Another iteration

It's election day in Vancouver, and once again, in the spirit of harm reduction, i'll be plugging my nose with one hand and letting pragmatism guide the other one, as i step into the polling station. My heart is with the #Occupy movement, and i'm unhappy, of course, with the obtuseness of Mayor Robertson's assertion that "It's time for the encampment to end." It's distastefully disingenuous for him to dismiss the legitimate value, both in principle and in practice, of the occupation.

Naturally, i have my own doubts and concerns about #OccupyEverything; as usual, i think there are important questions being raised by critics, skeptics, and outsiders. However the movement's openness invites creative reflection: the idea that we are all part of it, the 99%, rings true — and reminds me of how inspired i was, and still am, by the radically inclusive rhetoric of the Zapatistas. I was one of the thousands who came out for the initial #Occupy gathering at the Art Gallery. In the weeks since, i've been reading and thinking a lot about it. Steve Collis has written eloquently and thoughtfully about his experiences of #Occupy, and his words have stuck with me.

This morning i was reading about the recent legal proceedings, and the defense lawyers' argument that the #OccupyVancouver camp should  be allowed to remain because it is serving as a homeless shelter. It has also served as a gathering place where (homeless people and) activists can re-imagine community together. It reminded me of how Colin Ward described the history of the Tredegar Medical Aid Society in England (in his Very Short Introduction to anarchism, page 27). What would be possible if #Occupy were recognized as a place for experimental provision of services?

I've been impressed with some of the current City Council's accomplishments, including their efforts to house the homeless; i've especially liked Councilor Kerry Jang's statements challenging NIMBYish opposition. And for that i think they deserve more time, so i'll put an [X] beside Gregor Robertson's name on my ballot today. I see potential for further progress through a continuation of their work; but mostly i'm aware of the potential damage that an Anton/NPA council could do. Obviously, Anton is the only mayoral candidate with anything close to the support base needed to win an election, so even if i was completely persuaded that someone else deserved the job, under current circumstances i can only vote for "the juice man" and his team. I'll also be supporting the COPE slate, and my friend Nicole Benson. I urge you all to do the same.

As we witness (and/or participate in) this next iteration of municipal politics, another cycle of time has been completed in my own little world. One week ago today, Roy blew out his candles on a vegan peanut-butter-chocolate cake in the company of some amazing friends and family. To top it all of with another reason to celebrate, we (finally!) got into a housing co-op. (Sigh of relief.) I was asked yesterday if having a child has changed my perspective by keeping me "grounded." I sure hope so.

Thanks (to a man i admire)

It’s that season of solemn / ecstatic gratitude again, but i can’t bear to think about how lucky i’ve been this year (even though it’s been one of the hardest of my life), so rather than succumb to an inevitable paralysis of shame, perhaps i’ll steer away from personal matters and put forward an example of that for which any lover of beautiful, elegant prose can give thanks: a thick steak of pith.  

A few months ago, after exhuming it from the bottom shelf, behind a box, in a dusty basement corner of the venerable MacLeod’s (Vancouver’s oracle of lost, obscure and precious books), i sat down and began reading a short literary biography of one of the writers, and one of the men (i use the word consciously — it seems that, by far, most of my favourite thinkers and writers are women) whom i most admire: George Woodcock. I was just two or three stiff, yellow pages in when i began to feel new stirrings of affection, both for the subject and the biographer, Peter Hughes. Several of Hughes’ evocative phrases have stayed with me throughout the busy days since i first luxuriated in his prose, so i’d like to share a few paragraphs with you, my dear friends on the interwebs. Enjoy!

From Peter Hughes’ biography of George Woodcock
1974, McClelland & Stewart

     Soon after Peking and Washington refused him visas because of his anarchist involvements, the New Left attacked him as a reactionary because he questioned some of its despotic and philistine tendencies.^[2] Few writers could make that claim. Fewer still would want to.

     One of the few might be George Orwell, Woodcock’s friend and the subject of his finest biography. He too was awkwardly independent and paid for his integrity by living a “life against odds” that intersected Woodcock’s own life and sympathies at several points. Beyond all the tastes and views they shared, beyond the opinions they fought over — Woodcock was a pacifist, Orwell a fire­-breather, and their acquaintance began in a wartime Partisan Review controversy — both men upheld liberty and decency through writing that escapes all the mandarin categories of literary criticism.  

     Woodcock agrees with and expands the opinion that Orwell’s many works, essays, novels, stories, reportage, political memoirs, whatever their apparent differences in form and genre, are all of one kind. They are all polemic; each one has designs on the reader and tries to make him take sides in a serious dispute.^[3] In works as varied as Homage to Catalonia and Animal Farm that attempt and those designs shape design in its other meaning of literary pattern and form. This notion of kind can also explain the bewildering diversity in Woodcock’s writing; for it helps to reveal the powerful impulses and interests that give consistency and depth to his work. He is not, however, with the exception of a few hectic editorials in his magazine Now, writing polemic. By the time he got down to full-time writing in the postwar forties political anarchism was a lost cause. Now a polemic delivered on behalf of a lost cause is an elegy or an epitaph, and the tone of Woodcock's biographies of the great anarchists is something quite different from either.

     What he really created was a kind that might be called persuasion, which Matthew Arnold somewhere describes as “the only true intellectual art.” It differs from polemic in stressing the good cause to the virtual exclusion of the usual assault on the bad. In reading the life of Kropotkin or Godwin or Proudhon we cannot forget the assorted evils of bourgeois reaction, but we are not allowed to think of them in those hackneyed terms. Most political propaganda allows nothing except hackneyed words and ideas. 

I was going to end there, because i think that last sentence deserves to echo throughout the land, however i’ll include a few more lest any reader be left with an impression of Woodcock that fails to capture his depth:

One result is the corruption of language through slogans, a process traced by Orwell in one of his essays. Another result is the erosion of independent thought in our time by what Woodcock attacks in an essay as “The Political Myth.” We shall see how deep and complex his writings about myth really are, but we should not be surprised that something as collective, irrefutable, and overpowering as myth would make Woodcock uneasy. It substitutes one kind of visceral appeal or another for persuasion, and tramples under truth, common sense, and liberty to satisfy a mass impulse.

…Wasn’t that tasty?

----------------
Postscript:
I had no idea that David Suzuki was this year's winner of the George Woodcock lifetime achievement award! Check out this great picture of him with Margaret Atwood. 

read about it here.

: )

Border guards make broken hearts (an essay on Love*)

*and friendship, and stupidity.

Yes. My passport is expired. 

It didn’t seem to matter last weekend, when Sara and i drove down to Seattle with Roy in the back seat. He waved gleefully out the window at the border guard, toddler-shouting: “Hi! … Hi!” 

She smiled, waved back, and sent us on our merry way. 

Not so yesterday, when i arrived at the train station, without a car, without a female companion, and without a smiling child to distract from my otherwise obvious malevolent criminality. My mom was babysitting Roy. Sara was already in Seattle; she’d had the day off and went shopping. Her own expired passport had (again) presented no obstacle when she crossed the border in a rented vehicle after breakfast. But i was just one lowly soul in the long line waiting to board a sold-out southbound evening train.

A thick-necked man’s body filled the blue uniform that sat in front of me. It delivered an error message with affectless automaticity:

[ … EXPIRED … ].

Me: “Yes, but we were allowed to cross just last weekend…”

(A refreshed error message displays on the face-like screen of the man-like interface.)

Me: “But… it’s our anniversary.”

Of course, Americans might be forgiven for fixating mechanically on their own unromantic anniversary this weekend. Forgiving them, however, does not imply ignoring or excusing the folly of their fear-based policies. 

Two hours earlier, i had exchanged goodbyes with my new co-workers, each of whom, in their loveliness, offered thoughtful acknowledgments of the reason for my planned weekend retreat. (“Eight years! Congratulations. That takes a lot of work.”) We know friendship is a species of love, because it sees the world in those terms.

Tomorrow marks the earth’s eighth orbit since a day that changed my life irrevocably… when i sat down next to a very pretty girl on the bus. 

~~~

When i met Sara, i was immediately disarmed and enchanted. Our conversation began on the long commute up to Burnaby Mountain, and continued through the morning into the afternoon. It became an email exchange late that night, and a phone call the following evening — a call that lasted until morning. 

Two days later, we met after sunset at the east end of False Creek, to walk and talk. And to stop in a symmetrical spot along the seawall, to share a long, luxurious embrace that became an unprecedented, soft, delicious kiss that turned the air around us into curtains of private twilight. The autumn evening felt like spring, and we slow-danced under the Granville bridge.

I fell, like a cartoon anvil, in love. 

Today, eight years later — after innumerable arguments; unfathomable fights; accumulated silences that seemed like they might never end; disagreements that may remain unresolved eternally; misunderstandings mistaken for evidence of hopelessly opposed perspectives; after entering into the covenant of parenthood, braving storms of joy and horror in that responsibility; drowning together in love for our son; rediscovering time in his generous hugs; suffering the damage of subconscious conflicts; healing from hurtful outbursts; comforting each other after nightmares; continuing to excavate ever-greater vulnerabilities; clinging to shared hopes for the security of co-created lives; through euphoric sex and torturous monogamy, maintaining the danger that fuels passion; through gifts and rifts, impasses and apologies — i’m still falling.

Falling in love, banging my head on every protrusion on the endless way down.

If i wasn’t still falling in love, or following love’s spiral path, how could i ever tolerate the ubiquitous, outrageous, infuriating absurdity of human beings? How could i endure the indignities of life in a kafkaesque labyrinth of congealed stupidity and laziness? Without love, how else could someone as arrogant and eccentric, as sensitive and confused as me, ever survive? 

If i wasn’t in love yesterday, how could i have persevered in the face of that chorus of uniformed morons impassively reciting an incoherent script of indifferent bureaucratese, conveying an empty and cynical lie about consistent principles and processes, and the hallmarks of a good, orderly society?

What else besides love can insulate our hearts from the incessant bombardment of hollow, pernicious pieties meant to persuade us that love matters less than polite deference to the arbitrary caprices of authority?

~~~

In an hour or two, i will meet Sara somewhere near the border. 

Somehow, we will salvage this celebration, and renew our belief in a romantic ideal. We will do what we can to rekindle the furnace of an unreasonable dream that demands everything from us — impossible patience; superhuman reserves of sheer blind, stubborn will; and an endless acceptance of daily, sometimes deep, disappointments — all in exchange for just one (rare) reward: a fleeting experience of infinite truth, beauty, certainty, splendour and peace. 

Each drop of such relief offsets at least eight weeks of the cruel, stupid, drudgery that constitutes most moments of our otherwise intolerable and (almost) worthless lives. 

~~~

Postscript:

The cosmic truth revealed?

the awful truth about my youth

last night i had a dream
i revisited the past


i could feel all of the pain but
i couldn’t change the fact that


i could feel all of the shame but
everything was still an act


i could feel all of the loneliness but
i couldn’t make contact


i woke up with a song 
and (maybe) clarity at last


it went: “life is a delivery 
you never wanna get back…

My son was bullied yesterday...

My son was bullied yesterday. By another toddler. At the playground right around the corner from our home — where we play every day. The other kid, only two months older than Roy, first dumped a shovel-full of sand and gravel on Roy's head. His mom, who was nearby, tried to respond appropriately — she picked him up and took him away telling him that was not ok, etc. 

Roy just stood there. Looking scared and sad.

I can't express the terrible feeling i have now, writing these words. The feeling i had at that moment. The feeling i've had ever since. It's just a fucking evil, horrible pain in my heart. I can't bear to let myself feel it for long. It will paralyze me if i don't fight it.

I tried to comfort Roy. I hugged and kissed him. I told him that was a very mean thing that other boy did to him. I tried to brush dirt and gravel out of his hair (there was too much). 

"Dirt." He said. Pointing his little index finger at his beautiful head, with his beautiful lips in a little frown.

I am dying and killing monsters on a battlefield in my mind. I am calm, fucking psychotically calm, on the outside.

"I know," I say. "Dirt." "That was mean."

Borrowing the language of the "Safe Spaces" program, which i've only heard of through Roy's (awesome) daycare provider, i tell Roy: "That was not safe." 

"Dirt." He said.

A few minutes later, after having made a gesture of apology (a gentle hand on Roy’s face) under the focussed direction of his mom, the same kid walked past Roy and pushed him. To the ground.

I am tearing flesh from the bones of burning demons in a volcano of pure evil. I am vomiting oceans of blood and crushing my skull with my fists. 

I am calm.

The other boy’s mother removes the aggressor. This apparently incorrigible repeat offender. She carries him home. She is telling him he can’t play anymore, etc.

My son is silent. 

Or i'm deaf.

~~~

Prior to all this i had been describing — to the bully's mom — some of the insights i’ve gained into childhood aggression through a DVD (Aggression in Young Children: The Interactive Guide to Observing, Understanding and Intervening) based on research by Professors Richard E. Tremblay and Jean Gervais (more info here). Is this irony?

~~~

Roy woke up in the night, upset. I went to him, as i always do because i’m a much lighter sleeper than Sara. But Roy wanted her. He needed her, not me. 

I’m cold and scared. I need her too. 

Before going back to bed, i stare at a picture of him, taken on our way back from the park. Does he look at me differently now? 

I’m trying to hold on… to something… hope.  

But it’s slipping: I’ve failed to protect him. My son! This world is full of hurt and unfairness and cruelty sometimes and i can’t keep it from affecting him... Or me.

(I was supposed to change the world and make everything right before this could happen!)

I had evil, violent nightmares. All night.

Oh, God… gods… anyone. What are we going to do?

Renaissance

I think i’ve mentioned it before: my vague ambition to someday write a book (or something) about the "Maple Ridge Renaissance" (a strangely localized explosion of creative brilliance i witnessed among friends and acquaintances in the late 90s, which continues to inspire me today). I was reminded of that project this morning, while reflecting on recent events in my personal life.

An obvious point of reference is my birthday. I’ve been 33 for three days now… and i’ve been feeling compelled (by some numerological and nostalgic impulse) to write a list of reasons why Back to the Future Part 3 was such a dismally disappointing movie. But of course Roger Ebert has taken care of that for me. And, as i should have expected, he did better than that; he concludes with the following wisdom:

“The one thing that remains constant in all of the "Back to the Future" movies, and which I especially like, is a sort of bittersweet, elegiac quality involving romance and time. In the first movie, McFly went back in time to be certain his parents had their first date. The second involved his own romance. The third involves Doc Brown and Clara. In all of these stories, there is the realization that love depends entirely on time. Lovers like to think their love is eternal.

But do they ever realize it depends entirely on temporal coincidence, since, if they were not alive at the same time, romance hardly would be feasible?”

Ebert, as always, demonstrates the rich rewards of applying genius attention to ostensibly mundane material. And Ebert is, obviously, a genius in the classic sense: i predict he will be honored posthumously as one of the greatest writers of the modern era. His reviews remind me of Walter Benjamin’s insightful sensitivity and awareness of the latent significance in each layer of life’s routine scrapheap.

So my inexplicable resurgent fascination with Back to the Future — a cinematic mythos that dramatically shaped my imaginative horizons — during the days before and after my birthday, serendipitously led me to Ebert’s brilliant soliloquy about love, which speaks directly and eloquently to the tide of feelings that has lately both buoyed my spirits and flooded my fearful heart.

I have always tried to live with appreciation of luck. I have said hundreds of times, over many, many years, that i must be one of the luckiest people on Earth. The reasons keep piling up, and my fascination with fortune deepens with my appreciation.

I have a lot to be grateful for; now more than ever.

After everything i’ve put her through, Sara still welcomes me into her life, and loves me with a gentle generosity i feel profoundly unworthy of.

She made me a Christmas-themed birthday: filled my stocking with chocolate and comic books, and baked me a Guinness / Black Forest cake. And Roy gave me Duplo that we can play with together, along with the most precious hugs and kisses a dad could ask for.

I don’t know how or why i am so fortunate, but i desperately want to do what’s right with all i’ve been given.

As i continue to work on refining my purpose, i look forward to my days and nights with this family — luxuriating in simple quotidian pleasures like eating, watching movies, and playing. And with time, i’ll get better at moving through turbulent feelings, including my fear that it’s all just a dream.

Robots Revisited

Continuing where i left off last time: I just stumbled upon the two awesomest things in the world.

1) the video for Dan Mangan's awesome song ROBOTS:



Yeah. It made me cry... (Like that's hard, but still).

2) This TEDtalks video: Cynthia Breazeal on "The rise of personal robots":




See? I told you so.

my heart... beeps

Today is the 90th anniversary of the word ROBOT. What better way to commemorate it than by ignoring all of my messy, confusing emotional difficulties and concentrating on the (apparently) tidy world of technology?

This week i:

• installed a new (bigger, faster) hard drive in my MacBook (after cloning my old one, to be safe).
• installed a ton of new RAM — quadrupled my memory!*

Then:

Today at work (i really love helping people solve computer problems) i managed to help a prof get her weird old Toshiba laptop working with the new projectors (had to fiddle around with the [Windows XP] displays control panel a bit; for some reason it would only work as extended desktop, not mirroring).


…and then (still at work) i used screen sharing (via MobileMe remote access) to copy files and do stuff on my iMac at home — which also enabled me to use Safari on my iMac to Google workarounds when Safari started to hang  on my MacBook (BBoD for like 20 minutes). That’s how i found this sweet Terminal command that kills the Flash plugin: bringing Safari back to life without having to quit and reopen all my 40 windows. Yay!

Then i scanned an old Herbert Read essay (about art, of course) so i can read it on my iPad.

i love computers.


*sort of, in theory... My MacBook now reports having 8GB RAM, but it seems that only 6GB can actually be addressed by the system. That’s fine, though. Based on a few days of giving this machine a good workout, it looks like a little under 4GB is what i actually “need” on a regular basis (and anything more is just elbow room). Oh and yes, of course: i always enjoy talking about RAM.