Beneath The Surface: A Telling Silence

Minus twenty degrees in creaky-cold Edmonton...another reason to look back to the West Coast. Here's one of mine from a few years ago that was published in The Antigonish Review:

Beneath The Surface

Shadows rub against the surface
of the lake like ghosts at a window.
They move towards me on the
shore - tangles of orange, black, flashes
of red. A rubbery mouth yawns from
the depths groping for a mayfly or the soft
belly of wet bread. A frog pops from the
mud; dragonflies veer left and right.
The wind is silent in its telling.

I close my eyes and feel
a breeze through my veins stretching
into a gale. I remember days blind
as a Vancouver weather
forecast, English Bay, slow
coffee - faces at a window.

(photo by Yewco)

A Golden Voice: Leonard Cohen In Edmonton

"I was born like this, I had no choice
I was born with the gift of a golden voice" ~ Tower of Song

Leonard Cohen knows how to celebrate the sacred and profane - with elegance and style. Last night he gave it all, including three encores. I've never seen the man live before, but after his gorgeous 3.5 hour performance at Edmonton's Rexall Place I've renewed my membership in the "Broken Church of Leonard" with a profound sense of gratitude and fulfillment.

Throughout the evening Leonard bowed, kneeled and often doffed his fedora after one of his bandmates executed yet another soulful solo. He thanked the crowd at least three times, expressed his gratitude for being back in his homeland (Canada!), and literally came skipping back to stage for the encores. Not bad for a 78-year-old "lazy bastard living in a suit."



"Sisters of Mercy" was especially poignant as he explained it was written here "in a hotel next to the North Saskatchewan" in 1966. His band was smooth and supple, modulating gracefully with the different mood each song required, and the crowd, made up of mostly balding, greyheads - we were among the youngest - lapped it up.

First Set

Dance Me to the End of Love
The Future
Bird on the Wire
Everybody Knows
Who by Fire Darkness
Ain't No Cure for Love
Amen
Come Healing
In My Secret Life
A Thousand Kisses Deep (Recitation)
Anthem

Second Set

Tower of Song
Suzanne
Sisters of Mercy
Waiting for the Miracle
Anyhow
Heart with No Companion
Democracy
If It Be Your Will (performed by the Webb Sisters)
Alexandra Leaving (performed by Sharon Robinson)
I'm Your Man
Hallelujah
Take This Waltz

Encore 1

So Long, Marianne
First We Take Manhattan

Encore 2

Famous Blue Raincoat
Going Home
Closing Time

Encore 3

I Tried to Leave You
Save the Last Dance for Me

Winter Or A River: Edmonton, Sometimes

Poetry arrived
in search of me. I don't know, I don't know where
it came from, from winter or a river. ~ Pablo Neruda

These are days when breath rises from beneath the snow. Life has gone underground. The rabbit tracks in the front yard confirm the transition. I relish the morning chill curled in our sheets, while the sky unloads another blanket.

Adjusting for the weather, I take on my surroundings the way a snow leopard mirrors the elements. There's a bridge and my shoulder blades arch up; a path and my fingers curl into paws. When a yellowy light foams across the horizon, my bones crack into branches. 

I can't promise more than what the day brings. Edmonton is like that, sometimes.

Robert Kroetsch: The Sad Phoenician

"Any resemblance
to persons living or dead
is coincidental,
believe me." ~ Robert Kroetsch, Preface to The Sad Phoenician

Tomorrow night is a celebration in Edmonton of the great Canadian writer, Robert Kroetsch. Hosted by Douglas Barbour, it's billed as "an evening of readings and remembrances" featuring:

George Bowering
Jenna Butler
Jeff Carpenter
Nicole Markotic
Roy Miki
Fred Wah
Thomas Wharton

Kroetsch, who died in a car accident last year, was born in Heisler, Alberta. He went on to win the Governor General's Award for fiction in 1969 for The Studhorse Man and received the Order of Canada in 2004. Known more for his poetry, he authored one of my favourite collections, "The Seed Catalogue," which inspired me to work on my long poem. The month after he passed, we moved to Edmonton from Hong Kong. As I was walking along Whyte Avenue, I ducked into Howell Books and picked up a vintage copy of the The Sad Phoenician. It helped me adjust to my old/new home.

"¡No pasarán!": Student Action Stifled

I'm beginning to adjust to this frigid, northern outpost of Edmonton. I plug in my car; I shower in my long johns. My senses too are adapting. They're thawing and slowing down the whirlwind of incoming data to a more comfortable, legible pace. I'm now able to identify certain rhythms and patterns with more ease and almost daily I receive a message drifting through the ether: "Welcome to Harperland!"

Just this week at my own University of Alberta a peaceful protest was shut down by over 25 police officers equipped with a helicopter. This battalion had been mobilized to protect the private property of the university from nefarious cretins called...students! Yes, students protesting tuition hikes and cutbacks on a "National Student Day of Action," obviously just a cover for something far more sinister and dangerous.

(Police battalion saves University of Alberta from itself, @ Occupy Edmonton)

It has since backfired into a monumental embarrassment for the administration, but how could they have ever thought otherwise? Did they think they could get away with stifling student activism at a university? Apparently so - in Harperland such idiocy has become a daily occurrence.

Nothing Compares 2 U: Prince In Edmonton

"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...

Ondaatje In Edmonton: Cat's Meow

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!

Irshad Manji: Ijtihad

"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.

Live in Edmonton: The Junior Boys

"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...

Rocky Top: Jasper

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.