sold the fridge,
sold the Washer,
but the oven doesn't work.

so I'll leave it to the alley
and the scavengers

made arrangements
changed my address
with the post office

they'll take care of things
like wings keep a bird afloat
on a summer breeze.

said goodbye
once or twice
just for practice, it doesn't hurt

I see the light
at the end
of a trail where roses grow

found an atlas
under my bed
turned to ontario.

Are You One of the Few?

With a little extra time you can learn alot about this world

Strange Tradition

Searching through America's past for the last 25 years, collector James Allen uncovered an extraordinary visual legacy: photographs and postcards taken as souvenirs at lynchings throughout America.
(contains graphic content)

Chinese in Canada

One of the projects I'm working on right now involves putting together a history of Chinese Canadian experience in Alberta. It's been very enlightening. Most of the Chinese who came to Canada in the late 1800's were landless peasants from Guandong province. They majority came as indentured servants working to payback the money they owed for the trip over. The plan was to make enough money in Canada to be able to go home buy land and start a family but many stayed on.
The Chinese population in Canada was almost exclusively male and they lived apart from the rest of society. By 1923 a number of factors resulted in the passing of the Exclusion Act which effectively ended Chinese immigration to Canada. Between 1923 until the act was repealed in 1947 only 8 Chinses immigrants entered the country.
It was during WWII when Japan invaded Manchuria that the rest of Canadian society began to "humanize" the Chinese in Canada. This along with the first generations who were canadian born and who were assimilated to the language, religion and customs of mainstream Canada resulted in an intolerance for legal discrimination. In 1947 Chinese Canadians were granted all the rights and responsibilities of full citizenship.

Essex Mountain Sanitorium

Here you will find an interesting compendium of local folklore concerning the Essex County Sanitorium .

The Jelly Fish Stings Even Angels With Wings Who Stare to Deep

New photos

Al Gores Bush

The Bush presidency is marked by an "utter contempt for the rule of law". This is Al Gore's view, not mine, on the matter of how Bush has disgraced the office of president and his nation. Okay it is actually fairly close to my view. A taste:

"The abhorrent acts in the prison were a direct consequence of the culture of impunity encouraged, authorized and instituted by Bush and Rumsfeld in their statements that the Geneva Conventions did not apply. The apparent war crimes that took place were the logical, inevitable outcome of policies and statements from the administration. "

Build What You Know

Bush stated this evening that the USA will build... A) a university, B) a state of the art hospital C) a modern maximum security prison, in Iraq.
If you guessed A) your naive, if you guessed B) your a dreamer, if you guessed C) youve been paying attention. Yes a shiny new American standard prison where the latest in humiliation, degradation and torture can be put into practice in a sanitary and efficient environment.
It all makes sense really given Bush's long standing love for imprisoning bad guys.

Also those pesky digital camera cellphones have been banned "in United States Army installations in Iraq on orders from Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld".because we all know that none of those prison shenanigans would have went on if there weren't cameras to play up to. After all those prison guards are all hams right? Or is that pigs?.
My question is if Rumsfeld can ban the use of these devices on an order why can't he just tell people to stop molesting the prisoners and pointing at their genitals? Maybe because it was his idea in the first place?

more Newport

I put up the rest of the Newport pages

Day Trip to Newport

Newport the next chapter of Boston . 13-17 2004.

Nick Berg's Father Speaks

Micheal Berg the father of the murdered American civilian speaks about his son's death and the Iraq War in an article
published in the Guardian.

Of Sleep and Waking

It's been an involved month for sleep. It was only this past weekend with my trip to Boston that I managed to get back in a good sleep cycle. I've always been an expert sleeper but from late March to early may I was just not waking up rested. As an experiment I went to slep at 10:00 pm last night. I woke up naturally at 4:30 with the dawn today feeling not a bit tired. In fact I feel years younger fresh and energized. I'll try again tonight and see if I can repeat this experiment.

The world of dreams and actual life have been overlapping in some unusual ways as well. Last month I was dreaming and a friend appeared to me interupting the dream. She was crying and she told me some very sad news. One week later I found out that what she had told me actually happened about the time she appeared in the dream. The weirdest part of this is that when I woke up after that dream. I "knew" that what she had said was true. It felt different. The knowledge resided in me in a way that is different than a passing thought.

Last night I was going to get some groceries when I passed a young woman. She looked me straight in the eye and smiled broadly the way someone you haven't seen in a long time does. For a moment I thought I knew her but I couldn't place the face. Then a bolt of recognition shot through me as I realized that I had seen her a few days earlier. She was the woman in a dream I had Sunday night. who came to me asking for help. It left me with this eerie feeling. Things like this have never happened before to me.

Beozar

Part One: Boston Trip

Wandering the next chapter of Boston . 13-17 2004.

A Little Abuse Never Hurt Anyone.

Someone has a lot of rose in his palette. William Safire downplays the malevolence of the American presence in Iraq and asks Americans not to be so hard on themselves. There is no systematic program of torture. Ouch. I was forced to say that.

Commencement

When I started this documentation of my trip last weekend to Boston it was going to be a simple photo gallery but I soon saw that a narrative ran through the images here. "Boston . 13-17 2004" is a tribute to friendship. In specific to my treasured friendship with my buddy Sophie, but more globally to what friendship means.

The past month has been a difficult one for various reasons and the importance of friends has not been lost on me. Sophie left Montreal in February and I am preparing to leave in a few weeks. I haven't seen her since the move though we have been in touch. There were things I learned about our friendship this weekend, that it is not dependent on proximity, that the more one gives the more one receives, that it's a haven in a stormy world. This may all sound trite and perhaps I believed these things already, but it is different to believe something than to live it.
So this is a special thank you to Sophie, mon petit soleil, for always being there and for sharing her generous heart.

Commencement is the first installment. It will be updated in days to come.

Collapse of the Coup Clucks Clan?

Can the Bush neolithic devolution really be about to arrive at the final stage of uni-cellular organism, just before it vanishes into the void which seems to have been it's aim all along? Check out this UPI article and Jack's reference to the USA Today editorial

Boston Trip

I'm actually preparing a mini-website about my Boston trip that has turned into a paean to friendship. Stay tuned. Plus I'm a busy boy so I'll get blogging later.

Congratulations to Kirk & Lisa

Little baby, Ella Grace, joined our crazy world this past Wednesday evening. All is well! She is the first child of Kirk Thomson & Lisa Atkinson of Toronto. Cheers to the family.

Pink UFO

This globe and mail story about some UFOS recorded by the Mexican Air Force last March reminded me of the weird pink thing I saw in the sky on Sunday. I was lying in the grass and when I looked up I saw what I first took to be a ballon. But it moved in a perfectly straight line and there was something in front of it perhaps a small plane. It was so high up it was a speck except for the pink thing which was about three times as large. Who knows that's why they call them Unidentified Flying Objects.

Virtual Groceries

I had an interesting experience this evening. I called Sophie in Boston, and I jokingly said I'm in Boston. I felt so bad as she was so excited and then disappointed since I'm still actually in Montreal. It was nice to see my visit is so welcomed though. She was in the grocery store so we did the shopping together she would tell me where she was what was available. I'd act as if I really was there and say things like. "Ask that woman over there" which she would.
Anyway when I get there to a city I've never been to before my grapefruit will be waiting for me in a kitchen I've never see. Funny world. And then there's these projects with K-ob who is in SF (by times NYC) so I'm interacting with these disembodied people in these complex ways. And to think I grew up pre-home computer world (unless you count the atari).

Gizmo

Wanted: Pro-Bush letters

It sees that the Post-Crescent paper of Wisconson isn't getting enough letters from readers supporting Bush. So they ask readers to write some for them.

Edith and Her Beast

Next Door

Idiot Wind

Conservative Canada Speaks Up.

Musing on Music

When I was in my pre to early teens I would listen to certain lps and songs over and over through the day. When I got older my tastes broadened and I accumulated musical pleasure wherever I could find it. I now have recordings I haven't listened to in years but would never part with because someday I might crave a certain sound. recently however I've rediscovered the pleasures of repetition and there are a few songs and lps that I've been listening to over and over just like in my teens. Brian Eno's Another Green World, Steely Dan's Almost Gothic, Belle and Sebastian's Boy with the Arab strap and various songs from Sleepless in Montreal, and the Dream discs. That Duran Duran song on Gnat's disc for instance or that JLH soong even. What's with that?
So it's a strange thing having tens of thousands of songs not including file sharing possibilities, at arms length and listening to the same song maybe 5 or more times in a day. Although I guess that is how top 40 radio works. That being said I just slapped on Led Zepplin 2 original vinyl which has amazing sound qualities, for the first time in 12 years. So what am i saying. Excuse me I must go. I've been invited downstairs for a game of RISK it seems.

Musing On the Sea

So it's confirmed I'm going to see the beloved Sophie in Boston Thursday. I've never been. I'm looking forward to seeing the sea. we will probably drive somewhere along the coast for Saturday. I miss the ocean. I haven't seen it in years although Lake Huron certainly feels like the ocean. Lake Huron: I love it. You can't imagine how great it was to live beside that fearsome body of water at the neck of a ragged pine spawning peninsula. For lack of abetter term it's a land filled with spirits. I can realy feel that when I think of what it's like there. By spirits I'm not sure what I mean. Something like forces of nature but with personality and that undefined feeling that slips just beneath your skin and you only know about if you've felt it.

The Great Uniter Strikes Again

First he united Iraqis now the political spectrum of Europe has come together in this Summer of Loathe. It seems that whether your a pinko or neo-fascist's best friend everyone can agree a Bush in the Whitehouse is worth worrying about. Read all about it in the New York Times:

"It's quite understandable that he wouldn't be popular with the bulk of the center-left European intelligentsia, but he's not very popular with the conservatives or moderates either." says a former Italian ambassador to NATO and the Soviet Union. "The thing that Europeans cannot understand is how you can vote for a liar," said Peter Schneider, a German essayist and novelist.

Now before you start lecturing about European history which is bloody horrific, remember they did get rid of their dictators with a big helping hand from "Old America". So why would they want to encourage the New Empire Lite.

Didn't you hear? "The Time of Empires has Passed"

One Concerning "frat hazing"
Two Concerning "systematic degrading treatment"
Three Concerning "sadistic pleasure".
Four Concerning "fat profits for fat cats and mad dogs".

Maybe You're Talking to the Wrong God GW?

How many more mistakes are left to make before Bush really turns America from super power to superpariah. He's lied to the UN. He's snubbed world opinion and invaded a sovereign nation. He's deceived the American public, attacked constitutional rights, created prison camps where individuals all but vanish, he's involved with all sorts of skulduggery over Enron and Haliburton. He tries to hide from the public every meaningful bit of information about his administration behind a cloak of feel good platitudes. He apologizes only because it serves a public relations function and now he's standing by secretary of defense, Donald Rumsfeld while the world looks on in disbelief.

He needs to take this bleak moment as an opportunity to shift American involvement into the hands of the UN or some such multi-lateral coalition who have at least some credibility in the Middle East. Not that the US ever had much but now it's beyond issues of credibilty as Bush stands beside the villians of history in the eyes of many. There is no way in which remaining in Iraq can be good for America or the world at this point.

E-mail Delays

Probably due to the sassar virus that is causing international havoc with the web, I am recieving e-mails up to 24 hrs after they have been sent, so if it seems like I'm not replying that's why. You can try this alternate e-mail address: design@jamesmac.ca in the meantime.

National Mythology

New York Times op-ed columnist Thoms L. Friedman writes in today's column "We are in danger of losing America as an instrument of moral authority and inspiration in the world". This is the mythology that American's have been taught since the days of the American Revolution. The truth is much more complex, but the fact is that in many parts of the world people have for a long time politely nodded their heads to America's face, while behind her back muttering amongst themselves how naive she is, or arrogant, or deluded. At it's most benign the idea fo America's nobility is seen as quaint and its most virulent as a dangerous and oppressive ideology.

I can't pretend to speak for the world, and there have been, and still may be people who hold America's story to be factual, but in all my travels and encounters with people of many nations: Russians, Indians, Pakistanis, Mexicans, Germans, French, Britians, Chinese, Japanese, Ugandans, Italians, Saudis, Egyptians, Swedes, Bengalis, Poles among others there was often struck a common tone in conversations relating to America - America is interested in one thing: America.

National self-interst is the norm. What makes this different is the belief that ones country is morally superior. Many Canadians are gulity of this same idea. Our myth is that we are a peaceful, gentle, liberal, nature loving, caring people. Well that's a myth as well. National myths can serve as models by which a state and its citizens can act, but when the story is not lived up to we live in a state of hypocrisy

Excuses

The repulsive acts of US military on Iraqi detainees continues to be abhorred while excuses are made in the media, including the Canadian media. The issue is being seen in the framework of response to stress and individual psychology. This misses the point that this sort of behaviour is part of a well established "methodology long used by US intelligence to break individuals down so that they arrive at a state of full compliance.

When You're Digging the Deepest Hole Where do You Put the Dirt?

One of the most revealing and persistent of American media responses to the revelation of systematic abuse of foreign prisoners held by the US government, is the sentiment that "this isn't fair" to Americans. "We are good people" say Ted Koppel and Charlie Rose and the rest, "but what will the neighbours think?" Well for one that the US government is gravely criminal and without morals and two as a democracy the government represents the will of the people and reflects the values of American society. Ouch.
Canadian soldiers in the Airborne Regiment committed similar atrocities in Somalia in the 1990's and the country was horrified. The regiment was disbanded as a result. Canada's self-image was put to the test and we largely seem to have conveniently forgotten all about it. Our image as "peace-keepers" remains largely intact.
The US (and the UK) face something much larger because of the scale and the context of the invasion of Iraq and global politics. Basically what has come to the surface confirms what a lot of people in the world already think. It's absolute fodder for terrorist groups and I expect this will define for many people what the invasion of Iraq represents. Rape, humiliation and murder, served with a smile.

The Crash

I had to take the 24 downtown yesterday. The bus stop is where the car crash occurred the other evening. There were clumps of shattered windshield strips of red and grey metal, bloodstained sidewalk with an orange toy still sticky and wet looking in the middle of it all. When I looked at this seen I felt the plucking of a hidden string that runs from my thorax to my plexus. It vibrated through me for a good while.

Later in the day I was in Indigo and I saw my old room mate for the first time in three years. She was very funny when I said hi. She looked up from her book and very unemotionally greeted me back as if I saw her everyday. She soon warmed up when she saw that I was genuinely glad to see her. I guess there was a lot of friction when we lived together but I had forgotten all of that. We ended up having coffee and she told me all about her adventures in Asia. I was pleasantly surprised at how nice it was to see her. It's so much easier without the complications of living under the same roof.

Outrage in Sudan

What is happening in the Sudan right now is a nightmare. Tensions between the ethnically Arabic northern population and the black African people of the south having been ongoing for years in the form of civil war. However things have reached a critical point in which "ethnic cleansing" is ongoing. Over 1,000,000 people have been displaced and more than 10,000 have been killed in attacks by the nomadic Janjawid militias who have the support of the Sudanese government.The nomadic militias force the darker-skinned farmers off the land burning and looting villages practicing systematic rape of women and killing the men.

Take Action The role of the witness.

In Canada:
E-mail: sudanembassy-canada@rogers.com
354 Stewart Street
Ottawa, Ontario
K1N 6K8

Fax 613-235-6880


For US citizens:

For US citizens:Contact The US Representative to the UN, Amb. John Negroponte at 212-415-4000. Ask for the establishment of a peacekeeping force by an international body--the United Nations and/or the African Union--to restore order. Insist that the Bush Administration push the government of Sudan to provide full access to humanitarian groups to Darfur, and to facilitate humanitarian assistance to affected populations by making all government resources available for the delivery of aid. [Source: Church World Service Action Alert]

Sudanese Embassy to USA
2210 Massachusetts Ave. NW
Washington, DC 20008
Tel: (202) 338-8565
Fax: (202) 667-2406



To send a letter, email info@sudanembassy.org.

Have you ever heard the screeching of a braking car and it goes on just a little too long and all of a sudden a second seems to stretch out forever as you wait for the sound of crashing metal and shattering glass. Sadly this the third time since I've been living here that this has happened. Just moments ago. My neighbour Jean Michel ran to the corner and yelled back 'urgence call an ambulance urgence'. They arrived almost instantly. As I walked back to the site I saw a guy walking towards me in silhouette so what I didn't see right away was that he was bleeding from the side of his head. He turned down my street and tried to run but it was clear he needed medical attention. He was a young guy in a red t-shirt with a chain around his neck. Turns out he was the driver. There were a few women trapped in the car screaming. It was upside down on the lawn with the roof partially caved in. It looked really bad. I came home and puked. I think I'm in a bit of shock myself. I pray they are okay.

Sunday Afternoon

There's a crow flying
Dark and ragged
Tree to tree
He's black as the highway that's leading me
Now he's diving down
To pick up on something shiny
I feel like that black crow
Flying
In a blue sky

I took a ferry to the highway
Then I drove to a pontoon plane
I took a plane to a taxi
And a taxi to a train
I've been traveling so long
How am I ever going to know my home
When I see it again
I'm like a black crow flying
In a blue, blue sky

In search of love and music
My whole life has been
Illumination
Corruption
Diving, diving, diving, diving.
Diving down to pick up on every shiny thing
Just like that black crow flying
In a blue sky

I looked at the morning
After being up all night
I looked at my haggard face in the bathroom light
I looked out the window
And I saw that ragged soul take flight
I saw a back crow flying
In a blue sky
Oh I'm like a black crow flying
In a blue sky
JMitchell 1975

Beautiful Day

We had three warm sunny days and then a night of rain and I woke up to a green world. The sun came back like it always has and I lay on the grass in the park full of people just within view of the copper church steeple. Luna was chewing on her rawhide bagel when Annick spied us there from her window. She came down to join us in the gold and green and Andy came buy with Marcelle.

This is what I love about my place here and what I am struggling to walk away from: Friends and neighbours, lovers and strangers that you recognize. We had some laughs and made a meal and walked by twilight as the moon came up. All the while the wind was coarsing around in all directions.

Now it's late and the rain is pittering and the wheels of cars are spittering. the loaded air is visiting with damp kisses from lips like the pages of basement books.

'Cuz Flowersez Purdy

Sproing has Sprunged!

Harshness vanished. A sudden softness
has replaced the meadows' wintry grey.
Little rivulets of water changed
their singing accents. Tendernesses,

hesitantly, reach toward the earth
from space, and country lanes are showing
these unexpected subtle risings
that find expression in the empty trees.
Rainer Maria Rilke

The earth is damp tonight, and with that dampness comes the smell of the soil. I'm listening to Loretta Lynn's new album Van Lear Rose. It's good but not a lot different from anything else I've heard. Not to put it down but it's being hyped a lot right now. I went for a walk in the must. Everything is fertile tonight. It feels right to move on, but I'm hanging on. I've had it good here. I've had it good everywhere really. Why is it so hard and so easy at the same time? How can you feel two things simultaneously?

Where am I Going?

I can't believe I'm contemplating moving to Hull. The rents are comprable to Montreal however and I am a Quebec residence although that means more taxes. Rents across the river in Ottawa are about double. I'll admit it still feels good to be moving. I've lived a quasi-nomadic existence and staying in one place feels unnatural to me. I love that rush that change brings. The air seems lighter, the light is brighter. I feel younger. It's all in the head but believe me what's in your head is damned important.

Whose to know where this road will take me but I do know that I need to be on the road, any road. Of course a more glamourous destination would be nice, but I have to build up a nest egg before I can hatch that plot.

I sort of feel the same way I did when I left OS for TO at eighteen. There is some anxiety and excitement at the unknown, a certain sadness at endings, but also a beauty in that sadness. Lush nostalgia decorates everything since I made my decision. It's a good feeling in that I know I had a lot of marvellous experiences here. A lot of heartbreak and turmoil too, but always growing into something new and fuller.

It's the natural conclusion to the chapter titled "The Years After the Marriage". An interm period in which I revaluted, redefined and expanded my sense of self. I charted a new course, one that follows closer the contours of my heart. A journey in which fear is a lesser denizen.

It's always an ordeal to start something new, to burst out of the earth or the womb and face the harsh wind and burning sun, the clamour of life. But that's the point I've arrived at. A secret vessel that has travelled by night has arrrived at the stony shore and now there's nothing to do but disembark.

Hockey Night in Canada: rue Chapleau