Blog # 131…July 2022

It’s wonderful to be outside so much these days, especially when there’s refreshing and original art to see -  sometimes in surprising places. I’ve missed most of it, but thanks to my friend Google, have been able to catch up online.

I discovered Ed Burtynsky many years ago in a photo exhibit of the devastation caused by the Three Gorges Dam in China at a small gallery on Hazelton. He works in large format, kind of the Imax of still photos, continuing to record industrial landscapes and their impact on nature and on human existence …”capturing the underbelly of what humans accomplish,” as he puts it. Once you’ve seen these sights (and there’s a certain compelling beauty from a distance) you can’t unsee them. There’s a cruel irony in rich dudes spending billions flying into space rather than caring for the space where we live, sort of like getting rid of a car when the ash trays are full.

Ed’s had a series of thoughtful and thought provoking works in the years since the Three Gorges, His latest show, In the Wake of Progress, an immersive experience now housed in The Canadian Opera Company Theatre had a spectacular preview earlier outside on all 12 screens in Dundas Square.

 

Another open air piece of a very different sort came with the return of Judy Chicago  (remember The Dinner Party at the AGO in 1982?) Her Tribute to Toronto, a new work commissioned by the Toronto Biennale of Art, illuminated the waterfront from a barge off Sugar Beach with environmentally friendly, non toxic coloured smoke one evening early in June.

Seeking to soften and feminize our surroundings with an impermanent approach, merging colour and landscape, Judy hoped to  increase our awareness of the beauty of our natural environment.

 

And, adding a note of whimsy to my neighbourhood and giving new meaning to the elephant in the room, is Matt Donovan’s 1999 student thesis for OCAD. Resting on the lawn of a house on Yarmouth Road, Sally had an overhaul and face lift in 2013 and continues to dispense prosperity, longevity, intelligence and good luck to the house owners and all who pass by…that’s what elephants do.

 

 Hope you're having a calm and peaceful Canada Day, be back in August. 

 

Blog # 130…June, 2022

Wordl…are you one of the millions caught up in its challenges (and chance to exercise your competitive muscle) or maybe you do crosswords, play scrabble or engage with any of the other games, puzzles and brain teasers involving words – they're fun, distracting and reputed to ward off cognitive decline.

Words, words, words!  In the past few years, we’ve imported them - hygge,  schadenfreude and brio from other languages, woke and bespoke from  corners of our own.  And who knew that someone who took a picture of themselves with their mobile phone would coin a word that we hear dozens of times a day? Words change meaning - a thong used to be a rubber sandal coming up between your toes, an app was a shrimp cocktail, coke was a derivative of coal or a fizzy drink and a mouse was – well you get it.  We avoided anything that was viral and rap was what we did on the door.

Iceland has a noun and pronoun for non-binary people. The Inuit have many words for snow but not one for depression…they call it “thinking a lot and crying.”     

If like me, you’re interested in words and language, I bet you’d welcome The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows… sort of a weird title John Koenig chose for his collection of new words for emotions. As he puts it “to capture the delectable subtleties of the human experience…to shine a light on the fundamental strangeness of being a human being.”  Here are some of his creations:

Sonder:  the realization that each random passerby is the main character of their own story, in which you are just an extra in the background.

Kenopsia:  the atmosphere of a place that is usually bustling with people but is now abandoned and quiet.

Des vu: the awareness that this moment will become a memory.

Nemotia:  the fear that you’re utterly powerless to change the world around you…which makes the act of trying to live your own life feel grotesque and self indulgent.

Ironsick:  feeling hollowed out by excessive exposure to modern technology, which is so fast and stimulating that it makes everything else feel drab and messy by comparison…even though your life may be as peaceful and predictable as it’s ever been.

There’s something oddly comforting about having words put to experience,“The tiger named is the tiger tamed” a thought that comes to me from the recesses of memory – there must be a word for that.

Words are also being joined together in new ways…vaccine hesitancy, replacement theory, fake news and a host of others. Then there are the acronyms used by tweeters…LOL, LMK, BTW, BBL, WTF and my favourite, DILLIGAS*- a more nuanced version of whatever.

BIPOC, which I think in Canada should be IBPOC

And those precious, brave, suffering Ukrainians say рашизм to describe their enemy attackers, impossible to translate into English, the closest we can get is a combination of Russian and fascism - ruscism

All these words, phrases, acronyms, in an attempt to capture and understand our turbo world, we'll be back in July with more of them.

*do I look like I give a shit?

 

Blog # 129…May 2022

April was poetry month and in case you missed it, I’m here to celebrate poets and those lyrical forms that capture moods, feelings, sights and sounds like nothing else can.

I’m forever grateful that our high school English class required memorizing 200 lines of poetry every year…and being randomly chosen to recite in front of our mates.  I remember cringing as 13 year olds  monotoned their way through Ode on a Grecian Urn, dreading my turn. I probably wasn’t much better but the snatches of Browning, Wordsworth, Shelley, Milton and many other British poets that float up all these years later give me immense pleasure.  Rupert Brooke's nostalgia for home as war approaches " some corner of a foreign field that is forever England"  still brings a lump to my throat.                                   

In my twenties, thinking I was hip in my black stockings and turtlenecks, I loved the romance of Shakespeare’s Sonnet XXX with its lines on friendship,"But if the while I think on thee, dear friend/All losses are restored and sorrows end."  I discovered that poetry could advance activism with Allen Ginsberg and confront racism with James Baldwin. I found  Canadian poets  - Irving Layton and Leonard Cohen. And women, Dorothy Livesay, Miriam Waddington, Karen Mulhallen.

Karen captures the anguish in our northern communities with these lines from her poem Pikangikum:                                                                                         "Ask ourselves, "our first world"/with no game for hunters/no food, no shelter for birds, fish, animals/no clean water, no elders with stories/children take their rite of passage/journey to adulthood, sniffing gas."

I read poets who experimented playfully with form, words, sound and humour.  Ogden Nash delighted me with:                                                                                      "The turtle lives twixt plated decks/Which practically conceal its sex/I think it clever of the turtle/In such a fix to be so fertile.  

I loved the acrid wit of Dorothy Parker "Oh life is a glorious cycle of song/A medley of extemporanea/And love is a thing that can never go wrong/And I am Marie of Roumania."                                                                                                                                                  

Today, on a somber note, Warsan Shire, a refugee herself -  Somalian, born in Kenya, raised in London, now living in Los Angeles - is in a prime position to express her feelings in Home, a poem with achingly poignant lines:                                                             

 " No one leaves home until home is a sweaty voice in your ear saying leave, run away from me now./I don’t know what I’ve become but I know that anywhere is safer than here.                                                                                                             And... " You have to understand, that no one puts their children in a boat unless the water is safer than the land."   

                                                                       

Poets show us how to hear - if we can bear to listen, they open our hearts and our brains to the joy and beauty, the tears and sorrow around us. Verlaine, Lorca, Rumi...and poetry can be found in the voices of the 90 million refugees displaced around the world. One who had lived in a camp for over 8 years was heard to say "My home is the people I live with now, the ones I wake up with, I have nowhere to go home to, home is not land but people."              

And if you're in Toronto on Sunday May 15th, you're invited to meet four Canadian poets who collectively, have been challenging and delighting audiences for over two hundred years! The special guest of honour will be Arlene Lampert, first and founding executive secretary of the League of Canadian Poets (1971-1979) who continues to love and support poetry and poets in Canada.

                    Poetry on Markham Street

                     3pm,  n/w corner of Markham and London Sts.

                                              Featuring

           bill bissett, Robert Priest, David Bateman and Honey Novick

 Funded by the Canada Council for the Arts through the League of Canadian Poets                                       Masks and distancing are suggested                      

Please keep yourself and those close to you safe and well, and remember how lucky we are to be able to stay home to be safe rather than have to leave.

See you back here in June

                                                                                                        

                                                                                                          

        

                       

                                             

                                                            

                                                      

                                                   

                                                      

 

 

 Blog # 128...April 2022

Now that Toronto's winter is on its way off to wherever it spends the rest of its time, we’re left with the candy wrappers, masks and dog crap that was hidden by the beautiful white snow…yuck!

But there are some lovely images to distract our attention. In the alleyway behind our house, Max, a golden retriever who lived next door when we moved in over 40 years ago, is immortalized, larger than life, on a garage door. It’s festooned with graffiti and says in tiny letters at the bottom -  "I love dogs."  So do I!

Last year, when we badly needed to smile, a neighbor, Martha Davis, created Panda Land on a nearby school yard lawn. It began on a small scale with one or two pandas sitting quietly and gradually expanded into a glorious celebration of what pandas might enjoy…sitting at the movies, eating in cafes, generally cavorting around in amusing ways.

My cousin Cindy, florist by day with a side hustle creating cakes for special occasions, sends us photos of her inventions. Happy Bassday is one of my favourites - maybe to open the fishing season or to celebrate a sportsperson's birthday.

Hanan Abdu, artist and occupational therapist, makes black muslim women feel important, portraying them as strong and fashionable. Using her personal and professional identities as well as her creative energy, she gives us a view of herself and other women as unique and beautiful,

And finally, the cover of The New Yorker always delivers a message, capturing what’s going on in that city and in the world - sometimes trenchant, sometimes funny and last week, heart wrenching. Artist Ana Juan’s Motherland evokes Madonna and child…with artillery accompaniment.

I’m having to extend my cognitive therapy inspired worrying time to handle all that’s going on! But, we'll be back in May, when the only certainty is that things won't be the same. I spoke too soon about winter being out the door though, and it wasn't an April Fool!

 

Blog # 127…March, 2022

I don’t particularly like the term differently- abled. It’s a bit clunky, but it does convey a better sense of how we all are…well, abled differently. Just as we’re gradually opening our hearts and minds, and books and films to include people of various colours, shapes and sexual definitions, we’re also accepting that we all hear, see, walk and talk at diverse levels of competence. Some of us may not walk up stairs as well or hear as clearly, but can sing Broadway musicals or knock off a great omelette.

I worked with children, most of them in wheelchairs, many years ago and found them thoughtful and unusually expressive…energy that other kids expended running around was available for thinking and talking to me. Alan who was 11 couldn’t walk unaided but he could beat me at chess. Eight year old Vancel came every day on his elbow crutches to take me to lunch in his taxi, making very realistic sounds of the doors opening and closing, the noise of the engine, the traffic’s honking and squealing brakes. Nancy, who was only 5 arrived when I was on crutches from a skiing incident, asked me who my physio was when I was little, which still brings tears to my eyes.

Ivan Illich (remember him from the 60’s?) had interesting ideas and wrote about  Disabling Professions. One of my greatest heroes, Oliver Sacks introduced me to the notion of hurling people at their deficits, as professionals put people through endless assessments from positions of power and authority.

Art can be an equalizer – think of the brilliant jazz of Jeff Healey; Daniel Laurie who plays Reggie Buckle’s Down Syndrome in Call the Midwife so touchingly because he lives there himself. Watching dance smooth out their tremours, we feel the music along with people with Parkinson’s and TV's Fashion Dis challenges traditional norms that lack inclusion in how we dress. An initiative to help people with disabilities achieve an MBA has been launched by a group of young people in Toronto...so things are happening in all sectors. 

And, coming up in a few days in Beijing – the Paralympics, launched in England after WWll at the Stoke Mandeville Hospital which specializes in spinal cord injuries. I always find it more interesting and inspiring to watch a blind speed skater or a skier missing an arm. How do they do it, and what courage it must take!

We’re being moved, sometime slowly but definitely surely into accepting and valuing difference, whether it’s in how we look, act, move or love....makes the world more vibrant, and also more accepting and less lonely for us in our uniqueness.

Here it is, another March... International Women's Day approaching, Spring and an unknown future. We've had enough surprises lately, and now the horror of the attack on Ukraine! And speaking of  unrecognized talents, we all wondered about the Ukrainians electing a comedian as president...now Volodymyr Zelenskyy is reminding us of George Vl staying in London during the blitz...and responding to offers to get him out with "I need ammunition, not a lift." Loving him for that as well as his brave leadership.

But wait, one more thing...actually two things that have made my spirit soar, at least temporarily, reading Indian in the Cabinet by Jody Wilson-Raybould  and watching season 10 of Call the Midwife.

Back in April with some beautiful images.

 

Blog # 126…February 2022

Quite a few years ago, I enlivened a job I’d taken in a hospital, out of financial necessity, by involving art students…it was a win/win situation. By bringing in artists, I enhanced their lives, broadened their experience and influenced their practice as well as my own. Oh yes, it also enriched the environment and the people there, brought smiles to both patients and staff who felt less isolated and focused on illness.

There’s a natural relationship between art and science – dancers need to understand the physics of movement, painters depend on chemistry to get the subtle effects in their work and musicians and mathematics work hand in hand. And scientists often use imagination and creativity in solving problems

Over the years, I’ve seen art and artists appear in a variety of roles in unique settings, collaborating with other specialities and putting these connections into practice. Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto employed poet Ronna Bloom who ran workshops for staff to help them process their experiences. The late and wonderful Priscilla Uppal was  in residence at the Rogers Cup for tennis, the Vancouver Winter Games and the Summer Olympics in London, rendering the spirit of sport in lyrical and moving poems. 

The latest initiative involves palliative care doctors at Toronto Western Hospital and the Art Gallery of Ontario. The stress of delivering sad news to families and friends can be overpowering and the opportunity to have a close and thoughtful interaction with art in a group helps provide some relief and room for reflection and mindfulness. Equally important is talking about what they’ve observed and felt, bringing the group members together and enhancing awareness of others' thoughts and opinions, deepening their capacity for empathy and making them better doctors.

As we struggle with the isolation of the pandemic, it seems to me there’s a big role for artists, many of whom have lost their livelihood. Mental health issues abound in schools, workplaces and long term care facilities…how about actors recording stories to read to kids and elders, dancers leading movement groups, visual artists introducing sessions on observing form and colour  in the world around us. I know it’s a leap, but a hopeful one -better than some of the stuff on screens -  and important things often begin with a small thought. Maybe if even a couple of you who read this blog take a step to include art in your lives in some way, and talk about it with your friends, some ripples will expand.

Remember that we look more attractive when we smile, so search out some reasons to do it, or better still to have a laugh...here's one from a recent New Yorker.  

We'll be back in March, look forward to those longer days and a more controlled pandemic!

 

Blog # 125…January 2022

Here we go again, launching a new year with high hopes in the face of grim circumstances…never more important to take refuge in the joys and sorrows of a good story. And what a wealth of stories our Canadian writers have to tell!

They live in every corner of the country and come from every corner of the globe…they’re old, young and in between and from a range of ethnicities and genders. They tell true stories, their stories, and the stories of others, real and imaginary, set here and elsewhere. If you feel like a laugh or need a cry, you’ll find it in between the covers of a book. And Bruce Cockburn has some advice ”Pay attention to the poet, You need him and you know it”.

I’m grateful to books that have helped me process personal emotional conflicts over the years. My name in the front of The Alexandria Quartet is written in a tentative small script that reflects the way I felt in my early 20’s, when it helped me understand that the world is full of very different people and no one really fits in.  More recently the Mummy Noir genre has given me a sense of the real joys, but also the hard and ugly feelings involved in motherhood. I’m still struggling with understanding life and each book I read urges me along.

I haven’t taken up bread making or weaving or learning  a language this past year and have spent most of the time reading…here are some of the things I’ve enjoyed. I now give myself the luxury of abandoning something I’m not liking, so this is the cream of the crop.

First, although I love fiction, some nf sometimes creeps in…I was intrigued by an interview with Kamal Al-Solaylee, a writer and professor at Ryerson (wish they’d get that name change going) about the notion of returning to home. He left Yemen as a teenager and has lived in Egypt and England, settling in Toronto several decades ago, losing his fluency in Arabic along the way. Recently, he’s started thinking of leaving Canada’s safety, health care (and winters) to return to a cabin that he knows is really a figment of his dreams. Prompted to examine other returns, real or imaginary, he speaks to individuals who have gone back to Jamaica, the Basque counties, New Zealand, Ghana, Taiwan, Israel and the Palestinian Territories, discovering the unique qualities of each return (the book's name btw).

And the fiction I’ve loved: Watching You Without Me by Lynn Coady; And Miles to Go Before I Sleep by Jocelyn Saucier; Fight Night by Miriam Toews; A Town Called Solace by Mary Lawson and Louise Penny, punching above her weight with The Madness of Crowds.

Books by Canadians looking at life through the lens of another culture: Scarborough by Catherine Hernandez; We Have always Been Here by Samra Habib; What Strange Paradise by Omar Al Akkah: Butter, Honey, Pig, Bread by Francesca Ekwuyasi and How to Pronounce Knife by Souvankham Thammasonga.

A nod to two American women, Samantha Power for The Education of an Idealist and  Stacey Abrams for a great thriller - While Justice Sleeps  - the latest in about a dozen books - when did she have time for politics…and a life?  

This is a partial inventory rather than reviews and this year I have no intention of learning a language, baking bread, weaving or doing anything other than reading more books!

HAPPY NEW YEAR, see you in February when it’ll be lighter later.