A New Day

The crown brings peace after a time of family strife. She has come to soothe my sorrow. Stop my grief.

These are three variations on the meaning of my daughter's name. I am not a student of Yoruba culture from which the name originates so I can't vouch for the exactness of these meanings. They seem to weave an extra-large sized mantle for the tiny being that is my Queen Peace.

I have a feeling that the meanings, however ironic, will resonate in time. At the moment, things are not going great. The hyper-time of simultaneous new romance and new parenthood is over. I have moved. I don't see QP everyday anymore.

I like my funky new place, though I feel a bit rootless again; left behind, missing QP and worried about the future; trying to focus on the present and the ways I can be helpful. Trying to focus on love.

QP, on the other hand, is thriving and jiving at fifteen months, learning bravery and patience after staying nine days in hospital in the winter, and still having to go back regularly for testing. She teaches me the lesson in just getting on with it.

No family travels far without facing challenges of all kinds. When you start a family, you are of course in fact continuing a family (or two), usually interacting with existing legacies. And of course when a family splits, it takes on a new form, but it's still always a family.

Nothing can change being a parent. What may feel like a loss for me right now will hopefully never feel anything but normal for Queen Peace (Bruce Cockburn's caution about "the trouble with normal" notwithstanding).

Oddly, during the moment when I learned things had changed for our family, these lyrics were coming from the stereo:

Prayers they hide the saddest view
(Believing the strangest things, loving the alien)
And your prayers they break the sky in two
You pray 'til the break of dawn
And you'll believe you're loving the alien

From "Loving The Alien", David Bowie, 1984

I was once asked rather provocatively whether I would be the kind of father who would speak up and fight for my daughter when she needed me to, specifically against discrimination. The obvious, bravado-based answer aside, I wonder who exactly will be on the other side of the fight.

We face so many struggles outside ourselves in this world; come up against externalities of society -- racism, sexism, heteronormativism, classism, materialism, spiritual dogma, political oppression -- that ultimately give rise to inner, and far more damaging, emotional conflicts. I can't protect QP from those external forces once she is old enough to perceive them (let's see, I was five when I first remember being called the n-word). I can show her that xenophobia and hatred is first fought within.

There's that famous Eleanor Roosevelt quote: "No one can make you feel inferior without your consent." Granted, we live in times of manufactured consent. No one has a stronger or purer heart than a child. She needs to feel safe in using it and wise in protecting it herself when needed. But first as parents, we have to be there. And we will be, little one.

This Atom's Pure Au

Yesterday, the extended family and I arrived en masse (10) to see Invisible Atom, my second viewing after its Toronto premiere at Summerworks 2006. Our ages ranged from nine to seventysomething, but everyone came away inspired by Atom’s storytelling, characters, wit and magic, and not the least confused by the dense hunk of information-heavy text that writer/actor Anthony Black has to deliver.

Deliver is not even a possible verb; I have to rely on a musical metaphor – Black conducts a highly contrapuntal and boldly orchestrated narrative, and he does it very well. He takes plenty of risks with tricky but effective accents; and a range of emotional states including paranoia that could easily have, but did not, turn shrill. One gets the sense shrill is not even in Black’s own nature.

There are rare moments of the S & F words, tame by comparison to today's mainstream media standards. And lots of “bastard” to humorous effect, though I’m not sure that was ever a swear word. Here it’s key to the story. So, it’s safe material for the kids, and importantly it's also comprehensible to them, even with its references to physics. If anything, it’s the post-education audience who might struggle with those references.

It’s unwise to try to single out one subject matter and theme for the work. The story is linear and multilayered, with a deceptive framing device. A junior-level stockbroker reflects on the insanity of sustainable economic growth and the fragile illusion of his own material success; swoons over his new baby while peering into the darkness of his own past; and becomes caught up literally in the meta- and quantum physics of an irreversible moment. Taken in only two of potentially many ways: it is one small breakdown for a man; one giant breakdown for humanity.

I identified in particular with the poignancy of becoming a parent who doesn’t know his own biological parents; and with the pervasiveness of our planet-killing guilt.

There are broad touches and microscopically fine touches that give the play great depth, a credit both to Black’s strengths as a performer and director Ann-Marie Kerr’s vision of a theatre that is physical and imagistic in equal measures. Leigh Ann Vardy’s lighting design immediately lays the foundation for the stage illusions Atom successfully creates. Stage manager/sound designer Christian Barry wove together all the remaining technical seams to the point of well, seamlessness.

Both The Globe & Mail and NOW gave Atom great reviews, well deserved. The show is still on at Theatre Pass Muraille Backspace (16 Ryerson, one block northeast of Queen/Bathurst) until Sunday, March 30th. See it!

Fear of a Blacker Blackboard

I had meant to weigh in on the issue of an Africentric school in Toronto earlier: I support the idea; I support the effort. I can think of no better illustration of what leads me to supporting it than this sorry-ass excuse for a political cartoon that ran in The Globe and Mail on Monday, February 18. It has touched off angry reactions which I have no doubt will grow and consolidate with the general concern in the communities of those who are truly aware of the issues.

This cartoon represents the true face of racism in Canada against people of African descent. One hears talk of systemic, underlying, subtle racism in our country versus, say, the U.S. Yes, it is systemic, it is underlying – it is anything but subtle.

No small irony that this little bit of Jim Crow provocation invokes a figure of speech associated with hip hop. In the past three decades since the explosion of that musical genre and culture, we’ve seen the reinforcement of a top-five stereotype – that black people have good rhythm. That is, we’re all about the hip hop. Great way to dismiss everyone who has been working towards improving the quality of education for kids who don’t benefit from white socioeconomic privilege.

Moreover, the cartoon invokes that all-time classic stereotype: that we are stupid. Whatever the cartoonist had intended to suggest – that math cannot be taught in an Africentric context (then let’s discuss the systematic economic oppression of African countries and African descendents by the West, lots of solid math here); that any Africentric curriculum would be lacking in breadth beyond urban culture (uggh); that Africentric teaching professionals will automatically resort to speaking in west-side clichés, i.e. to extend the metaphor, speaking like a gang member or celebrity thug – our cartoonist has only succeeded in updating that main stereotype.

How easily this image without caption could just as easily be of any teacher of colour working in the system right now.

I’m not surprised the Globe would run it. If there’s one place old-boy Canada lives, it’s at that newspaper’s headquarters. Not surprised either by The Toronto Star’s onslaught of negative coverage – much of it inappropriate or just plain irrelevant – of the Africentric education issue here and in the U.S (Star: please don’t even try to use the U.S. as an example of what is wrong before you look at what is really going on at home.) Both papers are fierce defenders of white, middle-class hegemony (culturally oppressive mainstream); the Globe tending to defend the wealthier, ruling class.

When one gets past the African American pejorative, as the word “dog” functions here as opposed to its original street, now Hollywood, context, there’s another, tragic and time-honoured stereotype in operation here: that of the singular “country” of Africa and the accompanying singular “culture” of Africa. An Africentric focus on learning aims to dismantle that most insidious of notions – that “black” is a race – and to acknowledge and celebrate the many, many nations and cultures of Africa and its diaspora. It is a chance for children who are viewed as “others” in their own city to feel confident, secure and encouraged about who they are in their critical years of learning; to experience an interaction with Canadian society that befits their own heritage within it – above the arrogant, frat-boy glare of this kind of humour.

It almost doesn’t need to be said that this cartoon supports the case for an Africentric school in Toronto (maybe that was the cartoonist’s true aim) – almost.

This cartoon demonstrates the need for a much better understanding of constructions of race across the board, something that is not being done in the public system. It burns with the vitriol that results from the suggestion that white Eurocentric culture should be anything other than dominant in the minds of all young people in Canada.

Most frustratingly, this cartoon is insensitive to the real, critical issue behind the creation of an Africentric curriculum: the staggering rates of dropout and poor performance among students of African descent in Toronto.

And these students know about those rates; it’s been documented. They know why the rates exist and why chances are they’ll fall victim to them: because they are viewed by their race(s), which are viewed in a colonialist way. In other words, our national idea of Canada currently does not yet general include black folks. That is, unless they’ve got game or rhymes. Respect to those lights whose work and lives have transcended any real or perceived limitations: the late Oscar Peterson, our Governor General and many others.

It's not resegregation, people: we need to expand the sphere of learning to be inclusive of all cultures, especially the marginalized. We need to get rid of the idea of margins. Current education systems are letting our young people fall into the chasm between the imaginary Canada (see Wilden: 1980) and the real one.

That makes me a bit sad about the Canada I grew up in and am living in now, and resolved not to let it be my daughter’s Canada.

No Film for Old Men

Just saw the Coen brothers’ much-lauded No Country for Old Men, which is considered like, the best picture ever, this year.

I don’t see many mainstream films, partly due to time constraints as a new parent, partly due to my increasing disinclination to. I made it a point however, to catch P.T. Anderson’s There Will Be Blood and the Coens’ new film, because I admire the previous work of those creators, and the two pieces seemed on spec to make a good pairing. (My repertoire as a film fan is increasingly catalogue oriented, likely consistent with my age/ing demographic. With Anderson, I’m more with Boogie Nights than Magnolia, and with the Coens more Blood Simple and Miller’s Crossing than Fargo or O Brother, Where Art Thou?) I watched both films without reading reviews of any length beforehand.

Anyway, while I came away from Blood feeling a little darker in mood after watching Daniel Day-Lewis’ crazed pioneer oilman, I walked out of No Country with the sensation there was an eclipse in progress. (And there is – for the moon – tonight!!)

What the latter film offers is very finely crafted, edge-of-seat crime action from start to finish, with beautiful framing, expertly choreographed sequences, wall-to-wall “artful violence” and merciful touches of the Coens’ sharp wit along the way, which only functions as the darkest of humour. On balance, we’re left with merely a hint of resolution or redemption in the form of a dream that is recalled, and some rather lame supporting roles for women. I’m told author Cormack McCarthy’s writing is about men killing men period… still, come on guys.

What is interesting is that even with the period cars and costumes, I still didn’t twig to the period setting of the film, possibly because it treats the American southwest like a place out of a dark myth, a place with a revered past but little promise of future. As with Blood, we have the metaphor of twisted American roots, even extended to the form of the work, the crime/western epic itself.

No Country seems to comment towards the audience and our insatiable hunger for crime violence, with the character of Tommy Lee Jones’ disillusioned sheriff, who has tired of seeing all the gristle and who remembers when lawmen didn’t carry guns.

Speaking of cartilage, in the way Day-Lewis ruled the screen with a terrifying performance in Blood but times five, Javier Bardem’s psychopath with a kill-or-spare coin and a reconstructed nose dominates No Country with a spooky, menacing presence – even though he’s only the “villain”.

Then there’s that spooky word. Bardem is quite visibly Latin (actually Spanish); it’s not exactly progressive casting for a killer. And Jones is great to watch, but he and and all the other old boy lawmakers don’t come across all that sympathetically though they’re all passive characters, perhaps intentionally on both counts.

But to my point: my heart was in my throat through most of this picture. The violence isn’t necessarily gratuitous, overly graphic nor exploitive, but it’s psychologically very intense. That is a credit to the Coens’ craft and also a caution for me.

Do I, who sports more a little crazing on the china cup of my psyche after decades of living and loving in this city, need any more of this kind of filmic experience? I’m not sure. Would I see it again? Probably, yup. I’m still talking about it to friends. But I find myself looking forward to the fluffy, noodly cartoon fare I will sit through with my little daughter in the years to come. I need to escape the escapism.

Weird Séance

I am working with a research team in a house similar to my grandmother’s from my childhood. Someone has come up with a device that can communicate with the dead (cf. when radio was invented), and we are trying to mass produce and market it.

At the moment, the invention takes the form of a nozzle that dispenses decorative, gaily coloured strings of syrup hardened like glue that sits on paper plates, in happy faces, hearts and flower shapes. If a specific dear departed one is meant to be contacted, their name can be spelled out instead on the plate, as if engraving a cake. The contact is not in real time however; in contrast to the pacing of new technologies, it’s slow as with telegrams.

On a lunch break – we work in the kitchen so in the same room on a sofa to one side – I encounter a creepy man, shaven but with dark stubble that covers his entire face and head including nose, with sunken, almost orbless eyes. He is sitting on another sofa near me, “staring” at something I have discovered and am holding between two fingers – a version of the séance device that works in real time. It is an orb itself, a tiny crystal ball about the size of a big marble. I can see my friends and family who have passed, and others who should not be dead – yet.

The man lurches towards where I am sitting, intending to grab the device. I scream, “I’m not crazy! Don’t look, don’t look!” I hear myself saying these words out loud very clearly in the waking world, and not surprisingly my partner tells me I was completely unintelligible.

John O'Keefe, 1966-2008

I met John in 1996, at a monthly art & performance party called the Love Salon, held in a loft in the soon-to-be-demolished 48 Abell Street building. When he was in attendance – which was often – he was the party. His support of all the creative people who passed through was unconditional. He was unique, outspoken, fiery but sweet, genuine and compassionate. And such a hoot to be around. Though I would see him around town as late as last fall, I never had the chance to enjoy his company like that again. John, it was great to know you for a time. Your memory remains strong in so many hearts and minds.

(Story.)

funk/in/mates

I am travelling north along Highway 17, destination Wawa. I am the sole passenger, in the backseat of a car (a small, blue, Yaris-like model) with no driver. It is on some kind of remote operator setting. I am on my cell to my colleagues from the office - all of us travelling around in cars - complaining that I can't I get forward to the front seat nor can I gain control of the car in any way. They sound as frustrated with me as I am with my situation.

I do not make it to Wawa. The car veers off course and I black out at that point. I awake in an institution - a hospital, dormitory, or summer camp for rich kids - I cannot tell. My room is small, with molded plastic early 80s decor. There a several sets of worn sneakers, faded white with pastel stripes, on the floor. My shoes are missing so I put one of the pairs on... one with pink stripes.

I wander out into the hall, I meet some other residents of what turns out to be a treatment centre for young people with emotional issues. A small group, placed involuntarily by their caregivers, are planning to break out. We make it out, and one young impish, woman reminiscent of Blue Elf/Queen Peace takes a liking to me. We break away from our group, she wants to take me to a party. I like her hair, a very short, black bob.

We arrive at a large and hopping backyard party, where a twelve-piece funk band is in full rumbling swing. An old professor/employer of mine is taking tickets. Admission to the party is three vintage Parliament-Funkadelic concert ticket stubs. I look in my wallet; I only have one. It's an embarrassing moment.

the river

I remember the sight of thousand-foot oreboats crawling by on the river at night, their massive shadows obliterating the view of the American shoreline.

I remember the sight of thousand-foot oreboats crawling by on the river at night, a scrolling ribbon of ship lights a stock ticker skyline.

I remember the sight of thousand-foot oreboats crawling by on the river at night, and their guttural, descending two-note greeting to each other... OH AHH.

Monody

I am in southern Europe, probably Italy. I have won the job of composer and musical director for a Gregorian chant musical. It is also probably the early 90s, during the chant revival craze. I arrive at a mansion where the project was to be started. The whole thing had the feel of a reality show minus the cameras.

In one room, aspiring fashion model kids are being given singing and acting training, which is not going well. I am not sure what roles they are to be given in a chant musical. I may be old school about it, but I am imagining more plague-stricken or religiose types.

I arrive at what is supposed to be my office. I see my name on the door, spelled through a phonetic mangling: Roos Roiyos. Kind of medieval though... I guess. I enter to find it is a kind of dorm room with several beds, some of them bunks (monks' bunks?). I will be sharing with production and sound design people (because we need to amplify and light the hell out of that plainsong). They ask how I ended up with the project, and I wonder the same thing.

--

James Brown has died. But in this universe, the latter part of his life and career were more dedicated to political and social causes. He is regarded almost as highly as King in this way. I am on a farm in the heartland of nowhere. It is permanently overcast twilight, though not necessarily in the north.

The farm appears to be almost a militiaist base. One of its occupants, who I have befriended and whom has been an extremely devoted fan of Brown, takes the news very badly. He uses some kind of industrial sprayer to fill an abandoned stable with a gasoline-like vapour. It is so volatile that it explodes but with a force that is near atomic. I have by this time run for the hills to avoid the explosion. I feel despondent, as the earth sways slightly underneath me.

Inertia

Oh, you may want to know how I broke a bone. I was cycling in the Don Valley at the end of the Civic Holiday Monday, and was caught between the city's blockages of our sacred bike paths for non-cycling related construction and the sudden appearance of an oblivious sightseer. Too tight on the brakes, chain derailled and over the handlebars I went -- done it many times before but not while trying to avoid hoarding, pedestrians, other cyclists, sharps rocks and a toxic river.

I caught my weight almost entirely with my left hand (I am left-handed), arm outstretched, wrist extended to near ninety degrees -- the range at which you will either break your radial head (forearm at elbow) or scaphoid (wrist). At first, they thought I had broken both, though the arm healed up too quickly to be a break. The wrist didn't fare as well, but it's improving.

At the time of the accident, I thought nothing of fixing my bike, climbing out of the valley and riding back downtown to the hospital all with a wounded wing (it was pretty numb until after I had spent four hours in the waiting room). Now I stare at my bike longingly, knowing I must restrain myself for a while. And getting behind motorized wheels in a cast is an insurance no-no. Pity, just in time for my driving exam.