voyageur

From the Scrap Book

The only time in my life that I had come close to being bohemian was the last summer of my visual art degree. And while my middle-class humanist parents-funded education certainly disqualified me from all the true artists around me, the ones whose art had become a mean of rebellion against the suffering of the poor, I nevertheless spent the days of that summer trapped in a tiny studio on the top floor of a thirties modernist building among unfinished canvasses and my nights in the concrete courtyard of the art department drinking wine and smoking and arguing for the liberation of the line from the regiment of centuries of Western realism.

]]> The studio was at the end of a long, dimly-lit hallway, the grey concrete walls covered with paintings of varying style and degree of artistic merit, but all covered by a layer of dust and nicotine and paint thinner wafting from underneath the doors to the studios. All studios on this floor were of a similar layout: brightly lit under a slanted roof with large single-glass pane windows. In the winter, water would drip from the ceiling onto freshly coated canvasses turning colours into watery blotches of unidentifiable grey that resembled bad imitations of a Turner painting. The small electric heaters that were brought in would dispense their scarce heat achingly. Small driblets of water would fall onto the heating spirals and evaporate with a loud hiss. In the summer, the wooden beams that held up the roof would crackle in the heat. The air would be heavy with paint fumes and clouds of cigarette smoke and human sweat and the smell of unwashed overalls. The heat dried up large chunks of paint on the paintbrushes before anyone could smear them across the canvasses. When it stuck to the work in progress, prickly pieces of artificial hair would rip out of the hardened ends of unwashed paintbrushes and would stand upright from the glossily-coated surfaces like hair on the skin of a pig. The small space was cramped: in one corner gathered seven work tables overflowing with dried-up tins, broken crayons and scattered rugs, in another a large stack of forgotten canvasses of generations of students who would inhabit this room for a few years before moving on to teach art at the local high school or the community college. Several canvasses had been recoated and repainted and forgotten. A large wooden crate held a collection of bones, broken bottles, scraps of metal and various unidentifiable items that were picked up, assembled into various compositions, painted, abandoned and eventually found their way back into the box. In the middle of the distinct chaos stood a blue folding chair that allowed the aspiring artist after too much work or too much wine to pass out and sleep off their intoxication only to wake up in the grey of the morning with the velvety aftertaste of cheap wine and acetone covering their palate.

Midnight in the Garden between Good and Evil

Because is it gorgeous ...

It's a Marvellous Night For a Moon Dance

Spring's first full moon over the park ...

This is the first full moon of Spring. Easter is observed on the Sunday after the Paschal Full Moon. The Pashcal Term also marks pesach, or Passover. The Paschal Moon is the Spring counterpart of the "Harvest Moon", which is the full moon occurring near the autumnal equinox.

Blood Bath in Beacon Hill Park!

Literally ...

I live right across the country's largest heronry. My view is directly onto their large nesting tree. And so it happens that once in a while my eyes glance over to their nests.

For most of the elderly folks in my building the heron tree is prime entertainment. Not one elevator ride goes by without someone mentioning the herons. Especially, during this time of year. It is afterall mating seasons and so neighbours identify who has moved into whose nest and who has mated. Beats awkward conversations about the weather.

]]> Mating and breeding season is a bit of a nuisance though. Herons mate loudly. Awkward birds as they are, their shrill voices sound through the park and keep everyone awake. And unfortunately, herons seem to prefer midnight as primary mating hour. I have spend several of my first nights in this apartment trying to figure out what in all hell's name would make such a sound. Almost human, elongated eeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaghs cut through the night and wake a weary sleeper. But somehow they have become (somewhat) family to me.

Yesterday, a disturbing sight caught my eye. During several walks along the shoreline I have been spotting a beautiful exemplar of a bald eagle who has moved into the park. A little odd choice for a hunting ground, but an amirable sight. Unfortunately, the eagle had a prime feast yesterday afternoon. He landed on the heron tree and emptied all the nests. All thirteen of them. One after another. And wat did those stupid herons do? They were sitting around him screaming and watching. Nothing else. Niente. 26 birds and no communal spirit to shoo away the agressor. No instinct to save their species. Almost human.

Now, who do I side with. Both animals are on the endagered species list.

Bob: Does he want me to, to turn from the right or turn from the left? (Lost in Translation)

I am re-watching Lost in Translation for the first time in a very long time. A very long time. And that is not due to some sort of animosity to the movie. On the contrary: It is a movie that has a lot of meaning for me and I think is brilliant. It not only captures the feeling of culture shock that is inherent to moving between two or more cultures but it also captures the feeling of alienation so well. The Japanese director cries for more intensity and all we do--metaphorically--is act, act out and perform what we know will fill the part. But are we really ourselves?

]]> Joy's comment last week has sparked a lot of thoughts. And I admit that the first time a read it I was hurt, I guess, mostly on a professional level. Comparing myself to a bigwig who doesn't even live in the country whose language he is aiming to perfect was on a very superficial level mean! It also conjured up my worst fears. I am teaching English and literature in Canada on a secondary and post-secondary level. I have build up the reputation at both the college and the university to be a fair but mean ass of a marker. I can mark a page now in about 4 minutes and will still find enough to complain about to turn it bright red. But I cannot make a mistake without loosing my face. At least that is the way it feels like. As soon as I make one, everybody will blame it on my ESL status. I will loose against other people. I will not be able to follow my dream. The wrong move, the wrong advice and it will affect my career choices. The importance of perfection had never been as forcefully clear to me as it has been in the last year.
I have a good friend and teacher who has had more influence on me as I can give her credit for. She is Greek and the most thoughtful and eloquent Canadian critic I know. Another writer and critic has called her editing sagacious. But I also know that living in two languages and working in one on a highly professional level creates a schizophrenic self. I doubt that she has slept more than 6 hours any night in the last 10 years. I also know that in her perfectionism she has given up her private self and private life completely. And I find that part scary.
I am more than painfully aware of every mistake I make. Whenever I am tired a German accent sneaks through more forcefully that I want. Whenever I notice that I run out of words I blush and deflect. Whenever I make a mistake my stomach turns into a knot. I go over all of these situations over and over again. They have become a mantra.
I know that I cannot make mistakes if I want to follow the career path I am on. If academics are prone to have what they call the impostors' syndrome, I am prone to develop a double impostor. The schizophrenia of living and operating in two languages. The role model for every ESL student I have. The critic who knows so much about writing and (Canadian) literature for everyone else. I went to a lecture this week given by a highly acclaimed director with a specialty in Shakespeare. And man, did he pull things off. I had had a thirteen-hour day with seven oral exams before I got to the theatre. And two mojitos [I have to look up how to spell mojiito, I am not sure. I had too much wine]. He used words I have never heard. He also used word that I have heard and wasn't sure what they mean anymore. He was witty, eloquent, and simply brilliant. And I was jealous and painfully aware that I will probably never reach that state of language usage. I was, put boldly, send back to square one and about to give up. I know I am okey at the things I am doing but I am also aware of my limitations one might say.
Lost in Translation eloquently captures for me what it means to live out a hybrid, schizophrenic self. The moments that we overcome alienations (and John is a big part of that), but also the moments that are and ever will be completely lost. I remember watching it for the first time with a wonderful, amazing, dear friend of mine who I think shares many of my feelings. We both did our degrees together; we both went to Victoria together. This amazing academic is pursuing her doctorate on the other side of the world. But we were watching this movie together in a little cinema in Osnabrück on a spring night like this. Both of us were moved because it captured the situation we have chosen to live in. The constant pressure, the constant battle, the gratification and the painful awareness that matching desires to lived reality has lead to choices that create a hybrid self. Lived postcolonialism? Lived hybridity? Bhabha might agree. What do you think Spivak would make out of it?
The movie is almost over and I am slightly drunk. For once I will not spell check this or read over it again. Let those mistake I make stand out. Let them be the scars I have chosen to display (at least for once).

Charlotte: I just don't know what I'm supposed to be.
Bob: You'll figure that out. The more you know who you are, and what you want, the less you let things upset you.
______________________________________

Stills Photographer: Are you drinking, no?
Bob: Am I drinking? As soon as I'm done.

Pictures taken from (http://www.filmweb.no/bilder/multimedia/archive/00096/Scarlett_Johansson_i_96704o.jpg)

Who do you go to ...

Imagine a cafeteria during dinner time. The air is stale with the smell of windex and Cantonese chicken. The lined-up, battered blue plastic trays shuffle in rows of two towards the culinary rabbithole. Plates clink, metal rubs against metal, and the whitenoise blends today's gossip and news into a succulent chatter. I balance exams, lecture notes, laptop stalking through the rows of bags, upside down chairs, food scraps. I am on a mission.

]]> Track down, brief, duck, get out. After eleven hours, escape is all I can think. But when do wishes turn into reality? It is confession time.

Feet shuffle, and the dreaded Aarrgh ... could I talk to you for a second sounds next to me. Juggling my coffee mug on top of the pile of laptop and paper, I come to an unexpected halt. The blushing teenage boy is umphing his way through the next part as I peak around the corner behind which he is hiding. At least I think it is a blush. Could you take a look at this, clutching his arms tightly to his body. I don't get it, not even after a hastily added What can I do about this? And then I spot them: large brownish patches on milk-fed English teenage shoolboy skin. They unevenly crown hands, forearms, neck and one leg. A face scrubbed red hides more. I give him the everything is swell grin and try not to giggle while I ask the dreaded but somewhat inevitable question: Eh what? Blushing, more shuffling, awkward pause. Who do straight teenage boys confide in when they've accidentally used tanning lotion instead of moisterizer? Accidental use--probably, but not without a grain of doubt. Well, I say, you will have to wait until it wears off. Don't try bleach. I shake my head in wonderous amazement and leave.

The Rites of Sping: The Full College Experience

6:17 am and I am stalking through ankle-high mud. It is not pitchblack anymore, but the wee hours are grey and I can barely see the hand in front of my eyes. Hobbeling along through the British Columbia wilderness, the procession of mummified pilgrims reminds the onlooker of a romantic painting. The mist that has crawled up from the valley seizes the banks of the high trail meandering towards the beach. One more corner and the ruins of a temple will rise through the mossy hills.

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But this architectural fantasy of ruined arches and pillars will not turn up. This is the full college experience. But it is as grotesque as any gothic fantasy. Two-hundred droopy-eyed students and twenty yawning facult members in an attempt to make this year more memorable are hiking down to the beach to celebrate the first day of spring. Never mind that this celebration is a fairly Western notion. Why not Persian? After all, we are a multicultural campus.

to be continued tomorrow ..

Canada is the greatest nation in this country ( Former Toronto mayor Allan Lamport )

I am off to Ottawa on Monday ...

Musical Tarot

RULES:
1. Put your music player on shuffle.
2. Press forward for each question.
3. Use the song title as the answer to the question even if it doesn't make sense.
NO CHEATING!

]]> How are you feeling today?
Beth Orton--Pass in Time
(Today is whatever I wanted to mean)

Will you get far in life?
Pixies--Where is My Mind
(Try this trip and spin it)

Will you get married?
The Be Good Tanyas--When Doves Cry
(Can you my darling, can you picture it?)

What is your best friend(s)'s theme song?
New Order--True Faith

What is the story of your life?
Jack Kerouac--San Francisco

What was/is/will high school like?
Snow Patrol--Chasing Cars

How can you get ahead in life?
Calexico--All the Pretty Little Horses
(it's cowboy culture again)

What is the best thing about your friends?
Wilco--Kamera
(thinking about the boots incident)

What is in store for this weekend?
Midnight Oil--Beds Are Burning
(OOOPS)

To describe your grandparents?
CBC Ideas--Eros Unleashed (A Portrait of Edna St. Vincent Millay)

How is your life going?
REM--Daysleeper

How does the world see you?
Reinhard Mey--Ich wollte wie Orpheus singen
(alas I failed...)

Will you have a happy life?
Rio Reiser--Koenig von Deutschland
:-)) King, well ...

What do your friends really think of you?
Tori Amos--Cornflake Girl

Do people secretly lust after you?
The Shins--So says I
:-p

How can I make myself happy?
Rick Roderick--The Masters of Suspicion (lecture)

What should you do with your life?
Don McLean--Vincent
(Now I understand?)

Will you ever have children?
Mori Kante--Yeke Yeke

The silence of snow, thought the man sitting just behind the bus driver. (Orhan Pamuk)

I have never known the word dusk to be used in relation to dawn. (Ian B.)

Writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can see only as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way. - E.L. Doctorow

There are days when housework seems the only outlet. (Adrienne Rich)

No great genius has ever existed without some touch of madness. (Aristotle 25)