Blog # 148…December, 2023

 

Another November’s come and gone, this year bringing an added depth of darkness - both real and existential. We’ve turned the clocks back and put poppies on our lapels to honour fallen soldiers from old wars. Meanwhile, new wars rage in Sudan, Ukraine and Gaza killing civilians against all laws of war and decency. Hard as it is to avoid despair, it’s not an option.  My glass is still half full (not sure of what) and I manage to find the occasional bright spot, or pony as the old joke about optimists and pessimists goes. 

I met Emily Armour several years ago  after she'd discovered a profile of Phyllis Carleton I'd writtten on a University of Toronto alumni website and she contacted me in hopes of finding some connection with her grandmother. Phyl had been  a physiotherapist  practicing in England during World War Two, as had Elizabeth Carroll, Emily’s grandmother...it seemed possible they had met, maybe even worked together. I asked Phyl shortly before her death (at almost 101) and examined various physio contacts but wasn't able to find any evidence of Elizabeth Carroll and the search seemed over. But in the many messages back and forth with Emily, I discovered something wonderful about her passions and her creative talents. 

She’s  a musician and teacher of music in Victoria,  British Columbia and, as well as a curiosity about her grandmother, she has an interest and reverence for other individuals who served in WWll. She searched out some surviving soldiers in and around Victoria and introduced them to her students (aged 8 to 18). Each student was assigned an individual to interview and then compose a  piece of music reflecting the veteran’s experiences during the war and since. Presenting the pieces to the larger group was a poignant experience for both the aging veterans and the young students - and Music for Veterans was born.

The project began in 2021 and most of the original students remain involved, with the addition of some new youngsters. This November they produced their first public event, held in Victoria’s Royal Oak Burial Park, the beautiful spot where Elizabeth Carroll is buried.

Music by the young composers commemorated the lives of eleven local airmen who died in training exercises during the war, never seeing active service and often not recognized in memorial services. Four of the older students then travelled with Emily to Ottawa to perform at a Remembrance Day ceremony on Parliament Hill, where they honoured Indigenous soldiers killed in battle as well as Romeo Dallaire.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             

Emily's persistence in searching out traces of her grandmother had led her to discover the obituary of another physiotherapist, Helen Metcalfe who had also served in England. Emily contacted her daughter Sue in Ottawa who remembered her mother mentioning Betty Carroll and even found a photo of Betty treating an injured soldier to send to Emily. While she was in Ottawa for the Remembrance Day event, Emily met Sue and they shared memories of  their beloved grandmother and mother… and the circle closed. 

Since Canada brought in Medical Assistance In Dying (MAID) in June of 2016, more than 40,000 individuals have chosen this way to end their life.  Many family members and friends have participated in conversations about the decision making and other arrangements involved in this important social phenomenon  - new to us all.

Three of my friends have chosen to die with MAID in the past few months, the first sent a message with the reason for his decision and the fact that it would take place in a few days  - giving us a chance to express our affection and what his friendship had meant to us...sad but comforting. As individuals make different choices about their lives, they also do so about their deaths...and maybe the conversations that emerge in discussing MAID will lessen our avoidance of this sensitive topic. 

This starts the holiday season and finishes off 2023. I'm wishing peace and joy to you and for the rest of the world. We'll be back in 2024.

 Blog # 147...November 2023

 "Oh Canada, our home on native land," I love Jully Black's tiny one word switch in our national anthem that corrects the picture from  coast to coast to coast. Since I flew east recently, my thoughts are moving first in that direction - to Suzanne Stewart in Nova Scotia, then to Manitoba with Wab Kinew and out to Naomi Klein in British Columbia...and finally to a great Arctic/Amazon collaboration in Toronto.  November brings its own darkness, this year we're already drowning in serious difficulties at home and brutal horrors abroad, so we need flashes of brightness to keep us afloat.

When I was in Halifax I was pleased to have the ideal gift to take to friends who made me enormously welcome. Although it was a bit like taking coals to Newcastle, I gave them Suzanne Stewart's book The Tides of Time. A long time resident of Antigonish where she teaches at St Francis Xavier University, Suzanne began to think of our relationship with time and with the seasons, and has produced a contemplative book centred around the rural labours unique to Nova Scotia taking place each month. Starting in September (the beginning of the academic year) she meets and tells stories of tuna fishers, apple growers, beekeepers, sheep farmers, cranberry farmers, maple syrup producers, concluding in August with wild blueberry harvesting. It's a quiet, calm book, just the thing to neutralize the crowded, noisy and worrisome lives we lead...even in Nova Scotia.

And a few weeks ago, we rejoiced in the result of the election in Manitoba that gave us our first Indigenous provincial premier. Wab Kinew's first act in the legislature was to introduce a bill to formally recognize Metis leader Louis Riel as the province's first premier and to modernize the education curriculum to accurately reflect his life and accomplishments. Faced with corrosive criticism about his troubled past during the campaign, Wab was forthright in turning it into a wish that  people whose situations were not so good right now could see in his life, hope for their own.  Coming from a background somewhat different from most politicians (as well as being Indigenous, he's been a CBC journalist and broadcaster and a successful writer) gives Wab an edge on relating to Manitoba citizens. His memoir - The Reason You Walk, a story of reconciliation with his father who had been a residential school survivor, is both candid and moving. We'll be watching him with hope. 

A few years ago, Naomi Klein moved to British Columbia to be close to her parents. By this time, she had begun to realize that she was frequently being confused with Naomi Wolf: Same first name - not just them but their husbands - both Jewish, similar hair colour and style, and, perhaps most confounding, similar views early in their careers. Naomi Wolf wrote The Beauty Myth attacking the beauty industry in 1990; Naomi Klein wrote No Logo in 1999 poking at the "brand bullies".  Naomi Klein (our Naomi) continues to examine aspects of our world from the left while the other Naomi has swung to the far right, become an anti vaxxer, conspiracy theorist and frequent guest of Steve Bannon on Fox News.  In her highly personal Doppelganger, our Naomi examines how easily doubles can confuse our  thinking and upset our perception of reality...I hope it clears up who she is! 

The Image Centre at Toronto Metropolitan University is home to a clever Arctic/Amazon project, an outside mural that brings together artists from two Indigenous groups, one from Nunavik,  the other from a remote area of Peru. Intending to unify the traditions and cultural legacies of these two regions and honour global indigeneity, the mural appears on the west wall of Kerr Hall, on Gould Street and Nelson Mandela Way, near Yonge and Dundas.

And since we're in the realm of Indigenous culture, this year's ImagiNATIVE, the annual celebration of media arts was bigger and more inclusive than ever. Since its founding by Cynthia Lickers-Sage in 1998, they've brought Indigenous film and video makers and other visual artists from around the world to present their creative excellence and innovation to each other and to us. Ten programs of shorts on different themes, animated programs for the "grandbabies", feature films, an art walk to gallery shows and a gala finale at the Art Gallery of Ontario are some of the attractions to whet our appetite for next year.

And as I write this, my heart aches for all the Indigenous people harmed by the immensely complex controversy over legitimacy and the damage to our progress towards reconciliation. 

With all that's going on in the world there's still lots of good and we need to relish it to cope with the awful stuff.  See you before Christmas to put the lights on for that season.

 Blog # 146...October 2023

BMO's new corporate headquarters, in Nordstrom's former space in Toronto's Eaton Centre, is an extraordinary example of a worker focused workplace, maybe a taste of the future and - dare we hope - an encouragement to other employers.

Work - what occupies us, all the different kinds of work we do, from looking after ourselves and other people to earning money or goods to live, has always fascinated me. In the 5 years since I published a piece about that sector of the world, it's changed enormously, leaping ahead - and sideways. I'm taking a look at the huge and fairly sudden changes that have happened since then, and what we may see down the road.

Let's start with the work of daily living in our surroundings: masks, vaccines, tests, consciousness of our elder friends and relatives, staying in, when and where to go out, smoke in the air, maintaining interests and engagement, maybe stresses of paying bills and finding housing and dealing with anxiety and/or depression.

Then there's what's involved in the work we do for money: contract, shifts, part time, permanent, temporary, at home, in an office, store or factory, more independence, time with family, loss of collegiality, tenuous, risky, satisfying, valued, too much, not enough, lost offshore, multiple jobs, too far away, stressful relationships, and on and on.

Outside factors come into it too: artificial intelligence supporting some sectors, threatening others; labour shortages in some fields, and the rallying of the union movement as workers gain influence and increasing strength and people who sell groceries, make cars and write Hollywood shows strike for their rights.

Many workplaces look different these days, more casual clothes (flip flops in the boardroom?) and many vacant spots as people sit at their kitchen tables or curl up on the sofa. Sone workers are being ordered back while other employers are paying more attention to the physical environment with art and colour schemes or coaxing staff back in with pickle ball courts or gourmet lunches. 

So back to BMO and the environment it's created for its employees...lucky them to have their wants and needs considered and even anticipated! Maybe some of the ideas and intentions will spread and be adapted in other settings.

Such a large project involves the talent and work of many individuals, and since I write about art, and because I love what she's done, I'm concentrating on Panya Clark Espinal's spectacular piece Ring True that's central to the space.

To create a project in a financial centre  Panya was inspired by the rings on the Canadian ten dollar bill which celebrates our Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Four circles of different colours are rendered on a monumental scale on the escalator's banks, integrating into multiple planes as the passenger moves upwards, sometimes distorted, at other times in perfect alignment. In a playful way, Panya suggests that aligning one thing with another can help us gain clarity and wonders if what we claim in our Charter actually does ring true in our lived experience.

What's coming in the future? One thing is sure, with rights and freedoms, come online scams...the latest appears to come from a friend with "pictures" in the message line, as a way to enter your system. DELETE if you're suspicious and check the email address of the sender to see if it matches your legit contact. Be vigilant, the www is a bit of a wws (wild west show). 

And hello to the thousands of AI trollers from Singapore who visit my blog  every month, should I be flattered?

I'll be back in November, hope you will be too. 

 Blog # 145...September, 2023

My friend Marilyn took this photo for me on a recent trip to Paris. As well as recognizing my birthday, it also marks the founding of the 3rd French Republic in 1870 - stretching for 70 years from Napoleon to WWll.  

Birthdays make me think of transitions, the inevitable ones involved with aging - diminished hearing, sight or mobility but others like changing gender...or minds. All demand adjustments to how we think and act. 

It's uncomfortable to change, and many of us are struggling with adapting our attitudes towards our Indigenous fellow citizens. We deserve some background and history to be able to decide how to form our thoughts.

I was lucky to have a short trip to Manitoulin Island in July...staying at a lovely hotel /conference centre, a short lakeside walk from the main street of Little Current. Built in an Indigenous style and staffed by Indigenous folks, it's a great place to launch a visit, and feast on the local Georgian Bay whitefish. We also had a tour of the Island with a settler and time spent on unceded territory with an Indigenous elder.

For people not able to do that, there are a couple of books I read afterwards that gave me food for thought.  Michelle Good, who wrote the beautiful and anguished Five Little Indians, has given us Truth Telling: Seven Conversations about Indigenous Life in Canada. It made me angry which I'm sure she intended.

And The Valley of the Birdtail is an unusual hybrid (maybe that should be trybrid) part history, part journalism, part novel...most of all a good story. It's set in a valley in central Manitoba - one side has the village of Rossburn, the other, the reserve of Waywayseecappo. The two lawyers who wrote it - one Indigenous from Manitoba, the other not - introduce a family from each place, real people living their present day lives set against the backdrop of the settlement of the valley.  A central figure in the early 1900's is Clifford Sifton, the federal minister responsible for importing hundreds of farmers from Ukraine giving them land that wasn't theirs(ours)to give!

It's an unusual form but works well to give us a look at two close communities, historically separate and tentatively testing ways to come together. A call out to Janice for suggesting I read it.

August was Emancipation month, certainly a time to recognize some progress on the road to equality, maybe also freeing up some of our thinking, looking for new ways to process the world and to care for the earth.  There's a cruel irony in the fires devastating Maui and our own British Columbia and North West Territories  - much of the land occupied by Indigenous people who have respected and done their best to preserve it... not the only case of the people doing the most to pollute suffering least.

So, we lurch into September, trying to do the best we can to keep our own small world in order, helping out when we can and comforted by the kindness and generosity of people in a position to do more.

And wait, don't go yet - another fine Canadian film:  North of Normal -  Carly Stone adapts Cea Sunrise Person's story of her unconventional life growing up in the north of Canada.

See you back here in October, as the leaves begin to fall.

                                                           

 

Blog # 144…August, 2023 

Well, wasn’t July something!  Smoke from forest fires hundreds of miles away found its way into our bedrooms; writers and actors in Hollywood and longshoremen in Vancouver, all with legitimate concerns about the effect of artificial intelligence on their livelihoods, staged work stoppages … and a biblical deluge in Nova Scotia! Then of course there was Barbieheimer. While not forgetting the many things that distress and amaze us, let’s turn the dial and think about what we celebrated (or didn’t) on Canada Day. 

In the media, there were the usual cheerleaders calling attention to how lucky we are to be living in the best country in the world  –  and I agree, mostly anyway.  Then the other end of the line saying the country was broken…healthcare, housing, employment, social structures, all gone to ratshit…there’s room for improvement for sure. 

I liked Kate Taylor’s piece Why I Believe in Canadian Content in the Globe and Mail on July 1. She reflected on Canadian cultural sovereignty in the digital age which she’d explored during her Atkinson Fellowship more than a decade ago.  Bills 11 and 18 have brought the issues back into the spotlight now with the additional power of the two huge social media platforms carrying Canadian news.  I’m going to quote her directly because her remarks are so clear and eloquent. 

She begins by citing the “centrality of the arts since Neanderthals painted on cave walls. Or fashioned flutes from bones.  What culture does for a society and individuals…novels teach empathy, storytelling transmits values, theater outsources social risks to dedicated performers.”  

We were particularly aware of these things during the pandemic -  we could still watch screens, and still do, they’re now the medium where most storytelling takes place, but in Canada they will offer fewer of our stories unless we insist on it. Kate continues “ The arts are the very root of what makes us human, not having access to a living culture is like not having access to hospitals or a local food supply. Somewhere in our media diet we need programming that tells us, in ways both subtle or unsubtle, that there is a here here.”  There's good and not good here, but it's our here....love her call out to Gertrude Stein.

It’s been a great year for Canadian movies, it’s complicated what makes a film qualify as Canadian, but my definition includes these: 

Brother:  David Chariandy’s novel about two sons growing up with a single mum in Toronto interpreted onscreen by Clement Virgo

Scarborough:  Life at school in that Toronto suburb written and directed by Catherine Hernandez

Riceboy Sleeps: Anthony Shim tells a story, much like his own, of a childhood in Vancouver

Women Talking: Sarah Polley’s Oscar winning rendering of Miriam Toews’ look at women dealing with abuse

Blackberry:  Matt Johnson scores again with the innovation of RIM's device by Jim Balsillie  and Mike Lazaridis

I Like Movies: Chandler Levack’s first feature is about an unusual young man discovering that there’s life after high school

Something You Said Last Night: A sweet drama by Luis De Fillppis about a family on vacation, one happens to be a trans woman.

Unfortunately, it aint easy seeing these films, there’s usually a short run with not much publicity and by the time some word-of-mouth has circulated, they’ve disappeared and it takes Sherlock Holmes to find them... even Women Talking didn’t get the attention it deserved.                                                                                                                                          

Blog # 143…July 2023

 

I’ve lost enough of my pandemic twitchiness about crowds to venture into small theatres and galleries… had almost forgotten how wonderful creative imagination at work can be.

At the Tarragon Theatre in Toronto recently, in her one- woman show She’s Not Perfect, Fatuma Adur encourages us not to beat ourselves up for not being perfect – even to relish the joys of mediocrity. She’s a Somali/Canadian living here, a Black Muslim woman doing well as a cultural figure, sometimes subjected to the pressure of being a model both in her original country and here. She raps and jokes about longing for the freedom to be ordinary and maybe even screw up occasionally.

I’m often thinking about what we consider to be disability and was gently jolted by a friend the other day when I made a thoughtless remark from my perch of privilege and unconscious prejudice. Since then I’ve come up with a term - superabled - for people existing outside of the mainstream in some way. And I’m reminded of an actual stream, moving fast, with the most interesting things growing in the calm silt at the edges

Such is the case with Alex Bulmer and her latest work Perceptual Archeology at the Crow Theatre, a piece designed for all of us and including people with visual impairment.  Alex developed retinitis pigmentosa in her early 20’s and found gradually that she needed to shift her visual imagination to employ her other senses. Describing and using this experience, her one- woman show takes us into her world of disruption and uncertainty, shifting our perception of both her world and our own.

Bracketing the Rumi show at the Aga Khan Museum, in a clever curatorial feat are two women artists, both Muslim, each interpreting the Sufi mystic poet’s themes of displacement and transience in their own  medium.

Iranian/Canadian Soheila Estahani transforms two high towers of shipping pallets, often used as platforms to transport goods, to capture the feeling of unbetweeness. Echoing Rumi’s writing of movement and transition and the lived experience of many people, the pallets are laser etched with geometric designs often seen in Persian culture. After the exhibition closes the pallets will return to circulation, resuming their role in a permanent state of movement.  

Hangama Amiri, an Afghan/Canadian fabric artist uses hanging panels to present images of the objects often lost by refugees forced suddenly to leave home:  a dinner table set with family china, a simple bag of local rice, a garden with  trees growing the delicious fruit they picked as children. These very personal objects tell us stories and hold memories for the people who left so much behind,

The Rumi exhibit runs until October, see it if you can!                You'll find that he was the originator of the story of  three people feeling different parts of an elephant in the dark, all coming to different conclusions about what it was, also how he's revered by Brad Pitt, Beyonce and Coldplay.                                      

For me, a moving sight at the Aga Khan was a group of school kids on a tour, little girls in head scarves, little boys with patkas and others in ordinary kid gear, but different skin colours...that's my Toronto.

Back in August, deep into summer.

 

Blog # 142…June 2023

 

I was so thrilled to hear of CBC’s Connie Walker’s double hitter for her piece STOLEN, about her father’s time in a Saskatchewan residential school – both the Pulitzer and the Peabody prizes…recognition abroad! 

We used to think of art and beauty as, if not exactly the same, then closely related. I know many artists’ work reflected their struggles with poverty and mental illness, but that wasn’t usually what was valued and shown. Time has changed many things and art now doesn’t just aim to please, but to call our attention to injustice, to make a political point, to disturb the status quo or to express anger. Beauty is often not easy to recognize, not what we’re used to, not easy beauty. 

Easy Beauty…the title that philosophy professor/journalist Chloe Cooper Jones has given to a tale of her existence as a woman who’s lived her entire life with a severely disfiguring, painful and disabling condition. Prompted by listening to a discussion held by two colleagues/friends about whether her life is worth living, (Yikes! What kind of friends are those?) Chloe began considering her own life and, as a philosopher, the worth of life itself. 

Although she had responsibilities, a husband and young son and an academic position, she travelled to Rome to think and to write. She discovered amidst her own physical pain and the art she encountered, calm appreciation, deep beauty and a sense of belonging. A sculpture by Bernini depicting figures from mythology particularly touched her. Her skills as a journalist (of travel and sports, especially tennis, especially Rafael Nadal) enable her to weave philosophical theories of beauty into her story so painlessly we hardly notice. And, although it only took you seconds to read about it,  her journey is long and sometimes painful, but also rich and human.                                               

Looking at art ourselves, we can appreciate both the delicacy of Sisley's Fog at Voisins...

 

And we’ve learned to value the messages contained in the harsh hues of toxic waste  in  Ed Burtynsky’s photos.

 

Getting back to Chloe and her body that looks different from most...there are many versions of bodies. some altered for function:

And then there are these:

Canadian writer Jeannie Marshall discovered some lessons on how to live by spending time looking closely at the figures in the Sistine Chapel. She felt part of something much bigger than what she could see, yet also alone.  Although it’s over 500 years since Michaelangelo painted scenes from the Old Testament across the ceiling of the Chapel, the themes of senseless violence and anger in the world, the anguish and suffering of many people persists. She wrote All Things Move to explore her discovery of ways of looking at art and thinking about what she saw. 

But you don’t have to go to Rome to find beauty - easy or more difficult, and it doesn’t have to be in a gallery either.  Just look around you right now...or look in the mirror.

I soak up ideas from many places and people as I move around and I have my friend Michelle to thank for sending me down this particular avenue. She mentioned Easy Beauty to me at lunch one day recently, then found a copy in a little library on her way home and put it in the mail to me. It connected a few dots in my mind about what we value and why. Then, when I was part way through writing this and struggling a bit with a focus, my cousin Susan brought me All Things Move and it  gave me what I needed to start to order my thoughts, although you may find them a bit scattered, it's a complicated topic. Thanks to both of them and to many of you who contribute to my view of life and our place in it.

July will be here before we know it, be back then.