniture to seat them

wandering into the forest with my favourite friends and discovering spongelandia

exploring portland and its craft beer culture

being crushed amongst tens of thousands of fans as arcade fire closes out a festival

flying kites high above saturna island while orcas swim along the shore

shouting in the crowds of occupy vancouver and wondering if change will come

loving someone enough to turn around and walk away

admiring a golden tree while autumn winds tore it apart

climbing over a frozen ridge, terrible drops behind my feet, to find the freshest snow and the steepest slopes

dancing through the night and plodding home in the shocking cold of january

in this immense confusion

2011-12-17T17:08:00.000-08:00

But that is not the question. What are we doing here, that is the question. And we are blessed in this, that we happen to know the answer. Yes, in this immense confusion one thing alone is clear.

Years ago, Douglas Coupland told me that the 20s are the hardest, most confusing, and loneliest time of a person's life. I 2/3 disagree. Still, I think he was on to something when he spoke about the confusion, about the immense confusion of living in a world without rules, a world where moral absolutes are shown to be fairy tales, lovers strangers, and stability a sham. It's also a world where new relationships friendships lovers are around every corner, a world where emotions are worn on one's sleeve, a world to discover and play in.

As one friend comes out to me, another's marriage stumbles. Thoughts and memories of my past whirl and haunt me while friends search for a meaningful present and look beyond the borders of Vancouver to an imagined future. An adored companion gets on a one-way flight and I sit and watch and wonder how it felt when I did this - did I ever leave a hole in a person's heart? For so long I've played the role of the friend and confidant, the person who brings people together around him and wants them to be happy.

It's been a long time since I've drawn blood and had the world revolve around me.

We celebrate my niece's first birthday this weekend and I lie on the floor and play with her. I watch her range of expressions and I'm lost in the simple sweetness of seeing this child grow. I've spent my years of confusion and it's this pleasure that I want now. I want to watch her grow and be there step-by-step as she comes to know us and the world of love surrounding her. I want to see my friends, centred in love, find fulfillment.

But this is a world without rules where pain and joy share a roof, where excitement and disappointment often walk hand-in-hand, where mountaintops demand valleys. It's complicated, it's confusing, and it's without order.

We used to have God and could rest in the belief that all was as He ordained. Then we killed Him and were left with the abyss and the unknowable stars. With a world that offers heaven and hell, but one without angels or demons... just us. Not fallen angels, nor creatures with a higher calling, nor evil waiting for hellfire. Just a world of animals seeking heaven under a sky of immense confusion, looking to one another for salvation and fleeing the lick of the flames.

Is there beauty in that?

the last sigh

2011-12-08T15:45:00.001-08:00

When real love, the great grand thing itself, came along after she had gone, how bitterly, then, I resented my lot! With what hunger and rage I yearned to slow down the too-fast ticking of my unheeding internal clock! She never shook in me the child's conviction of his own immortality, which was why I could wish so lightly to throw away my childhood years. But Uma, my Uma, when I loved her, made me hear Death's lightning footsteps as they ran towards me; then, O then, I heard each lethal scything of his blade.

Rushdie - Moor's Last Sigh

what if they declared an emergency and nobody cared? (pt ii)

2011-12-02T10:16:00.001-08:00

The real shame of Attawapiskat

richard wagamese

From Friday's Globe and Mail

Published Friday, Dec. 02, 2011 2:00AM EST

After seeing the images of Attawapiskat First Nation beamed around the country in recent days, a viewer could hardly be blamed for not believing that they were looking at a part of Canada, or that the people enduring this travesty are their aboriginal neighbours. Plywood walls, plastic-covered windows, 20 people sharing a two-bedroom house, a one-burner hot plate to cook for a whole family, lack of insulation, plumbing or electricity – the scene is tragic and heartbreaking.

But the people of such remote reserves have been living in a dire situation for a long time. The real shame of Attawapiskat is that the people who knew these conditions existed never told Canadians about them. Stephen Harper’s Conservatives knew. Shawn Atleo’s Assembly of First Nations knew. But it has taken a tragedy to reveal the stark truth.

It’s Mr. Atleo’s job as AFN national chief to know if his people are living under deplorable conditions. Each elected chief in the assembly has a responsibility to let him know. It’s then his responsibility to tell Canada about it and demand action.

In turn, the federal government has the responsibility to act. The job of an aboriginal affairs minister includes informing government when people are suffering. With that knowledge, it’s the responsibility of a prime minister to inform Canadians and tell us what the government intends to do about it.

Mr. Atleo failed to show leadership long ago. I’ve been a journalist since 1979, and I know how easy it is to craft a press release, hold a news conference and inform the public. But you have to want to do it. You have to want to confront wrong and demand change. I wonder if having his budget depend on a cozy relationship with the government prevents him from doing that.

In a recent interview with the CBC, Mr. Atleo alluded to a great number of other native communities in crisis. But rather than identify them and challenge the government to action, he let the opportunity pass. He murmured something about changing the status quo, yet squandered the opening to confront it.

Rather than initiate immediate physical action, Mr. Harper scheduled another meeting with Mr. Atleo. Then he put Attawapiskat under third-party management. What this effectively means is that the government put the blame squarely on the Indians. The subtext is that native leaders mismanaged millions and put their own people in danger. Meantime, nothing was being done for the people freezing in unheated tents, beyond the generosity offered by the Red Cross and fellow Canadians.

Interestingly, the result of Thursday's Harper-Atleo meeting was to agree to hold another meeting.

No, the real shame of Attawapiskat is that one government wants to ignore and blame while another wants to retain the status quo for its own survival and have another meeting. Shame on Mr. Atleo and Mr. Harper not doing anything before the story broke. Shame on them for merely booking another meeting. Shame on them for relying on the Red Cross to do the job they should have finished long ago. Shame on them for failing Canada.

what if they declared an emergency and nobody cared?

2011-11-24T09:49:00.001-08:00

It's been three weeks since Attawapiskat First Nation took the extraordinary step of declaring a state of emergency. Since then, not a single federal or provincial official has even bothered to visit the community.

No aid agencies have stepped forward. No disaster management teams have offered help.
Meanwhile temperatures have dropped 20 degrees and will likely drop another 20 or 25 degrees further in the coming weeks. For families living in uninsulated tents, makeshift cabins and sheds, the worsening weather poses serious risk ...

Dr. John Waddell from the Weeneebayko Health Authority was in the community during this tour. He was emphatic that conditions had deteriorated to the point that an emergency situation was unfolding. Families are facing "immediate risk" of infection, disease and possible fire from their increasingly precarious conditions. Dr. Elizabeth Blackmore repeated this message of immediate risk just this past Friday at a press conference at Queen's Park.

You'd think that a medical warning from a provincial health authority would move government into action. Think again. When it comes to the misery, suffering and even the death of First Nations people, the federal and provincial governments have developed a staggering capacity for indifference.

Try to imagine this situation happening in anywhere else in this country. We all remember how the army was sent into Toronto when the mayor felt that citizens were being discomforted by a snowstorm. Compare that massive mobilization of resources with the disregard being shown for the families in Attawapiskat ...

What we are witnessing is the inevitable result of chronic under-funding, poor bureaucratic planning and a discriminatory black hole that has allowed First Nations people to be left behind as the rest of the country moves forward.

Take education for example. Not only are First Nations children systemically denied access to comparable levels of funding and resources available to non-Aboriginal students but, in the case of Attawapiskat, they don't even have access to a school. It's been 12 years since the community's grade school was shut down because children were being exposed to dangerous levels of benzene from the badly contaminated ground. Frustrated grade school children finally took matters into their own hands. They were led by 13-year-old Shannen Koostachin who launched a national campaign to shame the government into action. This fight for equal education has gone all the way to the United Nations.

What other Canadian kid has to fight, organize and beg for access to clean and equitable schools?

I could keep quoting, but just read the article. Then think about if this ever could have happened in the community where you grew up.

There is something very, very wrong in Canada.

that pain in your stomach

2011-11-16T19:58:00.001-08:00

It just shocks me, how even hearing from him can cause me so much pain. It's not that I want to be with him anymore, because I don't, but I can't leave that part of my life in the past. It's not a healthy connection, but thoughts of him twist me up inside, hurt me. The body, reacting to this threat, looks to fight or flight, but I just can't do either... I'm stuck. I can't demand solitude and I can't run away. I'm stuck.

Heartbreak.. too common to be surprising and too gut-wrenching to find peace.

the ground beneath her feet

2011-11-01T12:11:00.000-07:00

As I read, I pay attention to phrases which stop me with bluntness, shock me with beauty, and sadden me with inchoate admiration. I mark them and keep them for later days so I can turn back and remember the wisdom and relive the beauty.

Reading The Ground Beneath Her Feet, Rushdie's ode to love, beauty, loss... to our better angels and affinity with the demons, I found myself turning pages over and over, frustrated, amazed, humbled and in wonderment over the prose, the insights into the realities and potentials of love, the expert writing of a master. As an insatiable audiophile, Rushdie's exploration of music left me feeling like a child in an adult's world; as a photographer, he humbles me with a lover's intimacy of the creation of art; as a writer, he breaks my heart with a mastery of words unutterably beyond my ken. But it's a recognition of and respect for a true master to pause and be humbled, to bathe in the glow of genius.

Something I love about Rushdie is his ceaseless use of intertextuality that situates his work within a canon of literature, music, popular culture, ancient religion and mythology; it takes its place in this palimpsest as a peer in the only conversation that matters: what it means to human. His work continually alludes to the world of art, but shyly so, making it easy to read on and miss all of the references; however, when they are recognized, it's a moment of charming connection between the author and reader, a wink and a nudge, a sly nod of mutual understanding and respect. And it's something that I look forward to as I will one day re-read his canon and understand his work in a new way, creating a text that is influenced by my own life.

I can't recommend highly enough this book.

Below, a few of my favourite lines from the book.
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When a woman who obsesses you hands down harsh judgements, they go deep. And when the chance to make those judgements come true offers itself, maybe you take them, maybe you live down to her low opinion of you and spend the rest of your life with the no-longer-deniable accusation stabbing you in the heart.

We repeat in ourselves the faults of the ones we have loved.

Love is what we want, not freedom. Who then is the unluckier man? The beloved, who is given his heart's desire and must for ever after fear its loss, or the free man, with his unlooked-for liberty, naked and alone between the captive armies of the earth?

It's tough to speak of the beautify of the world when one has lost one's sight, an anguish to sing music's praises when your ear trumpet has failed. So also it is hard to write about love, even harder to write lovingly, when one has a broken heart. Which is no excuse; happens to everyone.

Power, like love, most fully reveals its dimensions only when it is irrevocably lost.

Why do we care about singers? Wherein lies the power of songs? ... Maybe we are just creatures in search of exaltation. We don't have much of it. Our lives are not what we deserve; they are, let us agree, in many painful ways deficient. Song turns them into something else. Song shows us a world that is worthy of our yearning, it shows us our selves as they might be, if we were worthy of the world.

All they had in life was attitude, but it was a steed which would get you a long way if you knew how to stay on its back.

She embraced instability, her own and the world's, and made up her own rules as she went along. Nothing was certain in her vicinity any more, the ground was always trembling, and of course the fault lines spread through her from top to toe, and faults in human beings always open up in the end, like cracks in the groaning earth.

What was it like, the First Photograph? Its subject: nothing more elevated than the view from the workroom window... All is dull, still, dim. No hint here that this is the first quiet note of what will become a thundering symphony, or it may be more honest to say a deafening cacophony. But (I switch metaphors in my excitement) a floodgate has been opened, an unstoppable torrent of pictures is to follow, haunting and forgettable, hideous and beautiful, pornographic and revelatory, pictures that will create the very idea of the Modern, that will overpower language itself, and cover and distort and define the earth, like water.

Here the polyphonic reality of the road disappeared and was replaced by silences, mutenessses as vast as the land. Here was a wordless truth, one that came before language, a being, not a becoming. No cartographer had fully mapped these endless spaces. To journey down some of these tracks was to travel back in time for over a thousands years.

While the gods are occupying centre stage, we mortals must hang about in the wings. But after the stars have finished all their tragic dying, the extras come on stage - it's the end of the big banquet scene - and we get to eat up all the fucking food.

He hunted it as a madman hunts his doom.

It fizzled; she drifted away, as I knew she would. Nothing really went wrong between us, but then there really was nothing between us to go wrong. We were both filling in dead time, and one day she woke up and looked at me and had forgotten who I was. I went to take a shower and didn't hear her go.

Only under extreme pressure can we change into that which it is in our most profound nature to be... that is what people get wrong about transformation. We're not all shallow proteans, forever shifting shape... it's like when coal becomes diamond. It doesn't afterward retain the possibility of change. Squeeze it as hard as you like, it won't turn into a rubber ball... it's done.

Male love is a kind of self-assessment. We allow ourselves to love only those women to whom we feel we have a right to pay court, to whom we dare aspire.

turn this cacophony into an orchestra

2011-10-23T09:32:00.000-07:00

Grad school has been a blessing. It has, if anything, opened too many doors and I'm having trouble keeping them all sorted in my mind. If life is like a song, I'm struggling to find a way to lay these tracks in their right place so they can run concurrently, rising and falling on their own energy within the tempo of my life. To find a way for them to sing together as an orchestra, each supporting each, working towards a greater beauty than their separated sums.

I was feeling overwhelmed with all the parts of my life moving in different directions: my 9-5, the literature review for my schoolwork, a research project I want to begin in January, liaison work for another program, and a personal project that I want to make a career out of. Leaving unmentioned friends and loves, this has been a lot to listen to as they shriek in dissonance, each competing for my attention. Muting these thoughts and opening a book found my answer:

He hasn't fully grasped how to make of multiplicity an accumulating strength rather than a frittery weakness. How the many selves can be, in song, a single multitude. Not a cacophony but an orchestra, a choir, a dazzling plural voice ... In short, he is still trying to settle on his one true line to follow. Still looking for ground to stand on, for the hard centre of his art.
Rushdie - Ground Beneath Her Feet

There's some wisdom to that. Don't see competing songs as disruptive, but as calling for their home amongst the rest of the voices.

be thankful

2011-10-17T18:47:00.001-07:00

Now I saw a friend of mine, the other day,

And he told me that my eyes were gleamin'.

Oh I said I'd been away, and he knew...

Oh he knew the depths I was meanin'.

And it felt so good to see his face,

All the comfort invested in my soul,

Oh to feel the warmth, of his smile,

When he said, 'I'm happy to have you home.'

Oh oh-oh, I'm happy to have you home.

occupy canada

2011-10-15T19:15:00.000-07:00

Today, people around the world are uniting to address the leaders of the world, the haves, the ones who fashion the world to serve themselves, all to say that's enough.

That's enough getting wealthy off the backs of the poor.

That's enough looting of our societies.

That's enough of the middle class and poor getting poorer and being asked to make all the sacrifices while bankrolling the greed of immoral corporations.

That's enough of our government serving corporate interests at the expense of the people.

In Canada, our government trivializes the protests, saying that hey, at least we're not as bad as the United States! It's not that they don't get it, but they think that Canadians are stupid enough to not get it. They know that the side with the clearest message and the loudest voice will win every time, and that an apathetic public will accept what's easy to understand. They're playing a divisive game they know works, trying to turn Canadians against Canadians because the best thing for them is to distract us from this reality: our society is fucked up.

The opponents of the Occupy Movement say that protesters are inarticulate, that protesters don't know what they're talking about, that they have no clear message. Of course we don't. This is the inchoate frustration of the majority who are exhausted with being fucked over by the leaders of our society; lack of a clear message, despite what the government will tell you, does not mean a lack of valid issues:

Many of us suffer from untreated mental illnesses, leading Canadians to live on the streets and try to scrape by day to day in conditions that we wouldn't accept for our dogs. Our society is fucked up.

Many of our sisters have disappeared into the night and have never come home. They're murdered year after year and our government is more interested in prosecuting looters of Sears than preventing further deaths of our most marginalized sisters. Our society is fucked up.

Our media, the tool on which we've trusted to keep our government honest, is being taken over by corporate ownership and is more interested in kicking the weak than exposing corruption. Our society is fucked up.

Our environment is being destroyed in an effort to keep the oil industry alive, instead of focusing on green initiatives. The rest of the world is disgusted with us and nobody can tell us if we're expected to drink the gas when we run out of water. Our society is fucked up.

Our crime rates are at their lowest in decades, but our government wants to scare us with lies to push through asinine Tough on Crime legislation which will cost us billions, send thousands more citizens to prison, and contribute to the further explosion of the Canadian Poor. Our society is fucked up.

We spend $600,000,000 on a roof for a stadium while refusing to properly fund our schools. Our society is fucked up.

We charge students tens of thousands to educate themselves, then keep them in debt for decades with unnecessarily high interest on government student loans. Our society is fucked up.

So, if you have a heart for the poor, or want to live in an environment and not in its ruins, or want the media's lies to stop, or think that we should be spending money on education instead of war and prisons, then Occupy is for you. Canada is a heartbreakingly apathetic country and our government will use that to their advantage. Don't let them. Turn off you computer and go join your fellow citizens in your local Occupy event. Bake them some cookies. Write your MLA and MP and tell them that you care, that you vote, and unless they speak for you you'll find somebody who will.

Take back what is supposed to be yours.

art for autumn

2011-10-08T15:27:00.000-07:00

art by Woodcum

living. loving.

2011-10-06T12:40:00.000-07:00

Fall! Red and orange trees, the smell of the wind, salty breezes and packed buses. The delicate line we walk between work and play, living while loving, hoping and hoping and not knowing if what comes will be better or worse or maybe just different but what does it matter because it's coming.

On that momentous day, I had my unforgettable first glimpse of her. It was the day of my instant infatuation, the commencement of a lifelong enslavement... but at once I halt myself. It is possible I am pouring the wine of several weekends into the bottle of a single day. Damn it, there are things I can't remember. Was it on this day, or another? So much is lost ... now, however, I belong to yesterday. Is that a line from a song? I forget. Is it?

In the darkening days of autumn it's easy to slide into fantasies and desires for the exotic, for the other life led and to be led and can or can't be led because it sits there unknown on the other side of the horizon but life is here and life goes on and life is a long distance race not a sprint, right?

So if our feet are staked to this ground and our minds are free to wander, how do we drink that big cup of life and get up in time for work each bleak black morning? In a night sky full of invisible crows, how do we defer deny the gratification, the joy, the wonder of newness and persist and push on in the knowledge that the end is nowhere near but a hypothetical theoretical evitable shoreline which might must lie beyond the horizon, beyond the sea, somewhere out there in an autumn without rainbows?

I guess we're left to cut ourselves up, to section our lives into the parts dedicated to work, parts dedicated to learning, parts dedicated to adventures and the parts dedicated to solitude. We learn to wear all the hats life gives us: hats of responsibility, of irresponsibility, of inquisitiveness and of peace. Each has its role and maybe just maybe the sum of the parts and whatnot, right?

Yeah, that's must be it. That's what I'm going with.

the satanic verses

2011-09-25T15:02:00.000-07:00

These people are a mere three or four generations removed from their nomadic past, when they were as rootless as the dunes, or rather rooted in the knowledge that the journeying itself was home.

'A poet's work,' he answers, 'is to name the unnameable, to point at frauds, to take sides, start arguments, shape the world and stop it from going to sleep.'

Salman Rushdie

he was a foster kid just like us and we don’t matter to anyone

2011-09-23T16:31:00.000-07:00

Vancouver Magazine has published an excellent article on the current state of youth rehabilitation in BC, featuring the stories of two girls who murdered a child.

Critics argue that such interventions are doomed. The province’s youth-justice system and social-welfare system are riddled with bureaucracy, inadequate funding, political malfeasance, racial discrimination, sexism, and cultural apathy. B.C. has had the country’s highest child poverty rate eight years running, which tends to push the most vulnerable—kids in foster care, from abusive homes, on social assistance, in single-parent families, with addictions and mental health issues, and especially Native children—to a life of crime. Front-line programs, which are meant to steer kids straight, are disorganized, truncated, and starved of resources. More than 40 percent of B.C. kids in foster care become entangled in the youth justice system. These children of the state are actually less likely to commit crime than other youth, but fewer than one in 50 are offered formal diversionary programs. Ten percent of them end up behind bars.
Native children in this province are fives times more likely to be jailed than non-Natives; almost half the kids in Burnaby lockup are at least part Native and were homeless in the year prior to arrest.

...

Watchdogs fear the situation can only worsen. Cuts to government spending, including mental health and addiction treatment, continue as the Liberals fight to lower the province’s deficit. The Ministry of Children and Family Development, which faces $10 million in cuts, has already fallen short on targets for programs like foster care and child-abuse prevention. Meanwhile, the Ministry of Education lowered its Native graduation targets from 60 percent to 50. And the B.C. Liberals have cut services to hundreds of community social-welfare programs, shrugged off calls to tackle child poverty, and proposed legislative amendments that would weaken the powers of the Representative for Children and Youth office as an independent observer and advocate.
“We know there are many major disconnects in the system,” says Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond, who runs that office, is a judge (on leave), a member of the Muskeg Lake Cree Nation, and mother of four children. “No clear accountability, few adequate resources, and tons of missed opportunities. A society is only as good as the way its most vulnerable are treated. And we’re failing.”

2011-09-08T18:55:00.001-07:00

My web portfolio has been updated with work from 2011

saturna island, british columbia

2011-09-06T19:33:00.000-07:00

on the madness of religious reactionaries ruining everything beautiful

2011-09-02T20:22:00.000-07:00

Years ago, I picked up Norwegian Wood and read through its words of pain, loss, love and memory as I dealt with my own. It is a masterwork. A man's reflections on his first love, the suicide of a friend, mental illness, growing up and learning to cope.

Every time the memory appears, it delivers a kick to some part of my mind. "Wake up," it says. "I'm still here. Wake up and think about it. Think about why I'm still here." The kicking never hurts me. There's no pain at all. Just a hollow sound that echoes with each kick. And even that is bound to fade one day. That day, though, the kicks were longer and harder than usual. Which is why I am writing this book. To think. To understand. It just happens to be the way I'm made. I have to write things down to feel I fully comprehend them.

Haruki Murakami - Norwegian Wood

It is one of the most touching books I've ever read, which is why I was so disgusted to hear that it has been removed from reading lists in New Jersey high-schools after parents complained:

Haruki Murakami's venerated novel of love and mental illness, Norwegian Wood, has been pulled off a reading list for New Jersey teenagers after a rash of complaints from parents.

The novel, which has inspired obsessive devotion from its fans in Japan and around the world since it was first published in 1987, is set in 1960s Tokyo, and tells of 19-year-old Toru Watanabe's relationships with two girls: troubled, vulnerable Naoko and impetuous Midori.

It was put on the required summer reading list for the 15- and 16-year-old pupils entering the 10th grade at Williamstown High School in New Jersey. After "multiple" complaints from parents to the school board, the books have now been removed from the lists.

Objections were raised in particular to a scene in Norwegian Wood that sees Naoko's confidante, Reiko, relating the time when she was seduced by a 13-year-old girl, and to a "drug-fuelled, homosexual orgy" in Tweak.

"I don't think that's relevant for any teenager," mother Robin Myers said to local paper the Gloucester County Times about Murakami's novel. "I was just kind of in shock."

From the Guardian

When I was in grade 10, I was reading Atlas Shrugged. Do you know how much more dangerous that is to a teenager's development than reading about sex? Hell, at that point, half our grade was having sex.

So, New Jersey puts this on the summer reading list and reactionary, religious retards raise hell over it. Heaven forbid we let students read contemporary, engaging literature - let's stick with To Kill a Mockingbird and Catcher in the Rye (both excellent, but out of date).

Because so many are arguing over this issue, and so few have actually read the book, I took the time to copy out the offending passage. I'm missing the preceding and following sections, so if anybody would like to put them in the comments to give more context, I'd appreciate it.

[206]

"'Oh, please,' she says, 'just a little more. I'm so lonely. I'm so lonely, please believe me, you're the only one I have, oh please, don't turn your back on me,' and she takes my hand and puts it on her breast - her very nicely shaped breast, and, sure, I'm a woman, but this electric something goes through me when my hand makes contact. I have no idea what to do. I just keep repeating no no no no like an idiot. I'm like paralyzed, I can't move. I had managed O.K. to push this girl away in high school, but now I can't do a thing. My body won't take orders. She's holding my right hand against her with her left hand, and she's kissing and licking my nipples, and her right hand is caressing my back and side and bottom. So here I am in the bedroom with the curtains closed and a thirteen-year-old girl has me practically naked - she's been taking my clothes off somehow all along - and touching me all over and I'm writhing with the pleasure of it. Looking back on it now, it seems incredible. I mean, it's crazy, don't you think? But at the time it was like she had cast a spell on me."

Reiko paused to take a puff on her cigarette.

"You know, this is the first time I've ever told a man about this," she said, looking at me. "I'm telling you because I think I ought to, but I'm finding it awfully embarrassing."

"I'm sorry," I said, because I didn't know what else to say.

"This went on for a while, and then her right hand started to move down, and she touched me through my panties. By then, I was absolutely soaking wet. I'm ashamed to say it, but I've never been so wet before or since. I had always thought of myself as kind of indifferent to sex, so I was astounded to be getting so worked up. So then she puts these slim, soft fingers of hers inside my panties, and ... well, you know, I can't bring myself to put it into words. I mean, it was totally different from when a man puts his clumsy hands on you there. It was amazing. Really. Like feathers or down. I thought all the fuses in my head were going to pop. Still, somewhere in my fogged-over brain, the thought occured to me that I had to put a stop to this. If I let it happen once, I'd never stop, and if I had to carry around a secret like that inside me, my head was going to get completely messed up again. I thought about my daughter, too. What if she saw me like this? She was supposed to be at my parents' house house until three on Saturdays, but what if something happened and she came home unexpectedly? This helped me gather my strength and raise myself on the bed. 'Stop it now, please stop!' I shouted.

"But she wouldn't stop. Instead, she yanked my panties down and started using her tongue. I had rarely let even my husband do that, I found it so embarrassing, but now I had a thirteen-year-old girl licking me all over down there. I just gave up. All I could do was cry. And it was absolutely paradise.

"'Stop it!' I yelled one more time, and smacked her on the side of her face. As hard as I could. Finally, she stopped and raised herself up and looked into my eyes. The two of us were stark naked, on our knees, in bed, staring at each other. She was thirteen, I was thirty-one, but, I don't know, looking at that body of hers, I felt totally overwhelmed. The image is still vivid in my mind. I could hardly believe I was looking at the body of a thirteen-year-old girl, and I still can't believe it. By comparison, what I had for a body was enough to make you cry. Believe me."

There was nothing I could say, and so I said nothing.

"'What's wrong?' she says to me. 'You like it this way, don't you? I knew you would the first time I met you. I know you like it. It's way better than doing it with a man - isn't it? Look how wet you got. I can make you feel even better if you'll let me. It's true. I can make you feel like your body's melting away. You want me to do it, don't you?' And she was right. Doing this was so much better than doing it with my husband. And I did want her to do it even more! But I couldn't let it happen. 'Let's do it once a week,' she said. 'Just once a week. Nobody will find out. It'll be our little secret.'

"But I got out of bed and put on my robe and told her to leave and never come back. She just looked at me. Her eyes were absolutely flat. I had never seen them that way before. It was as if they had been painted on by cardboard. They had no depth. After she stared at me for a while, she gathered up her clothing without a word and, as slowly as she could, as if she was making a show of it, she put on each piece, one at a time. Then she went back into the room where the piano was and took a brush from her bag. She brushed her hair and wiped the blood from her lips with a handkerchief, put on her shoes, and went out. As she was leaving, she said, 'You're a lesbian, you know. It's true. You may try to hide it, but you'll be a lesbian until the day you die.'"

"Is it true?" I asked.

Reiko curved her lips and thought for a while. "Well, it is and it isn't. I definitely felt better with her than with my husband. That's a fact. I had a time there when I really agonized over the question. Maybe I really was a lesbian and just hadn't noticed until then. But I don't think so anymore. Which is not to say I don't have the tendencies. I probably do have them. But I'm not a lesbian in the proper sense of the term. I never feel desire when I look at a woman. What what I mean?"
I nodded.

"Certain kinds of girls, thought, do respond to me, and I can feel it when that happens. Those are the only times it comes out in me. I can hold Naoko in my arms, though, and feel nothing special. We go around the apartment practically naked when the weather is hot, and we take baths together, sometimes even sleep in the same bed, but nothing happens. I don't feel a thing. I can see that she has a beautiful body, but that's all. Actually, Naoko and I played a game once. We made believe we were lesbians. Want to hear about it?"

"Sure. Tell me."

"When I told her the story I just told you - we tell each other everything, you know - Naoko tried an experiment. The two of us got undressed and she tried caressing me, but it didn't work at all. It just tickled. I thought I was going to die laughing. Just thinking about it makes me itchy. She was so clumsy. I'll bet you're glad to hear that."

"Yes, I am, to tell the truth."

"Well, anyway, that's about it," said Reiko, scratching near an eyebrow with the tip of her little finger. "After the girl left my house, I found a chair and sat there spacing out for a while, wondering what to do. I could hear the dull beating of my heart from deep inside my body. My arms and legs seemed to weigh a ton, and my mouth felt as if I had eaten a moth or something, it was so dry. I dragged myself to the bathtub, though, knowing my daughter would be back soon. I wanted to clean those places where the girl had touched and licked me. I scrubbed myself with soap, over and over, but I couldn't seem to get rid of the slimy feeling she had left behind. I knew I was probably imagining it, but that didn't help. That night, I asked my husband to make love to me, kind of as a way to get rid of the defilement. Of course, I didn't tell him anything - I couldn't. All I said to him was that I wanted him to take it slow, to give it more time than usual. And he did. He really concentrated on every little detail, he really took a long, long time, and the way I came that night, oh yes, it was nothing I had ever experienced before, never once in all our marriage. And why do you think that was? Because the touch of that girl's fingers was still there in my body. That's all it was.

There you have it: the horror. Teenagers are watching hardcore pornography, listening to racist, misogynistic, homophobic music, seeing UFC meatheads as role models, and watching the perversity of The American Myth fall apart, and this scene exploring feelings of shame in sexuality is what gets parents up in arms.

Dear Conservative America,

Your society is rotting.

Everything you've told yourself and all the greed you've enslaved yourselves to is a lie. You personify your hatreds and insanity in a god that could not bare a more jarring dissonance from the Christ you boast of loving. You hate the rest of the world. You hate your poor. You hate those whose love you haven't felt. You hate those seeking experiences you're afraid of. And all your hate is a great, horrid distraction from the reality that you've made an idol of an imaginary ontology where everybody thinks the same things, loves the other sex, and worships the same god.

I'd love to imagine that one day you might learn the charity of beauty of what Christ stood for, but, deep in my heart, I don't think you've any interest in it. I believe that you thrive on hating others and that you are going to fight tooth and nail to drag the rest of us down into the pit with you.

For those on the other side, order yourself a copy of this gorgeous book and enjoy a little beauty. Also, try this short story, Sleep.

she said i was hard to get to know and near impossible to forget

2011-08-29T00:20:00.000-07:00

san francisco and outside lands 2011

2011-08-28T06:14:00.000-07:00

Ah, travelling with friends. This is a first.

I've always almost always travelled alone; at most with a girlfriend in tow. This time it's a best friend, his girlfriend, and another friend. When they get to the airport they're weighed down by their over-sized camping backpacks enmeshed in a wire security cage. I chuckle and ask them how much clothing they need for this long weekend adventure in San Francisco.

As we continue it becomes clear I was going to have to slow down or go crazy as the girls stop to pee every 10 minutes and the complaints about sore shoulders begin. That's okay. I've seen San Fran before. I can do this low-key.

Going back to San Francisco, again for Outside Lands, was a special treat. This month is my last hurrah with freedom and adventure before diving into grad school in September, all while keeping up my full-time job. It's a month to camp, to dance, to travel, to read, to love and be mad with activity. The real world will come soon enough.

So, a weekend to listen to as much as music as possible and find spare moments to party. This wasn't going to be typical travelling - making new friends, seeing the sights, late nights on strange rooftops - but a chance to take a huge bite of the music scene and munch happily away. So that's what I did.

After our first night of debauchery, I was the only one to make it out of bed to the festival grounds on time. I was determined to see Release the Sunbird at noon. This new side project born out of Rogue Wave played a fun, folky set that had a few promising hooks reminiscent of a laid-back Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros.

I hauled ass out of there and across the grounds to see K.Flay take the stage. It's not often you get a Stanford alumnae dive into the indie hip-hop scene, but at hearing "on the bridge" I was gunning to catch her show. The tracks on her album are often childish and have that boopy immaturity found in so many earlier Eminem tracks, but her live show is dead on. Accompanied by a drummer, she sets up the beats and works within them dead cold, relying on none of the sexuality that's been a crutch for so many other female artists (hi Nicky Minaj). I'd definitely see this girl again.

Another sprint across the showgrounds to catch the Joy Formidable. Apparently these kids are Welsh (they wouldn't shut up about it), but they get a pass as their ambitious performance challenged the crowd to take them seriously, despite their early start time. And yes, we bit... a few thousand people grabbed hold of the energy coming out of the stage and the festival was official on. Rock and roll. Clearly channeling the energies and groundwork of Arcade Fire, it's great to hear yet another female-frontwoman out of the scene which has, of late, brought up Florence & the Machine, Adele, Daughter and Ellie Goulding. It's an exciting time for rock when nearly all the biggest names are bringing in female voices in a historically male-dominated genre.

Phantogram followed Joy Formidable at the same stage, so I got the chance to wiggle myself into the packed crowd (with so many people seeing music at 2pm, it was a good omen of the weekend's success). I only knew a few of their songs, but they dropped into Mouthful of Diamonds early and got the crowd dancing. They kept the energy up throughout the set and won quite a few new fans. The show ended with the band smashing up their instruments and shoving each other around, which might be rock late night in a dark venue, but just felt totally out of place on a chilly San Francisco afternoon.

I squeezed deep into the crowd for Foster the People's highly-anticipated set. I only knew two of their songs, so this had potential for total failure, but these boys showed up and put to work every leftover ounce of Phantogram's energy. Getting their overplayed single "Pumped Up Kicks" done with early, they played a much-loved rendition of Weezer's "Say It Ain't So" that had half the crowd signing themselves hoarse, while the younger portion scratched their heads and swayed. Overall, this set was eminently danceable and ended on a note of freneticism, leaving the crowd stoked for more.

Time for a break. I met up with friends to explore the massive selection of food tents, and we eventually made it to the back of the crowds for MGMT. I've been listening to MGMT off and on for three years, so I was looking forward to their performance, but it was, at least from the back of the audience, a confusing affair with screens that looked like they were broken. VanWyngarden's lead vocals were nothing short of ear-piercing, and our entire group decided to quit it after listening to three songs. After an afternoon of seeing small acts pour their hearts out, I wasn't going to let MGMT coast on their popularity and steal any more time. Boo MGMT.

I saw Ellie Goulding's Vancouver show in April. That show was packed with screaming girls and I was, I gotta say, unsure if I was ready to dive headlong into this pop goddess' spectacle; thankfully, I got over myself and enjoyed the shit out of her show, screamers aside. While Outside Lands' crowd couldn't have been different - "Well, now I know why all the dudes are here know," Christie grumbles as Ellie gyrates and pivots on her impossibly long legs - the show was just as strong. Ellie's talents are obvious and it's always a good sign when the remix community takes a widespread interest in you - she was one of the remix darlings of 2010 - and she had the crowd singing along to her catchy tunes. Thankfully, she straddles the line between indie respectability and pop-god ridiculousness, and I just can't see her taking part in the gymnastic, lip-synching bullshit that made such a joke of Britney.

Back on the main field for Phish, I decided to check it out due to their massive following and legendary status. What they say is true - Phish are the rightful descendents of the Grateful Dead and the Allman Brothers. I didn't know a single song, but I was happy to dance along with the blissed-out phishheads and enjoy the undeniable talents of this supergroup jamband.

The night concluded with Big Boi bitching out and not performing due to his computer being broken (who knew that rappers needed a laptop?), Erykah Badu arriving late and overseeing an over-the-top performance that made her come across more diva than musician (fair disclosure, I only watched her first 4 songs), and a weirdly low-key set by the Shins. The day was far more notable for the excellent of the early, smaller performances than the larger acts that came with such high expectations.

Ryan and I took the long (and I mean long) walk out of the park and ended back onto the Haight. As it was his first time in SF, I wanted to take him out and introduce him to the tasty beer and pretty ladies of this great city. We started out at one of my favourites from last year, Magnolia. Just like I did last year, we found a place at the large shared bar, ordered some of the cask brews, and started chatting up anybody who'd talk to us. After some good beer and talks with a local who was on his third visit to the bar that day, as well as an aging phishhead who dropped acid in front of us, we got a recommendation for a late night jazz-bar and headed to Club Deluxe, which was the gem of the night. Known for killer pizza and late night music, the split room was bouncing when we got in the door, jazz band jiving and patrons dancing. The horn section was making tours of the cramped room while the sweaty frontman got louder and louder in the chilly night.

Saturday was a late start after eating and shopping around the Haight, so I got to the festival just in time to hear Starfucker wrap it up with their fantastic cover of Girls Just Want to Have Fun. I knew that I wanted to get close for Muse's closing show, so I found a good place to lie down with friends for Arctic Monkeys. After their show (okay, this was the 2011 write-off in order for naptime. Last year it was Cat Power) we squeezed in and found a place near the stage for the Black Keys.

And then, some favourites of mine: the Black Keys. Did you know that there are only two of them? Seriously! Despite the thickness of their bluesy garage rock, there are only two men behind the scenes. They had the crowd from the word go, playing through fan favourites like "Howlin' for You" and "Tighten Up", and they kept us through the newer, less-proven songs. They brought a larger section with later, and it would be interesting to see them do a show with a large horn section.

I had to make the hard decision to skip the Roots in order for a front-row spot for Muse. After more waiting and shoving up to the front, Muse took the stage. I've been listening to Muse on and off (mostly off) for the last 10 years, so I knew a lot of the songs, but I had no idea what kind of show this would be; they obviously have the arena sound down pat, but could they bring their studio hugeness into a live, outdoor setting? Fuck yes, they could. They started big with "Uprising", "Supermassive Black Hold", and "Hysteria", with a nice bit of the Star Spangled Banner opening up "Hysteria". They slowed it down for "Butterflies and Hurricanes," a favourite of mine. Late in the show, dozens of enormous blow-up balls resembling eyeballs were thrown into the audience, so the encore was punctuated by a sea of spiraling eyes, not to mention the ever-present lasers lighting the night sky. The crowd collectively agreed to rock out, jump around, dance, and bang heads, so I was happy to end my night in a frenzy, crushed in between thousands of strangers all on the same wave.

The third and final day began with local wackos the tUnE-YarDs lighting up the audience with impressively-layed loops and an almost outback-Australia feel. Marril Garbus, the frontwoman (oh Lord, I thought she was a man), starts each song one instrument at a time, recording the loops that will play throughout the song. A quick double-tap on the drum, a cymbal shake, a few claps and a yelp or two. This all works together to create the impression of a full backing band and gives her the freedom to strum her banjo (is that a banjo?) and eye-fuck the crowd. A fun, hugely quirky performance.

We worked our way to the food tents to stock up before the long afternoon haul. While the rest of the crew wouldn't stick it out, I was determined to get myself as close as possible for Arcade Fire at the end of the night.

It started out with some pretty good positioning for Josh Ritter. Christie is a Ritter fanatic, but while I knew and enjoyed a few of his songs (The Curse is just gorgeous), I had no idea what to expect. Well, he was superb. His studio work is chill and reminiscent of Bob Dylan, but he fires up for his live performances. He obviously has a strong following, as shown by the screaming girls surrounding the stage, but the boy can play. He's also pretty funny: he outlined one of his nightmare days, lying on his back in a dirty motel room, hearing Michelle Bachman on Fox News and watching the crack in the ceiling slowly spread, hoping the crack was real and not a metaphor.

When the Decemberists came on I was shocked at how old their frontman was, and how different their live style was from their albums. Then I realized that it wasn't the Decemberists at all, but John Fogerty. Surprise show of the weekend! Fogerty was fun, playing through his huge list of hits, including "Fortunate Sun" and "Have You Ever Seen the Rain?". And those old guys know how to perform, so the love was pouring out towards John.

In what Colin Meloy called "the meat in the Fogerty-Arcade Fire sandwich," the Decemberists were in the interesting position of following an old Great and laying groundwork for the new Greats. The joking continued through the set with more nightmares about Michelle Bachman (strange day!) and audience-participation in songs like "The Mariner's Song." Their performance of "This is Why We Fight", my favourite, was joined by the entire crowd and helped make this a strong, if distracted, set.

Then the headliner: Arcade Fire. I've only been listening to Arcade Fire for a year, but they've grown into one of my top bands and "Suburbs II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)" is one of my favourite songs of the past year. I'd dedicated my day to getting up close, so I was in the fourth row, surrounded by stinky frat boys and terrified asian girls, by the time Win Butler and co. took the stage to universal adoration. What is there to say about this show? It was all that rock should be. Spectacle, soaring lyrics, melodrama and a brilliant light show.

I boarded the plane home the following morning, exhausted and near-deaf from the buzzing in my ears. Another excellent year at Outside Lands filled with stellar music, tasty food, excellent beers and far too much walking.

[photos not mine]

a certain sort

2011-08-17T16:08:00.000-07:00

You are unrepeatable. There is a magic about you entirely your own.

Browsing the bookstores of the Haight, I found these words on a piece of paper. They reached out and poked me right in that part of the stomach, in that soft spot that feels like nausea and love all at once.

Some enter life like a hurricane, like some sort of beautiful destructive godspell, like a wildfire needing to burn burn burn a forest down to breathe new beauty with a magic entirely their own, because the old world just wasn't enough.

We don't want no water let the motherfucker burn.

the grass scissored in the wind

2011-07-27T16:45:00.000-07:00

He thought what sort of dream might bring him luck. He saw her riding with her back so straight and the black hat set level on her head and her hair loose and the way she turned with her shoulders and the way she smiled and her eyes.

He thought of Blevins. He thought of his face and his eyes when he pressed his last effects upon him. He'd dreamt of him one night and Blevins came to sit beside him and they talked of what it was like to be dead and Blevins said it was like nothing at all and he believed him. He thought perhaps if he dreamt of him enough he'd go away forever and be dead among his kind and the grass scissored in the wind at his ear and he fell asleep and dreamt of nothing at all.
McCarthy

she takes the day, but i'm gone

2011-07-25T21:13:00.000-07:00

Winehouse was both technically more assured and more unrepentantly individual than most. "Rehab" remains one of the strangest bits of pop self-criticism of the last decade, and it's hard to imagine any hit-seeker writing those down-but-defiant verses, or trying to sell them with Winehouse's strange mix of boldness and introversion. It's no mere imitation.

That's what makes Winehouse's loss so acute from a musical standpoint, and it's what the legions of trend-grabbers and American Idol hopefuls essaying her songs never quite get. She could do a straight, tearful ballad like "Love is a Losing Game", something you could imagine any number of singers adequately covering. But in Winehouse's best songs, there's always something odd, pained, and ineluctably personal in lyric and voice alike. Record execs will likely be grateful that Winehouse's brief success opened up a lucrative market for "real" music. Listeners can lament the fact that we lost someone who understood that "realness" is a sham without the candor and distinctiveness to back up the chops.
Pitchfork

RIP to a true artist. May you find out there the peace you lacked here.

all the pretty horses

2011-07-18T14:45:00.000-07:00

He'd half meant to speak but those eyes had altered the world forever in the space of a heartbeat.
Cormac McCarthy

la joie de vivre

2011-07-16T20:45:00.000-07:00

It's funny. As life rolls along and experiences climb one on the next like children in a dogpile, I feel a brimming energy. Each layer of life adds its thrill and joy to the whole, and a groundswelling of energy pulses ever stronger from its centre. Darkness and despair evaporate like summer rain on hot pavement and a joy of wonder, mystery, excitement and love remains.

Last Winter I wrote about the bliss of contentment. About how I've found sober satisfaction in small blessings. The Baghavad Gita says that we have a right to our actions, but not the fruit of our actions. Living in this knowledge lessens life's disappointments when we consider them in the sum total of a life.

You know how hate never lasts? Neither do sadness, disappointment, frustration, bitterness or resentment. Love is all and love conquers all. And it's not romantic love I mean. It's a love for life. La joie de vivre. A childlike excitement that welcomes dawn, an open heart that embraces strangers, a pleasure at the sound and smell of falling rain, and an immensity of opportunities for discovery. I find mine in the people I love, in quiet evenings under the stars and late nights with loud music, in a steady swim and on the slopes. Years come and go. All of the joys and none of the sadnesses remain. We are pebbles on the shore of a vast existence, equalized in our passions, purity and peace.

Desires and lusts remain. To take that new job, to walk strange shores, to kiss the one you love, to rage and riot in an age of electricity and opportunity. These join the bonfire of life and burn with an intensity strong enough to justify any pain, any sadness, any loss.

And it's in that intensity where we find the value. The love. The excitement, the pleasure, the peace. The joy of life.

Love. Love. Love. What more is there?

why he quit his job

2011-07-13T12:49:00.000-07:00

An old classmate of mine, Kai Nagata, has lit a firestorm with a manifesto called "Why I quit my job". After we both left UBC in 2007, Kai moved to Montreal and got involved in public broadcasting. It seems he quickly moved up the ranks to become CTV's Quebec City Bureau Chief, a position he held until last week.

His manifesto clocks in over 3,000 words, but his critique of the state of Canadian journalism has been read around the world and has provoked over 1,100 comments on his own blog, as well as various commentaries and retorts from around the world.

I'll leave the critiques to others. I'd like to highlight a few of my favourite excepts:

Human beings don’t always like good nourishment. We seem to love white sugar, and unless we understand why we feel nauseated and disoriented after binging on sweets, we’ll just keep going. People like low-nutrition TV, too. And that shapes the internal, self-regulated editorial culture of news.

Take newsroom aesthetics as an example. I admit felt a profound discomfort working in an industry that so casually sexualizes its workforce. Every hiring decision is scrutinized using a skewed, unspoken ratio of talent to attractiveness, where attractiveness often compensates for a glaring lack of other qualifications. The insecurity, self doubt, and body-image issues endured by otherwise confident, intelligent journalists would break your heart.

In this race to the bottom, the less time and money the CBC devotes to enterprise journalism, the less motivation there is for the private networks to maintain credibility by funding their own investigative teams. Even then, “consumer protection” content has largely replaced political accountability.

It’s a vicious cycle, and it creates things like the Kate and Will show. Wall-to-wall, breaking-news coverage of a stage-managed, spoon-fed celebrity visit, justified by the couple’s symbolic relationship to a former colony, codified in a document most Canadians have never read (and one province has never signed). On a weekend where there was real news happening in Bangkok, Misrata, Athens, Washington, and around the world, what we saw instead was a breathless gaggle of normally credible journalists, gushing in live hit after live hit about how the prince is young and his wife is pretty. And the public broadcaster led the charge.

The Canadian right wing, if you want to call it that, has had five years to get the gloves off. With a majority Conservative government in power, they’re putting on brass knuckles. Meanwhile the left is grasping about in a pair of potholders. The only explanation I can think of is they’re too polite, or too scared.

Right now, there’s a war going on against science in Canada. In order to satisfy a small but powerful political base, the PMO is engaged in a not-so-clandestine operation to dismantle and silence the many credible opponents to the Harper doctrine. Why kill the census? Literally in order to make decisions in the dark, without the relevant data. Hence the prisons. Why de-fund scientific research? Because whole branches of the natural sciences are premised on things like evolution, a theory the minister responsible made it clear he doesn’t understand – and likely doesn’t believe in.

I’m broke, and yet I know I’m rich in love. I’m unemployed and homeless, but I’ve never been more free.

Everything is possible.

Follow Kai on his blog, freedom24

we're made of the same cloth, you and i

2011-06-21T11:36:00.000-07:00

To hell with them, those pinky bourgeois, they want their cake and they want to eat it too, they want their season ticket to the Chatelet and want to see the down-and-outs rescued from poverty, they want their tea at Mariage's and all men on earth to be equal, they want their vacation in Tuscany and to see the sidewalks swept clean of anything that might stimulate their guilt, they want to pay their cleaning lady off the books and they want you to listen to their altruistic I'm-a-defender-of-humanity tirades. The State, the State! They're like illiterate folk who adore the king and accuse only the evil corrupt ministers of all the ills they're subject to; it's like the Godfather saying to his minions, "I don't like the look of that guy," without acknowledging that what he has just ordered in a veiled sort of way is the man's execution; it's the bullied sons or daughters who insult the social worker asking for explanations from unworthy parents! The State! It's only fair to go after the State when you want to blame someone else, even if that someone else is none other than your own self!

And then there's the other category. The brutes, the real bastards, the ones who don't hurry by, don't look away, they look right at me with their cold gaze, not a drop of compassion; tough luck, you old bum, you can just snuff it if you didn't know how to make it, no indulgence for the riffraff or the plebes vegetating in their subhuman cardboard boxes, we'll give them no quarter, it's win or lose, and if you think I'm ashamed of my money, well you're mistaken.

If I were them, I'd do the same. People shouldn't think that all tramps are lefties and that poverty makes you a revolutionary. And since word has it he's going to die, I say him, "Go ahead and die, mate, die from all the money you never gave me, die from all your rich-bastard banquets, die from your life of power, but I sure won't be throwing up a cheer. We're made of the same cloth, you and I."
Barbery - Gourmet Rhapsody

on riot porn, apoloblogs and social media vengeance

2011-06-20T09:22:00.000-07:00

The most interesting result of the riots is how social-media culture has tracked and held accountable participants. Facebook groups have been amazing in their ability to identify idiots who mugged for the cameras, and the backlash has been enormous. Vancouverites have found a salve for their wounded pride and are calling out, publicly, anyone who participated.

All of this has created an interesting dynamic between those thirsty for blood, those pleading leniency for the accused, and those trying to defend the indefensible.

One woman was so overwhelmed with the attention that she decided to make an apology blog (apoloblog?). Unfortunately, her burning remorse only gets her 400 words out of the 4,000 that this mess devolves into. A few gems:

Many of you should even be careful of what you say online, because everything that you say online is basically written in stone. And anything that you say can and will likely be used against you in court.

Why is everybody so surprised that a female partook in the riot? What is with this attitude that females are incapable of doing what men can do? Maybe it takes an event like this to show you misogynists that woman are fully capable of anything you can do. And if my actions lead to that revelation in your obscure little heads, then maybe it’s a good thing that I partook in this event.

Remember, the only thing that I did was take a couple things from a store. It’s fairly minor compared to the rest of the acts that were done.

First off, how dense can you be? If you want to escape the attention, delete your facebook, turn off your phone, and take a vacation. Writing a diatribe like this just pokes the beast and begs for criticism. Then going on and threatening people who haven't been photographed looting a store with the law... that just seems satiric. Invoking feminism to justify your role? As if all this weren't enough to spit in the eye of the offended, she wraps it all up by minimizing her role as just a looter. Perhaps if she'd beat someone's ass she'd argue that it was an example of women's empowerment?

Update: Since this post went up, the above writer has redacted the majority of her apoloblog and left a far more appropriate apology.

Some argue that social media's role is sinister:

While photographs and video footage posted by the public (and often by the perpetrators themselves) have been instrumental in bringing them to justice ... tools like Facebook risk putting ordinary people on the same playing field as powerful politicians and celebrities whose lives are built around public exposure.

"We're used to politicians, celebrities, professional athletes living in public -- that's just part of the extraordinary wages they garner," he said. "But everyday people are not used to living in public. That's not part of the deal."

I have a hard time buying this. The anonymity of riots is what protects the participants and provides impunity. Social media, while likely going overboard in its pursuit, is not the criminal here. The criminals are complaining now that the overtaxed legal system isn't the only punishment. They're also facing social punishment. Being fired from their jobs, losing scholarships, and facing public ridicule is a traditional form of punishment that we rarely run across in this age of anonymity. Foucault's panopticon has been born, but it isn't the government behind the glass - it's society. And it should be giving sober second thought to those who just like to stir shit up.

At the end of the day, lives shouldn't be ruined over this. Nor should participants get a slap on the wrist from the VPD because our courts can't handle this juvenile bullshit. Apologies that come without justifications or excuses is an excellent place to begin. Name changes will help, too.

Sometimes, when I have a hard time deciding the most moral course, I look to Mr. Rogers. Here's what he had to say about people being wrong:

vancouver a world class city? hardly

2011-06-16T21:48:00.000-07:00

(photographer unknown)

Tonight I watched my city burn.

We were so stupid, so naive, so foolish in believing that we were different. That we'd changed. That we'd grown up since the riots of 1994. The Olympics tricked us into believing that we were a world-class city full of world-class citizens and that our days of anarchy and idiocy were behind us. As tonight showed, they clearly aren't.

Approaching the Stanley Cup final, downtown filled with high-spirits and good behavior. Police took a hands-off approach and gave citizens the benefit of the doubt, and we deserved it. Tonight, everything changed.

100,000 crowded into Georgia Street to watch the Big Game and share the experience with each other. But tonight was different. Before, people smiled and sang, cheered on their team. But tonight the chants changed from "Go Canucks Go!" to "Fuck Boston!" and you knew something different was in the air. It was in the obnoxious shoving of the drunks, the swearing of the crowd, and the viciousness of the signs. The first period hadn't finished before bottles flew through the air and fans screamed at each other. The ugly side of Vancouver was coming out of its hole. As the game ended and the level of drunkenness peaked, the fires began.

So, here we are. Another failure, another black-eye showing the immaturity of this city and so many of its inhabitants. Whether they poured in from the suburbs, the island, or the city itself, we all feel the shame of this. The city I grew up in, the city I live in, the city I've bragged of around the world has shown itself to be full of trash.

Now we're left with well-deserved shame and endless questions: who are these people? why did this happen? how can so many stand by and do nothing? how did the police fuck up this badly? how do we end this culture of anarchy and become a real city?

Ultimately, those who participated are to blame. Those who looted, and those who watched. But they won't be the ones rebuilding - it's up to the rest of us to fix this. Until that day, no-one in Vancouver can refer to us as a world-class city.

a banda mais bonita da cidade - oração

2011-06-12T16:53:00.000-07:00

A Banda Mais Bonita de Cidade - Oração

Oração (Prayer)

Meu amor essa é a última oração
Pra salvar seu coração
Coração não é tão simples quanto pensa
Nele cabe o que não cabe na dispensa

Cabe o meu amor!
Cabe em três vidas inteiras
Cabe em uma penteadeira
Cabe nós dois

Cabe até o meu amor
Essa é a última oração pra salvar seu coração
Coração não é tão simples quanto pensa
Nele cabe o que não cabe na dispensa

Cabe o meu amor!
Cabe em três vidas inteiras
Cabe em uma penteadeira
Cabe essa oração

may portraits

2011-05-29T22:31:00.000-07:00

live was i ere i saw evil

2011-05-25T12:26:00.001-07:00

On the day of the hunt I came to know in the slick center of my bones this one thing: all animals kill to survive, and we are animals. The lion kills the baboon; the baboon kills fat grasshoppers. The elephant tears up living trees, dragging their precious roots from the dirt they love. The hungry antelope's shadow passes over startled grass. And we, even if we had no meat or even grass to gnaw, still boil our water to kill the invisible creatures that would like to kill us first... The death of something living is the price of our own survival, and we pay it again and again. We have no choice. It is the one solemn promise every life on earth is born and bound to keep.
Kingsolver - the Poisonwood Bible

on the drive

2011-05-18T10:58:00.000-07:00

Jaywalking is a part of life here, and as I whip my bike around a corner and pull to the curb I see familiar faces. He plays, dog lying beside him, and a donations box at his feet. Guitar singing, he meanders through classic rock and contemporary country while passers-by shuffle alongside, behind, in front and around him. Some go into the liquor store while others run into friends and chat. A dog lies below the chipped-red bicycle rack and waits for master, leash loose on the cement. His searching watch awaits his owner and they walk off together, more friends than anything.

In the liquor store, I chat on the phone while picking up wine for the afternoon. The sun is out and we’ve plans to relax on my deck and drink to the coming summer. An abrupt “excuse me, may I see some ID?” is shouted across the store, breaking through my conversation, and I turn to see two boys, no longer children but hardly men, shoving their way through customers and looking to escape store security. They’re both First Nations, likely locals, and obviously tripping balls on something nasty. This isn’t drunk, nor a friendly high – this is something dark and mean. Older store employees move to contain and eject them while they scurry around the store screaming about bear mace and shoving the old, white-haired guard. They eventually are dragged out the doors and take off running down the street while the police are called. Customers and clerks look at each other and try to chuckle the awkwardness away.

Back on the Drive, flags flutter above painted buildings, boasting the colours of Italy. A vendor is selling Megaphone Magazine on a busy corner while waves of traffic stop and go in a rush to get on with their lives after work. I get it. A man sits on a bus bench, surrounded by neighbours living their busy lives, and he picks at a chicken carcass, pulling out pieces of meat, living hand to mouth. It’s one of those Safeway chickens, the ones you can buy for $7. Normally, the thought that an animal can be bred, raised, slaughtered, transported and sold for a profit, all at $7, worries me. Today, I can only think about how sticky his fingers must get with the inevitable chicken-fat spreading into the cracks of his wrinkles and under the nails of his fingers. A fleeting feeling of pity passes as I look up and feel a rush of pleasure at a blue sky, hinting of the summer to come.

An outdoor summer. Swimming lunchtime laps in the sun and biking the stresses of life away with wind whipping past, a roar of pressure in my ears. The cold water of Wreck Beach. Sunsets at the edge of the ocean and sand between my toes, a lighter life with easy days.

So many of us (and too few of us) are blessed with the freedom to live the life we want, not the life we’re given. It’s easy to forget and be burdened by the doldrums of the day to day, bemoaning our responsibilities and realities like a child with his chores. It’s liberating to remember that we live the life we choose and that a blue sky is a simple enough reminder to give joy.

the last post

2011-05-13T10:09:00.000-07:00

The following posted posthumously by Vancouver writer Derek Miller. He died May 3rd of cancer.
---------------------------
The last post
By Derek

Here it is. I'm dead, and this is my last post to my blog. In advance, I asked that once my body finally shut down from the punishments of my cancer, then my family and friends publish this prepared message I wrote—the first part of the process of turning this from an active website to an archive.

If you knew me at all in real life, you probably heard the news already from another source, but however you found out, consider this a confirmation: I was born on June 30, 1969 in Vancouver, Canada, and I died in Burnaby on May 3, 2011, age 41, of complications from stage 4 metastatic colorectal cancer. We all knew this was coming.

That includes my family and friends, and my parents Hilkka and Juergen Karl. My daughters Lauren, age 11, and Marina, who's 13, have known as much as we could tell them since I first found I had cancer. It's become part of their lives, alas.
Airdrie

Of course it includes my wife Airdrie (née Hislop). Both born in Metro Vancouver, we graduated from different high schools in 1986 and studied Biology at UBC, where we met in '88. At a summer job working as park naturalists that year, I flipped the canoe Air and I were paddling and we had to push it to shore.

We shared some classes, then lost touch. But a few years later, in 1994, I was still working on campus. Airdrie spotted my name and wrote me a letter—yes! paper!—and eventually (I was trying to be a full-time musician, so chaos was about) I wrote her back. From such seeds a garden blooms: it was March '94, and by August '95 we were married. I have never had second thoughts, because we have always been good together, through worse and bad and good and great.

However, I didn't think our time together would be so short: 23 years from our first meeting (at Kanaka Creek Regional Park, I'm pretty sure) until I died? Not enough. Not nearly enough.
What was at the end

I haven't gone to a better place, or a worse one. I haven't gone anyplace, because Derek doesn't exist anymore. As soon as my body stopped functioning, and the neurons in my brain ceased firing, I made a remarkable transformation: from a living organism to a corpse, like a flower or a mouse that didn't make it through a particularly frosty night. The evidence is clear that once I died, it was over.

So I was unafraid of death—of the moment itself—and of what came afterwards, which was (and is) nothing. As I did all along, I remained somewhat afraid of the process of dying, of increasing weakness and fatigue, of pain, of becoming less and less of myself as I got there. I was lucky that my mental faculties were mostly unaffected over the months and years before the end, and there was no sign of cancer in my brain—as far as I or anyone else knew.

As a kid, when I first learned enough subtraction, I figured out how old I would be in the momentous year 2000. The answer was 31, which seemed pretty old. Indeed, by the time I was 31 I was married and had two daughters, and I was working as a technical writer and web guy in the computer industry. Pretty grown up, I guess.

Yet there was much more to come. I had yet to start this blog, which recently turned 10 years old. I wasn't yet back playing drums with my band, nor was I a podcaster (since there was no podcasting, nor an iPod for that matter). In techie land, Google was fresh and new, Apple remained "beleaguered," Microsoft was large and in charge, and Facebook and Twitter were several years from existing at all. The Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity were three years away from launch, while the Cassini-Huygens probe was not quite half-way to Saturn. The human genome hadn't quite been mapped yet.

The World Trade Center towers still stood in New York City. Jean Chrétien remained Prime Minister of Canada, Bill Clinton President of the U.S.A., and Tony Blair Prime Minister of the U.K.—while Saddam Hussein, Hosni Mubarak, Kim Jong-Il, Ben Ali, and Moammar Qaddafi held power in Iraq, Egypt, North Korea, Tunisia, and Libya.

In my family in 2000, my cousin wouldn't have a baby for another four years. My other cousin was early in her relationship with the man who is now her husband. Sonia, with whom my mother had been lifelong friends (ever since they were both nine), was still alive. So was my Oma, my father's mom, who was then 90 years old. Neither my wife nor I had ever needed long-term hospitalization—not yet. Neither of our children was out of diapers, let alone taking photographs, writing stories, riding bikes and horses, posting on Facebook, or outgrowing her mother's shoe size. We didn't have a dog.

And I didn't have cancer. I had no idea I would get it, certainly not in the next decade, or that it would kill me.
Missing out

Why do I mention all this stuff? Because I've come to realize that, at any time, I can lament what I will never know, yet still not regret what got me where I am. I could have died in 2000 (at an "old" 31) and been happy with my life: my amazing wife, my great kids, a fun job, and hobbies I enjoyed. But I would have missed out on a lot of things.

And many things will now happen without me. As I wrote this, I hardly knew what most of them could even be. What will the world be like as soon as 2021, or as late as 2060, when I would have been 91, the age my Oma reached? What new will we know? How will countries and people have changed? How will we communicate and move around? Whom will we admire, or despise?

What will my wife Air be doing? My daughters Marina and Lolo? What will they have studied, how will they spend their time and earn a living? Will my kids have children of their own? Grandchildren? Will there be parts of their lives I'd find hard to comprehend right now?
What to know, now that I'm dead

There can't be answers today. While I was still alive writing this, I was sad to know I'll miss these things—not because I won't be able to witness them, but because Air, Marina, and Lauren won't have me there to support their efforts.

It turns out that no one can imagine what's really coming in our lives. We can plan, and do what we enjoy, but we can't expect our plans to work out. Some of them might, while most probably won't. Inventions and ideas will appear, and events will occur, that we could never foresee. That's neither bad nor good, but it is real.

I think and hope that's what my daughters can take from my disease and death. And that my wonderful, amazing wife Airdrie can see too. Not that they could die any day, but that they should pursue what they enjoy, and what stimulates their minds, as much as possible—so they can be ready for opportunities, as well as not disappointed when things go sideways, as they inevitably do.

I've also been lucky. I've never had to wonder where my next meal will come from. I've never feared that a foreign army will come in the night with machetes or machine guns to kill or injure my family. I've never had to run for my life (something I could never do now anyway). Sadly, these are things some people have to do every day right now.
A wondrous place

The world, indeed the whole universe, is a beautiful, astonishing, wondrous place. There is always more to find out. I don't look back and regret anything, and I hope my family can find a way to do the same.

What is true is that I loved them. Lauren and Marina, as you mature and become yourselves over the years, know that I loved you and did my best to be a good father.

Airdrie, you were my best friend and my closest connection. I don't know what we'd have been like without each other, but I think the world would be a poorer place. I loved you deeply, I loved you, I loved you, I loved you.

louis de bernières

2011-05-02T12:25:00.000-07:00

My favourite writer of the last year has been Louis de Bernières, a British novelist who has written historical fictions about the First and Second World Wars as well as about life in South America. His descriptions transcend his words into poetry and beat the reader out of apathy. He does exactly what Kafka prescribed when he said: we ought to read only the kind of books that wound and stab us. If the book we are reading doesn't wake us up with a blow on the head, what are we reading it for?

Here are a few of his more stunning descriptions from Captain Corelli's Mandolin:

A great nostalgia rose up like a palpable mist; it was like making love for the last time to someone who is adored but is leaving forever.

It made him feel as nauseated as a maladapted dog that had eaten chilli peppers soaked in gasoline

She wondered sometimes at the invincible power of his humanitarian impulse, an impulse as inconceivably courageous, hopeless and quixotic as the task of Sisyphus, an impulse as noble and incomprehensible as that which inspires a martyr to cry out blessings as he burns.

It is a light that seems unmediated either by the air or by the stratosphere. It is completely virgin, it produces overwhelming clarity of focus, it has heroic strength and brilliance. It exposes colours in their original prelapsarian state, as though straight from the imagination of God in His youngest days, when He still believed that all was good.

utila island, honduras

2011-04-19T14:04:00.000-07:00

When Josh, a friend who does commercial scuba diving on Vancouver Island, told me about the wonders of Honduras' Utila Island, he got my attention. Whale sharks, advanced diving courses, worlds of fish, the world's second-largest barrier reef... perfect.

After finding a dive shop for my advanced courses, and a peaceful cabin with a hammock overlooking the sea, I begin to explore the island. I've got a week, so I have some fun with it. Nights eating barbequed tuna straight from the sea, drinking cocktails of banana, coconut and rum, and wandering through the dark to feed my leftovers to my neighbour's dog, a starving, exuberant mutt being sucked dry by her fresh litter. In the dark I'd pass her the bulk of the food, her pups scurrying around me and tickling with legs with their fur, and she'd run away from them to eat by herself. At a certain stage of hunger even a mother will look out for herself. This became a bittersweet nightly routine until the morning I left.

Utilans speak with an accent so strong I had to ask what dialect it was. Local roots in the Caymans and Garifuna culture have contributed this bizarre speech, also making it one of the few places in Honduras where English is the native language. The island culture is similar to that of the Galapagos, except for the obnoxious ATVs ripping down the streets and forcing pedestrians to the side. Crabs scuttle in the gutters and come out at night to dig in the dirt for food. One night, an enraged expat came into the street and shot two people, wounding them both. He was on the morning boat to prison.

The advanced open water course went for 3 days, during which I practiced night-diving, navigation, buoyancy control and wreck exploration. I saw enormous fish skulking in the depth of a shipwreck, green moray eels longer than my body, 25-foot whale sharks, and the plagues of lionfish. Lionfish are not a native species for the Caribbean, but come from South-East Asia. Three escaped a Florida aquarium in 1992 and their offspring have ballooned and are now found throughout the Caribbean. They are an epidemic because they are without natural predators and feast on local fish, depleting populations and contributing to the rapid destruction of the world's second largest barrier reef. Divers often carry spear guns to hunt them, offering dead or wounded ones to eels and trigger fish to whet their appetites and teach them to eat the lionfish.

The week in Utila was a perfect end to a month of exploring Central America, learning more about its culture and struggles. Travel is always a poignant reminder of the complexity of life and the many sides to experience. It makes it impossible to encapsulate life into tidy little ideas like poverty, levity, oppression, hope, cynicism: words which all compose but rarely define lives. A woman who closes her clothing store out of fear of the armed violence that plagues her neighbourhood can still return home to hug her daughter and take a calm swim in the lake in front of her house. The friendly bartender who serves me and tells me about his past life abroad goes home to listen to the cartel planes which land nightly and transfer cocaine to boats. The enduring capability of people to find joy in dark times and negotiate sanity in a world beyond their control.

guatemala (part v)

2011-04-14T10:07:00.000-07:00

As the lancha motors downstream, I have a chance to breathe fresh air and admire the land. The Rio Dulce leads me through valleys and out of Guatemala as we head to Livingston, a capital of the Garifuna people.

Livingston can't help but feel Caribbean; its Black population have preserved the culinary traditions of West Africa. Delicious fish soups tasting of coconut oil and dende fill the streets with a sweet scent while people walk around drinking coconuts with hazy eyes. These people feel a shared heredity with Bob Marley and those smells fill the streets, too.

It's my last night in Guatemala, so I treat myself to a hammock and some excellent food. The next day promised (and delivered) many more hours of travel as I found my way to Utila Island, Honduras.

A girl paddles to our boat, selling dried giant starfish and homemade jewelry

the witch's compass

2011-04-14T09:41:00.000-07:00

Brújula, the Spanish word for compass, is born of the same root as brujería, or witchcraft. Therefore, the witchcraft of the sorcerer's compass would be: la brujería de la brújula del brujo.

The etymology behind "bruj" is unknown, though this blog makes an interesting case linking it to the words of the Torah which Iberian Jews would have spoken in synagogue: Baruch ata Adonai Eloheinu, melech ha-olam. The strange sounds of baruch ata (Hebrew for blessed are you) morphed into bruja.

fuck you, ayn rand

2011-04-13T10:37:00.000-07:00

I was 16 when I read Ayn Rand's reviled and enormously popular Atlas Shrugged. A exasperating critique of social welfare, altruism, and good, old fashioned human kindness, this book seriously fucked with me. It went against everything I'd been taught about charity and forgiveness, modesty and humanity. It took a while for me to shake the bullshit out, but I didn't realize that adults still swallowed this pill. As it turns out, even the hero of free market liberalism, Alan Greenspan, was a devotee of this nonsense.

The Awl writes about Objectivism (the cult of Rand), Greenspan, and how this mean-spirited dogma has fucked the American economy. I've included an excerpt below:

In Atlas Shrugged Rand creates a world where there are people who deserve to live because they are "intelligent" and "creative," and those who do not. The former set out to rid themselves of the latter. These "men of the mind," whom their author clearly worships, go "on strike" and refuse to be creative any more, which means that everybody else must perish. And because it's a work of fantasy entirely under Rand's control, they all go ahead and obediently perish. (IRL, people were not quite so obedient, as we shall see.)

For those who are inclined to find such ideas ludicrous, the book will fail, and utterly; its premises betray a bottomless ignorance of the deep interconnectedness of humankind, and the needs—economic, social, emotional, intellectual—of one human being for another. In the real world, someone is growing lettuce, someone else is writing a book or feeding a baby, yet another is designing the rails of a high-speed train. Someone else is teaching six-year-olds to read. All of us benefit from all of these activities—sometimes directly, sometimes indirectly. Each life can and does touch many thousands of others. The idea of the Nietszchean Superman who acts against his fellows (whom Rand called "the mob" and "looters" and whatnot) is consequently fatally flawed. Not even the Superest Superman can grow all his own food, make all his own paper, design and build his own cars and airplanes, etc. (Hadn't Rand ever read Robinson Crusoe?) Humanity is a collaborative project, as well as a project of individuals.
...

The real parasites, it turns out, are not the looting masses but the Objectivist elites (what is it that these hedge fund managers "create" again?), rabidly pursuing their own "happiness" at the cost of our social safety net, our environment and the prosperity and well-being of the world's people. So much for the triumph of individualism.

Finally, a more eloquent summary than I could write: There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs. -John Rogers

If you want to read more about how horrible this book is, see the National Review's 1957 critique: Big Sister is Watching.

guatemala (part iv)

2011-04-02T10:36:00.000-07:00

View travels in a larger map

Work finished, I drive south with colleagues. The two hundred kilometers to Cobán take us four hours to make along windy, single-lane roads snaking through the jungle and past villages. Bored cows chew their cud at the highway’s edge while families and mangy dogs watch us pass. In true Latino style, we race at the verge of recklessness (sometimes crossing into it), passing cars in the nick of time and making blind turns which kept my hands gripped to my seat while a prayer played on repeat in my head. We pull over for a piss, so I wander into the village looking for a private place to pee. After, an armed guard steps out of the barbed-wire-guarded gate, automatic rifle in hand, and gives me a questioning look. With a sheepish smile I toss an hola his way and hurry back to the car.

I’m dropped off at a bus stop built out of a filthy garage. Happy to find a connecting van, I squeeze myself into the back and sit down in an ad-hoc seat without a back. I spend the next 2 hours swaying back and forth, trying to keep my back straight and exhausting myself. Spent, I get off the bus in Lanquín and am bombarded by hotel hustlers, each trying to stuff me into their van and take me to their crummy, overpriced hotel. Pushing my way through their mass, I drag my remaining luggage to a corner store, buy a water, and sit down. Sometimes I need these moments of non-movement to retain my sanity. At the internet café I check in with family and try to write about my experiences for the UBC blog, but I really just want to find a hammock in the shade. I arrange a hotel and wait in a dark sidestreet for my ride.I awake surrounded by jungle and the distant cries of monkeys. At the edge of the cliff I see the river below flowing gently by, turquoise blue and silent. Hiking into Semuc Champey, ankles twisting from my idiotic, slippery sandals, I have a mountain to climb. Up and up, the jungle's heat makes me sweat while I traverse staircases and worn pathways. A long cry of domination and threat echoes through the trees. Howler monkeys, high above, offering an unkind welcome to their jungle.

Cascading pools work their way down the valley below and I splash the afternoon away in them while the sun mercilessly burns my shoulders. At the water's edge, fish nibble my feet and I close my eyes to enjoy the sun and the cool peace of water.

I spend the evening drinking with other travelers and dancing in the few hours of power we have for the night. At ten o'clock, the generator clicks off, we all turn into pumpkins and go to bed.

I spend the morning reading in a hammock - Of Light and Shadows, another beautiful, horrifying story of oppression - before going under the mountain. Caves wind through the mountain's bowels, leading in a dizzying array of directions and leaves the careless spelunker abandoned in a relentless darkness and overpowering silence. A river of groundwater fills the cave to my neck and I follow a candlelit group as we pass submerged stalagmites and climb waterfalls. Deeper and deeper we go, separated now from the group behind us and worrying about the waning candles in our hands, our only light. Eventually we smarten up and retrace our steps, eventually finding the rest of the group goofing off and ridiculously jumping off outcrops into the dark water. As our candles reach the end of their light, I ask our guide how much further the cave goes before coming out on the other side. It doesn't, he tells me. It goes on for sixteen kilometers. I'm glad we turned around and didn't become a precautionary tale for future explorers.

The next morning, I start the long drive to the north of the country, to Tikal. The heart of the Mayan empire in the first millennia, Tikal sat buried in the jungle until major work in the 1950s cleared the jungle to reveal over two hundred ruins within. I spent five days lounging around the surrounding area, hiking the mountains and swimming in the lake, as if Tikal were just a good excuse for some relaxation time.

Days spent swinging in a hammock, an endless lake just beyond my feet, I’d watch the misty sunrises and the gentle sunsets. Colours streaked the sky between gaps in the clouds and the shades of the lake would shimmer towards darkness.

guatemala (part iii)

2011-04-02T10:35:00.000-07:00

Sitting on the side of the highway, I watch buses fly by at ludicrous speeds while I pick at my dry bread. A brown landscape with green shrubs, an imposing white church in the middle of it. Colourful streamers hint of festivities, and I remember Lent has begun. In the highway, boys climb along the roofs of buses hurtling down the highway joyful bursts of freedom, like a dog let out to pee after a long day indoors. All this time on the road hasn’t robbed me of my wonder at the inexplicably stupid, deadly risks people take without reason.

Soon, I’m wedged into an aging minivan, elbows tucked in to make space for the villagers making this cross-country trip with me. What I (naively) think is a full van continues to take on more people with each passing kilometer, until heads hang out windows and legs of strangers intersect, making a fluid mass of flesh that heaves back and forth, side to side, with the careening of the bus. The temperature climbs while we leave the burnt brown landscape of the sierras for the lush valleys of the midlands. Air that smells of fire and diesel blows into the van, a nauseating reprieve from the heat of so many squished bodies and their accompanying sweat dripping down chests and backs. My wet shirt clings and my arm is fixed on the shoulder of the obese, drowsy man beside me. In his sleepy state he tries to move from uncomfortable crowding and shoulder-smushing to unacceptably emasculating sleep rape, which I can only imagine to be like Guatemalan third-base. This I can’t abide, so I position my elbow to give him a sharp poke in his encroaching neck every time he gets too friendly. Oblivious to the drama, he sleeps on while our weary bus winds down the mountain.

But that doesn’t speak to the beauty of the journey. Leaving the dryness of Atitlan, the country blossoms as we travel east to the jungle. Streams trickle into rivers and hillsides become mountains while ubiquitous political campaigns painted on rock walls promise hope but are read with only with cynicism. We pull into a small community to squish more flesh into our van of and a vieja sells me unripe mango. The southern sun is unrelenting on my right arm, so I wrap it in a sweater to prevent its being roasted in the long afternoon.

Thirteen hours into the trip, the fourth and final bus pulls to a tentative halt beside a sign reading Cuevas de Candelaria. That website is strange to look at now, because I remember the field of holes and weeds, a geriatric sheep whose wool had come undone, and a limitless expanse of stars in the night sky. I go in and shake hands; toothy grins and shyness welcome me. I introduce myself to the participants who’ve arrived and chat with those who understand Spanish. A translator takes my thoughts, realized in English, spoken in Spanish, and makes them understood in Q'eqchi'. Quiet men sit at the back. They look uninterested, but I guess this comes more from a lifetime of being ignored than their own apathy. Through the night I try to draw them in, but eventually they fade back to their fields and families and I’m left to continue with the Ladinos. It feels like failure and I wonder how to involve people with whom I’ve so few points of connection. It reminds me that real effectiveness comes through long-term commitments and not flighty surveys like mine.

Exhausted by our travels, we separate and I find myself curled under a mosquito net, listening to the boys across from me whisper back and forth like crickets in the night.

guatemala (part ii)

2011-03-22T13:11:00.000-07:00

The morning air smells of fire and dirt. My feet go forward single file, snaking along the narrow rock track dug into the hill. I never knew Guatemala could be so cold. The night’s frozen grass thaws while a blanket of fog lies across the forest. I’m bundled in my oversized Mexican sweater and thinking about coffee.

Over breakfast I scribble a class plan on my napkin, putting theory to one side and practice the other. That familiar discomfort of nerves is in my chest while I worry if the class will take me seriously, despite my shaggy clothes and messy hair. With the temperature barely topping zero, there’s no chance of me taking that cold shower.

They shuffle up the hill, bundled in puffy jackets. An older man smiles at me through his glasses, a Maple Leaf Foods cap on his head. Somebody should trace how a hat advertising a Canadian cold cuts ends on the head of an indigenous Guatemalan entrepreneur. We sit on the hill and wait for the latecomers. I’ve given an English-Spanish dictionary to a kid and he peppers me with questions, flipping through the book and parroting the English phrases.

Class happens the same way they all do. Minimally organized, impromptu, wandering and enjoyable. We talk about what makes good or bad art, how we can see techniques in all good photography, how to reproduce them. The groups go to take their own shots we later critique. For lunch we eat rabbit and drink soda. We spend the afternoon poring over brochures and talking about what makes them good, then trying to design our own. We have mixed success, but the groups enjoy themselves and hopefully learn something.

My class

That evening I’m riding a bus down a volcano towards the water of Lake Atitlan, Hemingway’s “most beautiful lake in the world.” I think Titicaca’s got it beat, but the looming volcanoes give the lake a surreal feel. I remember the week spent here for New Year’s 2007/2008 and know a lot of its wonder went with that trip, leaving me a duller destination this time. I spend a few days wandering the streets and getting sunburns, meeting people and losing myself in the night’s alleyways. I get home late my final night and look to my bags to pack. My clothes are scattered across the bed, but I can’t find my backpack. I left the window unlocked and some gymnastic thief scaled to the third-floor of the hotel, reached through my window and made off with my empty backpack and sleeping bag. It’s more annoying than anything, as all I have to put my clothes in for the morning’s journey is a garbage bag.

It feels a fitting end for a place to which I shouldn’t have returned. I sling my camera bag over my shoulder, pick up my garbage bag, and walk towards the dock to catch a boat and continue my trip.

Lake Atitlan

My new bag

guatemala (part i)

2011-03-15T15:11:00.000-07:00

My first weekend in Guatemala was spent tucked away in Antigua, a local getaway and tourist attraction an hour out of the capital. Colonial and nestled beneath the volcanoes, fresh air and cobblestone streets hugging narrow sidewalks. Local government banned honking last year and the city has a layer of calmness over it.

An abandoned courtyard in Antigua, Guatemala

A typical building in the streets of Antigua, Guatemala

Volcanoes loom over the city

Shoeshine kids flit in and out of the crowd, tarred fingers rubbing their gums, eyes glancing at shoes. One approaches me and points at my blue sneakers. Shine? I smile and shake my head. Tengo azul, he points to the shoes. Blanca tambien! I thank him and tell him I like them dirty. Without missing a beat, he points at my earrings - aretes! I laugh and tell him I don't need them polished, but he just wants to talk about them and show me the crude stud in his own ear. I like him, so I unscrew mine to show him the flesh they cost. He's impressed and we chat again the next day in the plaza.

Sunday’s wandering leads me to the church, which I sneak into to hear Mass. It's packed from the front to the back and I wonder what so fiercely draws crowds here when back home churches fold under the weight of agnosticism and apathy. The liturgy bounces around the stone walls of the cathedrals and its meaning is lost in echoes, but I hang back and enjoy the cool, dank air so familiar to Catholic churches. Outside the day warms and children chase pigeons, their mothers frying food and gossiping with friends. A striking disconnect exists between the heat and gaiety outside and the sobriety of the ancient traditions indoors. Chants filter out of the church to be drowned out in the overplayed reggaeton of car stereos.

Inside the church, almost everybody pays attention

Outside, food, people, pigeons

I return to the capital for Valentine's day, spending it in search of memory cards and batteries for the cameras I’ll donate to the projects. Two of the staff do their best to make me feel at home in an unwelcoming city and I plan for the classes I’m to give. That evening, I have dinner with another staff member, a Chilean who lives in Montreal. During the meal a group of serious-looking, silent men sit down beside us to eat. I hardly notice them, but once we’ve finished and left, she tells me that they were narcos (members of the drug-dealing cartels terrorizing Mexico and Central America). I can’t but wonder at the ways life has led me to spending my Valentine’s Day with a stranger, surrounded by murderers.

preparations for departure

2011-02-09T16:45:00.000-08:00

Preparing for departure is never as simple as it seems. Sure, there are the physical things to take care of: sunscreen and shots, currency and clothing, towels and toothpaste; however, the real work is getting your head ready. Tampering expectations, expanding plans, making everything malleable so that when the specifics collapse it's easy to pick up what's left and keep going.

I leave on Friday to spend 2 weeks in Guatemala training staff at two projects in promotional material production. My title is Adviser in Photography-based Marketing and part of my duties will be to:

Develop content for promotions
Conduct workshops on techniques of visual design of promotional materials
Train staff on the criteria to consider in the development of promotional content
Support staff in developing photography-based products for promotional purposes
Promote the inclusion and participation of women in all activities

We don’t hear much about Guatemala in our media. It’s a country that was devastated by 36 years of civil war and is currently being pummeled by violence from the southward expansion of the drug wars in Mexico. In the last 10 years, the homicide rate in Guatemala has doubled and it now has the 4th-highest homicide rate in the world. With all this trouble, the government is unable to develop rural economies and these communities, composed primarily of indigenous peoples, struggle along in poverty.

Various projects have sprung up under the umbrella organization of FENATUCGUA. The two with which I’ll be working are Corazón del Bosque and San Juan la Laguna, both of which aim to develop eco-friendly tourism to bolster their economies and promote their culture in a non-destructive manner. Corazón del Bosque is an eco-reserve in the highlands while San Juan la Laguna is a sleep town bordering Lake Atitlan, where I spent New Years 2007/2008.

What I like about these projects and why I’m excited to do this work is that they are making realistic attempts to improve their communities on a long-term basis and are doing in a sustainable manner. They aren’t reliant on foreign contributions (though those always help) and local staff are invested in their projects as much as in their communities.

I know from experience that little of what I’m expecting will be reality, but I’ll adapt and make the most of what we have.

when they stumble, they fall

2011-01-31T16:05:00.000-08:00

I suppose the most negative aspect of gentrification is that poor people are powerless against it. That is what poverty is: not just a lack of money, it’s a precariousness, an insecurity. If they get sick, get evicted, lose their job, get hurt, go a bit crazy, drink more than they should, then there is no time off, no leave of absence, no ‘finding yourself’. When they stumble, they fall. They are in a shelter, they are sleeping outside, they are selling their sexual services. So yes, gentrification will raise rents and renovate low-income housing and force people out, scattering their communities to the wind, and this is not fair. What’s worse is the idea that this displacement is natural and unavoidable, that poor people will always get screwed and they just have to go find somewhere else to get screwed, which is simplistic and cruel.

That said, there is also another equally wonky idea that the DTES is some kind of undisturbed cultural ecosystem, almost like a tribe yet to come into contact with civilization, somehow realer and more authentic than ours, which must be preserved, almost as a nature reserve would be. The idea that there is a cosmic rightness to the squalor of the crack hotels, or the pitiful existences of many who live down there is equally as misguided as thinking that they deserve to be there because they are bad people. Poverty is not a ‘culture,’ it is inhuman and dehumanizing, both for the people who experience it, and for those who permit it to continue.

Michael Christie, author of "The Beggar's Garden"

the saṃsāra of contentment

2011-01-23T09:53:00.000-08:00

I've never been accused of being too content. Life has always seemed a road to run, a series of goals and plateaus, all leading to some imaginary game over moment where all that can be done has and the stresses, worries and regrets of life are gone.

We spend so much of our lives living in past regrets and future worries.

It's taken a lot of practice to learn to be content. To be happy with my life exactly as it is and to look at future changes as experiences and not landmarks - things to revel in but not rely on.

I'm drinking a glass of wine tonight, sitting on my patio and looking over the city. The globe of Science World dominates the horizon and everything is at peace. The family just left. Mom gave me a fish and Eva has learned to smile. She has enormous cheeks and when she smiles her eyes squint up and her tongue sticks out.

My friends are coming over in a few hours. They'll mingle, new friendships will be made, old friends will catch up, and we'll enjoy the night. They'll leave and I'll be left with my wine and my view, and that will be good. I can be content with this.

2010 was a good year. I didn't do an end-of-year write-up because I didn't feel the need to. It was a year of stability, of rebuilding and living through small joys. My friends came home (Mary, Peter, Kait), I went away (Kootenays, San Francisco, Mexico), learned new things (cooking, yoga, spanish literature), left one profession and entered another, and learned to be content in the moment. It took Ecclesiastes and the Bhagavad Gita to get me there, but I think I found it.

I dove into the world of music, seeing at least 40 shows through the year and falling in love with artists like Phoenix, Two Door Cinema Club, Adele, Broken Social Scene, the National, and the list goes on and on. I spent a fortune on tickets and flew to San Francisco for it, but the experiences were worth the mid-week ringing in my ears.

I brought my camera into the studio and on trips and I loved what I got.

I started reading in Spanish and wrote my first full-length essay in it. I learned new words like empapado (drenched), desasosiego (anxiety) and agüero (omen) and I watched my first subtitle-free Spanish-language movie (El Frasco).

I watched my sister get more and more pregnant until, days before Christmas, we got the best present ever: Eva. I became prouder of my sister and her husband as I watched them take on the responsibilities of parenthood with a gentle charm and I learned to love them more. I met this little girl whom I will know till I die and I know that I'll do everything to help her grow and know she's adored.

The freneticism of past years always meant that entering January was like trying to come down from a high that won't quit. This year was different. No grand plans, just the intention to value the moment and do my best. And 2011 is shaping up to be a good year. I'm doing two more photography workshops this Spring, continuing with my Spanish work, and hopefully some cooking classes. I've got some boxing lessons coming up and I'm sticking with my regular Bikram's routine.

I leave for Guatemala in February. Through UBC's Leave for Change program I got a CIDA-funded position training staff throughout the country in photography and communication development. I'll spend two weeks teaching staff from 30 project sites how to create simple, effective photography and how to produce promotional material with it. I'm hoping to then fly down to Honduras for a week of scuba-diving with whale sharks. It'll be a welcome escape from Winter and a perfect mix of my loves for travel, Spanish, photography and volunteerism. And wild creatures.

Beyond those short-term plans, I've no idea what 2011 holds for me and that's how I want it. It's going to be the best year yet.

2011-01-18T23:26:00.000-08:00

I've given my portfolio a rework - check it out.

what this city needs is more brick

2011-01-16T15:41:00.000-08:00

twenty eleven is here

2011-01-03T13:55:00.000-08:00

and Joe still loves us

nowhere to go, nothing to do

2010-12-28T11:22:00.000-08:00

Late in my yoga class we lie down, panting and slick with sweat, to stare at the ceiling.

Just breathe, the instructor drones. Nowhere to go, nothing to do.

Though I know they're coming, the words wash over me. Nowhere to go, nothing to do.

The last four months have been full on. Working, studying, volunteering, and going through surgery have meant few free moments in these months. There's always been somewhere to go, something to do. Back to work, off to a class, write a paper, get to a meeting... and it's over.

Classes are finished, surgery's passed, and the fund raising is done. Now when I lie on that mat and hear those words, nowhere to go, nothing to do, I can agree. I lie and listen to the air go in and out of my lungs. In and out, sweat dripping down my face, blinking, hear that... nowhere to go, nothing to do.

my christmas present

2010-12-26T10:23:00.000-08:00

Say hello to Eva. We weren't expecting her till January, but she couldn't wait for her first Christmas. Even better than that year I got a gameboy.

Four generations of the Kents

other writing

2010-12-20T16:15:00.000-08:00

I wrote an article for Vancouver-based Beyond Robson: 2010's Top 5 Shows in Van-city

the reason i really love the stars

2010-12-18T11:59:00.001-08:00

And you know the reason I really love the stars is that we cannot hurt them.
We can't bum them or melt them or make them overflow.
We can't flood them or burn them up or turn them out.
But we are reaching for them. We are reaching for them.
Laurie Anderson - Another Day in America

in the studio

2010-12-11T16:37:00.000-08:00

ten songs i love in the winter

2010-12-04T21:11:00.000-08:00

Adele - Someone Like You (live)
Florence and the Machine - Dog Days Are Over
Pacifika - Perlas
Arcade Fire - Modern Man
Temper Trap - Love Lost
The National - Lit Up
Bon Iver - Skinny Love
Pretty Lights - Something's Wrong
Bike for Three! - All There is to Say About Love
Lykke Li - Dance, Dance, Dance

blue eyes

2010-12-03T17:29:00.000-08:00

the ben franklin effect

2010-11-28T10:24:00.001-08:00

"Another famous example of cognitive dissonance is the Ben Franklin effect. Franklin (1996: p. 80) won over a political opponent by asking him a favor and he relates thus:

I did not ... aim at gaining his favour by paying any servile respect to him but, after some time, took this other method. Having heard that he had in his library a certain very scarce and curious book, I wrote a note to him, expressing my desire of perusing that book, and requesting he would do me the favour of lending it to me for a few days. He sent it immediately, and I return'd it in about a week with another note, expressing strongly my sense of the favour. When we next met in the House, he spoke to me (which he had never done before), and with great civility; and he ever after manifested a readiness to serve me on all occasions, so that we became great friends, and our friendship continued to his death. This is another instance of the truth of an old maxim I had learned, which says, "He that has once done you a kindness will be more ready to do you another, than he whom you yourself have obliged."^[4]

This perception of Franklin has led to what has become known as the Ben Franklin effect. After lending Franklin the book, the opponent had to resolve the dissonance of his attitude towards Franklin, whom he also had just done a favor. He justified doing the favor by telling himself that he actually liked Franklin, and, as a result, he treated him with respect instead of rudeness from then on.

-Wikipedia

tú viviras en mi sed

2010-11-21T15:34:00.000-08:00

Paul Theroux once complained that "travel is only glamorous in retrospect." Well, Theroux whines too much and, after reading his Dark Star Safari, I have no idea why he travels.

There's a scene in The Motorcycle Diaries where Ché is asked why he travels. He replied, viajar por viajar... I travel to travel. It's an end in itself. It's a teacher and a friend. It makes me a better person. It reminds me of what I love in life and puts the rest into perspective. It calms me and refines me. It teaches me to be patient and respectful, and it reminds me to trust myself.

I wasn't sure this trip was going to happen. I've been reeling from surgery a few weeks back and unable to walk more than a few minutes at a time, so up until the day I left I thought the pain might keep me home. However, I filled my backpack, grabbed the painkillers, and hoped for the best. And it worked.

I landed in Puerto Vallarta in the middle of the night and bussed to San Pancho, an hour's ride and a world's difference from the great blah to the South. The village was still sleeping when I shuffled through the dirt roads and I ended up sitting on a sand dune watching the waves.

I arrived in Mexico with no itinerary. I didn't know what town I would go to or how I would spend the week. My only goal was to avoid English entirely and speak only Spanish, and I did it. I had to lie to a number of people and tell them that I only spoke French and Spanish (a tip: nobody in Mexico speaks French except the French), but as I avoided the touristy areas of Puerto Vallarta and Sayulita it wasn't a problem.

After watching the waves a while I walked into town and stopped a corner store to ask for a recommendation for a room. The owners offered a spare bed in their house and we settled on a price. I spent the next three days wandering around town, reading on the beach, swimming and making new friends. But three days of beach time is a lot and I knew I had to get going.

After interrogating a number of locals I decided to check out San Blas, a forgotten port town in northern Nayarit. The attraction was La Tovara, a river that runs through deep jungle, filled with crocodiles, birds, turtles and fish. The dock was empty when I arrived but I found somebody to take me out in his boat for a few hours to see the animals and swim in a croc-free zone.

The set of Cabeza de Vaca, which we studied in Spanish Literature last month

Sadly, San Blas is perhaps the most boring town in Mexico after nightfall. The town plaza empties early, so after eating some tacos I went to play pool. The pool hall had three people in it when I arrived: the owner, a serious old man who sat on a stool and serenaded us with mexican folk rock, and two drunks who made no sense in the clusterfuck of karaoke and empty beer bottles. Still, we played a game, shared a beer, and said good night.

In Guadalajara I found my ex-roommates and spent the night catching up with them... listening to music, drinking, telling stories and generally being thrilled to see each other again.

The following day we took an impromptu trip to Aguas Calientes, three hours North, to cheer on our friend as he dj'd at a bar. Another night spent wandering under the stars, sharing stories, and staying up far too late nursing a bottle and laughing with each other.

We drove back to Guadalajara last night and they dropped me off at the bus station, where I started the trip that would return me to a snowy Vancouver, a far cry from the heat and frivolity of Mexico.

A lyric has been running through my head this week, sung by Pacifika:
Yo viviré en tu memoria, Tú viviras en mi sed

(I will live on in your memory and you will live on in my thirst)

Travel, like life, can't be summed in a few phrases. But this one expresses a beautiful truth: the way our pasts remain with us in different ways. How some stories wrap up and become a closed book, while others are lost as unfinished stories, begging for closure but left in limbo to linger in our thirst.

confession time

2010-11-10T16:16:00.000-08:00

Confession time. I am a terrible nude photographer.

I just don't care about the rest of the body. I want the shoulders, the arms, and the head. I want the long lines that turn an arm into a neck into a jawline with the exquisite shadows that follow them. An ass can't match the personality of eyes and breasts can't offer the intimacy of lips.

It's not that I don't try. I've taken photos of every part of the body, but it's the top third that brings me back. A face speaks far more to a personality than the rest of the body.

Bodies change, faces don't.

2010-11-10T15:32:00.000-08:00

Writing an analytical critique... easy
Writing an analytical critique in your second language... harder
Writing an analytical critique in your second language while out of your mind on demerol... hilarious

zdravka evtimova - acceptance

2010-11-07T21:18:00.000-08:00

The prettiest short story I've read in ages...
----------------
In the evening, her dog waited at the front door. His name was Rain, and his steps sounded like raindrops rolling down a windowpane after midnight. François thought he remained in that town because of the animal. If he went away Rain would starve. Anna forgot to feed him and didn’t give him baths. She worked day and night on her short stories and translations. Oceans of love roared in the books she translated into French. There was no food at home. She stared at her computer like a bat, her hair disheveled, her dictionaries scattered under the table, on the floor, in the corridor.

Rain lay in the corner on his tattered pillow and looked at her. She swore at the long sentences and drank constantly: milk from a bottle or strong black beer that made her eyes glisten like those of a sick man. She ignored that François had come home. She poured milk into a saucer for Rain. The dog smelled it, and it was suddenly warm in her eyes. Sometimes she gave Rain beer too, and he snarled, his teeth shining, wild and sharp.

François went to the kitchen and made sandwiches for her. There were dirty dishes in the sink, and her shoes and stockings were all over the corridor. She wore socks of different colors and she had put on one of his sweatshirts, the first one she stumbled across. Sometimes she wore his leather jacket, too.

That day she had not aired the room, and at noon the curtains were drawn. Although the window was not that big, François loved to look out of it. He watched the warehouse full of ramshackle used cars and felt some of the tension fall out of his body. She translated her books and breathed the stale air. This time she didn’t even look up. When he brought her sandwiches, she wolfed them down and forgot about him almost right away. François went to sleep, imagining she mumbled something under her breath.

Rain had got accustomed to her voice and waited by her side, staring at her dictionaries and at her old computer. François slept on the mattress around which CDs, sheets of paper and her books were scattered. Well after midnight, half-awake, he felt her lying beside him. She didn’t wait for him to drift out of sleep. She kissed him savagely as if to punish him. She loved him without saying a word then suddenly called him names as bad as November downpours. François couldn’t live like that any more. He couldn’t bear the stale air that waited for him every night. He hated her dog and her love. It was a moment of sunshine that slipped behind a cloud, leaving him starving in the fog of Brussels.

He had tried to go away several times, but Rain followed him, his steps like raindrops hitting the pavement. François feared that one day the dog would die among the dictionaries and the characters in her short stories. Several times Rain had run after him behind the puddle that surrounded the warehouse, behind the used cars where Anna went to draw inspiration from the cold, moist air. She was a poor eater. Her face became paler and more impenetrable as she wandered among the used cars. The dog brought autumn in its wake, it almost always started to drizzle when Rain went out.

François suspected that if he left that place, Anna wouldn’t come back to that window to the north, and the light of her computer would burn all the characters she had invented.

There wouldn’t be anyone there to open the window and get rid of the heavy air — riddled with idioms — that she adored. François was sick and tired of her silly love. She slept atop his chest, her skin as thin as the wind. Rain watched them, quiet, more and more miserable, his fur thin and falling off with old age.

One day François left for good. Rain followed him, his eyes glowing in the mist. Even after François caught the bus the dog ran after him, his fur dirty and shabby, a scrawny old thing that brought the autumn fog and left it to live above the spire of the quiet church Notre Dame d’Evere. Anna had told him that winters began and ended in Notre Dame d’Evere. He loved the quiet short January afternoons that were born in the streets around the church. François would be sorry if a truck driver or a motorcyclist ran over the dog. The animal had sensed that this was the day François would leave. That day, Rain ran after the bus to the railway station. François jumped onto the first train on Platform 1 headed for Oostende, the noisy Belgian port he had never liked. The dog gave a howl and dashed after the train, but soon lost the game and collapsed on the rails, frail and miserable in his thinning fur. François heaved a sigh of relief when the train pushed its way into the tunnel and Rain disappeared from sight, his howl dissolving in the rain. I hope he wasn’t run over by a train, François thought.

Later he often tried to drive away the thought of that cold room, of the window onto the rows of used cars and the big black puddle around the warehouse. He saw her computer that spewed out words in the night, and hated to think that now there was no one to make sandwiches for her.

Many times he felt like running back to the house. François was glad he lived in a big noisy town far away from her short stories. Monotonous West-Vlaanderen, the cars on the speedways, the winter and the tunnels separated him from her dictionaries. François hated the bridges, which led to her street. He tried to blot out the memories of that place, so he bought a dog and called him Rain, too, but his bull terrier didn’t have autumns and peaceful fog in his eyes, and didn’t look shabby the way her dog did.

François sometimes wondered what had happened to her, but he had no more life to waste. Of course he found another girl who was sparklingly clean and healthy. She loved him and she didn’t make him think of old computers, black puddles and rows of used cars. It was odd that once in a while he could hear quiet raindrops in his dreams, very odd.

In early summer he crossed the West-Vlaanderen that stretched between him and the rows of old used automobiles. He didn’t go on business; he even didn’t want to meet Anna. Perhaps at the back of his mind he hoped he might glimpse her, nothing more.

That day François got out of the taxi, calm and reserved. He had a good job in Oostende, he made a lot of money. He hoped he had forgotten the shabby and deserted street. No way. He knew every inch of it.

He felt like running to her building but had a drink instead. A glass of brandy always helped him. The speedway and the cars had gone, and there were no tunnels either. The house waited and the puddle was there, big and black like autumn. Suddenly he heard raindrops behind his back. It was raining, it was raining indeed! There were no peaceful afternoons and silver rains in the town on the Nordsee where he lived. There were clean carpets, brand new electrical appliances, neatly arranged books and pictures in his house. There wasn’t a single dictionary there. He had told his wife that, years ago, he knew a girl, a translator, and he had spoken about the characters in her short stories. His wife threw all dictionaries out of their home. She loved him and looked after him very well.

He noticed a vague silhouette. A woman appeared. She was so thin and pale that François could not breathe. The warehouse was silent. Suddenly it stopped raining. She was the most beautiful girl he had ever seen.

He suddenly thought of his clean house with the carpets and books and pictures on the walls. He thought of the train that would take him home. He had crossed West-Vlaanderen to speak to the building she lived in.

François could hear the raindrops fall. He couldn’t move and he knew something had broken inside him. The vast plains of West-Vlaanderen had not helped. The brandy hadn’t either. The tunnels were all gone. He turned around. A dog, scraggy and weak, trailed after him. The man felt like shouting. The dog’s fur was shabby and miserable, but he loved it. The dog, whose steps were raindrops, stood still and watched him. There were silver Brussels afternoons in his eyes. They sparkled with joy, they were happy François had come back. Many autumns and winters François had loved that dog.

“Rain, Rain!” François whispered.

The dog trembled, approached him and let him touch his shabby back.

“How’s Anna?” François asked.

—Zdravka Evtimova

deface something

2010-11-06T19:29:00.000-07:00

People are taking the piss out of you everyday. They butt into your life, take a cheap shot at you and then disappear. They leer at you from tall buildings and make you feel small. They make flippant comments from buses that imply you’re not sexy enough and that all the fun is happening somewhere else. They are on TV making your girlfriend feel inadequate. They have access to the most sophisticated technology the world has ever seen and they bully you with it. They are The Advertisers and they are laughing at you.

You, however, are forbidden to touch them. Trademarks, intellectual property rights and copyright law mean advertisers can say what they like wherever they like with total impunity.

Fuck that. Any advert in a public space that gives you no choice whether you see it or not is yours. It’s yours to take, re-arrange and re-use. You can do whatever you like with it. Asking for permission is like asking to keep a rock someone just threw at your head.

You owe the companies nothing. Less than nothing, you especially don’t owe them any courtesy. They owe you. They have re-arranged the world to put themselves in front of you. They never asked for your permission, don’t even start asking for theirs.

-Banksy

to carl solomon

2010-11-03T21:15:00.000-07:00

angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly
connection to the starry dynamo in the
machinery of night

and finding this

she'll bring out the best and the worst you can be

2010-11-01T19:17:00.000-07:00

the unutterable hopes

2010-10-31T17:00:00.000-07:00

We who live in times which, though not dull, are sad coloured, can scarcely imagine the glory of that awakening, the stream of new thoughts that transfigured life, the passionate emotion, the love and hatred, the horror and the rapture, the visionary glories, the unutterable hopes, the sense of deliverance, the new heaven and the new earth, brimfull of promises which dawned on men.
Wordsworth

eatart dance party

2010-10-31T16:38:00.000-07:00

I have some wickedly talented friends. This was done by Peter with the eatART crew.

2010-10-18T22:35:00.000-07:00

stephen fry on the joy of words

2010-10-17T17:38:00.000-07:00

cosmopolitan us

2010-10-09T16:07:00.000-07:00

Sitting in Cafe Amici, I read in Spanish and listen to grandfathers chat in Italian while a father and his little girl speak French to each other. The owner, a woman from Newfoundland, brings me coffee from Morocco while Rihanna sings about love.

pensamientos de saudade

2010-10-05T23:40:00.000-07:00

He tells us to think of nostalgia, of longing - and bring that into our work.

Nostalgia... better, saudade. Something had but lost and gone forever.

Her soft eyes and the way she pursed her lips when she smiled. Brown hair that fell to the small of her back and collarbones I loved to kiss. The way her nose wrinkled when she laughed and the fullness of her lips. Her giddy imitation of a sea lion pup barking and way she cried when our puppy died. How she nuzzled into my neck after making love and her soft breath and the tickle of her hair on my chest as we napped in a hammock.

The gold of the river and its enticing white sand. The cheap plastic chairs and simple fish. The cold, sharp beer served in tiny glasses. The quiet acceptance of anonymity.

The sweaty haze of a late evening in a club, clothes wet and bodies warm, moving to outdated songs from abroad and laughing in the simple joy of the night.

Running my fingers through grass, the summer's warmth breathing on my back, warming my ears, making me want to sleep.

Lying on the rocks and reading forgettable books. Volcanoes looming over us and the cool lake below. Floating and marveling at the beauty and the peace life can offer.

Memories filtered through the warm filter of time. Imperfections washed out in these hazy, sweet tokens of nostalgia.

city of glass and syringes

2010-10-03T11:41:00.000-07:00

This is my bike. I bought it for $50 two years ago and it's taken me everywhere since. I replaced the front wheel and chain ring after a vicious accident soon after getting it, but since then it's been good to me.

I prefer it to a car because it lets me experience the act of moving. Driving and riding are different experiences. In a car, you control everything: the temperature, the music, the air. On a bike, you negotiate what the world throws at you with what you want. If it rains, you get wet; if it's cold, so are you; if you approach a hill, you force yourself up it; if you aren't assertive, cars will force you over to the side of a road until an oblivious motorist opens her door and ruins your day.

Riding also gives you a more intimate experience with the world. I know all the bumps, potholes and blind corners on the 15km stretch between my home and work. When I ride for pleasure I don't have to stick to main streets; I pull off into alleyways and double-back to get a closer look at something strange. My bike lets me do that.

I've been reading Demers' Vancouver Special, a book about growing up and living in Vancouver. A book about our history and culture. A book about what made us who we are and how we inhabit this city today. It's a mix of charming anectodes, stories from our past, acerbic commentaries on our neighbourhoods and a disturbing warning of what our future may hold if we keep this up.

Demers came to the first meeting of the Vancouver Book Club yesterday as we talked about our city and its treatment in his book. He raised an issue that's talked-to-death in Vancouver: poverty and development, but he framed it in a new light. The idea that Vancouver has an old and deep history, Demers said, is something many people try to deny. Real estate developers, especially, promote the idea that Vancouver is a sort of tabula rasa, a blank slate onto which they can foist their own idea of Vancouver, and that justifies the gentrification of land and expulsion of the poor.

In Vancouver Special, Demers talks about how many consider the Downtown Eastside to be the greatest threat to Vancouver, which is insane because it's filled with powerless people desperately holding onto the last place in this city where they might fit in. What do we really want there? Another soulless Yaletown where cookie-cutter bland girls decked out in lululemon and shitty little dogs push SUV-sized strollers around while yapping into their iPhones?

These dogs are making more of a connection than their owners.

That isn't to say that Vancouver doesn't have a lot going for it, just that we need to be careful not to buy into this bullshit self-righteousness and hatred of the poor that is becoming increasingly common as people get tired of seeing the mentally ill on the sidewalks and junkies in the alleys. As if we're the ones suffering.

So what can a Vancouverite with a soul do? Go enjoy your city. Yes, enjoy the seawalls and mountains, but also recognize that there's a sea of culture further into the city that is just as worthy of your time. Get involved with productions like Vancouver is Awesome. Get outraged at the lack of healthcare and housing available for our mentally ill and drug-addicted and fight it. Contact your MLA. Volunteer at the Carnegie Community Centre or write a cheque to the Pivot Legal Society. And the next time you hear some Ed Hardy-wearing douchebag or vapid blonde sports-mom bitch about the most oppressed people in our society, point them to the suburbs and urge them to get the fuck out of our city.

alicia tobin on vancouver

2010-09-30T14:33:00.000-07:00

I love Vancouver: the mountains, the ocean, the daily debilitating fear of an earthquake swallowing us whole. And I don't have any serious complaints - however, I think women in Vancouver should try to embrace individual style a bit more, because when the big one hits, and it will any day now, it's going to be very difficult finding our loved ones if everyone is still wearing lululemon track suits. There will just be piles of bodies on the side of the road stacked like firewood, black tracksuits, ugg boots, and over-processed blonde hair, and as the days wear on, you are just going to have to pick one and bury it.
Alicia Tobin

in the city / in the forest

2010-09-27T16:26:00.000-07:00

Phoenix at the PNE Forum

Phoenix at the PNE Forum

Phoenix at the PNE Forum

Neon Indian at the PNE Forum

Bubble-catching

Summer isn't gone till we believe it

A note posted in a store window on Commercial

Pacifika at W2

Pacifika at W2

Phoenix at the PNE Forum

Neon Indian at the PNE Forum

Pacifika at W2

los pensamientos nadan tranquilamente en mi mente

2010-09-21T19:47:00.000-07:00

Class is in and my my mind is flooded with español. Besides my daily classes, Spanish is in my movies and my music. When I have a few minutes to spare, I scroll through flashcards and whisper words to myself... presagios, hijastro, desagosiego, me castañeteaban los dientes - words I never knew.

I remember how I felt when I realized one hot Mexican afternoon, as I lay in our courtyard, that I'd started thinking in Spanish. That was three years ago and the beginning of this odyssey which has taken me there and back again, through experiences I never could have imagined, and started a life of which I hadn't dreamed. My thoughts are increasingly in Spanish - I catch myself thinking a thing as I step out of the shower and realize that it wasn't in English and I wonder why it was that way. I don't mind. Next come the dreams.

vida

2010-09-02T21:02:00.000-07:00

Silencio antes de nacer, silencio después de la muerte, la vida es puro ruido entre dos insondables silencios.

Silence before being born, silence after death: life is nothing but noise between two unfathomable silences.

Allende

paula

2010-08-31T13:42:00.000-07:00

It's true, love has unexpected resources. In the brief moments you can be together, Ernesto hugs and kisses you, in spite of the array of tubes. "Wake up, Paula, I'm waiting for you; I miss you, I need to hear your voice; I am so filled with love for you I am going to burst. Please come back," he begs you. I picture him at night when he goes back to his empty house and lies next to the hollow left by your shoulder and hips. He must imagine you besides him, with your fresh smile, recall how your skin felt as he caressed you, the harmony of your silences, the lovers' secrets whispered in the night. He remembers the times you danced till you were drunk with the music, so attuned to each other's steps that you seemed a single being. He sees you moving like a reed, your long hair wrapping you both in the rhythm of the music, your slim arms around his neck, your lips on his ear. He misses your jokes, your laughter, your ridiculous tears at the movies and your serious tears when you empathized with somebody's suffering. He wakes, soaked with sweat. He sits on the side of the bed in the darkness and tries to pray, to concentrate on his breathing and the sensations of his body, seeking peace. Perhaps he goes out to the balcony to gaze at the stars in the Madrid sky, and repeats to himself that he cannot lose hope, he must be patient, everything will be all right, soon you will be with him again. He feels the blood beating at his temples, his veins throbbing, the fire in his chest, he is choking, and he pulls on his sweatpants and goes for a run through the empty streets, but nothing helps to calm the agitation of frustrated desire.
Allende - Paula

I'm not one for tearjerkers, but Paula has joined Les Misérables and Norweigan Wood as one of the saddest books I've ever read.

did you ever wade in a brook before breakfast?

2010-08-28T14:20:00.000-07:00

What a group of people we were, I thought. Why, you could cause us the greatest humiliation simply by confronting us with something we liked. To hell with being ashamed of what you liked.

Oh, doctor, I thought drowsily, did you ever wade in a brook before breakfast? Ever chew on sugar cane? You know, doc, the same fall day I first saw the hounds chasing black men in stripes and chains my grandmother sat with me and sang with twinkling eyes...
Ralph Ellison - Invisible Man

san francisco

2010-08-22T13:09:00.000-07:00

The more I travel, the more experiences blend together. Getting onto the airport shuttle in Oakland déjà vu hit me and I was back in Korea getting onto a strange bus in a strange city. I shook my head, smiled at the feeling, and started looking at the bleak landscape.

My hostel was as basic as they come: bleary-eyed clerks who knew nothing about the city, lukewarm taps, and a room full of Korean students who never went outside. Didn't matter. I wasn't there for the accommodation.

I spent my first day wandering through the Latino districts and Haight street. My goal for to eat some good mexican food, party to great music, and make friends with some locals. The simple things. No Alcatraz or Golden Gate Bridge, thanks. Point me to the best pub with the prettiest girls.

It was good to be south, to feel the Latino influence, to hear Spanish in the streets... to use it. It's no LA, but at least I was able to find some decent huevos mexicanos. I wandered into an anarchist bookstore and found an ancient copy of Invisible Man. I tasted different microbrews and made friends with someone who introduced me to Radio Valencia, the Castro's pirate radio station. I set out for Oysters and beer on Russian Hill and ended up on a rooftop listening to a beautiful girl sing deep into the cold night, the rest of us sitting in appreciation and cheering her on with the moon lighting our show. I found my unsteady way to a blue-eyed Persian taxi driver who took me out for tikka massala and to whom I wished a ramadan mubarrak before staggering off into the night, glassy-eyed and filled with good food.

There were colourful pipes

and apartments.

Murals bright

and shops filled with colour.

Not to mention palm trees shading escalators.

The shows were the reason for the trip, and they didn't disappoint. Gogol Bordello was as insane as I'd imagined, My Morning Jacket was some classic rock, and my first evening ended with The Strokes raising the energy to a frenzy, the crowd crashing back and forth in thrill and a desire to sincerely rock out. The next day I was introduced to Temper Trap, and have since listened to their album at least 20 times. Janelle Monae was late and put on a short set, but what she did give us was full of drama and force and I wouldn't hesitate to see her again. I joined the hordes to watch Nas & Damien Marley from a distance, to see the flag wave and the crowd pulse, clouds of pot rising and hands pumping. I had to rush to the other side of the park to weave my way through thousands of people and get up close for Phoenix, so as Al Green crooned his classics and played the badass I stepped around people and edged my way as close as I could get to the stage. By the time Phoenix took the stage I was around the tenth row and close enough to get caught up in the familiar music I've listened to endlessly this year. Phoenix finished and I left happy, turning my back on the Kings of Leon and wandering out of the park, knees sore from adventures but thrilled with the show.

When in Rome

Damien Marley and Nas

Phoenix

Phoenix

Phoenix

Janelle Monae

My Morning Jacket

I spent my last day wandering the city with Kenya, a new friend from Calgary. We raided vintage shops and bookstores, bought sandwiches and wine and picnicked in the park as locals threw baseballs and strummed guitars. Our wanderings took us through Chinatown (overrated and tacky), to the waterfront, and into Russian Hill. The evening was so cold we had to pull into a cafe for a few games of chess while we warmed up. The night led us over Nob Hill and into Little Italy, where we shared a bottle of wine and chatted with Elvis, a street performer who sang some scratchy Jason Mraz and Leonard Cohen for us. The wine drunk, scallops eaten, music enjoyed, we said goodbye with a hug and I went back to my hostel, all goals for the brief trip realized and a fresh energy to bring back to Vancouver.

Looking down Nob Hill

Chinatown

Kenya

Oh, and I went to the Aquarium

There were eels

and pig-noses turtles.

I fell in love with a cow fish,

though I was amazed by these little guys.

Some of the other fish were pretty

they were blue and beautiful,

or just attentive

but at least they weren't in the tank with the albino crocodile.

robinryan.ca

2010-08-09T08:18:00.001-07:00

A year after leaving the Galapagos, I've updated my portfolio with my more recent work. Check it out to see what's new.

living without dead time

2010-08-04T18:26:00.000-07:00

Also, my new favourite Vancouver photographer: Jordan Bower

gravity was our playmate

2010-07-25T16:00:00.000-07:00

Favourite leisure-time activities as a child:

Getting to the top of the swing's arc and letting go.
Jumping out of trees onto unsuspecting friends.
Jumping off the roof into snowbanks.
Jumping off rock walls into the river.
Sliding down hills on a block of ice.
Diving board.
Trampoline.

the power of the bellybutton

2010-07-18T13:49:00.000-07:00

I spent my evenings last week in a cooking class, learning to cook healthy BC cuisine. We made cedar-plank baked halibut, BBQ short ribs, hazelnut-crusted trout, pan-seared duck breast, stuffed rabbit legs wrapped in bacon, broiled tofu and Thai chicken. I trimmed fat, dug out blood vessels, ground nuts, melted fat, cut bones and sliced mushrooms. But the most important thing I learned this week came from a discussion on rolling dough.

Every pastry needs a bellybuton, Chef Eric told us. A stabilizing centre from which the rest of the dough spreads and is held together. Without the bellybutton the dough will tear and scatter, becoming useless. Every good pastry relies on that element.

I've been reading Peter Hessler's Country Driving, a book about exploring the Great Wall of China by car. Hessler begins the book by explaining the Standardized Chinese Driving Exam and gives examples of its questions:

#352. If another motorist stops you to ask directions, you should
a) not tell him
b) reply patiently and accurately
c) tell him the wrong way

Hessler's attention to the exam's details seems like a politician's warm-up joke until you read further into the book. Then you realize that the Driver's Exam is actually Country Driving's bellybutton. It's not a theme, nor a refrain. It's a bellybutton, and it's one strong enough to hold his book together. As he travels throughout China and explains the culture, he calls back to the manual for illustration. Without this bellybutton the book would be frail; with it it becomes unified and charmingly clever.

I was thinking about this bellybutton as I talked with somebody about passion. About drive. About the difference between shotguns and rifles (okay, I didn't use that). We talked about how a person can want nothing more than to change the world, but big ambitions need a little bellybutton from which they can grow.

I fell into teaching because it was a job, but it grew into a love. I might have gotten pleasure from teaching literature, but I found pride in teaching language. This is because language has the ability to change the world. I taught classes with students from Saudi Arabia, from Mexico, from South Korea. People who were never able to communicate before and only had generalized, often xenophobic, conceptions of each other. In class these students became friends, shared their cultures, exchanged ideas, fought over and reconciled differences, and left changed. Strangers are easy to hate, but not people you know.

I've seen this change in myself and I've seen it in others. As I learned Spanish and Portuguese I had that simple, transformative experience of developing relationships with people who before were only concepts, prejudices. That's why I'm going to continue in language education; not just for people who want to learn English, but for English-speakers who want to learn other languages and start to understand people. Who doesn't want to change the world? I'm just happy to have found my bellybutton.

i'm great things are great my job is great my health is great my love is great my life is great everything is great great great

2010-06-28T21:30:00.001-07:00

Just to say a word a thousand times is to make it lose all meaning

To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose:
a time to be born, and a time to die;
a time to hurt, and a time to heal;
a time to break down, and a time to rebuild;
a time to weep, and a time to laugh;
a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
a time to abandon yourself, and a time to turn away;
a time to be a winner, and a time to be a loser;
a time to hold on, and a time to let go;
a time to keep silent, and a time to speak;
a time to love, and a time to hate;
a time of war, and a time of peace.

The man whom desires enter
as rivers flow into the sea,
filled yet always unmoving -
that man finds perfect peace.
Abandoning all desires,
acting without craving, free
from all thoughts of "I" and "mine,"
that man finds utter peace.
That is the divine state.
Absorbed in it, everywhere, always,
even at the moment of death,
he vanishes, into God's bliss.

One of our culture's disservices is in the insistence that there was an Eden to which we can return. This is promised by the major religions: Christians and Muslims go to Paradise, Buddhists find Nirvana, Hindus unite with samsara, and Jews... okay, nobody really knows what happens to them.

Secularists flock to new age ideas that reinforce the same ontological deceit, so much so that people are even writing books about it. Raw diets, yoga, meditation retreats, etc.

The fact is, we've all been taught there's a better way to be, and none of us are being it. On one hand, it's a motivator for self-improvement and social growth. However, after years of the mantra people eventually question if they'll ever reach Eden and reality becomes a bitter cup to drink.

Then it's Eden by shortcut, getting high on drugs or love or career success or religious ardor or distraction.

Starting here, what do you want to remember?
How sunlight creeps along a shining floor?

If only we'd teach our children Ecclesiastes and stop there.

vancouver colours

2010-06-27T16:32:00.000-07:00

car free day on the drive

2010-06-20T19:05:00.000-07:00

moroccan state of mind

2010-06-19T18:30:00.000-07:00

Well done, Mary.

dear vancouver (my city)

2010-06-17T06:49:00.000-07:00

monolingualism can be cured

2010-06-07T08:49:00.001-07:00

I love this website. It takes me back.

rain and music

2010-06-04T08:17:00.000-07:00

Mumford and Sons in Yaletown

Holy Ghost! at the Malkin Bowl

LCD Soundsystem at the Malkin Bowl

LCD Soundsystem at the Malkin Bowl

Mumford & Sons

Highlight of the night, when the Middle East burst onto stage to rock out with Mumford & Sons

LCD Soundsystem playing the frenetic Yeah song

feelings without consequences

2010-06-02T14:55:00.000-07:00

Art is great that way, because it creates an environment where you can explore feelings without dealing with the consequences. You can live in this stuff and then move on, returning only when you need it.

Mark Richardson - Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet