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.

 Blog # 141…May, 2023

 

Every year (56 times now!) when  April 27th comes along, my thoughts travel back to opening day of EXPO67, an exciting day for me - with the world’s eyes on Canada.  This year I also just happened to finish If Walls Could Speak, Moshe Safdie’s fascinating memoir, published last Fall. His iconic Habitat67 was the signature building on the site, situated in the harbour and anchoring the city of Montreal to the terrain of the exhibition.  His memories of the months leading up to opening day resonated with mine and made my journey back there,  preparing for the big day, even more vivid. 

Born in 1938, Safdie spent a happy early childhood on one of the hillsides of Haifa - then part of Palestine - surrounded by Bauhaus architecture and classical music. The family moved to Jerusalem to escape bombing during WWll and a different life took place among the narrow passageways and up and down steps leading everywhere in the old city. Those rich surroundings as well as young Moshe’s passion for observing the hives of bees he kept influenced his future approach to building design. Life shifted again with the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948. As Sephardic Jews his family experienced some discrimination in their business and personal lives and decided to leave for Canada…Montreal in the grey March of 1953 was their first glimpse of their new home. 

An aptitude test at Westmount High suggested architecture as a good fit for Moshe’s talent for art and math and although he knew nothing about the field, he was intrigued. First he had to deal with his father’s expectation that, as the eldest son in a Sephardic family, he join the family business. Striking a bargain that he would work there in the summers, Moshe entered architecture at McGill, the field having gone through enormous changes by the late 50’s.  No longer the elite realm of the wealthy to build palaces, museums and churches, it was now guided by the principles of Le Corbusier and Frank Lloyd Wright and grounded in a sense of social responsibility, concerning itself with mass housing, transportation and utilities. 

In his fifth year at McGill, Moshe was the recipient of a travelling scholarship that changed his plan for his graduating year project and ultimately his life. It was a crash course in urban and sub urbanism  as he moved with five other students across Canada and the US visiting cities and architects. He was appalled by the endless tracts of  monotonous towers composed of identical blocks heaped on top of one another and longed to find a way to incorporate some of the space of suburban living into the density required in inner cities. And so, the ideas for Habitat were born and formed the basis for his final year thesis - titled A Case for City Living. 

Graduating in 1961 and beginning life as an architect started a series of quick changes. A year in Montreal, followed by a year with Louis Kahn in Philadelphia was interrupted by the offer - when he was still in his twenties -  to lead the design team for EXPO67. 

The memoir continues to follow Safdie’s life and career with a backstage look at the world of architecture and the worldwide presence of Safdie and his growing group of collaborators…fifty three completed projects and seven in progress as the book went to press in 2022. There are fascinating accounts of how projects are conceived and constructed with the climate, political and personality issues involved from Habitat in 1967 to Habitat Quinhuangdao in 2017, with its phase 2 currently under construction. He’s also candid about the work (and money) that goes into competitions they lose. 

His lifelong dream to return to work in Israel was realized when he was engaged to  expand the Yad Veshem Holocaust History Museum in 2005 after completing the Airside terminal at the Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv in 2004.   Work in Canada after Habitat includes Quebec City’s Musee de la Civilisation in 1987, Montreal's Museum of Fine Arts in 1991and the Vancouver Public Library in 1995. The jewel in his Canadian crown is the National Gallery in Ottawa and he tells a particularly interesting story of how this project came his way and his collaboration with director Jean Sutherland Boggs. 

The penultimate (been longing to use that word) chapter is devoted to concepts of ideal cities…no private cars in the centre!  And in the last chapter he examines the dilemma of  the situation in Israel from his view as a secular Jew. It’s altogether one of the most compelling books I’ve read in a long time, a refreshing break from much of what we see and hear daily. His great friend, cellist YoYo Ma calls him ”a man in search of beauty, truth and service to people through examining nature.” And at 84 he intends to remain at the drawing board for as long as he can. 

You may have suspected by now that I liked this book...back next month with something yet to be decided.

 Blog # 140…April, 2023

Saluting great women as an opening seems to be becoming a habit – so, hooray for Sarah Polley, not just for winning an Oscar for adapting Miriam Toews book into a very fine film, but for making the production a safe. collective and joyful experience for both cast and crew. And for a winning acceptance speech that had grace and substance.

Doctors are in a unique position to observe the human condition, and over the years some of them have taken to writing about it: Somerset Maugham, Arthur Conan Doyle, Michael Crichton, Anton Chekov, and of course, the wonderful Oliver Sacks, who replaced neurological case histories with stories of his patients lives. Canadian Dr William Osler (1849-1919) wrote "Medicine is a science of uncertainty and an art of probability." Three present day Toronto writers/doctors have caught my eye recently.

Former ER doc Vincent Lam is one of them - winning the Giller prize in 2006 with his debut novel Bloodletting and Miraculous Cures. Lam has moved his practise and his writing into the field of addictions and tackles the complexities and tragedies of opioid use and abuse in his latest On the Ravine. We met Chen and Fitz as medical students in Bloodletting, they've remained friends in the intervening 20 years, maintaining their very different ideas as they both work in the field of opiate addiction with opposing approaches. Lam looks at the two sides of the issue - managed use with safe injection sites or supported abstinence through their eyes. Strong cases can be made for each side  - as we’re seeing in BC and Alberta right now and as Lam leads us to explore with Chen and Fitz in On the Ravine.

Bob Bell was CEO of Toronto's University Health Network for nine years before becoming Deputy Minister of Health and Long Term Care from 2014-18. He then turned his experience towards publishing a series of crime novels beginning with Hip, in 2019 - exploring the issues involved in the world of joint replacement, followed by an international thriller New Doc in Maple Ridge in 2021. Proceeds from both were directed to work in his field of orthopaedic surgery for patients with cancer. Last year Jonah K was released - set in an indigenous community in northern Ontario. The plot deals with the tragedy of residential schools and the politics of academic health care, and proceeds are going to programs for indigenous health at UHN.

Theatre Passe Muraille in Toronto has a long history of setting the standard for forward thinking , both in the plays they present and their welcoming accommodations for audiences.  Rumble, a recent production evolved from a series of translated Palestinian poems discovered by Toronto neurologist Suvendrini Lena. Born in London to Sri Lankan parents, Lena attended medical school in Toronto and currently practises at the Centre for Addictions and Mental Heath. Travelling to Gaza as a medical student and seeing the effects of bombing left her forever changed and needing to process her feelings. Writing the play incorporated that experience as well as her ongoing experiences as a physician. About theatre she says" I like it because you can deal with conflict, ideas, arguments and the audience gets to make up their own mind."

They're all medicins sans frontieres, writing about life observed through the lens of their medical training and their lived experience, exploring ideas through fiction and drama, leading us to look at our own opinions and maybe develop some clarity as we read.

Hope you enjoy this as much as I enjoyed writing it. See you 'round about MayDay.

 Blog #139…March, 2023

 

To continue the theme of remarkable women that I began a couple of blogs ago – I just finished Linda Schuyler’s memoir. She’s a  teacher and the creator of the Degrassi TV shows that provided 35 years of education for kids in important, sometimes overlooked areas. Linda involved, respected and supported kids in the cast as scripts dealt with teen pregnancy, alcoholism, drug use, sexual abuse and bullying...an innovative way to educate both audience and performers. 

The Oscars are in a few days, I think it’s weird and oddly unfair to put Women Talking against Top Gun Maverick, Avatar  and a raft of vastly dissimilar films…a bit like racing a hummingbird against a giraffe.  But Women Talking is thought provoking and valuable no matter what happens on March 12.

We live in a multi dimensional world and three-dimensional forms have caught my attention recently. In Housewarming at the Gardiner Museum, Quebec artist Karine Giboulo uses ceramics to comment on features of life during the pandemic. Tiny figures are set in a world at once familiar and unsettling, charming and disarming: a long line of miniature figures with shopping carts lead to a food bank opening out of a super market bag;  a large packing box with a window shows hundreds of figures assembling consumer goods - a mirror stretching them out to infinity and a shelf of glass canning jars contains little wee elders using walkers and wheelchairs. The show is a great way to introduce children to art, they may not get the message we do, but they’ll love the teeny weenies.

The Art Gallery of Ontario is currently showing Radical Remembrance, by David Ruben Piktoukun who works in 3D too. A native of  Paulatuk in what's now Inuvialiut in the NorthWest Territories, David’s time in a residential school attempted unsuccessfully to extinguish his language and culture, it also failed to take his spirit and creativity.  As well as using traditional soapstone and portraying scenes from Arctic life in his work,  he incorporates wood, glass and metal and sometimes brings in contemporary themes with airplanes and computers. His images tell stories of growing up in a hunting and fishing community...and he was briefly married to my late friend Esther Atkin.                                                                                                                             

In 1955, Judge JH "Jack" Sissons arrived in Yellowknife as the first resident justice of the NWT Supreme Court, He quickly raised the hackles of Ottawa bureaucrats by insisting on taking circuit courts to try cases where the crime had been committed (expensive) and incorporating some aboriginal justice approaches into the law (unheard of!),

Both acts endeared him to the indigenous people he served however, and they showed their gratitude with carvings like this one by Allan Kaotak of Cambridge Bay where Judge Sissons is reading Allan his decision. Jack Sissons and his successor William Morrow felt strongly that the laws must adapt and were instrumental in advancing the case for indigenous rights and making changes in the law to secure them.

A collection representing landmark cases in the legal history of the NWT rests in the Yellowknife Courthouse Gallery.  I was moved when I saw these miniature tributes to the judgments when they came to the Power Plant over 30 years ago and they've stayed with me ever since - aided by Dorothy Eber's Images of Justice which served as the catalogue for the show. And how about this...Judge Sissons had polio as a boy and did all the rough travelling in and out of small planes in the north with leg braces and a cane!  I've got a lump in my throat as I'm writing about him.

Just a few days until International Women's Day...time to celebrate the women in your life, and if you are one...then celebrate yourself.

Back when April showers will be coming our way.

 

Blog # 138…February 2023

As an addendum to #137 -  another great Canadian woman artist, Joni Mitchell, will receive the Gershwin Prize for Popular Song in Washington, DC on March 1…hooray for Joni!   And this just in, Women Talking has been nominated for best picture and Sarah Polley for best adapted screenplay at the Oscars, watch with crossed fingers on March 12^th!

When someone calls a book or play or movie escapism, it’s usually meant to trivialize and make it seem less than valuable.  But I’m finding reality more and more distressing and while keeping in touch with all that’s going on, I need an off ramp regularly to switch gears and pull off somewhere quiet to keep from losing hope entirely.

Crosswords or running or pinball may be your divertissment, but for me, it’s books, and I give myself permission to go to my happy place and abandon anything that doesn’t engage me within a few pages.  

Sheila Heti caught my attention recently with Pure Colour, a novel that explores the world and relationships, friendships and parenting through the eyes and thoughts of a young woman whose father has recently died. It’s lyrical and philosophical and left me wondering...I love that. Being set in my neighbourhood in Toronto made it even more compelling.

For fans of High Fidelity – a book in 1995, film in 2000 and TV series in 2020, British writer Nick Hornby offers up Just Like You. He takes the theme of older woman/younger man into unexplored territory, making each character believable and coming up with a surprise and satisfying ending.

Lesson, Ian McEwan’s latest novel unfolds along with history from WWII to the present, taking his character (him?) from adolescent sexual awakening through marriage, abandonment and single parenting to old age. It was a gripping read, even though or maybe because I was often mentally editing wordy bits.

I've also developed a taste for biography and was surprised at how completely I lost myself in Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing, Mathew Perry's recounting of his life battling addictions to alcohol and opiates. And Michael J Fox's No Time Like the Future, dealing with the trials of Parkinson's Disease. They're both Canadian and I loved them both in TV shows many years ago. Their survival in the face of pain and sorrow encouraged me to feel more grateful for my life.

There's a newish genre, taking classics and reworking them in a contemporary context...Shakespeare and Jane Austen's work have been subject matter, now it's Nancy Mitford. We all loved The Pursuit of Love in the 60's, now India Knight has brought the Radlett family's eccentricities  - Uncle Mathew hunting children - into the modern era with cell phones and Instagram, I'm now re-visiting the original.

If you're reading this, you have some luxury in choosing to slow down and take time to savour silence, whether it's mindfulness or just time out. For me, losing myself in a book lets me feel safe for a while, I can share the fun and enjoyment and leave the pain, anxiety and adventure with the characters. 

And another thing that's undervalued is small talk, we've lost many naturally occurring opportunities (automatic checkouts!) to feel less isolated, and more connected. There's a movement in Europe, and I think somewhere in Canada, to have slow moving check-out lines to allow for some conversations between cashiers and customers benefitting both. I thought it was a Monty Python joke when I heard that the UK government had appointed a Minister of Loneliness, but seems it was recognizing a reality in society - another consequence enhanced by the pandemic.

So, as Bugs Bunny says "That's all folks". See you in March ready to celebrate International Women's Day. And in the meantime, Black History Month kicks off today.

Blog # 137…January 2023

What better way to start the New Year than by celebrating Canadian women artists who gave me reason to rejoice and be proud last year. All Torontonians - coming to their art from very different backgrounds and adding progressive ideas to our cultural landscape.

Rupi Kaur: A compelling performer as well as a brilliant poet, Rupi published her first book of poems when she was 21. Born in the Punjab, she came to Canada as a small child and made Toronto home.  Now 30, with 2 more volumes and almost a decade of writing, performing and activism behind her, she’s responding to the pandemic with Healing with Words, a collection of curated poems and guided exercises encouraging readers to explore trauma, loss, heartache, love and self. After co-hosting the Giller literary awards in the Fall of 2022, she left on a world tour reading her work and delighting audiences with both her poetry and her wardrobe! 

Denyse Thomasos: Just Beyond, her current show at the Art Gallery of Ontario is huge, not only in the scale of the pieces, but also in the range of themes she incorporates…slavery, urban architectural forms, confinement, and the African and Asian diasporas. Born in Trinidad, raised in Toronto, Denyse was influenced by the travelling she did before her sudden, tragic death in 2012 at 47. She left behind a large and important body of work as well as a loving partner and a two year old daughter. This photo shows the magnitude of her art and the exuberance of her soul.

Sarah Polley: Born in Toronto, Sarah describes her early life as a child actor in her absorbing collection of essays about her life, Running Towards the Danger: Confrontations with a Body of Memory. The book’s title is taken from advice Sarah had while suffering from the consequences of a concussion about five years ago. Since her recovery, as well as the book, she’s added to her film credits, which already include Away From Her (Academy Award nomination for screenplay) Take This Waltz and Stories We Tell. She wrote and directed Women Talking, adapted from a novel by Miriam Toews (another great Canadian woman artist) which opened a few days ago and is getting Oscar buzz too. Sarah appeared on Stephen Colbert’s Late Show recently and the photo by Thea Traff is taken from a recent profile by Rebecca Mead in The New Yorker,

 
The photos capture the great differences in the women; what they hold in common is a passion for their work and the ability to share it with us in unique and beautiful ways.

I've also been touched by the talent and courage of women, not so visible, who create their art from a position of physical challenges...they deserve a blog too and will get one soon.

Hope 2023 is OK  so far and we'll hope for better things as time goes by. See you next in February and we'll try and brighten the bleak midwinter.

 Blog #136…December, 2022

The pandemic has turned into an exhausting marathon, forcing us at the best into a quieter and more solitary mode and at the worst into bankruptcy and homelessness - or  some people, despite the evidence, are ignoring it and pretending it's over…so many stories to tell and so many ways to tell them.

Memorizing 200 lines of poetry every year in high school made me recognize a poem’s ability to capture emotions suddenly and accurately. From Robert Browning’s sight of My Last Duchess to the musings of J Alfred Prufrock, poets have always amused and delighted me. We’re heading into a dark time in many ways (can't pretend that away) I’m tempted to get into bed and emerge in April! It’s a good idea to have some brighteners - a poem a day to keep the bleakness away?

Covid’s imposed seclusion got poets moving and The Friendly Spike and The Secret Handshake, both longstanding groups offering creative opportunities to people concerned with mental health, have gifted us with Poemdemic. Beginning with Helen Posnos and concluding with Treese Flenniken, 45 poets contribute their lived experiences during 2020-21 in poetic form.  Conceived and produced by Honey Novick, Ruth Stackhouse and bill bissett, it's intended as a historic document as well as an artistic one, recording examples of of pandemic lives.  Find out more about  these two great organizations at: thesecrethandshake.ca and friendlyspike.org

Banoo Zan calls herself a war correspondent in verse and uses a nom de plume in Persian (Banoo is a respectful title and Zan is woman) hoping  it will keep her and her family in Iran safe. Banoo came to Canada over ten years ago, leaving a successful career as a literary critic and teacher of English in her home country. Settling in Toronto, she joined the feminist caucus at The League of Canadian Poets and began a monthly reading series called Shab-e-Sher (Poetry Night).  Since arriving here, she’s published two books of poetry: Songs of Exile and Letters to my Father.  When twenty-two year old Mahsa Amini was arrested and killed in Iran for wearing her headscarf incorrectly,  Banoo was beginning her role as Writer in Residence at the University of Alberta. She continues to give voice to the experience of exile and has joined in spirit, the protests {Iranian officials admit to 300 deaths so far!)  fighting for women’s rights and democracy in Iran and all over the world.

Poetry has always offered us beauty and inspiration, but poets have also spoken out on injustice and pain.  In the last century, Rupert Brooke agonized over the horrors of World War 1, WB Yeats reflected on the brutality of the Irish struggle for independence and TS Eliot described loneliness and alienation.

So the brave and clever people I’ve mentioned above are holding to that tradition, pointing out inequity, standing by marginalized groups and individuals and giving us hope that the world has the potential to be a better place if we stand together.

Have a peaceful and restful holiday season, give the gift of kindness to yourself and those around you. See you in 2023.