The Rebel Kind

Santa Clara: ¡Viva la Revolución!?

2012-01-31T01:12:00.000-08:00

"I am not a liberator. Liberators do not exist. The people liberate themselves." ~ Che

Santa Clara is where Che Guevara and Camilo Cienfuegos won the Cuban revolution. 270 km east of Havana, in the centre of the island, the university town of Santa Clara is now home to all things Che, including his monument and mausoleum.

On December 29, 1958, Che and his men ambushed an armoured train full of Fulgencio Batista's soldiers and ammunition. With his arm in a sling from a previous injury, Che had successfully broken the dictator by splitting the country's supply lines in half. On January 1, 1959, at 3 A.M., Batista fled Cuba for the Dominican Republic with over $300 million stuffed in his suitcase.

On January 2, Fidel Castro's soldiers took over Havana and within days he and his comrades were welcomed as heroes. When Yuko and I entered Santa Clara recently, we were welcomed and pulled in all directions...Cuba is now a country where a surgeon makes barely $30 a month. It's a sad testament to the failure of a once glorious revolution, a failure that can't be blamed solely on Washington or on the Castro brothers. But if Cuba was ever truly for Cubans, then Havana must ultimately bear the brunt for its people's desperate living conditions.

A Fortune Of Innocence: The Lilac Time

2012-01-25T23:25:00.006-08:00

"Gonna see the river man
Gonna tell him all I can
About the plan
For lilac time" ~ Nick Drake, "River Man"

It was the day before the day before...1987. A foggy ruin of time, as the bard once sang, a year of pure psycho that unleashed the Loonie, "Black Monday" on the stock market, the third (!) re-election of Margaret Thatcher, Guns n' Roses' Appetite for Destruction and The Lilac Time's elegant debut. I'd just crawled out from the technoblast of Luv-a-Fair and Graceland that made up Vancouver's club scene and I was desperate to come down, chill out...

....with some fine English pop. Stephen "Tin Tin" Duffy was in a similar mood after spending the early part of the decade in Duran Duran and pursuing his own solo career with singles like "Kiss Me"...

The time was right to put aside the eyeliner, pick up a banjo, meditate on love...and start a new band.

The Lilac Time is a bucolic slice of Albion folk rock, soulful and seductive at the same time. Standout tracks include the poptimistic "Return to Yesterday" and "Together," the gauzy "And The Ship Sails On" and the coy sexuality of "Love Becomes a Savage." A forgotten classic that evokes Nick Drake dancing out on the tiles...

Last Best West: Doukhobors Arrive

2012-01-21T15:57:00.003-08:00

When Canada needed to settle the prairies in the first half of the 20th century, Wilfrid Laurier's Liberal government was forced to look outside its comfort zone and consider a ragtag group of Russians known as "Spirit Wrestlers," or Doukhobors.

While it was the largest mass migration in Canadian history, Minister of the Interior, Clifford Sifton, would have preferred English or other western Europeans, but the English were abysmal farmers and the rest weren't in any rush to break ground in -30° C temperatures.

(1908 postcard showing Doukhobor women plowing fields)

So on January 23, 1899, the S.S. Lake Huron docked at Halifax, Nova Scotia with 2,140 Doukhobors on board.

My own relatives would arrive the following week on the S.S. Lake Superior and then more again six months later on the Huron.

The journey had taken a month from the Black Sea port of Batum, which was Russia at the time, now Batumi, Georgia. Other ships would arrive later, but this group headed west, settling across the prairies until eventually reaching B.C. Today I raise my bowl of borscht and celebrate 113 years in Canada!

Paul-Émile Borduas: Resplendent Anarchy

2012-01-17T19:34:00.005-08:00

“To hell with the holy-water-sprinkler and the tuque!”

The "Refus Global" (Total Refusal) manifesto, released in 1948, was a cri de coeur against "The Great Darkness" ("La Grande Noirceur") of Quebec premier Maurice Duplessis' stifling reign. Spearheaded by artist Paul-Émile Borduas and Les Automatistes based in Montreal, Refus Global is now regarded as one of the very first salvos in what would eventually become known as the Quiet Revolution (Révolution Tranquille) over a decade later. The reaction was immediate and swift - within a month of its release in August 1948, Borduas lost his teaching position at l'École du Meuble.

Borduas in his Saint-Hilaire workshop, 1950

According to the Canadian Encyclopedia:

"Refus global not only challenged the traditional values of Québec but also fostered an opening-up of Québec society to international thought. The manifesto advocated a strong need for liberation, if not 'resplendent anarchy,' and anticipated the coming of a 'new collective hope.'"

Borduas, Composition, 1942

While only 400 copies of the manifesto were printed, they sold out quickly.

"The reign of hydra-headed fear has ended.

In the wild hope of effacing its memory, I enumerate:
- fear of facing prejudice -- fear of public opinion -- of persecutions -- of general disapproval;
- fear of being alone, without the God and the society which isolate you anyway;
- fear of oneself -- of one's brother -- of poverty;
- fear of the established order -- or ridiculous justice;
- fear of new relationships;
- fear of the superrational;
- fear of necessities;
- fear of floodgates opening on one's faith in man -- on the society of the future;
- fear of forces able to release transforming love;
- blue fear -- red fear -- white fear; links in our shackles."

Along with Borduas, the Automatistes included such artists as Jean-Paul Riopelle, Pierre Gauvreau, and Marcel Barbeau whose work resembled New York abstract expressionists Willem de Kooning and Jackson Pollock.

Marcel Barbeau, Rosier-feuilles (Rosebush leaves), 1946

Below is an excellent NFB documentary from 1954, "Artists in Montreal" on the Automatistes.

Heidegger: Dasein & Zen

2012-01-13T00:21:00.004-08:00

"The world of 'Dasein' is a with-world" ~ Martin Heidegger

Many who have written about the German philosopher Martin Heidegger have failed to bridge a rapprochement between his thoughts and his actions. He was a notorious booster of the Nazis in his position as Rector at Freiburg University from 1933-34, helping promulgate the “blood and soil” rhetoric of the party, shutting down democratic institutions on campus and betraying colleagues. While he resigned a year later, he remained a member of the Nazi Party until the bitter end in 1945. Whether or not he was anti-Semitic appears to be moot given his support for Hitler, but he did deny that he was and for a time was romantically involved with a young Jewish woman by the name of Hannah Arendt.

Hannah Arendt (1906-1975)

Heidegger's politics have posed a huge problem for anyone sympathetic to his philosophical views before Hitler's ascent. After World War II, he also appeared mildly anxious and attempted to recast his support for the Nazis as uncommitted, lukewarm or even coerced. But he never categorically rejected them, nor directly expressed any regret about the holocaust before his death in 1976.

(Heidegger marked with an 'X,' 1933)
Arendt was primarily responsible for saving what could be saved of Heidegger's thought and separating it from his actions. But as the record has slowly emerged, it has become harder to sustain this distinction, if it ever could have been in the first place.

(Heidegger in the Black Forest)

This is a familiar problem for admirers of those who, like Heidegger (or Ozzy), espouse vile personal views while creating moving works of art or philosophy. But an exception has been made for Heidegger's major works like Being and Time (1927), which appeared before the rise of the Nazis and went on to make a profound impact on such 20th century developments as existentialism and deconstruction.

Heidegger's concept of "Dasein" (literally "there-being") is intoxicating and the similarities to Zen Buddhism's notions of "mindfulness" are inescapable. Both suggest a totalizing interdependency of all things, both animate and inanimate objects, coalescing into a "Being-in-the-World" that is intimately rooted in the physical and spiritual realms.

(William Blake)

Finding connections between East/West is something I've been interested in for a long time. There's some scholarship that suggests a more direct relationship between Heidegger and Japan, but how deep this actually went is hard to tell.

Musical Raves & Faves: 2011

2012-01-08T22:25:00.001-08:00

According to the American Dialect Society, "Occupy" is the 2011 Word of the Year. As the Occupy Movement began to take shape last January in Cairo's Tahrir Square, I remember hoping the West would take inspiration and follow in the footsteps of the protesters. It eventually caught on and turned out to be the single most important phenomenon to occur (and recur) throughout the year. Sadly, most of the music emanating from the West this year failed to capture the spirit of resistance and possibility embodied by the movement. It's been this way for quite a while - pop music seems more suited to sell swag than express revolt. Still, there were some gems amid all the detritus and pepper spray...

1. Destroyer - Kaputt. My favourite album this year came from a fellow Vangroovy-ite who combined sunplash saxophones with temaki cones. West coast louche served with a bottle of chilled sake.

2. PJ Harvery - Let England Shake. A long-overdue indictment on the wars Blair and Bush plunged the world into.

3. Wild Flag - Wild Flag. Pegasus as a bucking bronco. These songs leap through the morass and spit you out like a pinball in a roller derby. Patti Smith backed by the Go-Gos channeling the Pipettes.

4. Junior Boys - Junior Boys. A suave take on synthpop and throbbing beats sizzling like hot, neon crystals.

5. The Black Lips - Arabia Mountain. Garage-punk-rama-lama!

6. Fleet Foxes- Helplessness Blues. Music that soars, cathedral-like, towards the sun.

7. Bon Iver - Bon Iver. Androids dreaming of electric sheep. Gorgeous.

8. James Blake - James Blake. Best use of vocoder since Cher's "Believe."

9. Girls - Father, Son, Holy Ghost. Cinematic eargasms.

10. Wu Lyf - Go Tell Fire To The Mountain. Two chords, the truth and...something else.

Che: Dreaming The Impossible

2012-01-04T14:31:00.001-08:00

(Che fishing with Fidel, 1960)

Che Guevara has been labeled everything from a bloodthirsty Stalinist to a humanitarian saint, but one epithet he can't be smeared with is traitor. His devotion to revolutionary struggle was so implacable that Alberto Korda's ubiquitous Guerrillero Heroico portrait has become synonymous with anything to do with "rebel chic." As a result, much of Che's legacy has been drained of its vitality by the culture industry's relentless branding prowess.

At least Cuba has managed to retain a modicum of Che's dignity intact, ironically as a result of its isolation from the rest of the world. The hero of the Cuban Revolution was an Argentine doctor. He wasn't a Stalinist or a saint. He was a man for all times; a realist who dreamed the impossible.

Have Yourself A Merry Christmas!

2011-12-18T22:25:00.001-08:00

We're heading south to Cuba for the next few weeks - so Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year!

This is how It's a Wonderful Life should have ended...

Goodbye Mr. Potter!

Nothing Compares 2 U: Prince In Edmonton

2011-12-17T23:23:00.001-08:00

"When Doves Cry"

Prince rolled through the Great White North last Tuesday and left behind a bucketful of purple pixie-dust...

"Nothing Compares 2 U"

James Brown's legendary sax player, Maceo Parker, was along for the ride linking "Play That Funky Music" with "Alphabet Street" and "Delirious"....

"Purple Rain" was followed by "Take Me With You" and a smoldering "Kiss," but no "Little Red Corvette." At 53, the Purple One can still grind - maybe not in stilettos, but high-heeled runners with flashing red lights (not kidding), the kind that all the pixies are wearing on the playground these days...

As expected, he played his MadCat Telecaster like a man possessed, opening the night with "Let's Go Crazy" and even got behind the keys to take the band "back to church" on "Nothing Compares 2 U." When he shuffled out to the stage's tip of the arrow to duet on Michael Jackson's "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough" it was the crème de la crème, the icing on the cake with a bright purple cherry on top...

Generation Waste: Coupland Redux

2011-12-13T23:57:00.001-08:00

“When I get up in the morning, my daily prayer is, grant me today my illusion, my daily illusion. Due to the fact that illusions are necessary, have become necessary for a life in a world completely devoid of a utopian conscience and utopian presentiment.” ~ Ernst Bloch

My god, was there ever a more sickening bunch of neanderthals than the cretins moping around in Douglas Coupland's first novel, Generation X? At least I was too young to be sucked up into their demographic - apparently 1959-1965 is the window of inclusion. I never cottoned on to the slacker ennui aesthetic this novel embodies, and I'm pretty sure neither did Coupland. He went on to do much greater things, but unfortunately for him this cultural milestone will forever be hanging from his scrawny neck. I mean, what idiot travels to Palm Springs to find the meaning of life?

What can be done “in a world completely devoid of utopian conscience,” as the great Ernst Bloch asked? First, Coupland’s Gen X’ers would need to wake up to the possibility of radical difference before realizing that they do have a future that can be partially determined (at the very least) by actions they commit to in the present. If this level of awareness could be obtained, they might understand that culture is a malleable construct that can be subjected to pressures and alterations.

(Coupland, 1992)

But what Coupland's Gen X'ers settle for is something far from any utopia:

We live small lives on the periphery; we are marginalized and there’s a great deal in which we choose not to participate. We wanted silence and we have that silence now…We had compulsions that made us confuse shopping with creativity, to take downers and assume that merely renting a video on a Saturday night was enough. But now that we live here in the desert, things are much, much better.”

Their goals are modest, “small” even, and they avoid participating in “a great deal.” They also dislike noise and desire “silence." Sounds a bit like a cemetery to me. Nevertheless, they still hang on, even in Palm Springs, to the forces that caused them to leave in the first place. They lack the ability or desire to go all the way and imagine a real alternative outside of the natural flows of apathy or fear. Instead they succumb to a life of futurelessness, a dystopia where nostalgia is the only true respite.

*Barf*

Oryx & Crake: Fair Warning

2011-12-09T22:28:00.006-08:00

“Something’s missing when instead of the possibility of radical difference, we find always and everywhere the same ideas of how we might proceed.” – Eric Cazdyn and Imre Szeman in After Globalization.

What can be done in a world that's moving beyond our control? When systems take on a momentum of their own a sense of fatalism can overtake any gesture of collective will. Just look at what Stephen Harper has done in Canada's name at the Durban climate conference this week. Margaret Atwood’s 2003 novel, Oryx and Crake, is a warning and a harrowing portrait of the dystopia that awaits if we fail to harness a utopian conscience, if we fail to consider the “possibility of radical difference,” and succumb to the perception that forces remain beyond our control.

(Hieronymus Bosch's Garden of Earthly Delights)

The main character in Oryx and Crake, Snowman, is trapped in the hell of his present dystopia:

"He doesn’t know which is worse, a past he can’t regain or a present that will destroy him if he looks at it too clearly. Then there’s the future. Sheer vertigo."

(Jason Courtney)

His unbearable present is overwhelming and leaves him with nothing to do but seek out ways - like alcohol - to avoid the obvious. While this seems to suggest that all is lost, in the final pages of the novel Snowman is confronted with a chance to step forward and initiate an action that may finally offer redemption...(read the novel!)

(Earth's Future)

In the figure of Crake, Atwood targets the messianic impulse to remake the entire world as the main source for all our problems. It's what Hannah Arendt identified as the concept of homo faber ("Man the Creator"), or he who uses every instrument to build a world, even when the fabrication of that world violates its own materiality, including its people.

(Jason Courtney)

Gil Scott-Heron had it right all along - "Ain't No Such Thing As A Superman":

Down In The Mall: Schmaltz & Legitimacy

2011-12-05T22:17:00.003-08:00

Schmaltz legitimizes from the bottom up, not the top down. So-called “legitimacy” as it currently exists, is a sham. Schmaltz, I suggest, is an attempt to reclaim what Fredric Jameson called “totality” though “global cognitive mapping” by using the atomized tools of our present condition:

“A new totalizing political art – if it is indeed possible at all – will have to hold to the truth of postmodernism, that is to say its fundamental object- the space of multinational capital - at the same time at which it achieves a breakthrough to some as yet unimaginable new mode of representing this last, in which we may again begin to grasp our positioning as individual and collective subjects and regain a capacity to act and struggle which is at present neutralized by our spatial as well as our social confusion."

Schmaltz is actually a food, a rendered pâté. The verb "to render" is central to the Schmaltz aesthetic. Schmaltz renders art from the elite to the collective and mashes genres together to create its own accessible taste.

"Legitimate" art as Pierre Bourdieu would define it, supports the taste preferences of the dominant class, or what he called, "The Aristocracy of Culture." Legitimate art is endowed with the privilege of speaking for humanity, for expressing the soul of our time. In this way artists are, in Shelley’s famous phrase, "the unacknowledged legislators of the world."

Schmaltz rejects this view as hubris, vanity and snobbery masking as universality. Schmaltz is the great leveler – it’s only assumption is if one person can do it, then so can I. It collapses all hierarchies, flattens authority, and reverses the flow of justice from a transcendent domain to an immanent one. The defining attributes of Schmaltz are that it is sincere and earnest – essentially kitsch without irony.

I got the idea to pursue this work-in-progress from Carl Wilson's book on Celine Dion, Let's Talk About Love: A Journey to the End of Taste. He identifies Schmaltz as a kind of recurring ephemeral phenomenon:

"Schmaltz is an unprivate portrait of how private feeling is currently conceived, which social change can pitilessly revise."

I'm not sure I'd agree that Schmaltz is exclusively "private feeling" - most art originates from a "private" space, essentially. Schmaltz differentiates itself through its fearless approach to sentimentality. Schmaltz replaces the notion of cool with genuine feeling. That it sometimes appears drippy or sappy is not only worth embracing because it offends Bourdieu's aristocracy, but because humans are sometimes naturally inclined this way. When it comes to the realm of feeling, Schmaltz exclaims, "No shame!"

Adorno To Zappa: Culture Mechanics

2011-12-01T21:52:00.001-08:00

If the A-Z of cultural studies begins with Theodor Adorno's critique of enlightenment as "mass deception," it should include Jacques Rancière's "emancipated spectator" as its dialectic and wrap up with Frank Zappa's Lumpy Gravy as its synthesis.

"The single most important development in modern music is making a business out of it...you have reached a point where you can't just sit down and write because you know how to write and you love to write and eventually somebody will listen because they love to listen and maybe somebody will play it because they'll want to play it. That is gone." ~ Frank Zappa

"The culture industry not so much adapts to the reactions of its customers as it counterfeits them." ~ Theodor Adorno

Don't be too sure, Mr. Magoo...

"An emancipated community is a community of narrators and translators." ~ Jacques Rancière

SooperLovers: To the Rescue!

2011-11-27T19:54:00.001-08:00

Nothing says "forever" quite like being immortalized as an action figure. So when I heard it could be done, I jumped at the chance for Yuko's birthday.

This is Yuko as a rabbit wielding a ninja frying pan and budo sword. Yuko, her mum and her grandma were all born in the Year of the Rabbit. Note the "SL" for "SooperLovers" on her belt buckle.

Here I am as a Canadian hockey guy with a purple light saber and sacred goalie stick.

"The SooperLovers" are ready to do battle against the forces of bad cooking and gross misconducts. You know you've arrived on planet bizarro when confronted by a replicant of yourself. So when in doubt, give the gift of plastics and freak out!

Ondaatje In Edmonton: Cat's Meow

2011-11-23T20:38:00.004-08:00

Mr. O signing a personal dedication to Yuko

Michael Ondaatje "played" the Winspear Centre last night in Edmonton and brought the house down. He began with a brief tribute to Robert Kroetsch and then read for about 40 minutes from his new novel, The Cat's Table, including this gorgeous passage:

"I remember still how we moved in that canal, our visibility muted, and those sounds that were messages from shore, and the sleepers on deck missing this panorama of activity. We were on the railing bucking up and down. We could have fallen and lost our ship and begun another fate - as paupers or as princes. 'Uncle!' we shouted, if someone was close enough to distinguish our small figures. 'Hullo, Uncle!' And people would wave, fling us a grin. Everyone who saw us sliding by was an uncle that night. Someone threw us an orange. An orange from the desert!" (p. 129)

The main character, Michael, is an 11-year-old boy aboard a steamship bound for England from Sri Lanka in the 1950s. The ship here has just entered the Suez Canal. Ondaatje said last night that he's not an "ideas man" - the closest he gets is something like an idea of "how to fit a horse into a house." In the passage above, he captures the exuberance of youth and the boundless possibilities that can electrify our surroundings. Those are the types of ideas worth committing a lifetime to.

He then sat down with writer Marina Endicott for an interesting discussion on the nuts and bolts of his writing process. Afterwards, he made himself available to sign books and mug for photos. The line was huge and Yuko and I waited for about 30 minutes. There must have been another hour at least behind us. Yuko went first and Ondaatje took his time asking her name and writing a dedication "To Yuko" into her copy of The English Patient. I was next. He quickly scribbled his name into my brand new copy of The Cat's Table ($23), smiled politely and turned to the next person. No love for me - I'd left my cute hat at home. God, what a flirt that Ondaatje is.

And don't ask me
about my interpretation of "Madame George."
That's a nine-minute song
a two hour story. ~ "Tin Roof"

That's alright. Back in 1999, I attended another Ondaatje reading in Vancouver and brought along Van Morrison's Astral Weeks, which he signed, "To David," after giving me a look as though a were a flaming newt. Thanks for the memories, Mike!

Wild Flag: The Blood Between

2011-11-19T23:06:00.004-08:00

We're in the money! - "Racehorse"

The verdict is in: Wild Flag's debut is a corker, easily one of the best guitar albums of the year so far. Slathered together with dirty riffs and scuffed up rhythms, the gals from Sleater-Kinney, Helium & the Minders have concocted a glorious soundtrack for our fetid times.

Imagine Pegasus as a bucking bronco. That's Wild Flag. The songs leap through the morass and spit you out like a pinball in a roller derby. Vocalist Carrie Brownstein is in righteous form, calling to mind both Patti Smith's utopian howl and Geraldine Fibber Carla Bozulich's surly growl. Then the backing vocals on songs like "Endless Talk" bleed through channeling the Go-Gos by way of the Pipettes.

Drummer Janet "Flintstone" Weiss flails like a stonemason from Bedrock, while Rebecca Cole screws in the bass keys and Mary Timony lights up the riffs and vocals. This is a flag music, Black Flag and Pink Flag, merging into a wild cacophony of form and pleasure....and I'm thrilled to be along for the ride.

Occupy Wall Street: Evicted

2011-11-15T17:43:00.001-08:00

Under the cover of night, the corporate forces of Wall Street descended on Zuccotti Park — aka Liberty Plaza - and evicted everyone on site. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg is declaring victory as the protesters reassemble to return, albeit without tents. As Glenn Greenwald writes:

"Could #OWS have scripted a more apt antagonist than this living, breathing personification of oligarchy: a Wall Street billionaire who so brazenly purchased his political office, engineered the overturning of a term-limits referendum and then spent more than $100 million of his personal fortune to stay in power, and now resides well above the law?"

Indeed, Bloomberg has become the embodiment of the corrosion eating away at the heart of the American body politic. What happened last night was an assault - a nation at permanent war overseas has turned its military apparatus on its own citizens. Beware the consequences.

Remembering Remembrance: The Right To Dissent

2011-11-11T16:54:00.002-08:00

This is my uncle Jack Gallagher who served in the Canadian Scottish Regiment during World War II and landed at Juno Beach, D-Day, June 6, 1944. We're still in touch and he recently sent me a message explaining what all his medals and decorations are, from left to right:

1. 39/45 Star - awarded for service in an active theater of operations;

2. Germany Star - awarded for active service in France or Germany;

3. Defense Medal - awarded to all Canadians serving overseas;

4. War Medal - awarded to all Canadians who served during the war;

5. Canadian Volunteer Service Medal and Clasp - awarded to all Canadians who volunteered for service during the war for at least eighteen months. The clasp was for service out of Canada. It was generally known as the AFM with the Piccadilly Clasp (Away From Mom);

6. CD Canada Decoration - warded for twelve years military service including Militia;

7. COTC Belgian Croix de Guerre; awarded for my contribution on the Leopold Canal and other parts of Belgium;

8. Order of Leopold 11 avec palm - awarded for other service in Belium and Europe."

Jack and his comrades fought for a way of life they believed was worth sacrificing for and in the process, modeled a form of valour that continues to inspire. There's nobility and grace in putting your life on the line for freedom and justice. It's the long view, the same that moves people of conscience to take a stand for the good of future generations.

So it's not surprising to see other veterans like Sgt. Shamar Thomas, the US Marine who gave the New York cops a piece of his mind during an Occupy Wall Street demonstration, defending their right to protest:

Yesterday, Colin Powell expressed a similar view:

"Demonstrating like this is as American as apple pie. We’ve been marching up and down and demonstrating throughout our history...This is something that our political leaders need to think about. It isn’t enough just to scream at our Occupy Wall Street demonstrators — we need our political system to start reflecting this anger back into how do we fix it? How do we get the economy going again?"

The right to dissent is inseparable from the values my uncle Jack and others fought and died for. When I speak out, attend an Occupy event or simply question authority, I'm forever grateful for their sacrifice.

Dory Previn: Doppleganger

2011-11-07T22:57:00.005-08:00

"Would you care to stay till sunrise?
It's completely your decision" ~ Dory Previn

Once in a while something leaps out from the shadows to bite you on the ass...if you're lucky. I live for those moments, those rare occurrences of fate and serendipity that produce a new discovery. Enter Dory Previn. Not really new - we already met years ago. My mum was a fan in the early 70s, along with Judy Garland and Helen "I Am Woman" Reddy...

It was during the heyday of the women's liberation movement, Ms. Magazine, Gloria Steinem and the National Organization for Women (NOW). Previn represented the bohemian side of the zeitgeist, sort of a Blonde on Blonde-era Dylan in drag. She was once married to André Previn until Mia Farrow snatched him away, but at least she got a great song out of it: "Beware of Young Girls."

Bob Dylan was a big fan and for a brief time she stood tall among the other songwriting divas of her age like Joni Mitchell, Carole King and Janis Ian. A cross between Harpo Marx and Dorothy Parker, she could slay all and sundry with her vagabond wit and charm the rest with her mythical iguanas....

"Lady With The Braid" has to be the greatest song ever written about the consequences of unfastening a braid...

Yes, it's official - my mother had (has) wicked taste! I remember seeing Previn's Live At Carnegie Hall album kicking around the house when I got older, but I wrote her off as too fey and much too patchouli. She reminded me of my grade 2 teacher with those tinted glasses, hoop earrings and crochet...I wasn't interested. But time changes taste and taste changes everything.

Previn was institutionalized during the mid-60s and like most extreme experiences, it made her songs all the more complex and powerful. "Doppelganger" is a profound meditation on our complicity with evil...not something you'd expect to hear from a pop song, unless you consider the tunes of Bertolt Brecht Top of the Pops material...

I’ve seen him in the headlines, and on the evening news,
I saw him on the sidelines when stones were thrown at Jews,
And marching in Montgomery, pretending that he cared,
I saw him wink, as though some old conspiracy were shared

Last night I found obscenities scrawled across my wall,
I swear I can’t repeat the filthy words that I recall,
And then the most immoral, damned insulting thing of all,
As I read each line
I noticed
his handwriting
was identical
with mine

Corporate Free Speech: Silencing Dissent

2011-11-03T22:47:00.003-07:00

"Every tool is a weapon if you hold it right"~ Ani DiFranco

A tool may come in all shapes and sizes, but no other one can compete when it's money. Payola has been taking over the democratic process in both Canada and the US for some time and corporations have been at the center of it all. Where the big money goes, so too do changes to the political environment that reflect the will of a corporate agenda. Free association? Free speech? A referendum in Greece? Only so far as they don't pose a threat to any benefactors. Government and corporate interests have merged at the expense of the public.

That explains why Herman Cain is being taken seriously by anyone and why a private entity - the National Restaurant Association - can silence speech in a country where the constitution supposedly protects it.

I can see how a mutual agreement might be reached between two parties over whether to litigate or not, but how could any document trump a country's foundational law? How could Cain's accuser be silenced by a payment of any kind from the National Restaurant Association? This is the world our "elites" have constructed to protect themselves and their money. It's also the subject of Glenn Greenwald's new book, With Liberty and Justice for Some: How the Law is Used to Destroy Equality and Protect the Powerful. I can't wait to read it.

Uncommon Sense: Beyond Globalization

2011-10-29T21:29:00.004-07:00

"Love is an action, never simply a feeling" ~ bell hooks

The occupy movements around the world are providing a real opportunity for reflection and collective action (even in China!). As Slavoj Zizek has said, a crisis in imminent, but we don't need to panic. As I observe my local manifestation here in Edmonton, the benefits of the process - just getting involved - are obvious. It's invigorating and even liberating to attend the rallies, hang out and actively participate in defining a new movement.

Some problems I've noticed involve strategy and outreach. Last week a private company, Melcor, was reported to be ready to ask police to evict the group from the small park on the corner of 102nd St. and Jasper Ave. Occupy Edmonton immediately organized a petition opposing the eviction and within a day the protesters were told it wouldn't happen. Where was Mayor Mandel in this discussion? Has any direct pressure or appeal been made to his office? After all, this is an open space in our city - why should a private company be accepted as the legitimate authority to determine who can stay or not?

Another problem is outreach. I've been to the site, attended a roundtable talk and support the cause, but no attempt has been made to keep me involved. How many others have had a similar experience? There should be someone tasked with approaching newcomers and/or a sign-up sheet provided for those interested in offering contact information. These may seem like minor qualms, but they're essential if the movement is to continue and grow. In the meantime, this guy has an excellent idea - challenge "common sense," think different.

Occupation Edmonton: What's Next

2011-10-25T16:45:00.003-07:00

"It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong" ~ Voltaire

I went downtown to 102nd St. and Jasper Ave. a few days ago, the centre of "Occupy Edmonton," and was impressed by the level of organization and positive messaging. There was a tent where anyone could help themselves to tea, coffee or snacks, another for media with various pamphlets, booklets and phone numbers of people to contact for legal help and a white board displaying the agenda for the daily meeting.

The Women's Caucus was in session nearby and there were about twenty other tents set aside for sleeping. I only saw a handful of people milling around, but more were expected later in the afternoon. This guy was pounding on some plastic buckets and when I asked if he was part of the movement he replied, "I am now."

This is turning into a global response on par with what theorists Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri hoped for in their 2000 book, Empire, which, in the words of philosophical shaman Slavoj Zizek, "sets as its goal, writing the Communist Manifesto for the twenty-first century." My department at the University of Alberta is also getting in on the act and hosting "A Roundtable on the Global Occupation Movement" with such luminaries as Imre Szeman, Nat Hurley and Sourayan Mookerjea. Where does it go next? Onwards and upwards, I suspect, away from financial districts towards government centres like the Legislative Assembly of Alberta. A splendid time is guaranteed for all.

The Situation: Occupy Wherever

2011-10-21T13:18:00.000-07:00

"In a society that has abolished every kind of adventure the only adventure that remains is to abolish the society."

Guy Debord and the Situationists brought game to the spectacle of street protests. It was performance waged with style and subversion that ultimately turned May 1968 into a touchstone for future generations. Did they result in any systemic change? No, but they did cause adjustments and shifts in the system that led to limited forms of progress. Even if this was just an illusion of progress they still raised awareness and opened new ground for future movements to effect change.

So what's going on with the Occupy Wall Street movements flourishing around the globe? First, as should be expected, they're taking on different levels of intensity depending on local or national circumstances. Second, they've crystallized a consensus that is widely shared across a variety of demographics, cultures, political systems and ethnic groups. Third, the potency for change, whether small or large, systemic or not, real or illusory, is still yet to be seen. In the meantime, as Jacques Rancière has suggested, the emancipated spectator is free to find anything valid on his own terms without leaders determining a frame of reference. Be realistic - demand the impossible.

Bruce Robinson: A Piece Of Work

2011-10-16T23:36:00.007-07:00

Withnail, Robinson and I at Uncle Monty's Cottage, 1969/1986

Bruce Robinson, legendary cult director and honorary member of my personal Gonzo Pantheon, has recently finished directing a new film based on Hunter S. Thompson's novel, The Rum Diary. Starring Johnny Depp and set in Puerto Rico, it's scheduled to be released next month. Robinson isn't the most prolific of directors - he's most well known for Withnail and I (1987) and How To Get Ahead In Advertising (1989), which he also wrote the screenplays for, as well as the Academy Award winner, The Killing Fields (1984).

Robinson started off as an actor, appearing as Benvolio in Franco Zeffirelli's 1968 version of Romeo and Juliet. According to a interview with Will Self in the October edition of Esquire (UK version), Robinson had a miserable time fending off Zeffirelli's unwanted advances. He later found revenge by basing Withnail and I's Uncle Monty on the lech.

Robinson as Benvolio, 1968

It's as a screenwriter that Robinson has made his mark. He's a master of existential wit and scathing satire which helped propel his directorial debut, Withnail And I, into the "classic" category. Of course, having the geniuses of Richard E. Grant and Paul McGann along for the ride didn't hurt either.

Withnail and I remains one of my very favourite films - everything from the acting and writing to the settings and the soundtrack, combine to create a seamless, cinematographic masterpiece. Nothing is out of place and after all these years it's still as fucking hilarious as it ever was. Here's the immortal King Curtis on film's opening song, "Whiter Shade of Pale":

Borderlands: Canada & U.S. Fear

2011-10-12T23:16:00.003-07:00

"Homeland Security is a monster that will never die." ~ Derek Lundy

One of the more interesting discoveries I've encountered on my return to Canada (apart from tar sands and the disturbing ubiquity of 80s radio), has been the fact that a significant percent of Americans still believe the 9/11 hijackers entered the U.S. through Canada. It's a complete lie, but it's gained credence within FOX Nation. The truth is just too much to bear, so when in doubt...Blame Canada!

Derek Lundy's recent book, Borderlands: Riding the Edge of America, is a wake-up call. He warns Canadians that change is coming and if we don't take action to define the debate on our terms we'll be subjected to the same militarization seen on the U.S./Mexico border. Lundy is a Canadian who was born in Northern Ireland so he knows a bit about what he's talking about. Terrorism tends to promote the same ugly fears and obsessions with security wherever it surfaces. For this book, Lundy drove a Kawasaki KLR 650 along the U.S. borders with Mexico and Canada to investigate what's been happening in the decade since 9/11.

Lundy confirms that 9/11 changed everything for the U.S. Before, economics trumped security, now it's the other way around and everyone is a suspect. The billions poured into Homeland Security has materialized along both borders as huge slabs of cement walls and Predator drones. Lundy suggests the U.S. is now committed to this reality and if Canada doesn't do something to match it we'll be doomed to bleak days ahead.

Thanksgiving: Give & Take

2011-10-08T22:15:00.007-07:00

Garneau, Edmonton (Photos by Yewco)

This weekend is Thanksgiving in Canada and it's got me thinking about the nature of giving and taking. Giving requires someone or something to be on the take and that's been me more often than not. I suspect it's not that much different for most others. Miranda July has a great piece on the New Yorker website about shoplifting, the ultimate "take" in a capitalist society:

"I discovered that stealing required a loose, casual energy, a sort of oneness with the environment, like surfing or horse-whispering. And once I knew I could do it I felt strangely obliged to. I remember feeling guilty for not stealing, as though I were wasting money."

That's a true sense of entitlement if there ever was one - the feeling that you're obliged to a rip off despite who or what may be on the other end. It's the feeling that has enabled Wall Street to run the U.S. economy into the ground - capitalism in its purest manifestation.

I went through a phase many moons ago around this time in the fall when I was careless enough to think I could steal and get away with it. I was on my paper route when I got the bright idea of stealing car ornaments like the "VW" and "BMW" logos. Luckily, I was caught by my manager who refrained from calling the cops or even firing me. I had to return everything and soon learned to curb my enthusiasms (not really) and be thankful for small mercies.

A little give & take, Astotin Lake, Elk Island Park, Alberta

Jonathan Richman: Raw & Wild

2011-10-04T23:30:00.007-07:00

Jonathan Richman takes the stage like a precocious kid on the first day of school searching the crowd for a welcoming sign. Clutching his strapless classical guitar and still feeling a little unsure of what he's up against, he launches into a seductive number that soon has the crowd swooning...

Because her beauty is raw and wild
She's at the core of the stars we see
'Cause her beauty is raw and wild
She's at the core of the stars we see

A smile spreads across Jonathan's face as he realizes he's with his kind of folk. He nods to percussionist Tommy Larkins, picks up a bell shaker and waves it over the crowd as though dispensing blessings before beginning to soft-shoe across the stage...

Our crowd at the Starlite Room in Edmonton has now been accepted into the club, not the kind for drinking sips, but the one for shaking hips....

Jojo, as he's known by the aficionados, might be 60, but he's forever young. At the heart of his aesthetic is a joy of being, a celebration of life in its infinite plenitude, screw what anyone else might say.

Irshad Manji: Ijtihad

2011-09-30T21:56:00.004-07:00

"Courage is not the absence of fear. It is the recognition that some things are more important than fear."

Irshad Manji is anything but predictable. A Muslim who supports same-sex marriage, she consistently finds herself on the outside of her faith. She was in Edmonton last week as part of LitFest appearing at the historic Garneau Theatre where she was interviewed by the Edmonton Journal's Sheila Pratt and fielded questions from the audience.

Manji was promoting her recent book, Allah, Liberty & Love: The Courage to Reconcile Faith and Freedom, and doing what she does best - upset expectations and provoke critical awareness around issues of moral courage and changing the world. At the heart of her endeavour is the concept of Ijtihad (pronounced “ij-tee-had”), which she defines as "Islam’s own tradition of independent thinking" that gave the world "inventions from the astrolabe to the university."

She also spoke eloquently about the Moral Courage Project she directs at New York University and of the need for individuals, in Bobby Kennedy's words:

"...to brave the disapproval of their fellows, the censure of their colleagues, the wrath of their society. Moral courage is a rarer commodity than bravery in battle or great intelligence. Yet it is the one essential, vital quality for those who seek to change a world that yields most painfully to change."

Manji practices what she preaches - she condemns dogma wherever it surfaces and praises some unlikely practitioners of moral courage like New Jersey Republican Governor Chris Christie, who dismissed sharia law fearmongering, and Starbucks' CEO Howard Shultz for challenging his fellow CEOs and politicians to put citizenship above partisanship.

But most provocative is her activism within the Muslim community. She enlisted Dr. Khaleel Mohammad, an iman and professor of religious studies, to interpret/translate a verse in the Koran in support of interfaith couples. It has since been translated into 20 languages. As a result, she risks harm, even death - earlier this year she collapsed from exhaustion and for the entire duration of her Edmonton appearance two police officers stood silently on either side of the stage keeping eye out for any wingnut who might cause trouble.

R.E.M.: Young And Full Of Grace

2011-09-26T23:00:00.009-07:00

"File Under Water"~ written on the spine of Reckoning

When R.E.M. swept onto the scene in the early 80s - June 28, 1984, to be exact - they embodied a hybrid of hippie and punk that was pure exhilaration, the jump-up-kick-your-ass-with-your-heels kind of bliss. It was the Commodore Ballroom, Granville Street, Vancouver, in the days when $20 would get a kid from the suburbs a baggie of Sensimilla that could be rolled into a few submarine fatties. I was 16, had just finished grade 11 at Semiahmoo Senior Secondary in White Rock, and was spending my days listening to Reckoning, along with the Smith's debut, in the plush, shag-carpeted environs of my family living room.

With my older brother’s cream coloured Ibanez wedged tightly between my left arm and lap, I strum-whipped “Pretty Persuasion” with the same frenetic acuity Pete Townshend displayed in concert a few years before at that concrete abyss known as Seattle’s Kingdome.

I was ready to happen and R.E.M. provided lift off. Now the Commodore serves alcohol, and as a lad of merely 16 I was three years shy of the legal limit. But I refused to let that be an obstacle. I invited along my secret weapon: a large friend, as huge as a Samoan wrestler. Steve was bad-ass, so much so he was the first in all of Surrey to drive an orange, Russian-made Lada as a way of protesting western imperialism. He could also look ten years older and meaner than any one I’d ever seen.

When we finally got to the Commodore and climbed the red carpet to the hallowed entrance, no questions were dare asked. It was my first time ever inside the fabled ballroom and R.E.M. provided the purpose and soundtrack to that sacred right of passage. Sadly, I don’t have a set list, but I do remember many of these songs played the night before in Seattle’s Music Hall:

Moral Kiosk / Driver 8 / Catapult / Hyena / Camera / Pilgrimage / Talk About The Passion / Seven Chinese Brothers / So. Central Rain / Pretty Persuasion / Gardening At Night / 9-9 / Windout / Old Man Kensey / Radio Free Europe / Little America
encore 1: Sitting Still / Burning Down / Pale Blue Eyes / 1,000,000
encore 2: So You Want To Be A Rock'n'Roll Star / Carnival Of Sorts (Boxcars)

I also seem to recall “Femme Fatale” and “No Fun”, but that could be the beer and smoke. It was the beginning of a long and beautiful relationship that continued until last week when they dropped the curtain. I was at the gym, my iPod on random when “I Believe” kicked in. I thought to myself, “Damn, this is a fine song...good lyrics too.”

I Believe

When I was young and full of grace
And spirited - a rattlesnake
When I was young and fever fell
My spirit, I will not tell
You're on your honor not to tell

I believe in coyotes and time as an abstract
Explain the change, the difference between
What you want and what you need, there's the key,
Your adventure for today, what do you do
Between the horns of the day?

(chorus)
I believe my shirt is wearing thin
And change is what I believe in

When I was young and give and take
And foolish said my fool awake
When I was young and fever fell
My spirit, I will not tell
You're on your honor, on your honor
Trust in your calling, make sure your calling's true
Think of others, the others think of you
Silly rule golden words make, practice, practice makes perfect,
Perfect is a fault, and fault lines change

I believe my humor's wearing thin
And change is what I believe in
I believe my shirt is wearing thin
And change is what I believe in

(repeat chorus)

When I was young and full of grace
As spirited a rattlesnake
When I was young and fever fell
My spirit, I will not tell
You're on your honor, on your honor
I believe in example
I believe my throat hurts
Example is the checker to the key

I believe my humor's wearing thin
And I believe the poles are shifting

I got home, read the news and took a deep breath...for change is what I believe in.

Gloria Anzaldúa: La Frontera

2011-09-22T22:56:00.006-07:00

"To survive the Borderlands
you must live sin fronteras
be a crossroads." ~ Gloria Anzaldúa

Borders surround us, beginning where flesh meets air and continuing through the ether to divide high from low, night from day, good from bad. For some, the border is a natural state of being, an in-between ambiguity where absolutes don't fully exist and possibilities are endless. Gloria Anzaldúa made her home there and flourished for a brief time before dying of diabetes complications in 2004 at age 61.

Anzaldúa left behind an electrifying book - Borderlands/La Frontera (1987) - part memoir, part manifesto, written in prose and poetry, but in the end it's truly "sin fronteras," or borderless. Anzaldúa seizes the opportunity to fully express her concept of "the new Mestiza," which involves embracing of all the contradictions and multitudes that reside within from her identity as a self-described, "chicana dyke-feminist, tejana patlache poet, writer, and cultural theorist."

U.S.-Mexico border, the place “where the Third World grates against the first and bleeds.” ~ Gloria Anzaldúa

Anzaldúa grew up along the Tex-Mex border in the impoverished Rio Grande Valley and eventually received her MA from the University of Texas. Like other visionary works such as Arthur Rimbaud's A Season In Hell or Dark Night of the Soul by St. John of the Cross, Borderlands/La Frontera is an exhilarating and demanding read, but when finished it never lets go. One for the ages.

Live in Edmonton: The Junior Boys

2011-09-18T21:44:00.001-07:00

"People have commented that I make Canadian records and I sort of embrace that to the extent that I like to make records that have a lot of empty space in them." ~ Jeremy Greenspan

My first gig in Edmonton turned out to be at the Starlite Room last week where Canadian wunderkinds, the Junior Boys, electrified the capacity crowd. The trio's suave take on synthpop made for a good show, even if it was somewhat brief and a bit monochromatic. The Starlite is a small venue, about the same size as the old Town Pump in Vancouver, but that didn't hamper the throbbing beats and synth-splashes from sizzling off the stage like hot neon crystals.

Like fellow Canuck Dan Bejar of Destroyer, lead singer Jeremy Greenspan is a crooner. He clearly revels in vamping and primping around the stage as he switches from guitar to synth, then back to his mic. Vocally reminiscent of such 80s bands as OMD and Spandau Ballet, the band's overall aesthetic is sleek and contemporary - think Ariel Pink without the trash.

Throughout the 80 minute performance, I kept hoping for a burst of colour to spill over the crowd, but sadly the Starlite remained dull and flat. Maybe next time throw a little champagne in with the sizzle, fellas...

Eco-Pirate: Paul Watson

2011-09-14T16:37:00.021-07:00

“The fact is that we live in an extremely violent culture, and we all justify violence if it’s for what we believe in.”~ Paul Watson

Some do what they can, others do what they must. Paul Watson belongs to the latter category. He's spent his entire adult life dedicated to saving whales, dolphins, seals and other marine life as a vocation and a compulsion. He's had no choice. Fanaticism has come naturally while most others shun it as something reserved for extremists or - yikes! - terrorists. In fact, Watson has endured despite being saddled with every pejorative, including "Eco-Pirate."

Trish Dolman, director of Eco-Pirate, succeeds in creating a film that adds to Watson's mystique as a valiant warrior and while sympathetic in its portrayal, it's not biased. The film explores the bitter and apparently ongoing resentments that erupted between Watson and Greenpeace, particularly Patrick Moore, when founder Bob Hunter stepped down in 1979. One of the film's most moving scenes involves Hunter's daughter, Emily, and Watson scattering Bob's ashes while on a table-top iceberg in Antarctica.

Greenpeace founder Bob Hunter (1941–2005)

The rupture between Watson and Greenpeace had to do with differences over what methods to employ for achieving the best results, the old "ends justifying the means" conundrum. Watson is described by Moore as a rogue, an irresponsible megalomaniac who was undermining Greenpeace's Gandhian mandate of non-violence. Watson counters that the proof is in the pudding - he has consistently reached his goals while Greenpeace has largely failed in its founding mission. The break propelled Watson to form the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society in 1978, which has recently spearheaded campaigns against Japanese whaling in Antarctica. Much of the film's best footage is taken from this expedition in 2010.

Watson is the genuine article, someone worth admiring if only because he lives his passion. That it involves defending those who can't defend themselves makes him all the more worthy of support.

9/11: Ten Years On

2011-09-10T20:24:00.015-07:00

Sunrise from Mount Nemrut, Turkey (photos by Yewco)

"We have entered the third millennium through a gate of fire. If today, after the horror of 11 September, we see better, and we see further — we will realize that humanity is indivisible." ~ Kofi Annan

There's always nostalgia around anniversaries, but "ten" has to be the mother of them all. Nostalgia, as MSNBC "ranter" Touré points out, is generally a wish to relive happy moments, so the media blitz around the tenth anniversary of 9/11 has felt strange. Too much of it seems like a perverse attraction, a rubber-necking impulse to view all the carnage and experience a titillating thrill from a safe distance.

Beirut, Lebanon

On a personal level, it provides a moment to look back over my own life since 9/11. I felt like I was hurled onto a deeper level of understanding by the events as I watched them unfold from my apartment in the Mid-Levels of Hong Kong on that humid evening. Like many others, I thought it was a movie, a remix of Orson Welles' "War of the Worlds" played out for our specular, digital age. I soon realized it wasn't a farce or the new Batman flick; it was a genuine tragedy, but one that I first thought was a mistake, an accident. At the same moment I also felt that it was too much of a freak occurrence to simply be a plane crash. Then came the second plane. Now it was obvious something more sinister was at stake, that I was witnessing a horror that would shift the paradigm of our age. I stayed up all night looking for answers. Then more planes crashed until it finally seemed over for that day at least.

Pelkor Chode Monastery - Tibet

I had recently started my MA in Applied Linguistics that week and had just returned home from a night class at Hong Kong University when I switched on CNN. 9/11 would eventually play a huge role in determining my thesis. With the support of a beneficent advisor (thanks Phil), I chose to explore the trajectory of my own family - specifically my dad's side as a Sons of Freedom Doukhobor. As a young teen, he was able to escape their influences and carve out a life of his own in the broader, Anglo community. His younger brother, Harry, was not so fortunate. His life ended in 1962 at 17 when he blew himself up in the backseat of a '58 Chevy while preparing a bomb for the post office in Kinnaird, B.C.

With Dad in Vancouver

Those unfamiliar with the Freedomite Doukhobors are probably aghast and confused. It's a long story, recognizable to most multi-ethnic cultures where one world meets another and is forced to choose between assimilation or demise. For a short time in B.C., Harry and the Freedomites refused either and they fought what eventually became a losing battle. The RCMP records state Harry died while "on a terroristic mission" and I was determined to research the circumstances that led to such a verdict. Had the events of 9/11 not occurred, I never would have felt compelled to do so. It has now expanded into a novel I'm writing based on Harry's life. In retrospect, 9/11 made me see "better" and "further" into the truth that MLK once described as humanity's "inescapable network of mutuality."

Krestova Cemetery, last resting place of Harry Kootnikoff, 1944-1962. (photo: Doukhobor Genealogy Website)

In Between Days: Summer of 2011

2011-09-06T22:18:00.001-07:00

"These were the woods the river and sea
Where a boy
In the listening
Summertime of the dead whispered the truth of his joy
To the trees and the stones and the fish in the tide.
And the mystery
Sang alive
Still in the water and singingbirds." - Dylan Thomas

This summer was my 44th year to heaven, to paraphrase Dylan Thomas, and it involved a huge shake-up in my life. After 11 years of living in Hong Kong, I came home to Canada to embark on a new adventure. But first Yuko and I had to return to Vancouver and load up a Uhaul with all our stuff from Hong Kong, along with some old junk I'd left behind in storage.

July and August were truly "in between days" waiting for new beginnings to take flight while biding our time visiting family and friends in White Rock...

(With Dad in White Rock)

(with Mum, brother Rob, his kids and friend, Genna,)

We also did a bit of horseback riding in Pemberton....

Checked in with Emily Carr in Victoria...

Soaked up the gorgeous sunset...

Made it to the summit of Whistler with our lovely guide and friend, Miyuki...

and jumped out of a plane for my birthday...

As Dylan Thomas wrote:

"O may my heart's truth
Still be sung
On this high hill in a year's turning."

Oob-Schadoo-Beh! Here's the Cure from 1985:

The Incompleat Pogo: Walt Kelly

2011-09-01T23:33:00.002-07:00

"Don't take life so serious, son. It ain't nohow permanent."

I've just dug up my childhood copy of The Incompleat Pogo by Walt Kelly from a box in storage. It's faded and dog-eared, but otherwise perfectly readable considering it's from 1954. According to my mum, it belonged to one of my uncles, but when I opened the cover it read:

DAVID
JOHNKOOtni
KOFF

I must have scrawled that in pencil when I was 5 or 6 years old. I had pretty good taste for one of "nature's little screechers," as Kelly would say.

Kelly worked with Disney for a while before going rogue and launching his Pogo comic strip in The New York Star in 1948. Pogo is a possum living in Okefenokee Swamp with all his critter friends communicating in a peculiar dialect known as "swamp-speak." Kelly was a master of language, a born humourist and a brilliant satirist. He's been compared to everyone from Lewis Carroll and James Joyce to Aesop. Not one to shy away from politics, Kelly would say he was against "the extreme Right, the extreme Left, and the extreme Middle." He poked fun at the Ku Klux Klan (The Kluck Klams):

And also lampooned Senator Joseph McCarthy (Simple J. Malarkey) at a time when he wielded enough power to ruin careers:

Here's a song Kelly wrote and sang called, "Go Go Pogo":

Go Go Pogo

As Maine go o so Pogo go Key Largo,
Otsego to Frisco go to Fargo,
Okeefenokee playin', possum on a Pogo,
Stick around and see the show

Go over Land alive a band o' jive will blow go Pogo,
I go you go who go to go pollyvoo go,
From Caravan Diego, Waco and Oswego,
Tweedle de he go she go we go me go Pogo.

Atascadero, Wheeler, Barrow, Someplace in Mexico,
Delaware, Ohio and you don't need the text to go.
Wheeling, West Virginia, With everything that's in ya,
Down the line you'll see the shine from Oregon to Caroline.

Oh, eenie Meenie Minie Kokomo go Pogo
Tishimingo, sing those lingo, whistling go.
Shamokin to Hoboken,
Chenango to Chicongo,
it's golly, I go goo goo going go go Pogo.

Ian & Sylvia: Canadiana Duo

2011-08-28T22:07:00.003-07:00

Clearing out storage is a pain in the ass until you uncover some rare artifacts that make it all worthwhile. As I was unpacking some boxes that had been stored for over 10 years, I found a little gem - Ian and Sylvia Tyson's self-titled album from 1971. It was released just a year after the classic, Great Speckled Bird, and mines the same country-rock sound that the duo had begun excavating on their 1968 release, Nashville.

Great Speckled Bird

Ian and Sylvia did what only a few other rock or folk musicians were doing in 1968 - they traveled to Nashville to record and embarked on playing a hybrid of country-rock with a Canadian twist. Apart from Bob Dylan and the Band, few others were heading in the same direction with as much flair or aptitude for authentic country. They were ahead of the pack and while there they released some stellar albums that are worth checking out for those with an interest in Canadiana that goes beyond Stompin' Tom and the odd stubby.

The album opens with a David Wiffen tune, "More Often Than Not" that appeared on his Fantasy debut the same year. It also includes the definitive version of "Summer Wages" and Sylvia singing a haunting cover of Bert Jansch's "Needle of Death."

But the absolute kicker for me is "Barney." Ian relates the story of shooting a horse that's got to be one of the most moving and tender ballads written for an animal I've ever heard...and that includes the Stooges' "I Wanna Be Your Dog."

Barney

Yesterday morning the snow came at last
The cattle all came down from the hills
Barney, he’s been crippled for quite a long while now
His old legs stiff and bare in the chill
Since coming up from Texas he’s been owned by many
And he’s been rodeoed and knocked all around
So to bury him deep before the ground got to hard
That morning I put Barney down

We walked up the hill through the dead brown grass
Barney, a rifle, and I
And tying him quickly I took aim and I fired
In the hopes he’d feel nothing and die
But with a heart such as he had he clung so to life
Bust his halter and staggered away
He was coughing his blood still fighting to stand
When he pitched foreword and died where he lay

As I drove into town I started to cry
Where no one could see or could care
The sadness cut through me as I stared through my tears
And rush hours on coming there
I wept for my seasons of youth past and done
And for things that I thought I forgot
But mostly I cried for an honest brown horse
Who gave me much more than he got

A Man You Won't Meet Everyday: Jack Layton

2011-08-24T10:59:00.005-07:00

"My friends, watch out for the little fellow with an idea." - Tommy Douglas

Canada is mourning a Prime Minister that should have been - Jack Layton, the greatest politician our country has seen since Tommy Douglas. The comparisons have been frequently made and will continue for a long time to come. Both were NDP leaders (Social Democrats) of Anglo dissent who loved their work and approached it as they did life; as optimists who believed in the collective will of people to change the world for the better.

(Jack Layton & Olivia Chow, 1997)

Most people do their work; Jack Layton loved his. And it showed. As with those rare individuals who relish what they do, Layton attracted others to his side and inspired their loyalty. That's what he did until last Monday when he passed away from cancer at the age of 61.

Yuko and I have just returned to Canada from living abroad for over 10 years and his passing is my very first genuine sorrow back home. I was looking forward to watching Jack in action, participating in his project to better the world.

I was too young to see Tommy Douglas in his prime so my recollections are culled from old archived news reels and his written words. Above all, what stands out is his voice and his undeniable integrity. With Jack I recognized the same timbre, the same dignity minus pretense or overwrought gravitas. It's the same quality of sincerity I recognize in the music of Stan Rogers and Leonard Cohen, in the poetry of Al Purdy or Susan Musgrave and in the paintings of Emily Carr or Lawren Harris. As a Canadian, I recognize this uniqueness as intrinsically belonging to us.

(Lawren Harris, "North Shore, Lake Superior," 1926)

An American or a Spaniard might hear or see something completely different and attach their own cultural attribute to it, but it will always remain originally from Canada. Sure, it's white, Anglo-Canada but that doesn't diminish its power for me.

(Tommy Douglas, 1968)

My own spiritual beliefs are agnostic but they bend towards belief in a just universe. I see karma at the centre, but as I grow older I also recognize something larger, perhaps grace, also at work. Grace, as Bono sang, "finds goodness in everything." It's faith, not only that my good or bad deeds will be returned, but that something beyond my control can also deliver me into the hands of joy. It's as simple and as plain as what Jack wrote in his last letter to Canadians:

"My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we’ll change the world."

It's not only there in the substance, but also in that tender phrase, "My friends." That's grace - the faith that a stranger is not really one at all, but is a soon-to-be friend. And as Tommy Douglas said:

"Courage, my friends; 'tis not too late to build a better world."

(Greg Perry)

Thanks, Jack, for your courage and grace...

Cappadocia: Turkish Delight

2011-08-20T21:39:00.001-07:00

(Photos by Yewco)

Deep in the heart of the Turkish region of Cappadocia is the town of Göreme, a wonderland that seems conjured from the elements for hobbits, wizards and fairies.

The phantasmagoria of upside-down ice cream cones and minarets known as "fairy chimneys" is the result of volcanic ash being accumulated and eroded for thousands of years.

We entered Turkey from Syria in the southeast and were slowly making our way to Istanbul. Our "cave hotel" was built right into one of the fairy chimneys. It was so cool to bed down at the end of the day like a couple of troglodytes in our own little hole in the wall (literally).

After exploring the underground caves and ascending the towering pillars we chose to go a little higher - a dawn ride in a hot air balloon.

Dialect Of The Heart: Jack Gilbert

2011-08-15T00:58:00.001-07:00

"What we feel most has / no name but amber, archers, cinnamon, horses, and birds." ~ "The Forgotten Dialect Of The Heart," Jack Gilbert

This week was my birthday, or "birthweek" as we say in our home, and I'm happy to report I'm still following the songlines of dreamtime. When you're young and naive, dreams flare easily into life and often continue giving off heat well after life cools. Then you hit your late thirties or forties only to find you've been running on the fumes of your twenties. Or worse; you've turned off the engine.

Kullilla Art

I've got a sackful of dreamtime and I'm relocating back to Canada after a decade of living abroad. What else could I ask for? (Okay, maybe that 1964 Plymouth Valiant convertible I saw at White Rock beach the other day, but I digress). Something else I'm doing is reveling in the poetry of Jack Gilbert.

The Forgotten Dialect Of The Heart

How astonishing it is that language can almost mean,
and frightening that it does not quite. Love, we say,
God, we say, Rome and Michiko, we write, and the words
get it all wrong. We say bread and it means according
to which nation. French has no word for home,
and we have no word for strict pleasure. A people
in northern India is dying out because their ancient
tongue has no words for endearment. I dream of lost
vocabularies that might express some of what
we no longer can. Maybe the Etruscan texts would
finally explain why the couples on their tombs
are smiling. And maybe not. When the thousands
of mysterious Sumerian tablets were translated,
they seemed to be business records. But what if they
are poems or psalms? My joy is the same as twelve
Ethiopian goats standing silent in the morning light.
O Lord, thou art slabs of salt and ingots of copper,
as grand as ripe barley lithe under the wind's labor.
Her breasts are six white oxen loaded with bolts
of long-fibered Egyptian cotton. My love is a hundred
pitchers of honey. Shiploads of thuya are what
my body wants to say to your body. Giraffes are this
desire in the dark. Perhaps the spiral Minoan script
is not laguage but a map. What we feel most has
no name but amber, archers, cinnamon, horses, and birds.

Married

I came back from the funeral and crawled
around the apartment, crying hard,
searching for my wife’s hair.
For two months got them from the drain,
from the vacuum cleaner, under the refrigerator,
and off the clothes in the closet.
But after other Japanese women came,
there was no way to be sure which were
hers, and I stopped. A year later,
repotting Michiko’s avocado, I find
a long black hair tangled in the dirt.

Timeless Serenade: Okinawa

2011-08-10T22:48:00.002-07:00

Apart from the ricocheting wail of a U.S. army helicopter, the air is full of the melodic clucking of a sanshin, the Okinawan three-stringed guitar.

My wife and I are sitting in a roadside restaurant somewhere between the cities of Naha and Nago on the main island of Okinawa. We've just ordered a dish of umi-budo-don, a specialty consisting of sea-grapes, sea urchin and red fish eggs. The walls, painted the day-glow colors of a neon sunset, give off the cheesy vibe of a black velvet painting. I cross my fingers and hope the decor isn't a reflection of the food.

When the dish finally arrives all thoughts of tropical kitsch are soon forgotten. Our meal, culled from the indigo waters off the coast, is delicious. We may have come to Okinawa for the sun and diving, but we've also discovered a few keys to longevity: raw fish guts and a green, bitter gourd called goya. The Uchinanchu (local dialect for native Okinawans) have the longest life expectancy of anyone on the planet -- 86 for women and 78 for men -- and diet is one of the main contributing factors.

Another factor is the Okinawan lifestyle. "Okinawa time," the islander's casual relationship to the clock, set the Uchinanchu far apart from mainland Japanese. Nan kuru naisa, (don't worry, be happy) is the local creed and clocks rarely agree with one another.

The Okinawan islands stretch over 1,000 kms from Kyushu, the largest southern island of Japan, to Taiwan. As a result, the Uchinanchu share more in common with the Taiwanese and Filipinos than with mainland Japanese. Once an independent nation known as the Ryukyu Kingdom, Japan officially renamed the islands Okinawa Prefecture following the Meiji restoration in 1879.

Shurijo, the 13th century-era royal castle of the Ryukyu Kingdom, was completely destroyed in 1945 during the "Battle of Okinawa," also known as the "typhoon of steel." It has since been rebuilt and is a source of local pride.

While diving off Zamami Island, Miyazato-san, the owner of our hotel and diving buddy, grabs hold of a porcupine puffer fish. It flares up like a prickly volleyball in self defense and swims away into the lucid blue distance of the warm sea.

On our last night while walking down Kokusai Dori (International Street) in Naha, a local troupe of traditional Okinawan dancers known as Eisa suddenly emerge from traffic. They pull up in two small flat-bed trucks waving their taiko drums and begin a free performance in the parking lot of a convenience store. Two chondara clowns run around exciting the audience while the entourage plays on. After 20 minutes they pack up as quickly as they'd arrived and speed off.

Soon we'll depart from Okinawa and reluctantly adjust our watches to prepare for a slow transition back to "real time".

Light In The Dark: Herzog Underground

2011-08-05T14:59:00.003-07:00

"These fragments I have shored against my ruins" - T.S. Eliot, "The Waste Land"

There's an old adage - it's not the artist, but the spirit that moves through the artist who creates. Werner Herzog's latest film, Cave of Forgotten Dreams, explores the invisible hand at work in the magnificent Chauvet Cave rock paintings recently discovered in southern France. Painted over 25,000 years ago, the paintings are fragments pointing to a larger whole - our own collective being. As Herzog asks, "Is this their heartbeat or ours?"

Herzog was given unprecedented access to the cave, but was only allowed to bring a crew of four including himself. His choice to use 3D was ingenious - not only is it trendy, but it brings the texture of the paintings alive as if they'd just been freshly baked.

One scientist believes the people who painted the rocks didn't recognize any boundaries between the spiritual and conscious worlds or between creatures like bisons or humans. As Herzog says, they also weren't trapped within history and enjoyed more freedom of thought than us so-called "moderns". Once again, Herzog tackles the impossible and dresses it in rare and provocative attire - another great film by the maestro.

Rocky Top: Jasper

2011-07-31T17:06:00.004-07:00

Yuko and I drove 450 kms to Jasper from Edmonton for the first time in our lives this week and I've seen more moose, elk, caribou and big horn sheep than I've seen in a decade.

It cost $20 to enter the park, the largest in the Canadian Rockies, and as soon as you cross into the hallowed grounds you can feel a change in the air and witness the transformation of the landscape.

The slate-grey mountains burst through the placid prairie and pierce the sky with the immediacy of an earthquake. It's a stunning and beautiful sight to see.

Living in Hong Kong over the past decade makes it easy to appreciate the Rockies' cataclysmic wonder - it's a natural paradox that's calming to behold.

Donald Barthelme: A New Principle HEIGH-HO

2011-07-28T09:28:00.000-07:00

“Writing is a process of dealing with not-knowing, a forcing of what and how” ~ Donald Barthelme

Reading Donald Barthelme is like being inside Daedalus' labyrinth expecting to confront the Minotaur at every turn. His writing can put horns on the dullest of heads.

Like Samuel Beckett, Barthelme knows there's nothing to be done, that there's no cure for being here and yet he thumps at the darkness with the only bludgeons in his arsenal - words, words, words.

"Head in the Clouds" by Richard Niman

If I were stuck in a bucket, stories such as "Some of Us Had Been Threatening Our Friend Colby" or "Glass Mountain" would provide a modicum of comfort. I would laugh and wince about how some friends are trying to arrange Colby's execution in as dignified a manner as possible despite his protestations. I could then join Barthelme climbing "Glass Mountain" while stepping nimbly over every sentence he has numbered (100). Or maybe I'd buy me a city like his Galveston.

During his heyday in the sixties, Barthelme retold "Snow White" and turned the dwarfs into horny little curmudgeons who also sell Chinese-themed baby food to pay the bills. His incandescence shines on in both the brutal humour of George Saunders and in the gentle fandango of Billy Collins. As Lev Grossman wrote in Time:

A prodigious smoker and drinker, Barthelme died in 1989 of throat cancer, having already seen critics begin to dismiss him as a novelty act. In truth, the mistake we made with Barthelme was expecting him to be the beginning of something. He was the end of something--the green flash in the brilliant sunset of modernism. But in his ceaseless reconfiguration of broken words, he gave voice to our longing for unbroken ones and freed us to go off in search of them--like the dwarfs in Snow White who, on the novel's final page, "DEPART IN SEARCH OF A NEW PRINCIPLE HEIGH-HO."

Hong Kong Harlequins: Tramps Like Us

2011-07-23T21:49:00.002-07:00

"A day without laughter is a day wasted" - Charlie Chaplin

"Harlequin" sounds a little less krusty than "clown" and a little more dignified than "buffoon." Known as "Arlecchino" in Italian, its origins are believed to reside in the "Zanni" figure found in Commedia dell'arte...

Yuko and I got all made up for a fun day of tramping around Sheung Wan on Hong Kong Island....

We braved the elements and slapped on our best trickster-faces...

Thanks to our friend & photographer, Turbo, for indulging two silly tramps...

Yazd: Iran's Zoroastrian Heart

2011-07-18T10:04:00.003-07:00

Iran. A country misunderstood at best, a nefarious enemy at worst. Yazd is a bustling city of half a million people and a center for the for the Zoroastrian faith for over 2000 years. The Ateshkadeh Fire Temple, dedicated to the prophet Zoroaster, houses a flame believed to have been burning since 470 CE. Zoroastrianism predates Islam and was Iran’s official religion for 1000 years until invading Muslims conquered in the 7th century. Sai, our guide, wears a Faravahar around his neck, the Zoroastrian symbol of a half-man, half-eagle emerging from a disk with wings spread wide. Sai admits he prefers Zoroastrianism to Islam as it connects him to his Persian origins, but he is wary of exposing his pendant publicly. “Etiquette” police charged with enforcing the Islamic republic’s strict dress codes could be anywhere. The current regime views Iran’s pre-Islamic culture with suspicion, frowning on any open displays of support.

Zoroaster

Yazd is also one of the largest cities in the world built from adobe. Everywhere there are windcatchers, the small towers used for cooling buildings. They are a household necessity in a desert where some of the earth’s hottest surface temperatures - 71° Celsius - have been recorded. From the top of the huge Amir Chakhmaq Complex in the city center, countless windcatchers poke up above the rooftops like periscopes in an ocean of bubbled adobe homes.

Jameh Mosque

Yazd’s city center is alive with people rushing home from work. We pass shops selling sugar crystals and bakeries crammed with pastries before arriving at the Seljuq shrine, the city’s holiest Islamic site. Some ninety percent of Iranians identify as Shiite Muslims. There are separate entrances for men and women and I wrap a borrowed robe around my bare legs before entering. Light reflects off the mirrored ceiling and walls and the shrine is bathed in lime green, the Prophet Muhammad’s favourite colour and the one opposition forces adopted in protests that shook the country in 2009.

Yazd is famous for its silk carpets and we step into a shop for a peek of the gorgeous tapestries on sale. I soon get lured into buying one after a bit of bartering and a few cups of tea. Back at our hotel we dine on the rooftop patio in the cool evening with a stunning view of the 14th century Jameh Mosque’s 48-meter high minarets poking above the skyline like two enormous fingers pointing to the heavens. In the distance the muezzin call for evening prayers sounds.

Schadenfreudegasm: Murdoch Impailed

2011-07-14T07:33:00.002-07:00

(Steve Bell)

"Our underlying philosophy is that all media are one."~ Rupert Murdoch

"Rosebud" ~ Charles 'Citizen' Kane

If "all media are one," as Murdo says, then the phone-hacking scandal unraveling in the U.K. will be the common thread ensnaring his entire network around the globe from Sydney to New York. In the same way Charles Kane's world shatters, Murdo's grasp on his empire is slipping at the tender age of 80. Corruption is as corruption does.

It's an absolute joy watching him fall from the heights of his corporate imperium and I'm literally experiencing schadenfreudegasms that are making it hard to get any real work done. In what will likely prove to be the greatest media saga of our time, Murdo has finally succumbed to News Corp's depraved culture, the one he created and fostered.

“We don’t deal in market share. We create the market.” ~ Rupert Murdoch

Murdo's Fox News has created its market by influencing and degrading U.S. political culture to the point where CEO Roger Ailes, once a lackey for President Richard Nixon (remember? he's the only guy ever to resign in disgrace) is now lauded as a "genius." Ailes has wanted to avenge Watergate for years, but now his methods may be catching up to him, too. Criminal is as criminal does. Even the New York Times' Richard Cohen, who writes to defend Murdo, concedes that Fox's "shrill right-wing demagoguery masquerading as news made a significant contribution to the polarization of American politics, the erosion of reasoned debate, the debunking of reason itself, and the ensuing Washington paralysis."

The good news is that a growing number of U.S. senators are calling for action and momentum is building for the SEC and FBI to conduct an investigation into News Corp to determine whether the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act has been violated. Eliot Spitzer thinks so:

"The rampant violations of British law alleged—payments to cops to influence ongoing investigations and the hacking of phones—are sufficient predicates for the Justice Department to investigate. Indeed, the facts as they are emerging are a case study for why the FCPA was enacted. We do not want companies whose headquarters are here—as News Corp.'s is—or that are listed on our financial exchanges—as News Corp. is—polluting the waters of international commerce with illegal behavior. (News Corp. shareholders are also rising against the company, with a huge lawsuit filed Monday in Delaware by three institutional investors claiming that company executives failed to act quickly enough to stop the phone hacking.)"

While I'm inclined to caution against directing any sanctions at the media, News Corp is not that - it's a criminal organization and must be treated as such.

On The Roof Of Africa: Kilimanjaro

2011-07-10T01:13:00.006-07:00

(Photos: Yuko Kootnikoff)

"Hakuna matata,” says Freddy, our guide, reminding us once again that there’s “no problem.”

It’s 4am and nearly 6km above sea level, where we are clinging to Mount Kilimanjaro, the “roof of Africa”, like castaways from The Lion King.

“Iko Matata,” I reply. “There is a problem.”

(Photos: Yuko Kootnikoff)

An icy wind is slicing through my scarf, raking my face like a bag of thorns and I’m pushing on my wife’s butt to prevent her from passing out. We’ve been going for close to six hours through the frozen dark. In a few more hours the sun will finally peek over the horizon. OK, we were warned, and we accepted the small print as we signed off on this “helliday” to climb “Kili”. Yuko was a bit apprehensive at first but finally agreed. Now she’s cursing like a pirate.

(Photos: Yuko Kootnikoff)

There’s only a few hundred more metres to go before the summit, but it’s this last bit that is a killer. It’s never easy to predict how a climber’s body will react once above 5,000 metres. For most it means shallow breathing, heavy limbs and frequent stops. Water is essential. So are energy bars. For others, it means giving up, turning around and going home. Then there are the unlucky few who don’t make it out alive.

(Photos: Yuko Kootnikoff)

Mount Kilimanjaro rises from the Serengeti Plain, 300km south of the equator, in the northeast of Tanzania and on the border with Kenya. I decided to do the climb a few summers ago for my 40th birthday. Kilimanjaro is actually the name of the national park that makes up three volcanic cones – Kibo, Mawenzi and Shira. Kibo’s Uhuru Peak is the highest point and it’s the goal most climbers try to reach. Most people do the whole trip – up and down – in four nights on the popular “Coca-Cola” route known as Marangu. We’re taking five nights – four up, one down – on the Rongai route, starting from the Kenyan side. It’s supposedly more scenic and less crowded.

(Photos: Yuko Kootnikoff)

Freddy has been doing this for seven years. He’s 32 but looks 42 and barely makes enough to support his wife and three children. In the evenings he drinks “gongo juice”, Tanzanian moonshine, to relax. We turn in at about 8pm and wake at 2am to begin the final ascent. We have been told it’s easier to climb at night because the glacial scree is usually frozen, making it better for traction.

(Photos: Yuko Kootnikoff)

In Kafka’s short story, In the Penal Colony, a “traveller” is invited to an execution and agrees to attend out of politeness. This is how I’m beginning to feel, but it’s my own execution and I’ve willingly consented to die for fear of causing Freddy any offense. Morning comes and the sun is as clear and bright as a spotlight in a sky full of mirrors. The snow beneath our feet is like crushed glass. We’re getting closer. The blue ice of the glacier is in sight. I’m moving automatically and feel elated and exhausted.

(Photos: Yuko Kootnikoff)

"There it is,” says Freddy.

It must be no more than 30 metres ahead, the first summit – Stella Point (5,756 metres), but it’s still an hour to Uhuru, the peak. My legs feel like they are being sucked into the ground, as if I’m walking across a glass surface with suction cups attached to my feet. I’m feeling dizzy, too, my mind is reeling back and forth. After a brief rest we follow Freddy and can see our goal, Uhuru, above us. Snow is everywhere, but there’s an easy path to follow.

(Photos: Yuko Kootnikoff)

I feel invisible, like I’m transparent and weightless, as though something has given way and let me go. We finally reach the peak and the wooden marker announcing:

“Congratulations! You are now at Uhuru Peak, Tanzania, 5,895 metres, Africa’s Highest Point.”

Even with sunglasses the bright sunlight stings. At this first summit people are embracing, dropping to their knees. It all begins to make some sense now that it’s over. Kili looks down on the Olduvai Gorge, the cradle of humanity, the plain where our ancestor Homo habilis was born.

(Photos: Yuko Kootnikoff)

The world is convinced it can maintain its voracious lifestyle while at the same time reducing its so-called “carbon footprint,” but the snow beneath our feet is literally melting away. We’ve got one foot in the cradle, the other in the grave. I don’t know exactly what the future holds, but I do know this glorious moment is enough to sustain Yuko and I for many years to come.

(Photos: Yuko Kootnikoff)

Below is a video of our climb with Judee Sill’s “Crayon Angel” and the Fleet Foxes’ “Oliver James.”

Killing Chickens: China's Thugocracy

2011-07-05T18:06:00.017-07:00

(Ai Weiwei, China Bench)

Any foreigner, especially a non-Asian, who has spent time in mainland China knows the feeling. As fast as you can say cha siu bao, you're suddenly the most popular guy on the train or the most conspicuous gweilo in the crowd. While similar occurrences happen in other Asian countries like Japan or South Korea, something a little more sinister might be at work underneath all the emotive bonhomie in China.

Those penetrating eyeballs might not be attached to benevolent admirers or welcoming natives to the Middle Kingdom after all; they could be connected to what Naomi Klein has called, "China's All-Seeing Eye," the surveillance state's great panopticon outlined in the Wall Street Journal. As a recent article in the SCMP (paywall) makes clear, the Chinese police are being trained to view foreigners as de facto "anti-Chinese":

Many of those detained were apparently forced to sign confessions, letters of repentance and guarantees they would not engage in rights work any more or have contact with foreign friends, the media or people within their circles. And if they met anyone, they were required to report it to the police.

The techniques used to secure compliance appear to have been consistent.

"They were made to confess, and then they made the person take the transcript and read it out to the camera," a source said.

"There were varying numbers of promises and commitments that had to be made, but all of the lawyers who were detained could only be taken back if they signed guarantee promises."

Detainees were asked about a few general topics: contact with foreigners, whom the police see as anti-Chinese; oppositionists, lawyers and other activists who challenge the party; and the "jasmine revolution".

Chinese authorities are increasingly turning to a "non-uniformed" thugocracy to do their dirty work when it comes to security and the silencing of dissent:

Many of the lawyers and activists have been illegally detained and held for excessive periods in violation of Chinese laws. In some instances, people have been abducted off the streets, with a black hood thrown over their heads by non-uniformed security officers.

The victims of "black-hooding" are often illegally held in unknown locations, incommunicado for periods ranging from days to months in what some call a "black box". Sometimes the abductions are carried out by thugs hired by the police to intimidate the targets.

"The most worrisome thing is that what we know the least about is what measures they're using to keep people silent upon their release," said Jerome Cohen, professor and co-director of the US-Asia Law Institute at New York University's school of law and adjunct senior fellow for Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations.

"Many of these guys are tough. What could be so effective? Apparently, there are new measures that are making them less willing to be contacted upon their release.

"What could you do to these people to make them unusually silent when they should have expressed outrage?"

Some details of the treatment may be known to fellow lawyers, but except for a handful of cases, those released have vehemently refused to go public with what happened to them, apparently under threat from the authorities, who warned them not to speak.

Even when the details are known, experts and journalists have been reluctant to speak publicly about them for fear the release of the information could result in official retaliation.

In some cases, however, it is believed the targets were allowed to tell fellow lawyers of their experience, using a strategy called "killing a chicken to scare the monkeys".

"We felt, at the same time, they wanted him to speak out in order to raise the level of terror," the Beijing lawyer quoted earlier said of a colleague who had been detained.

"They wanted to use him to threaten everyone else."

The human rights scholar agreed, saying: "This is a perfect way of spreading terror."

Cohen feared that the methods used by police were "more sinister" than torture methods known to have been used before. "Is there something more and more unnerving?"

According to some reports, threats have been made regarding the family members of the people targeted in the campaign.

In one case, police summoned the wife and small child of a lawyer to the police station, where they were intimidated. Police told the wife: "We can deal with you in the same way we dealt with your husband."

Another lawyer was repeatedly warned: "You should think about your family."

"This is the revival of the old custom of family retribution - collective criminal punishment," Cohen said, referring to a tradition from imperial days, when the relatives of criminals were also punished.

"I worry about threats to family members. How can you risk your family for human rights?"

It seems certain that plain old torture has been used in many cases.

This is why the release of Ai Weiwei was "fake" and why U.S. companies like Cisco and Hewlett-Packard have to do more than take China "at their word," as Todd Bradley, an executive vice president who oversees H-P's China strategy, recently said. He added, "It's not my job to really understand what they're going to use it for. Our job is to respond to the bid that they've made." If the Obama administration refuses to act, the U.S. will be guilty of aiding and abetting China's slaughtering of dissent.

Michael Ondaatje: Running In The Family

2011-07-01T19:14:00.016-07:00

"I am the foreigner. I am the prodigal who hates the foreigner."

What is family? Where did it start and where does it end? Not the immediate family of mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, etc., but the larger one that stretches far beyond current geographical and cultural locations. I'm Canadian, but at any point in my history I could have easily ended up Scottish, Irish or Russian. If my great grandfather had slipped on some ice on his way to the docks my language, cultural assumptions and geographical boundaries could have been radically altered. All because of the weather, I may have become a different person with a completely different family and sense of identity.

Ondaatje's parents Mervyn & Doris ham it up

Many Canadians share the same "could have been/might have been" story, including Michael Ondaatje, but few go back and explore the possibility with such sensuous and riveting prose. Ondaatje's personal story began in Sri Lanka (then Ceylon) where he was born in 1943. After spending eleven years with his Burgher family, he moved to England in 1954 and then to Canada in 1962. Running in the Family is his attempt at reliving his family history in Sri Lanka. He takes the island as his formative touchstone, traveling there in his late thirties to visit relatives and re-inhabit the buildings and locations his family once called home.

The results are on the page. Ondaatje recreates an experience and an encounter that comes alive in his writing:

Truth disappears with history and gossip tells us nothing in the end of personal relationships. There are stories of elopements, unrequited love, family feuds, and exhausting vendettas, which everyone was drawn into, had to be involved with. But nothing is said of the closeness between two people: how they grew in the shade of each other's presence. No one speaks of that exchange of gift and character - the way a person took on and recognized in himself the smile of a lover. Individuals are seen only in the context of these swirling social tides. It was almost impossible for a couple to do anything without rumour leaving their shoulders like a flock of messenger pigeons. (Pg. 48)

Beautiful and so true. The magic that we feed on, for better or worse, takes place in our daily interactions with one another. It's those pigeons carrying rumour as truth that form history. Running in the Family chronicles the shifting, "social tides" that turn the prodigal into a foreigner and the foreigner into the prodigal while maintaining "home" in the ever-changing ellipses of time. "Home" may sometimes be a foreign word, but a foreign word can also mean "home."

Fake: The Release Of Ai Weiwei

2011-06-27T20:39:00.015-07:00

258 Fake. That's where mainland artist and former detainee Ai Weiwei lives. What was once a comment on the authenticity of "home" has now become a fact of Ai's life. Suspended in a "fake" existence, Ai is anything but free.

Last Wednesday when Ai was released after serving 81 days in detention, the first impulse was to breath a sigh of relief and then rejoice. But what has become clear is that Ai, along with many others, is still firmly under the boot of the Communist thugocracy. As Gao Wenqian, a former Communist Party official who fled to the U.S. after the Tiananmen Square massacre says, “You can say that Ai Weiwei was transferred from a small prison to the prison outside.”

Watching Ai return silently to his Bejing home last week was a chilling scene. The once gregarious artist had been muzzled - he looked worn and haggard and was unable to answer even the simplest questions about his detention. That is one among a long list of conditions pertaining to his "release." He was never formally charged with anything, yet the state-run Xinhua news agency reported that he confessed to his "crimes." The government has now ordered him to pay 12 million yuan ($1.85 million) in back taxes and fines.

When the Arab Spring started gathering momentum the Chinese authorities freaked out and began a crackdown on civil society not seen since the wake of the Tiananmen massacre in 1989. As Newsweek reports:

With a powerful “security faction” now ascendant in the Communist Party, at least 500 people have been detained in the past four months alone, observers estimate. Chinese officials have also severely curtailed press freedom, apparently disrupted Internet and mobile-phone service, and gone after human-rights lawyers in a campaign of torture and disappearances. An Amnesty International report states that, consequently, only “a few hundred out of a total of 204,000 lawyers risk taking up human-rights cases.

This is the China that outsiders don't see. It's a terrifying place to be if you believe in basic freedoms, a place where the rule of law and justice are arbitrary constructs, the fake illusions of a tyrannous regime. Fake is only as good as those who settle for less. The Chinese know they deserve better, which is why the current leadership fears its own people.

Legitmizing Fox News: Jon Stewart

2011-06-23T19:28:00.010-07:00

"You make it sound like I'm trying to delegitimize you to defend Fox" ~ Chris Wallace to Jon Stewart

Well, now that you mention it.....that's exactly what was on the agenda when Jon Stewart appeared on Chris Wallace's Fox News Sunday program last week. And to a large extent, Wallace succeeded. For whatever reason Stewart agreed to go on (the buffet? parking??) it did nothing for him or the Daily Show and everything for Wallace and his network. Sure, Stewart got in a jab about Fox viewers being the most misinformed, but not before admitting that MSNBC is kinda like the Fox News of the left, opining on the brilliance of Roger Ailes (and South Park!) and paying Wallace an absurd compliment about being a "tough" and "fair interviewer." This is all rubbish, but it's the legitimizing equivalency that Fox so desperately craves in order to counter the criticism that comes from the likes of Stewart.

The take away headline was how Stewart lost his cool, got angry and all scrunched-up like a defensive marmot. In other words, Wallace was so effective in getting under Stewart's skin, forcing him to confront his own true bias that he just couldn't take the fair and balanced scrutiny anymore! Then when Stewart agreed with Wallace that the "mainstream media" has a "liberal bias," (ugh!) - when all the evidence since at least the Iraq war proves otherwise - he might as well have been riding shotgun on the "Fox & Friends" couch. In fact, Stewart's appearance, and his buddy-bromance with Bill-O, has helped Fox move the media discourse in the U.S. so far to the right that Tea Baggers and tax cuts are legit, while climate change and torture have become quaint relics from some bygone era.

Why does this matter in Hong Kong or Canada? Because whatever the right (now the extreme, fanatical right) can get away with in the U.S. eventually spills over...so, Jon! Beware Faux News!! Keep away from the Dark Side!!!

War Is Peace: Obama & Bush

2011-06-20T02:50:00.010-07:00

"We are witnessing the bipartisan normalization and legitimization of a national-surveillance state" ~ Jack Balkin, law professor at Yale

Everyday Obama gets one step closer to surpassing his predecessor's delusional and illegal policies. He's actually worse than Bush because he's legitimizing that agenda by forging a bipartisan consensus between Democrats and Republicans on issues related to war and national security. The growing list involves prosecuting whistle-blowers, criminalizing Wikileaks, extending the Patriot Act and conducting an illegal war in Libya and possibly Yemen. Now Obama, just like Bush, is being accused of breaking the law and overruling two of his top legal advisers over the U.S. role in Libya. His excuse for not consulting Congress? The Libyan conflict doesn't rise to the level of a war:

“We are acting lawfully,” said Harold Koh, the State Department legal adviser, who expanded on the administration’s reasoning in a joint interview with White House Counsel Robert Bauer....“We are not saying the president can take the country into war on his own,” Mr. Koh said. “We are not saying the War Powers Resolution is unconstitutional or should be scrapped, or that we can refuse to consult Congress. We are saying the limited nature of this particular mission is not the kind of ‘hostilities’ envisioned by the War Powers Resolution.”

I originally supported the intervention and agreed with Juan Cole that it was justified. I still feel that way, but Obama must go to Congress or else this whole thing stinks as badly as Bush at his worst.

Bloomsday: Canucks Blew It

2011-06-15T19:49:00.010-07:00

It's Bloomsday in Hong Kong, rain heavy with memories of Vancouver and of what could have been...

Time to turn towards something a bit more uplifting, like Molly Bloom and the answer to the question of life:

I was a Flower of the mountain yes when I put the rose in my hair like the Andalusian girls used or shall I wear a red yes and how he kissed me under the Moorish wall and I thought well as well him as another and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down Jo me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes.

Yes, next year. Yes.

Canucks Inches Away: Stanley Cup Awaits

2011-06-14T21:54:00.022-07:00

“They communicate like dolphins” ~ Alex Burrows on the Sedin twins

Summer is around the corner, the wild mountain thyme is blooming, but ice is the only element that matters. My beloved, feckless and heroic Vancouver Canucks are only one game away from making history and nabbing the holy grail of Canadian sport, the Stanley Cup. But one obstacle stands in their way - themselves. As Dave Babych, who was there in 1994 when the Canucks lost in 7 to the New York Rangers, put it, "If you give it your all, and you come up short, what will it take to win?"

The Canucks have an incredible line-up this year led by Swedish twins, Daniel and Henrik Sedin, Raffi Torres, Ryan Kessler and anchored in goal by one of the NHL's great schizoids, Roberto Luongo. So how could they have blown a two game lead over the Boston Bruins and allowed ass-kicking losses of 8-1, 4-0 and 5-2 while barely squeaking through with single goal victories? How so, Johnny Canuck?! Because Lord Stanley isn't convinced you want it.

The Bruins have so far succeeded in dragging the Canucks down to their game and it's not a championship level. They've played so much better before, ripping up the Nashville Predators and then the San Jose Sharks. They were also the favourites going into these finals, but the series has been lackluster so far, to say the least. True, the Canucks don't deserve to lose, but it's still an open question whether they deserve to win. Today's game could make history or it could be another typical reminder of their forty-year nemesis: the fever. Yet they've never been as favoured as they are now and they've even got home-ice advantage. I've been waiting all my life to say my team is a champ...it all comes down to today...go, you bloody 'Nucks!

Below is an awesome video making the rounds of Al Pacino's "Inch By Inch" pep-talk from the 1999 film, Any Given Sunday:

"I don't know what to say really.
Three minutes
to the biggest battle of our professional lives
all comes down to today.
Either
we heal
as a team
or we are going to crumble.
Inch by inch
play by play
till we're finished.
We are in hell right now, gentlemen
believe me
and
we can stay here
and get the shit kicked out of us
or
we can fight our way
back into the light.
We can climb out of hell.
One inch, at a time.

Now I can't do it for you.
I'm too old.
I look around and I see these young faces
and I think
I mean
I made every wrong choice a middle age man could make.
I uh....
I pissed away all my money
believe it or not.
I chased off
anyone who has ever loved me.
And lately,
I can't even stand the face I see in the mirror.

You know when you get old in life
things get taken from you.
That's, that's part of life.
But,
you only learn that when you start losing stuff.
You find out that life is just a game of inches.
So is football.
Because in either game
life or football
the margin for error is so small.
I mean
one half step too late or to early
you don't quite make it.
One half second too slow or too fast
and you don't quite catch it.
The inches we need are everywhere around us.
They are in ever break of the game
every minute, every second.

On this team, we fight for that inch
On this team, we tear ourselves, and everyone around us
to pieces for that inch.
We CLAW with our finger nails for that inch.
Cause we know
when we add up all those inches
that's going to make the fucking difference
between WINNING and LOSING
between LIVING and DYING.

I'll tell you this
in any fight
it is the guy who is willing to die
who is going to win that inch.
And I know
if I am going to have any life anymore
it is because, I am still willing to fight, and die for that inch
because that is what LIVING is.
The six inches in front of your face.

Now I can't make you do it.
You gotta look at the guy next to you.
Look into his eyes.
Now I think you are going to see a guy who will go that inch with you.
You are going to see a guy
who will sacrifice himself for this team
because he knows when it comes down to it,
you are gonna do the same thing for him.

That's a team, gentlemen
and either we heal now, as a team,
or we will die as individuals.
That's football guys.
That's all it is.
Now, whattaya gonna do?"

WIN.

Japan Endures: Three Months On

2011-06-11T05:06:00.015-07:00

Shigetsuden Buddha, Shuzenji

Few countries could endure a disaster the size of a magnitude 9 earthquake, but Japan has had some experience. In 1945, after the United States dropped two nuclear bombs on Nagasaki and Hiroshima, Emperor Hirohito called on the Japanese people to “endure the unendurable, bear the unbearable.” Three months on from the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami, Japan is still struggling with the unbearable.

Prime Minister Naoto Kan's government has been trying to defeat the tsunami's hydra of misfortune, but it's come close to imploding rather than uniting for the sake of the country. Backstabbing foes like Ichiro Ozawa and Yukio Hatoyama are doing their best to undermine Kan's leadership, while the average Japanese is sick to the teeth with these petty power grabs. Meanwhile, the Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco), the operator of the tsunami-hit Fukushima nuclear plant, has been doing a miserable job on all fronts. The plant is still emitting radiation and Tepco has failed to keep the public informed about the levels of toxicity, jeopardizing the health of citizens and the economy of the region.

Shuzenji Temple Daruma

Recently, Tepco doubled the amount of radiation released by the plant in the days after the March 11 tsunami, admitting they were initially negligent or lying. Why the government hasn't taken over responsibility for managing the crisis is a question more and more people are beginning to ask. Today, on the three-month anniversary of the quake, thousands of anti-nuclear protesters marched throughout Japan increasing pressure on the government to shut down more nuclear plants. Japan is running only 19 of the 54 reactors in operation before of the disaster. As summer approaches, the peak season for energy consumption, fears are being raised about serious power shortages.

Mount Fuji, Lake Yamanaka

But not all is doom and gloom. The Japanese have an expression, “gaman suru,” which loosely translates as “stoic perseverance.” The great Ukiyo-e artist, Hokusai, created his iconic series, “Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji” (富嶽三十六景, Fugaku Sanjūrokkei), and it includes images that have come to be identified with Japan itself. Despite all the different perspectives and locales, Mount Fuji appears as an immovable and stoic force in each painting of the series, an ever-present reminder of nature’s resilient continuity. Today, Fuji encapsulates the “gaman suru” spirit more than ever.

The Great Wave off Kanagawa (Kanagawa oki nami-ura 神奈川沖浪裏)

The Velvet Underground: Loaded

2011-06-07T05:24:00.016-07:00

"She started dancing to that fine, fine music
You know her life was saved by rock 'n' roll"

From little things big things grow. It's often been said that the Velvet Underground had barely enough fans to fill the legendary New York cabaret, Max's Kansas City, yet anyone who heard them immediately started their own band. VU's fourth album, 1970's Loaded, sounds almost tepid compared to the sturm and drang of The Velvet Underground & Nico or White Light/White Heat, but it alone has been more of a catalyst for spawning millions of indie bands than those fabled epics.

After years spent toiling in the silvery shadow of Andy Warhol's Factory, Lou Reed abandoned any inhibitions about crafting bright, exuberant pop and let himself go on such audiogasms as "Sweet Jane" and "Rock & Roll."

Some people, they like to go out dancing
And other peoples, they have to work, just watch me now!
And there's even some evil mothers
Well they're gonna tell you that everything is just dirt
Y'know that, women, never really faint
And that villains always blink their eyes, woo!
And that, y'know, children are the only ones who blush!
And that life is just to die!

"Sweet Jane" could put goosebumps on the most jaded of hipsters, Frank Zappa & the Mothers included (ok, maybe not Frank, but you get the idea). From Stanislaw Zagorski's cover art of a lurid, pink cloud wafting up from a subway, to the dizzy heights of Sterling Morrison's guitar solo on "Oh! Sweet Nuthin,'" Loaded traverses both heaven and hell in the flash of a New York minute.

With John Cale's screeching viola long gone, Loaded is stuffed with more melody and sugar than anything that preceded it. There are diversions into rodeos ("Lonesome Cowboy Bill"), Shelley Winters ("New Age") and mud wrestling growls ("Head Held High").

Apart from "Sweet Jane," "I Found A Reason" has always been a personal fave. An alternative take on doo-wop, the quaalude refrain is enough to slow any amphetamine-driven soul. When Lou begins speaking I'm still not sure whether to laugh or cry:

Honey, I found a reason to keep living
And you know the reason, dear it's you
And I've walked down life's lonely highways
Hand in hand with myself
And I realized how many paths have crossed between us

"Hand in hand with myself"? It's that sense of awe - awkward and raw - that lends Loaded the odd plumage it deserves. It was my very first introduction to Lou Reed and pointed me towards Patti Smith, the New York Dolls & the Ramones. And you know, my life was saved by rock & roll...

Hong Kong Vs. China: A Restless Truce

2011-06-03T06:13:00.022-07:00

June 4th is the twenty-second anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. A Candlelight Vigil is held every year at Hong Kong's Victoria Park to commemorate it, the only place in all of China free to hold such an event.

The Forbidden City, Beijing

The vigil has always irked Beijing and they've tried for years to undermine any sign of "subversion" in Hong Kong. Authorities have deployed an old party trick: accuse someone of straying from the official line and shady figures emerge from the shadows to shuttle the poor sod away. It's a favorite tactic used by regimes currently darkening corners of the globe such as Burma (Myanmar), Uzbekistan and North Korea. What they share, apart from gross human rights violations, is a thriving relationship with China.

The Great Wall

In the "Middle Kingdom" the politics of vilification enjoys a long tradition. Anyone or anything that's perceived to threaten the government is quickly branded as counter-revolutionary. It happened with deadly precision during the Cultural Revolution of 1966-1976 when even esteemed cadres were not immune. Former paramount leader, Deng Xiaoping, vanished twice, once in the late 60s and then again in 1976 after the death of Premier Zhou Enlai sparked the protests known as the Tiananmen Incident.

It happened again during the prelude to the June 4, 1989 Tiananmen massacre when the student protests were growing. The Communist Party newspaper, People's Daily, published an editorial accusing a "small number of people with ulterior purposes" of stirring up student unrest, of being counter-revolutionaries and creating turmoil. This effectively sealed the fate of the organizers and as a result, hardened their resolve to demand concessions from the government. The editorial is generally regarded as a major cause of the stalemate that arose between the students and the government, eventually causing the massacre and the subsequent purging of Zhao Ziyang, the reformist General Secretary of the Communist Party.

Zhao Ziyang with present-day Premier of China, Wen Jiabao, Tiananmen Square, May 19, 1989

As with the events of Tiananmen, Beijing is currently displaying increasing hostility by using trumped-up accusations to silence dissent. The list is long and includes Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Lui Xiaobo and internationally acclaimed artist, Ai Weiwei.

"Marble Arm" by Ai Weiwei (courtesy of Galerie Urs Meile)

This form of government terrorism threatens regional stability. As the lessons of World War II prove, a country that deprives its own citizens of human rights will disregard the rights of others. While Hong Kong enjoys more freedoms than the mainland as a result of its status as a Special Administrative Region (SAR) and "one country two systems" policy, Beijing has succeeded in tightening the noose in ever subtle and nefarious ways.

"Running Dog" Martin Lee with Nancy Pelosi

A few years ago, Beijing engaged in a so-called "patriotism campaign" to discredit the democratic movement. Martin Lee, the founding Chairman of the Hong Kong Democratic Party, came under fire from Xinhua, the Beijing government's mouthpiece, which demonized Lee as a "traitor." The China Daily, the Communist Party's English newspaper, also chimed in to attack Lee as a "running dog of colonialists." Lee's family was also targeted. Government officials in Beijing lashed out at his late father, noted Kuomintang (KMT) General Li Yin-wo, also denouncing him as a traitor. Lee's father resisted the 1941-1945 Japanese occupation of Hong Kong, as well as the communists. He's widely regarded as a hero, an embodiment of virtue and a prime example of what differentiates Hong Kong from mainland China. For how long this difference can survive is up to the vigilance of patriots like Lee.

Canucks: Don't Blow It

2011-05-30T17:16:00.022-07:00

Canadians love hockey so much we put it on our money along with a quote to rival scripture for its spiritual resonance:

"Les hivers de mon enfance étaient des saisons longues, longues. Nous vivions en trois lieux: l'école, l'église et la patinoire; mais la vraie vie était sur la patinoire."

It's from Roch Carrier's The Hockey Sweater (Le Chandail de Hockey) and translates as:

"The winters of my childhood were long, long seasons. We lived in three places - the school, the church and the skating rink - but our real life was on the skating rink."

It's been said that the test for Canadian citizenship involves only two simple questions:

A. Who is this man?
B. What did he do? **

We take our game seriously and always without exception support our own when up against an American team for the Stanley Cup. But recently there's been a lot of trash-talk about how the Vancouver Canucks aren't "Canada's team" because they've got fewer Canadians (14) and more Americans (5) than the Boston Bruins (16/1), or because Vancouver has "more Starbucks than Tim Hortons, more sushi than chicken noodle." This is either a maniacal form of denial similar to a tea bagger laughing at Canada's "inferior" health care system, or a sadly transparent attempt to manufacture a controversy. Or perhaps it has something to do with "Deadmonton" being nothing more than a half-way house for wingnuts who lacked the fortitude to make the rest of the journey over the Rockies.

Whatever is driving the narrative, it's small beer. My main concern is Canuck fever. I don't mean the kind that has people tattooing Johnny Canuck on their foreheads or painting their toenails blue and green. Canuck fever is a wicked affliction that sucks the life out of great hockey players. I've watched some of the best succumb to its cruel lethargy and disappear into a malaise of what might have been. Yes, Vancouver is known as "Lotusland" and it's a locale that all too often has left our teams dazed and confused. But this year, I've got a feeling things have finally changed...

(** Answers:
A. Paul Henderson
B. Shook the world)

The Zen Of Bob Dylan: Dig Yourself

2011-05-27T00:02:00.027-07:00

"To study the Way is to study the self
To study the self is to forget the self
To forget the self is to allow the ten thousand things to flow"
~ Dōgen

"You're invisible now, you've got no secrets to conceal" ~ Bob Dylan

We don't celebrate "birthdays" in our home. A day is too short to cram all the festivities into twenty-four hours, so we like to carry on for a while and celebrate "birthweeks." This makes it easier when you live as far away from family as I do and suddenly realize mum's birthday is just around the corner. When you have a week there's still enough time to make that purchase and toss the treasure into the post. So it is with Bob Dylan. Although his "birthday" was technically on May 24th, Bobfest is still happening around here.

After reading all the tributes this week and reflecting a bit, I've realized too many really old people are being asked to recall things they no longer have a friggin' clue about. The best one can do is question all the authorities and crown yourself king. That's what Bob is all about, anyway. After years of sifting through his songs, the one golden nugget of wisdom that keeps being revealed is: "Dig Yourself."

Included among the many articles washing up in this week's flood is Ron Rosenbaum's premise that Bob's scathing sarcasm is rooted not in the backwoods of old, weird America, but in the black humour of urban comedians like Lenny Bruce:

"But I think if you want to place Dylan in a cultural landscape, it is more accurately located in the urban "Black Humor" movement of the late '50s and early '60s: Lenny Bruce, Mort Sahl, Ralph Ellison, Joseph Heller and Catch-22, Terry Southern and the Dr. Strangelove script, Burroughs, Mailer."

Bob once sang that Lenny Bruce was "the brother that you never had" and like him, Bob is a natural provocateur. He agitates, Zen-like, by pointing to the world that exists right at the end of our noses:

"Let me tell you the truth. The truth is, 'what is.' And 'what should be' is a fantasy, a terrible, terrible lie that someone gave the people long ago." ~ Lenny Bruce

Over at Rolling Stone, Bono proclaims "Like A Rolling Stone" the greatest-ever Bob song, citing this verse as his personal favourite:

"You never turned around to see the frowns
On the jugglers and the clowns
When they all did tricks for you
You never understood that it ain't no good
You shouldn't let other people get your kicks for you"

Nothing wrong with that - in other words, dig yourself. But my favourite line has always been:

"You're invisible now, you've got no secrets to conceal"

That's as free as free can be, minus any thread of fear, self-consciousness or game-face. With nothing to hold you back, you can do anything without caring that anyone is looking...or at least that's how you feel. Imagine if you did that right now - got up and walked into the street wearing (or not wearing) whatever you felt like. Feel like singing? A little jig, maybe? Do it, let 10,000 things flow anywhere, anytime. The line has always been identified in my mind with William Blake, the Zen-bard and craftsman behind such masterworks as "Glad Day":

As the Zen master Dōgen wrote almost a millennium ago, you've got to lose yourself to be found. So, Happy Glad Week, Bob. Here's a video collage of our trip to India, remixed and shared with love:

Fleet Foxes: Living The Questions

2011-05-23T00:37:00.015-07:00

"...the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now." ~ Rainer Maria Rilke

Living the questions requires faith in the process, a belief that the journey is enough in and of itself. Rilke passed that advice on to 19-year-old Franz Kappus over a hundred years ago and Letters to a Young Poet has survived as a testament to the idealism of youth ever since. Seattle-based band Fleet Foxes have taken that legacy to heart and their new album - Helplessness Blues - is a heroic affirmation of Rilke's wisdom.

"I was raised up believin'
I was somehow unique
Like a snowflake, distinct among snowflakes
Unique in each way you can see

And now after some thinkin'
I'd say I'd rather be
A functioning cog in some great machinery
Serving something beyond me

But I don't, I don't know what that will be
I'll get back to you someday
Soon you will see"

As Lisa Simpson might say, "it is very cromulent," but all that earnestness about snowflakes made my toes curl and my upper lip sneer at first. Then at 0:45, when the guitars fire up and the vocals take flight, it all clicks into place and my heart responds as it usually does when confronted with something beautiful and pure. This is devotional music celebrating life's wonder and while some of the lyrics may despair ("Montezuma"), the power of the execution raises it from any mire of futility.

There's not one note of irony or cynicism to be found in this cornucopia of bliss and the lyrics on Helplessness Blues manage to avoid cloyingly naive or simplistic platitudes. Unlike other bands mining similar territory like Mumford & Sons or Midlake, Fleet Foxes display a richer melodic palette and a greater lyrical prowess on such songs as "Battery Kinzie" and "Bedouin Dress." As with Simon & Garfunkel's classic "Song For the Asking" or "America," the songs speak to a larger sense of being:

Tomorrow is Bob Dylan's 70th birthday and it's fitting that lead singer/songwriter Robin Pecknold has cited him, along with Joni Mitchell and Graham Nash, as a major influence. Pecknold's writing bears some resemblance to Dylan in that it privileges the confessional speaker, but the music soars cathedral-like and harmonious, bringing to mind the collective art of Crosby, Stills & Nash or the Hollies.

This is a band with huge aspirations and vision, but don't expect any answers; as a Celtic Sufi once sang, "be satisfied not to read in between the lines."

Erik Prince: Onward Christian Soldiers

2011-05-18T17:51:00.020-07:00

"I'm an American working for America" - Erik Prince

The Security Industrial Complex of the USA is getting stronger everyday, thanks to the Obama administration. Just when you thought the mercenary torturers and assassins known as Blackwater might have gone the way of Kid Rock and Ed Hardy lids, they spring up in the deserts of the United Arab Emirates reincarnated as Reflex Responses (R2). Erik Prince, a former Navy Seal and the Crusader in Chief of R2, has made explicit his policy not to hire any Muslims because those folks are so darn unreliable they won't kill their own fellow Muslims. Prince has been working with the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi to set up his band of lawless renegades in the Muslim state for a cool US$529 million. What a patriot!

According to the New York Times and Jeremy Scahill, R2 has been hired by the UAE to help with security in the wake of the Arab Spring, which means part of their task will include crushing any democratic uprisings or demonstrations that might occur. The contractors are mainly Colombian and will receive up to US$150 a day. This represents a huge raise from US$34, the amount they were earning back when they were really dumb and rampaging through Iraq killing innocent civilians and getting away with it, thanks to the Obama administration.

These goons make Rambo look like Justin Bieber as they shred the law into coleslaw. As he has done in the past, Prince is again likely breaking the law by training foreign nationals without the authorization of the US State Department. But not to worry - Obama has got him covered. His administration is doing the unthinkable - normalizing Bush’s worst breaches of international law.

President Obama & the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, April 26, 2011

Part of R2's remit may include Iran, situated just across the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz. Nothing like a Christian Crusade tucked inside the Trojan horse of the UAE to deliver peace to the Middle East. Unless of course, your industry is the US Security Industrial Complex and your interest is creating a demand for your services. Get your war on.

Michel Houellebecq: Poète Maudit

2011-05-15T07:27:00.006-07:00

"Don't pin your hopes or pin your dreams, to misanthropes or guys like me" - "It's A Wonderful Lie," Paul Westerberg

You know you're in the presence of great literature when you find yourself agreeing with the author that humanity is a vile species worthy of extinction. If you begin to feel a bit uneasy, a little awkward as though the author has been observing you without you knowing, that's also a good sign. Michel Houellebecq's 1998 novel, Atomised (Les Particules élémentaires in French) did that to me.

In lurid detail, Atomised tells the story of two brothers, both irredeemable scums in their own individually unique way, as they bump from one "relationship" to another. The one trait brothers Bruno and Michel share is a detached isolation from their fellow beings. They're like indifferent particles floating through society concerned more about freedom than anything resembling responsibility. Their only reason to be is to serve the self, no matter what that entails:

"An animal's sense of self emerges through physical pain, but individuality in human society only attains true self-consciousness by the intermediary of mendacity, with which it is sometimes confused." (89)

If the moment we lie to others is the moment our true self-consciousness is born, then we are indeed doomed.

Bug-Eyed Earl

Houellebecq's misanthropy is fascinating because it clearly emanates from a reactionary impulse. He loathes humanity for its failure to adhere to traditional values that offer moral certitude like organized religion and community. Throughout Atmomised I felt the icy hand of good, old fashioned Catholic admonition scoffing at the characters. But I suppose behind every misanthrope there cowers a failed philanthropist:

"Tenderness is a deeper instinct than seduction which is why it is so difficult to give up hope." (61)

Both reactionaries and progressives would be hard pressed to argue with the novel's central theme, however. Houellebecq identifies the symptom of our disease in his title, which in English is both a sociological term and a buzzword for alienation and disempowerment. Ironically, British Prime Minister David Cameron mentioned "atomised society" in reference to a lack of community:

"We're collapsing into an atomised society, stripped of the local bonds of association which help tie us together."

Meanwhile, Noam Chomsky frequently uses it as a way of labeling efforts to delegitimize democracy and government:

"What's holding us back is the last century of intense efforts to atomize people, to drive them towards the superficial things in life, like consumption. You have to fabricate consumers. You have to make people hate governments. The mentality that's been fostered is that there is this alien force out there -- the government -- that's stealing your hard-earned money."

Whatever you may think about Houellebecq, he's definitely on to something...

"As the last members of this species are extinguished, we think it just to render this last tribute to humanity, a homage which itself will one day disappear, buried beneath the sands of time. It is necessary that this tribute be made, if only once." (379)

Noam Chomsky: Unwanted Truth

2011-05-10T23:14:00.010-07:00

"It is the responsibility of intellectuals to speak the truth and expose lies" - Noam Chomsky

Noam Chomsky scares the shit out of conservatives and liberals alike because he's equally critical of power no matter who holds it. Chomsky is an intellectual, not a journalist or some political hack with an agenda. It's not surprising to see flaccid-minded scribes quaking in the wake of his pronouncements - Chomsky requires too much work, too much research and real thinking.

"The Gnome"

That's why it's disappointing to see writers I respect like Andrew Sullivan and Christopher Hitchens dismissing Chomsky's recent article about the death of Usama bin Laden as though it were written by some paranoid fanatic. They try hard to paint him as a conspiratorial wacko bent on following narratives down rabbit holes, but nothing could be further from the truth. Chomsky instills fear because he serves facts, not opinions. They can't argue that bin Laden was never subjected to due process - it's a fact - so they resort to ad-hominem attacks against Chomsky's intellectual integrity.

Here's the nugget that really irks them:

"We might ask ourselves how we would be reacting if Iraqi commandos landed at George W. Bush’s compound, assassinated him, and dumped his body in the Atlantic. Uncontroversially, his crimes vastly exceed bin Laden’s, and he is not a “suspect” but uncontroversially the 'decider'..."

Chomsky has gone on record about the heinous acts of 9/11 and in no way suggests the U.S. deserved them, as Hitchens surreptitiously claims. He's also repeatedly rejected the loony conspiracies that some invisible force like the Grand Elders of Zion was behind the attacks.

His use of "uncontroversially" is in reference to the evidence at hand. Facts are, by definition, uncontroversial...or at least they were BFN (Before Fox News). It's an irrefutable fact that bin Laden was never convicted for 9/11. It's not inconsistent to state this and also believe he and al-Qaeda were responsible, as I personally do. But Chomsky's logic is as cold as it is unforgiving; if the U.S. is a nation of laws, there can't be any exceptions, as Glenn Greenwald explains. To kill bin Laden without due process is to logically accept the same for those on your own side. In other words, "Live by the sword, die by the sword." Below is Chomsky on the "validity" of the 9/11 "truthers":

Canada From Hong Kong: Harper's Victory

2011-05-07T06:17:00.006-07:00

"Home", as E.T. knew, can be a very distant star. Canada is my true home although I haven't really lived there for longer than a year since 1995. I was in Vancouver for three months in 2003 and for a year in 1998. I try to return regularly, but family visits are a far cry from settling in.

Watching Canada from the heel of China in Hong Kong over the past decade hasn't proven to be too noteworthy. Admittedly, I've been more involved in issues related to China and Asia, but apart from last year's Vancouver Olympics, NHL games and the odd Nickelback award Canada hasn't mattered that much in the press. Sorry to folks like Andrew Potter, but something you soon figure out when living abroad is you have to go out of your way to hear how Canada might be making an impact internationally. Strangely, the images and impressions that do pop up are like moments encased in amber, fossils pointing to some otherworldly existence.

Trudeau in Alpha Flight

It wasn't always this way, however. While standing before the Maronite Cathedral in Jdeydeh, the Christian quarter in Aleppo, Syria, I struck up a conversation with a local gentleman. When he heard I was from Canada, he started raving about "Pierre Elliott Trudeau." This was in 2008. Here in Hong Kong, not a week passes that someone doesn't mention Canada's "other language" or a relative living in Richmond or Toronto as a reference to Canada's diversity and multiculturalism, policies all associated with Trudeau.

Needless to say, Stephen Harper doesn't come up, nor do any of his "policies", not even his infamous mistake of supporting the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Harper did briefly make headlines here by not attending the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Cool, I thought, until he said it had nothing to do with politics. Then there was the G20 Summit in Toronto last year. When it erupted, Canada looked just like any other country with a hard-on for "security" rather than democracy. Oh, and then there was that young Chinese guy caught in Vancouver with a wrinkled, silicone mask after trying to impersonate an old man from Hong Kong. Now, that was big news.

That's it. Not much else registers around here, which is why I worry about what a Harper majority means as I make my way back. International impressions of Canada haven't progressed much since the 1970s, and in some instances have actually regressed. I've a feeling Harper doesn't really care...and that's not the place I call "home."

Ding-Dong! Munchkins Celebrate

2011-05-02T19:34:00.018-07:00

"I've never wished a man dead, but I have read some obituaries with great pleasure." - Mark Twain

"Ding-dong! The Witch is Dead!" chant the little people of Oz, reveling in the death of the wicked asshat, Usama bin-Laden. At this point, almost ten years after the 9/11 attacks, that's how it looks - only little people from a little land would take such joy in the demise of a depraved paper tiger. At least his death has succeeded in helping the U.S. get its war back on and in revealing a carny tribalism at the festering heart of the American project.

Like the Wizard of Oz, bin-Laden was an illusion, a spectacle designed to simplify the genuine tragedy of 9/11. His death now serves to distract a nation from its decline and ramp up Obama's 2012 re-election campaign. It's no surprise that within only a few hours of bin-Laden's death, the focus turned to Obama's poll numbers.

"I thoroughly disapprove of duels. If a man should challenge me, I would take him kindly and forgivingly by the hand and lead him to a quiet retired spot and kill him."

Like Mark Twain, I too take pleasure in the death of a bad man, especially one who started the fight. But the pleasure isn't ostentatious or designed as a spectacle for public consumption - it's a somber and private one to be experienced away from the herd.

Fuji-san (富士山): The Heart Of Japan

2011-04-30T05:27:00.007-07:00

After driving from the Izu Peninsula, we arrived at Lake Yamanaka, the largest of the five lakes surrounding Mount Fuji.

Our hotel room had a perfect view of Fuji and its ever-changing moods...

Japan: Izu Getaway

2011-04-25T17:43:00.008-07:00

We arrived in Ito on the Izu Peninsula, checked into our ryokan and immediately disappeared into the steam of our own private onsen. It was a perfect antidote to Hong Kong's peripatetic frenzy and the ultimate start to my first Japanese visit in over five years.

Izu is about 100 kms south of Tokyo in Shizuoka Prefecture...

The Pacific currents keep the climate mild and temperate and the sakura was in full bloom...

We stopped along the way to Shimoda in Imaihama and enjoyed a rotenburo in the rain...

J'Accuse: France Bans The Niqāb

2011-04-20T21:38:00.010-07:00

"The worst are full of passionate intensity" - W.B. Yeats

France has banned the niqāb and burqa, the garments worn by Muslim women that cover their faces. A few reasons are being bandied about and one (surprise!) has to do with security. No one knows exactly what's underneath - could be a Frank Zappa or something even worse. Another insists the law protects women from being forced to wear the niqāb against their will. Both reasons are ludicrous. The law subjugates women because it takes away their right to choose for themselves. I don't deny there are women who are forced to wear it, but that shouldn't justify the state prohibiting others a right to freely choose.

The French ban is a feeble attempt by Nicolas Sarkozy's anemic government to win support from the wacko fringe on the right. They and their supporters have succeeded in denying a woman the freedom to choose. The issue is pretty simple - if a woman wants to wear it, she should be allowed in a free society to do so. As a man, I'm pro-choice, not "pro-abortion" or "pro-niqāb", as some fools would have it. Anything less is misogyny. Below is an interesting discussion between Mona Eltahawy - whom I greatly respect, but believe is wrong on this issue - and Heba Ahmed:

What Life Requires: David Foster Wallace

2011-04-17T03:12:00.010-07:00

"Truth is about life before death"

David Foster Wallace has just released a new novel, The Pale King, two and half years after his suicide. Much credit goes to his editor, Michael Pietsch, for piecing it together from formal drafts and abandoned scraps that Wallace left lying around his studio in Claremont, California. I haven't read it, but by all accounts it succeeds in making boredom exciting and extending his pursuit of a meaningful existence in the face of oppressive monotony.

The longer we live without Wallace, the more his absence is felt. He appears as the singular embodiment of the post-boomer generation aesthetic, the voice of quirk, complexity and geek. He resonates like a hybrid of Chandler Bing and Franz Kafka. In 2006, he told Michael Silverblatt:

"I may have a kind of pessimistic view of it, but it seems to me that the situation, the environment which nervous systems receive these communications [novels] is vastly more complicated, difficult, cynical and over-hyped than it used to be..."

Wallace felt acutely that our epoch was far more complex than others. He set out to match it by composing works of Wittgenstein-inspired prose that left his contemporaries tangled in his accordion sentences and infinite subtexts.

“The limits of my language mean the limits of my world” - Wittgenstein

In his short-story collection, Girl With Curious Hair, Wallace illuminates the struggle to transcend the soul-crushing systems that permeate our culture. As he said in his 2005 commencement speech at Kenyon College, "It is unimaginably hard to do this, to stay conscious and alive, day in and day out." In the story, "Luckily the Account Representative Knew CPR," it takes a heart attack to blast away the shackles that keep two executives bound to their isolated complacency.

"Bent to what two lives required, below everything, he called for help again and again."

The tragedy is that Wallace couldn't sustain his own consciousness and do what life requires to stay alive. Thankfully, his work achieves that and endures.

Orpheus Ascends: Dylan In Hong Kong

2011-04-13T00:52:00.012-07:00

"The only thing I knew how to do
Was to keep on keepin’ on like a bird that flew"

*Updated below*

It's a rare privilege to be in the presence of a legendary artist celebrating his life and work the way Bob Dylan was doing last night in Hong Kong. It's even rarer to be center-front swaying with the one you love to "Forever Young" while he and his band of bruised renegades lay down the law:

May your heart always be joyful
May your song always be sung
May you stay, forever young

The last time Bob played here in 1994 he closed with "Blowin' In The Wind." He didn't even play it last night, despite the banshee screaming for it at stage right. Bob can't please them all, it's true, and his voice isn't everyone's cup of meat, but who cares? It's Bob Dylan...in fucking China! Well, technically the SAR, but that doesn't sound quite as novel. Lucky for us, he wasn't resting on any laurels. He gave an inspiring performance, smiling like a prancing dandy behind his keyboard, while his band smoldered or blazed through unexpected nuggets like "Señor (Tales Of Yankee Power)" and "Blind Willie McTell."

I've seen Bob play four times before and this was by far the best. He was having a great time reveling in the moment - sweat dripping from his face and hair - before 3000-plus fans on the cusp of his 70th year. At times it was like watching your uncle doing the old soft-shoe in front of the mirror or a master poet caressing the contours of a familiar lyric:

Einstein, disguised as Robin Hood
With his memories in a trunk
Passed this way an hour ago
With his friend, a jealous monk
He looked so immaculately frightful
As he bummed a cigarette
Then he went off sniffing drainpipes
And reciting the alphabet

(via SCMP)

His band - Tony Garnier on bass, George Recile on drums, Stu Kimball on rhythm guitar, Donnie Herron on banjo, electric mandolin, pedal steel, lap steel, and Charlie Sexton on lead guitar - were white hot, nailing the tightest rhythm and sweetest flourishes to the good ship Bob. Sexton played at least six different guitars, my favourite being the Gretsch White Falcon, as fat as a Cadillac, that he pulled out for "Highway 61 Revisited." At the end of the gig, Bob gathered the band around him as a farewell and disappeared, leaving his golden Oscar behind to watch over the hallowed stage as we reluctantly drifted for the exits. Yup, it was that good...AND he played over half of Highway 61 Revisited, too.

Set List

1. Change My Way Of Thinking
2. Señor (Tales Of Yankee Power)
3. Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues
4. Tangled Up In Blue
5. Honest With You
6. Simple Twist Of Fate
7. Tweedle Dee & Tweedle Dum
8. Blind Willie McTell
9. Jolene
10. Desolation Row
11. Highway 61 Revisited
12. Spirit On The Water
13. My Wife's Home Town
14. Thunder On The Mountain
15. Ballad Of A Thin Man

Encore

16. Like A Rolling Stone
17. Forever Young

*Update*

I have to correct the South China Morning Posts' erroneous review posted on Expecting Rain. Bob played 17 songs, not 18 and he didn't sing all 10 verses of "Desolation Row" - he sang 5: #1, #2, #5, #6 & #10. And he DEFINITELY didn't do any "scatting."

Bob Dylan: Piano Man

2011-04-11T01:30:00.023-07:00

"I’m here to create the new imperial empire
I’m going to do whatever circumstances require" - Honest With Me

Tomorrow night, Bob Dylan, or "Baobo Dilun" (鲍勃迪伦) as the Chinese say, will be playing Hong Kong for the second time in his career. His current Asian tour has been inspiring rapturous reviews from Beijing to Ho Chi Minh City, but also an undercurrent of criticism from the likes of Human Rights Watch and the New York Times' Maureen Dowd. As Gawker's Max Read put it, they're mad that Bob didn’t overthrow the Chinese government. It's ridiculous and much of it is based on unsubstantiated reports that authorities vetted his playlist, even going so far as censoring such subversive manifestos as "Blowin' In The Wind" and "The Times They Are A-Changin'."

(via CNN)

I don't know about any of that, but I do know he got away with this:

Now you see this one-eyed midget shouting the word "NOW!"
And you say, "For what reason?"
And he says, "How?"
And you say, "What does this mean?"
And he screams back, "You're a cow!
Give me some milk or else go home!"

I also know he's been playing more piano than guitar, which is a very good sign. Bob can play - he's got chops and soul:

Then there's this chestnut from Slow Train Coming, "When He Returns" (via Godtube):

Bob's playing two nights, April 12-13 at the Star Hall in Kowloon Bay. Wouldn't miss it for all for all the farms in Cuba.

Love The Future: Ai Weiwei

2011-04-06T22:25:00.021-07:00

"I really don't dare believe that in this society, even love for the future can disappear" - anonymous Internet post

Since Ai Weiwei was detained on April 3rd, his name has been banned, deleted, erased, wacked, clubbed - whatever - by the Internet police in a futile attempt to prevent people from typing what everyone already knows. As a result, netizens have adapted and are using different variants of his name. Ai Weiwei - 艾未未 - can be read/pronounced as "ai weilai" or "love the future" and several people have been using it. It's a beautiful turn of phrase that suggests Ai is the future of China, regardless of what the government might wish.

Above is a screenshot of the statement that appeared briefly on the state news agency, Xinhua, before it was deleted today. He's being investigated for "suspected economic crimes," or corruption. On April 6th, an article in the state-run Global Times threatened that Ai "will pay a price" without specifying for what exactly. It reads like a ransom note from a gang of desperate thugs.

Ai with one of his "crimes" - a name list of the more than 5,000 children who perished in the May 12, 2008 Sichuan Earthquake

After the Sichuan Earthquake, Ai helped launch a "Citizens' Investigation" that uncovered evidence of a corruption scandal involving shoddy construction of what became known as "tofu" schools. In August 2009, while trying to testify for his friend, Tan Zuoren, he was attacked by police in his Chengdu hotel room in the middle of the night. A month later in Munich, he underwent emergency brain surgery to stop internal bleeding. From October 2009 to January 2010, his Munich exhibition, "So Sorry," included an installation made up of 9000 children's backpacks spelling out, "She lived happily for seven years in this world," a quote from a mother whose child died in the earthquake. Ai has also tweeted the names of the victims on their birthdays, using the hashtag #512birthday.

The government is saying Ai's disappearance has "nothing to do with human rights or freedom of expression." If that's so, then the deaths of the children had nothing to do with an earthquake and everything to do with government corruption.