Canine Crew Collects Crowd

Having a dog is a good way to meet people. There's a regular bunch of us that met each eveningand let the dogs play. Tonight this went on for 3hrs. There's a good mix of pups and older dogs. One of the guys is having a backyard BBQ on Saturday so we will meet with the dogs the booze and the food at noon and then walk over to his place. Then in the evening I think I'm going to an Indonesian party. I'll be joining the local amnesty group in Sept. and maybe the indoor ultimate frisbee team. So I'm starting to ease into this new life quite nicely.

Dastardly Dancer's Disrupting Dive

Not since Ben Jonson lost his gold medal after testing positive for steriod use or the construction of the Olympic Stadium in Montreal, have Canadians had such a proud Olympic moment. A 31 year old Montreal man dressed in a tutu breached the 1.9 billion (CAN) Athen's Olympic security dressed in a tutu. He then stripped off his shirt to reveal the words goldenpalace.com painted on his chest before taking a dive into the pool.

Summer Palace

This is the old boathouse my grandfather built in Bristol Quebec

Cremaster or Creem Master?

I went to see the first two parts of the Cremaster cycle at the Bytown which is conveniently just a few blocks away. It's really nice to have this old style rep theatre so close. I'm not sure what to make of the films except that they were beautifully shot and heavily staged and begged for interpretation. They were in fact a lot more narrative in structure than I had thought they would be even if that narrative demands the viewer to take part in telling the stories. The imagery is obviously about reproduction but the second story was about Gary Gilmore the infamous murderer who was the first man to be executed in the US after a 10 year pause in capital punishment. I didn't realize this until the credits, nor did I realize that he believed, and in fact may have been, the grandson of Harry Houdini.

However, it is the type of movie where you either feel that the director is very clever if only because this is a necessary precondition to your own cleverness at decoding the otherwise obscure and incoherent imagery, or you feel that the director is having a lark. In either case it was a fine blend of the compelling and the tedious.

Most films do not stick with me. They seem to pour through me and only occasionally leave any residue behind that I can recall as meaningful and even then it's even more rare that I recall an entire film as a complete work. This is probably why these films work for me, because they are recalled like dreams on the one hand but have to be read more like a text on the other. So even though I was restless watching parts of the film the fact that I'm remembering things and still processing them means that this film probably will be digested and absorbed in the long term rather than pass through me like most films seem to do.

Sunday parade

Today I met a friend of Dave's from Winnipeg and I learned that each Sunday evening 100's of cars and trucks parade down the middle of his city. People style their vehicles with pinstripes and belching mufflers and show off. People sit outside in lawn chairs and watch this event. Why isn't this a national cultural keystone. This is all spontaneous apparently. No corporate encouragement nor formal organization. Why have I never heard of this?

King Leopold's Ghost

I started a new book last night which tells the tale of King Leopold II of Belgium and his drive to build Belgium into a great colonial power in the late 19th C. It's also the story of genocide, greed and the dawn of modern humanitarianism movements. In brief Leopold instituted an immensley profitable rubber and ivory industry in the Congo in the guise of bringing aid and enlightenment to "darkest Africa" but in fact was driven by slave labour and terror on a grand scale. A British shipping clerk, Edmund Morel, exposed the system after observing a constant flow of shiploads of rubber and ivory arriving in the harbours of Antwerp and departing with guns and ammunition. He concluded that the "trade"was in fact something darker and made a successful effort to discredit Leopold and his demonic explotation. The details of the trade are astounding with an estimated to be betweeen 5 and 15 million Africans slaughtered in the name of profits. What is most astounding of course is how this part of history has largely been forgotten.

There has always been war and exploitation but as we arrive the industrial age we also arrive at the "perfection" of genocide. By the time we arrive at the holocaust murder of large populations has become an assembly line "production". Europe, East Timor, Cambodia, Ukraine, Rwanda, Congo, Bangladesh, Armenia, China, Sudan. When one begins to compile a list of genocidal acts in our century the depths of the horror become unfathomable.

Big Top Flop

I finished Under the Big Top on the bus last night. Towards the end the authour puts forward the argument that the circus is a microcosm of US society. This argument seems redundant on the one hand, as he is writing about a segment of US society thus finding general characteristics US society as a whole is a given, and contradictory on the other hand as he then tries to distinguish the circus world as a refuge from mainstream society. Given the overall approach of the authour towards his experience, the need to present such a brief attempt at analysis seems to stem from a need to be saying something overtly significant and is ultimately unnecessary.
The book does present some interesting characters like Buck the 7 ft plus clown who likes to sunbathe naked, but for the most part I was glad to leave this circus behind.

Under The Big Top

I've always had mixed feelings about circuses. I'm attracted by the "outsider" status of the people who inhabit the circus world but I also hate seeing animals perform. Aside from animal rights issues I've never enjoyed seeing animals do tricks, even when I was young. I just never saw that as entertainment. I've been reading this book written by a man who spent a year living with one of the big three ring circuses and despite his clear love of the circus the people he depicts are extremly vain, often biggoted if not outright racist and or sexist and generally not very likeable. I suppose in all fairness that could apply to any social group. It really killed the remenants of any circus fantasy that lingered within me. The thing is the author really seems to try and like these people. After all he worked and lived alongside them.

Rocket Hockey Uncle

Uncle Jack died before I was born, but a few weeks before his second son was born. Uncle Jack cracked his skull on the ice being and all-Canadian boy. He was checked in a time when helmets were for soldiers not atheletes. Rocket Richard spoke at his funeral. I'm not sure why. Things were different then.

Shadowplay

This afternoon I walked over to the Museum of Civilization to meet Dave. He has some friends in town who perform Indonesian shadow puppet shows. I missed the actual show but attended a puppet making workshop. The kids made their own puppets and then performed their stories.
A lot of laughs. I loved the lizard who shouted out "I'm good at the boxing".

Snake Summoning

I was reading at the front of the cottage when Jane arrived in her kayak. Among the small-talk the topic of snakes popped up. "Have you seen him" she asked. I hadn't. I've seen maybe three or four snakes in all the years I've been coming up here I explained. Last Year I was standing here when dad said that he hadn't seen one in twenty years. Five minutes later this thing went slithering across the deck. Jane laughed and said that she probably wouldn't see another one for another twenty years herself. As she said this I looked down at the rocks and saw this fellow sunning himself. I now have a theory that they are everywhere but until our attention is drawn to them they are "invisible".

August Wanes

It's early August, but it feels like autumn. It's cold and the sun cautiously peers from under the quilt of clouds that blankets the sky. The atmosphere is one of summer's end and childhood memories come back to me of beach balls and blankets, umbrellas and toys, being packed away with the waning days of the season: Bedding and pillows are rolled up and put in sacks; food is stripped from the shelves. The noisy old fridge is hollow and silent. Mothballs are placed in drawers, ant-traps in corners on the floors, rat poison by little mouse doors.

The nights were coming earlier and the twilights were a deeper shade of violet. The morning air was crisper and pine needle carpet red was starting to bleed into the leaves of other trees. We get in the car and drive away down the dusty road to the highway that runs between the hills and the river towards September and a new school year.

The seasons are supposed to be a cycle. Summer turns to Autumn, Autumn turns to Winter, Winter turns to Spring and Spring brings us back to Summer again. The transition from Winter to Spring to Summer felt a part of the spiral turning ever up but with the passing of summer always felt like a farewell. A coda. A period. The end of the line. School meant familiar faces grown imperceptibly older along with a few new ones sprinkled into the mix. There was new math, new grammar, history geography, music theory, French. One passed through grades labeled 1, 2, 3. Time moved forward not in a circuit but onward into darkness.

The autumn had its own warmth though. The Halloween flame in the Jack-O-Lantern's eye, hot apple cider and cinnamon, burning leaves, the smell of pies baking in the oven, the huddle on the library floor as the red haired librarian read tales of ghosts and goblins and witches to twitching children. But these were all like torches of an unseen band that marched through the dark to somewhere else.

At the Dock

I Was Fired

I'm working as the busboy in a pub in some unknown city. We weren't very busy and the manager Phil, comes in. He takes me aside and we sit down. He starts telling me something. Tears are welling up in his eyes. He's talking to me about my work and it strikes me that in his roundabout way he is firing me. I'm more upset by the obvious stress he is undergoing than losing the job. "I've never had to let someone go like this before." I ask him what he means because I know he has fired people before. "It's not my decision" he says. "It's the new owner". The new owner thinks I'm not up to par. I remember her coming in on a busy night. She looked like Lucy Lui. She had on a silk dress and smoked cigarettes in a slender holder; a real stereo-type. I don't tell Phil, but I don't really need the job. I'm more offended than hurt. I get my things to leave when I see a guy I know clearing the tables. I quickly realize he has been hired to replace me. I wish him luck. He has a look of combined embarrassment and determination to get the job done (as though it were something more significant than table clearing).

When I step outside I can see construction workers about 15 stories up working on a highrise. They start dropping toy trucks and they are landing too close to me for comfort. In fact I'm certain that they are trying to hit me. I run and then I wake up with this image of Phil crying stuck in my head.

Memo From the Boss

I wonder how the "all-American" Bruce Springsteen will be sullied by the right wing propaganda zombies after this op-ed piece he wrote in the New York Times?

Queen and George VI

This photo of King George VI and the yet to be Queen Mother was taken in the 1939 along the old Aylmer Road near Bristol Quebec. It comes from Aunt Esther's photo album. It's interesting to see royalty trodding on the dirt road with what seems to be a sparse entourage.

Strange Storm

On Saturday I woke up to rain. They had promised sun. About noon the sun dashed over the water escaping the trail of clouds that limbered from the north towards the city. The air was fresh and we had a relaxing afternoon but by dinner the humidity had grown and the dampness was clinging. As we ate bursts of thunder and flashes of lightning came from across the river. The sun was still shining as I tore down to the dock to bring in the chairs, umbrellas, glasses and other paraphenalia. I paused and watched as the storm raced towards me. It's precise shape could be seen. To my left the sky and water were clear but to my right was a curtain of mist. It was as though someone had drawn a line down the middle of the sky.
When the front of the oncoming storm hit the beach I was inside. It was a torrent but the sun shone brightly nonetheless.

Blog Additions

I'd like to welcome two new blog links to the Glob Slow News Day and Songs to No One.

Local Critters

It's a rainy morning and I'm driving back in to the cottage from Shawville. I ran into my cousin Terry at the gas station. He's a dairy farmer in the area. I had George Jones in the CD player and Wanda Jackson. The old country singers have a reputation for performing songs with topics that are about dysfunctional relationships and melodrama. What I've learned lately about some of the family history makes these songs seem like people just telling stories about what goes on in their lives or around them. Peoples behaviour doesn't seem to have changed much through the years, only the social context of what that behaviour means and the consequences of it.

I drive past farms that I used to visit. People in the pictures I've been scanning lived their lives on them. Here's a farm where the daughter was a lesbian and the son bought the farm next door to his parents years ago and shot himself just last year for reasons that are unclear. Next is the farm where my great-grandmother lived and had a child out of wedlock. My grandmother. The parents of my great-grandmother adopted that child and raised the two girls as sisters rather than as mother and daughter. Such were the standards of the 1920's. Then I pass the old school house, the one in the picture below and enter the town where my grandfather had his general store and dance hall. There's a utility poll just beside the old house where a man burned to death installing the first electricity in the area in the 1930's. Next I pass the Pine Lodge and it's abandoned horse stables and ghosts. There's a lot I could tell but with discretion I will leave it here only to say all the cheatin' liein', back-stabbin', moonshinin' and monkey business in those old songs is all true.