Happy Spring! - Magnetic Spirits Spring E-News

Magnetic Spirits E-News
May 29, 2007-05-29
(a reprint of my email newsletter for those of you who aren't on the list)

Hello, all of you. I haven´t been in touch by email for a while -
part of that is because I have been moving, resettling, re-
prioritizing. I have a home again after many months of being on the
road. It feels good .. even though I really miss that incredible
feeling when the wheels lift off the runway and I´m up and away. And
my apartment still looks like a warehouse.

The other reason why some of you haven´t heard from me is because I
am changing my internet strategy - new developments on the internet
and the evils of spam are causing me to look at new ways of getting
information out. Blogs, podcasts, online communities like Facebook
and Myspace are changing the ways we communicate. It´s all very
exciting ... and it means that some of you who are in touch with the
new digital universe are hearing from me a lot (those who already
read my blog and are on my Facebook site). Bear with me, these are
transitional times .. one of these days all these things will be
integrated.

I am continuing to send out newsletters via email because I know a
lot of you are still using email as your main internet communications
method. I invite you all to visit, my blog, listen to my podcast
and become part of my Facebook community. Just email me if you´re
not sure what this all means and how you can be part of it. And I´ll
bring you up to speed.

Enjoy the universe - digital and otherwise. Especially now that the
really nice weather is here ... I need to remind myself of the wonders
of life in the non-digital world too.

So here´s what I´m up to .. get in touch if anything fires up your
imagination.

In today´s newsletter:

1.) Back on the Air! - Bringing the World Home
2.) Keeping the World Safe for Words of Wisdom (and otherwise)
3.) Upcoming and Notable - future plans



1.) Back on the Air - Bringing the World Home

I´ve been back in Hamilton now for three months. It was inevitable
.. I am back on the air starting tomorrow morning. Join me at CFMU
93.3 FM in Hamilton for my new show "Bringing the World Home". Or if
you´re not in Hamilton, listen on line at http://cfmu.mcmaster.ca

I think of "Bringing the World Home" as what a dinner party would
sound like if I was able to invite the whole world (even though, in
real time, it´s more like a breakfast party .. at least here in
Hamilton). For the next couple of months I´ll be digging through my
archives and playing the sound pieces I´ve done that I would like
people to hear again. And I´ll be playing the episodes of The Green
Planet Monitor, the radio program that took me to India, Nepal and
Sri Lanka.

On tomorrow´s show:

The Green Planet Monitor -- The Medicinal Plant Revolution - how
traditional herbs are building economies and improving health in Sri
Lanka, India, Nepal and Ecuador. An interview with Canadian Governor
General Michaele Jean by Michelle Betz in Accra, Ghana

"Sweet Waltz Bitter Waltz" - my friends Sarah and Kevin Atkinson,
also known as "Teach Yourself Piano" Europe between the wars, Lotte
Lenya, Randy Newman and a bit of Tom Waites thrown in. Great music
and chat.

(And thanks to Gord Jackson, my friend who has graciously given me
his timeslot for the summer. Have a nice break .. I promise you can
have your time slot back when you want it)

2.) Words of Wisdom

Another big part of my life right now is my work with the Kairos
Literary Society. Since March, I have been working half time helping
the writers of Hamilton tell their stories. It´s a really varied job
.. sometimes I´m planning workshops and readings, sometimes I´m the
resident beancounter making sure we have enough money to make all the
workshops and readings happen.

My particular enthusiasms involve adapting literature to the digital
age, understanding how writing is changing in the post-post-post
Gutenberg era. And also exploring those grey areas where fiction and
non-fiction intersect. In the near future, I will be establishing a
Hamilton journalists group where those of us with our feet in the
"real" world (or maybe deluding ourselves that there IS a real world)
can explore where we and the rest of the world connect. It´s a
fine, fine line.

3.) Upcoming and Notable

I am hoping that I will be in Nairobi the end of September if the
gods and goddesses of funding approve. I´ve been invited to speak at
the conference of the International Association of Women in Radio and
Television (www.iawrt.org) What makes this group outstanding is that
we of the "first world" are vastly outnumbered by women of the
developing world .. if you count the members of the IAWRT, 75 of us
are from the so called "first" world and 225 are from the rest of the
planet. The focus of the conference is primarily on social justice
.. with many seminars on the role of media in conflict resolution,
new ways of reporting elections, solving violence against women
through media. Very exciting. Fingers crossed that the funding
comes through.

I am also developing a new project which won´t happen until next year
.. but I´m really excited about it. The focus is on activists and
social justice workers .. what motivates people to go to a place far
away and expose themselves to difficult conditions .. what keep them
motivated, why do they think this is worth the risk? And things to
think about if YOU´RE considering taking off halfway around the world
because you think you might be able to make a difference.

I think it´s going to be mostly a web project. With online audio
and video. It's still evolving ...

Oh yes .. this is just for fun. I am taking belly dancing lessons
tomorrow afternoon. And right now I´m listening to my friend Laura
Hollick on the air talking about how to make your life an artform.

That´s all I can think of for now. Be happy. Be in touch.

Blessed be
Victoria

Blackberry Digital Hash??

(Photo: unripe blackberries in Harrison Hot Springs, BC)

No, Blackberry Digital Hash isn't a new kind of fruity illegal substance.

Those of you in the recording business may find this interesting. The Blackberry transmits a more powerful signal than an ordinary cellphone. So when there's a Blackberry in the room, it can interfere with your recording.

This is true of ordinary cell phones too. Even when they're turned off.

Mouseland - A Socialist Parable

(This is a story which was written by the great Tommy Douglas, father of medicare in Canada. Written many years ago but still relevant today. Lots of people know this story .. I post it here for the people who don't know it yet)


This is the story of a place called Mouseland. Mouseland was a place where all the little mice lived and played. Were born and died. And they lived much as you and I do. They even had a parliament. And every four years they had an election. They used to walk to the polls and cast their ballot. Some of them even got a ride to the polls. They got a ride for the next four years afterward too. Just like you and me. And every time on election day, all the little mice used to go to the ballot box and they used to elect a government. A government made up of big black fat cats.

Now if you think it’s strange that mice should elect a government made up of cats. You just look at the history of Canada for the last ninety years and maybe you’ll see they weren’t any stupider than we are.

Now I am not saying anything against the cats. They were nice fellows; they conducted the government with dignity. They passed good laws. That is, laws that were good for cats.

But the laws that were good for cats weren’t very good for mice. One of the laws said that mouse holes had to be big enough so a cat could get his paw in. Another law said that mice could only travel at certain speeds so that a cat could get his breakfast without too much physical effort.

All the laws were good laws for cats. But oh, they were hard on the mice. And life was getting harder and harder. And when the mice couldn’t put up with it anymore they decided something had to be done about it. So they went en masse the polls.

They voted the black cats out. They put in the white cats. The white cats had put up a terrific campaign. They said all that Mouseland needs is more vision. They said the trouble with Mouseland is those round mouse holes we’ve got. If you put us in we’ll establish square mouse holes. And they did. And the square mouse holes were twice as big as the round mouse holes. And now the cat could get both his paws in. And life was tougher than ever.

And when they couldn’t take that anymore they voted the white cats out and put the black ones in again. And then they went back to the white cats, and then to the black, they even tried half black cats and half white cats. And they called that coalition. They even got one government made up with up cats with spots on them. They were cats that tried to make a noise like a mouse but they ate like a cat.

You see my friends the trouble wasn’t with the colour of the cats. The trouble was that they were cats. And because they were cats they naturally look after cats instead of mice.

Presently there came along one little mouse who had an idea. My friends watch out for the little fellow with an idea. He said to the other mice. “Look fellows why do we keep electing a government made up of cats, why don’t we elect a government made up of mice?�? Oh, they said, he’s a Bolshevik. So they put him in jail. But I want to remind you that you can lock up a mouse or a man but you can’t lock up an idea.

- Tommy Douglas, then leader of the NDP

The Future is a Place

(Note: this article was written by my friend Roxanne Amico who is an artist and radio producer living in Buffalo. I was dazzled by this article and asked her if I could post it on my blog. She said yes, and I am happy. The above picture is also by Roxanne and is called "Circle Casting". Links to Roxanne's site are at the end of this post. Enjoy. Be inspired. Be hopeful)

The Future is a Place
By Roxanne Amico

We walked to the playground, from my mother's house, where I go for dinner most Friday nights, to play with my sister's 2 daughters (10 and 5 yrs old) and my mom's dog. The ten year old has mastered everything at the playground with an admirable cockiness, and still challenges herself to step outside her limits. The five year old worships her older sister and wants to do all the older one does. I've been marvelling this spring over how much stronger they are, how much more confident in all the things they do...

The five year old saw what her bigger sister did on the monkey bars--a move that made ME envious--and she wanted to do it. What she can't do alone, I help her with if I can. I couldn't help her this time. I had to say no. I hate that. So does she. She stomped away, her hair flying behind her like a kite with the words ":F-You" written on it... I know how she felt--I knew that if I were bigger or stronger, I could have helped her. I walked slowly behind her to her pouting spot and told her that it was only because I didn't want her getting hurt by doing something I couldn't help her do. "It's not fair! Why can't I do ANYthing?" I told her how much she does this year that she couldn't do last year, when she was four. I knew that would have some meaning, because she makes it clear on a regular basis how proud she is to have arrived at five years old. I called her older sister over to help remind her of the strides she's made in one year. She wanted to do that monkey bar thing though and pressed her case. I said, "You will." She said, "When?"

I said what I knew to be the most irrelevant answer I could give a five year old child, knowing both before, during, and after saying it that it was inane: "In the future."

It was inane because ultimately time means at once everything and nothing to a five year old. "Five years old" is just "more than four", and therefore "better", in many respects because she feels progressively more privileged "now" than "before". It means this thing that means so much more to everyone else --older and bigger--around her, and therefore becomes something she wants desperately to understand, as if it were the secret to the universe. Her mother and I laughed about this recently, because she's been asking, "What time is it?" a lot lately, (..."Why--You got a date?"...), just as she's been talking about death and age. The future is nothing, does not exist, and I know this, yet to say, "In the future" was all I could think to say, while all the while I thought about the problems with this answer, the things I did not say to her, about how I hate this answer I am about to give her... I hate it because I hate this culture that teaches children to become adults who sell their lives to the clock and wallet; because I loathe the fact that she is growing up in a culture that is obsessed with pretending death won't happen, and therefore lives insanely as if the future is the only thing, a culture then unwittingly enslaved to the future as death, disguised as eternal youth, which is actually eternal ignorance, and amounts to acute lack of responsibility for the lives of others in other cultures who die at the hands of this foolishness--others who cannot--don't have the luxury to-- forget about their impending death, too often imposed by this culture...

...I feel rage rise in my chest, right next to the grief that I've got a niece who is 5, one who is 10, one who is 13, and another who is 16, knowing as I do that the future is grim because:

* if the bee population collapses which it is, humanity has 4-5 yrs to survive;
* if the climate change reports are accurate … we have maybe 20 yrs before it's too late to do anything to stop the worst of the consequences of climate change ...
* because I know that another 570+ species go extinct every day, huge areas of the planets forests are felled and cleared every day, more topsoil is removed, deserts keep expanding, oceans keep dying, Greenland and all places ice are melting at a much faster rate;
* because we act like the economy is ok because it hasn't hit "us" yet, but we're just plain wrong and to say otherwise is like talking a language no one can translate. And there are good reasons it SHOULDN'T continue as it is, and in the middle of ALL of the above, people still think we will find a technological silver bullet fix for the energy crisis we are now immersed in ----
* AND-this culture keeps pretending that to look closely at these facts is to invite depression, rather than it being an act of reason to look at the facts and recognize WE -CANNOT-GO-ON-LIKE-THIS YET-WE-CONTINUE-TO-ACT-LIKE-WE-CAN....

And when a 5 yr old asks me one 'simple' question, I think of the rest of her life in these conditions, because I love her, and because I know how much she loves to be alive. (And because I know she won't go all ga-ga about how fast and high that dow jones is climbing--whoop-de-effing do--Aren't we all doing so wonderfully???? I know she won't say something even more inane like, "hey--but we can always try wind/solar-power, while all the while ignoring all these other factors, and forgetting that even these "low tech" solutions rely on PETROLEUM )

Now before I get any emails telling me everything is ok, or checking in on my state of mental health, I'll just say right now I am not "Depressed". This time is one of the happiest, most satisfying and exciting times of my life. What I despise is this culture, not people, not reality, not everything. I can't stand that to merely look at and raise the topic of the danger we are in brings people to blind fear, rather than awakened agency, but I keep looking for a way...

And I think that until we truly see and feel and grasp the deeply disturbing reality, we cannot truly do anything effective about it.

I passionately believe it's entirely possible to love life, love the people I know and many I don't know, love the planet and all living things, past, present, and future. And at the same time to have deep contempt for that which threatens all I love--that which is within my agency to oppose, that which is, as my niece calls it, "Not fair." When I say I hate this culture, I mean the petri dish we're all in, festering away in the disease that's killing the planet, (and there's simply no positive way to put that one anymore), and I don't mean culture in the classic (and elitist) sense of the term. This, of course, is what makes me the artist I am: Because I love, and because I hate, and because the future is not enough, so that what my life is about is shaping a sustainable culture, and because I know in my heart that the only answer really is the present, [even if, at the same time, I know the future I am working for is far too much in the future than I can describe to a five year old] as does the five year old know so dearly about the present...

...As this avalanche of thought crashed through my mind, fully expecting a rumble from my niece in response to my simplistic "in the future" claim, she didn't skip a beat: She sort of growled, and sneered, and with her fingers extended in her own gesticulated passion, sort of like a cat's untrimmed toe-nails, she said loudly,

"the future is just this boring place where they let you do everything and you can't have any fun!!!"

This took my breath away. Knowing I wouldn't remember this exact thing later, I grabbed my pen and paper I always keep in my pocket I don't always have and said, "Hannah--Wait!! Before you say another thing--THAT is one of the coolest things anyone has ever said to me--Can I write it down?"

She said, "Now this is fun. I like this writing things down when I say them--let's do more of that..."



(to hear Roxanne's radio show, go here
To see more of Roxanne's work, go to her online studio here
Her myspace site is http://www.myspace.com/radioroxanne)

My Neglected Blog

It's been a while since I've done a posting. Not that I haven't wanted to express myself online. Used to be that this blog is where I did it.

Ah, times have changed. Blogging is being replaced ... by Facebook!

Yes, I will admit. I am going to be in need of a 12-step program if this continues. I first heard about Facebook down at CFMU, where program director (and who was a volunteer when I was station manager 10-15 years ago) told me that the "kids" got him to sign up. Sign of the times ... both James the PD and I are now old enough to refer to the 20-somethings as "kids". When I was at CFMU I was only in my mid-30s so the age difference didn't seem so great. Now there's no denying it ... we are becoming elders in the world of community radio.

That was a month ago. I didn't even look at Facebook then .. figured it was a fad. And then I got an invitation from my niece Crystal in Kelowna who is 25. Crystal isn't at all what I would call a tech-head. Yet she uses technology in ways that I don't ... and a quick visit with her, her sister and brother shows me new ways of communicating that I hadn't thought of.

So okay, I'm the cool aunt. Better sign up.

And every day I look at my list of friends to make sure it's growing. For a while I was stalled at 38. And I started to get a bit obsessed about it. Come on, I've got more friends than that. And then I would think about my status line Victoria is ... Victoria is ... what? There are people who update their status line by the hour. do they live on line or something? And then there is the optional information ... what do I put under Status ... do I say I'm single? Maybe that sends out the wrong ... or right? .. signal. Or do I ignore the question? Quotes ... what are my favourite quotes .. should it be profound or fun? And then there's the picture .. a lot of people are going to be seeing this (although probably not as many as most Facebookers think. What one shows my best side?

Too many decisions and I haven't even finished my coffee yet. It's getting cold because I am too busy typing. Oh yeah, I gotta get some work done this morning.

What is truly fascinating is to see who signs up and who doesn't. There are some surprises. I look at my friends list just to see who's showing up. What? Him? I thought he was scared of the computer. And some of the ones who seem like they'd be naturals are nowhere to be found.

A couple of observations -- there is an age thing happening. For sure. The friends collections of my younger Facebook friends are a lot bigger than those my own age. Makes me wonder how much of this is a popularity contest. Of course it is. And the updates seem to come minute by minute. My friends who are roughly the same age as me don't change their entries as frequently.

The friends who aren't there tell me a) it's just another gadget they don't have time for and b) they want to protect their privacy. Fair enough. Being a media person who really likes politics, my own perspective is that not being seen is not a good thing. So I realize I'm a much more in-your-face-in-your-ear kind of person than the average person my age.

Inevitably, because I like to ask a lot of questions (and can't help it), I do wonder what this shows about the communications methods and attitudes of people who are younger than me. We do know they don't read in the same way as we did ... small bites rather than novels. And mainstream radio and TV are bemoaning the possibility (probability) they're not going to have any listeners at all once those who are now over 40 die off. They're right ... which is a whole other story.

What this makes me ask, as a communicator, is how to stay relevant as all these changes occur. As I age, am I going to keep communicating the way I always have, using the same old media?

I don't want that. Because it means that I'll only be communicating with people my own age. That for me is the value of learning new technologies like Facebook. And why I'm spending so much time with this thing. Or so I tell myself.

Not just because it's a whole bunch of fun.

Whoops. Gotta go. Haven't checked my Facebook in 15 minutes!

(update: I just checked it out. I am stalled at 53 friends. And that's really only 52 because Simon signed up twice. Come on! I've got more friends than that. And what's with all those question marks where the pictures should be??!!)

Canadian Humour

A friend of mine in the States sent this to me. It was fun to be able to tell her I've flown with Westjet, and yes, the quotes are probably accurate.

FWD: You've got to love the Canadian sense of humor.

West Jet is an Airline with head office situated in Calgary, Alberta.
West Jet airline attendants make an effort to make the in-flight "safety
lecture" and announcements a bit more entertaining.

Here are some real examples that have been heard or reported:
On a West Jet flight there is no assigned seating, you just sit where
you want. Passengers were apparently having a hard time choosing, when a
flight attendant announced, "People, people we're not picking out
furniture here, find a seat and get in it!"
___________________________________

On another West Jet Flight with a very "senior" flight attendant crew,
the pilot said, "Ladies and gentlemen, we've reached cruising altitude and
will be turning down the cabin lights. This is for your comfort and to
enhance the appearance of your flight attendants."
____________________________________
On landing, the stewardess said, "Please be sure to take all of your
belongings. If you're going to leave anything, please make sure it's
something we'd like to have."
____________________________________
"There may be 50 ways to leave your lover, but there are only 4 ways out
of this airplane."

-----------------------
"Thank you for flying West Jet Express. We hope you enjoyed giving us
the business as much as we enjoyed taking you for a ride."
---------------------------

As the plane landed and was coming to a stop at the Vancouver
airport, a lone voice came over the loudspeaker: "Whoa, big fella. WHOA!"
-------------------------

After a particularly rough landing during thunderstorms in Ontario, a
flight attendant on a West Jet flight announced, "Please take care when
opening the overhead compartments because, after a landing like that,
sure as hell everything has shifted."
-----------------------

From a West Jet Airlines employee: "Welcome aboard West Jet Flight 245
to Calgary. To operate your seat belt, insert the metal tab into the
buckle, and pull tight. It works just like every other seat belt; and, if you
don't know how to operate one, you probably shouldn't be out in public unsupervised."
-- -------------------

"In the event of a sudden loss of cabin pressure, masks will descend
from the ceiling, stop screaming, grab the mask, and pull it over your face.
If you have a small child traveling with you, secure your mask before
assisting with theirs. If you are traveling with more than one small child, pick your favorite."
-----------------------

"Weather at our destination is 50 degrees with some broken clouds, but
we'll try to have them fixed before we arrive. Thank you, and remember,
nobody loves you, or your money, more than West Jet Airlines."
------------------------

"Your seat cushions can be used for flotation; and in the event of an
emergency water landing, please paddle to shore and take them with our compliments."
-----------------------

"As you exit the plane, make sure to gather all of your belongings.
Anything lef t behind will be distributed evenly among the flight
attendants. Please do not leave children or spouses."
---------------------------

And from the pilot during his welcome message: "West Jet Airlines is
pleased to announce that we have some of the best flight attendants in
the industry. Unfortunately, none of them are on this flight!"
-----------------------------

Heard on West Jet Airlines just after a very hard landing in Edmonton;
The flight attendant came on the intercom and said, "That was quite a
bump, and I know what y'all are thinking. I'm here to tell you it wasn't
the airline's fault, it wasn't the pilot's fault, it wasn't the flight
attendant's fault, it was the asphalt."

------------------------------
Overheard on a West Jet Airlines flight into Regina on a particularly
windy and bumpy day: During the final approach, the Captain was
really having to fight it. After an extremely hard landing, the Flight
Attendant said, "Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to Regina. Please remain
in your seats with your seat belts fastened while the Captain taxis what's
left of our airplane to the gate!"

------------------------------
Another flight attendant's comment on a less than perfect landing: "We
ask you to please remain seated as Captain Kangaroo bounces us to the
terminal."

---------------------
An airline pilot wrote that on this particular flight he had hammered
his ship into the runway really hard. The airline had a policy which
required the first officer to stand at the door while the Passengers exited,
smile, and give them a "Thanks for flying our airline."
He said that, in light of his bad landing, he had a hard time looking
the passengers in the eye, thinking that someone would have a smart comment.
Finally everyone had gotten off except for a little old lady walking
with a cane. She said, "Sir, do you mind if I ask you a question?"
"Why, no, Ma'am," said the pilot. "What is it?"
The little old lady said, "Did we land, or were we shot down?"
-------------------

After a real crusher of a landing in Halifax, the attendant
came on with, "Ladies and Gentlemen, please remain in your seats until
Captain Crash and the Crew have brought the aircraft to a screeching
halt against the gate. And, once the tire smoke has cleared and the warning
bells are silenced, we will open the door and you can pick your way
through the wreckage to the terminal."

-----------------------
Part of a flight attendant's arrival announcement: "We'd like to thank
you folks for flying with us today. And, the next time you get the
insane urge to go blasting through the skies in a pressurized metal tube, we
hope you'll think of West Jet Airways."

-----------------------
Heard on a West Jet Airline flight. "Ladies and gentlemen, if you wish
to smoke, the smoking section on this airplane is on the wing. If you can
light 'em, you can smoke 'em."

-----------------------
A plane was taking off from the Winnipeg airport. After it reached a
comfortable cruising altitude, the captain made an announcement over the
intercom, "Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. Welcome
to Flight Number 293, nonstop from Winnipeg to Montreal. The weather ahead
is good and, therefore, we should ha have a smooth and uneventful flight.
Now sit back and relax.. OH, MY GOD!"

Silence followed, and after a few minutes, the captain came back on
the intercom and said, "Ladies and Gentlemen, I am so sorry if I
scared you earlier. While I was talking to you, the flight attendant
accidentally spilled a cup of hot coffee in my lap. You should see the
front of my pants!" A passenger in Coach yelled, "That's nothing. You
should see the back of mine!"

Another favourite picture

In the final stages of winter (supposed to be spring, but it's still snowing), it's so nice to go back to my India/Nepal/Sri Lanka pictures and feel the warmth.

Different pictures jump out at me at different times. I have just rediscovered this one. I was at the Elephant Orphanage in Sri Lanka and a group of school kids asked if they could take my picture with them. So then I asked one of them to take a picture with my camera. And I just love the way it turned out.

Good Work, Mom and Dad!

Today is my parents 52nd anniversary. April 9, 1955 was the day. The place was Ruscom United Church, in a small village (hamlet, really) about 40 kilometers from Windsor. A farming community populated by people who were mostly all related to each other (by marriage, not all by blood). My mom and dad lived only a couple of kilometers from each other but somehow didn't get to know each other until they were teenagers. They met detassling corn, and their first date was at the stock car races.

For fifty two years they've kept it together. Pretty amazing from my vantage point ... I am in the final stages of ending mine after 21 years. I can remember times which were tense, especially when we were teenagers. But they're still together.

And I'm glad. I wouldn't have wanted them to stay together "for the kids" if they weren't happy. But I don't think they stayed together just for us. They did it for them. Which is the way it should be.

Hope you have lots and lots more anniversaries, Mom and Dad.

Love from your five girls,
Marianne, Dianne, Victoria, Lori and Cindy
and your two little girls .. Elizabeth and Emily

(PS - The other people in the picture are my sisters Marianne and Dianne, and my brother in law George. I guess you can tell who my mom and dad are ... this picture was taken on Christmas Day 2006)

Remember This

This from my wonderful friend Angelyn Debord in the mountains of Virginia:

Speak the following lines out loud:

I love everything about me
I love my uncanny beauty and my bewildering pain
I love my hungry soul and my wounded longing
I love my flaws, my fears, and my scary frontiers

I will never forsake, betray, or deceive myself
I will always adore, forgive, and believe in myself
I will never refuse, abandon, or scorn myself
I will always amuse, delight, and redeem myself

Opting back in

Well, I am becoming a member of North American (read:consumer) society again. I now have my own apartment (haven’t moved in yet but that will happen next Monday), I am now typing this as I wait for Cogeco Cable to go through their exceedingly long voicemail message that explains that I am liable for everything and they are liable for nothing. I cannot get exit this message because if I hang up they will not hook up my cable and internet, which makes the fifteen minutes I’ve already been on the phone signing up rather pointless. It is very, very, very boring. So I am updating my blog at the same time.

Living by society’s rules is really complicated. It has been much easier with no home and wandering around from place to place with no bills but my Visa card to pay so that I can do more travelling. I like being a gypsy. I am going to miss it.

Fuck … this message isn’t over yet … pardon my profanity. I don’t like businesses which waste my time like this. I don’t need them to read a whole contract to me OVER THE PHONE!

So I’ve put down the phone and let the recorded message blather on.

Even though I’ve opted back in, I’m still undecided about how much to do it Okay, an apartment for now is the way to go. For now. Until I can establish an intentional community with likeminded people. It will happen but it's a few years off. And I don't know where it's going to be yet. And I have to have communications services. I will have to do that even in my intentional community Shangr-la. Some things are inevitable. But I don’t have to shop at Walmart or at the mall. I don’t have to buy into consumerism to the degree that I used to think I had to.

I’m thinking that I want to buy little, and bank my money for travelling. Forget RRSP’s – at my age it’s not going to do me much good. I was listening to one financial advisor on the radio who pointed out that in order for most Canadians to live the Freedom 55 lifestyle, they’d need at least half a million dollars in RRSPs when they retire. And the average Canadian RRSP savings is $40,000. I think I’m just going to have to take my chances and trust grace and luck to get me through my old age. And thank god people in Ontario don’t have to retire at 65 because I’ll be working until I drop dead.

Update -- Fifteen minutes later. The annoying dial-a-contract message is STILL going. So I hung up. Wonder if they'll tell me I can't have cable now. My god, read me House of Commons proceedings instead. It would be a lot more interesting compared to this. Hope this telecontract thing doesn’t become a trend. If the pollution and wars don’t get us, these big corporations are going to bore us to death.

Tonight’s contacts with the big wide world of North American commerce has reaffirmed something that I already knew … that I don’t want to deal with big corporations any more and will do business with ordinary people except in cases where I can’t avoid it.

(I am unusually crabby today … probably because I woke up annoyed because my body was telling me it was 8:00 and the clock said it was already 9. I'm also bitchy because somebody decided to make daylight savings time happen 3 weeks early. Daylight savings time is not supposed to start when the snow is still on the ground. It ain't natural)

I really must be careful …. this last 18 months has been a welcome holiday from frustration and cynicism. The challenge is to maintain that spirit … and to discover how I can opt out spiritually while opting in to those things that I need – like services of big companies that do phones, internet and rent apartments. And to enjoy the good things about Western society without letting the not-so-good things drag me down.

It's truly a spiritual challenge, it is.

Media with a Forgiving Mind ..

I have referred several times in this blog about the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma. That's because it's an amazing collection of stuff about dealing with the emotional content of our work, both in terms of the people we write about and also ourselves.

There is an article I found that is especially resonant with me. It's all about Trauma and Forgiveness, written by BBC Reporter Jennifer Glasse after a workshop on trauma and forgiveness, done by Robin Shohet and Ben Fuchs of the Findhorn Foundation (which is a website you should also check out).

Ms. Glasse starts out being skeptical, but then starts to challenge her own definition of forgiveness. And she made some really good discoveries about herself and her profession.

Well worth a look.

A Splash of Colour

Oh, this page of my blog is looking way too grey .. such is February in Canada. So here's another view ... the Malabar coast on the west side of India with waves rolling in from Africa. It would be nice to be there today, sitting in the sun and looking up at the tall, tall coconut trees.

The History of Podsafe Music

I am finishing my doc about Indian community radio and have a few segments that are naked of background sound. So I did a search for Indian Podsafe Music. Didn't find much except for one enterprising rock band named Parlay who are everywhere in Google search land.

I did find a reallllllly funny site that you have to see called The History of Podsafe Music

This is the comment which instigated the item coming up in Google:



"The first evidence of podsafe music was discovered in this cave drawing in central India. It depicts the mirth and disdain of the fertility goddess after attending a show by an unsigned band. Squirting milk from her breasts was not only a prehistoric version of throwing a tomato, but also indicated the band members' inability to get women."

Click on the site to get the full effect. And the other four significant eras of podcast history.

Going Home to Hamilton

I'm slowly making my way back to Hamilton. It's taken me a long time to figure out where I wanted to be. Last year at this time, I figured I was gone for good. I'm in Toronto right now but watching the apartment ads every day to find a place to call home.

Most of my friends are supportive of my decision to go back, and a couple of them are not. The ones who aren't are former Hamiltonians themselves who have left and I guess didn't have that great an experience when they were there.

That's not me, though. I love Hamilton. When I first moved there is 1992 to work at CFMU (McMaster University's radio station), no less than 6 people in the first week called me and said "hi, remember me?" They were all people who I had known in other cities. And I have always found it so easy to make friends in Hamilton. Something about the city .... I just like being there.

It's also about the character of the town. There are ghosts, there is mafia and biker gangs. There are people with PhD's and salt of the earth folks who are good people who just want to make a little bit of difference in the world.

Hamilton's different from Toronto, Vancouver and Ottawa. Because there's no real upper crust in Hamilton (well, okay, now that Ancaster is part of Hamilton, there are a few people who think they're upper crust. But that doesn't go very far downtown.

In terms of the work I do, it's a great city. Cities that don't see the need to change don't have much use for social change work. In Hamilton, everybody knows that a lot has to change. And while some would look at the problems of poverty as an insurmountable problem, I see it as an indication that there is so much useful work that can be done here.

Not that there isn't work to be done in every city ... but it is harder to do social change work in cities that don't want to face the idea that changes are needed. The prettier and richer the city, I find, the harder it is for the people who live there to look beyond the facade. In Hamilton, a lot of people are open to new ideas. Not everybody of course, but we voted him out last time around.

So I am going back to the city with more waterfalls than anywhere else in North America. And more pitbulls than any other city in North America. And a beautiful harbour. And steel mills that are both scary and beautiful at the same time.

I think that's a good way to describe Hamilton ... scary and beautiful at the same time. And real down to earth and a great place to live.

Documentary Poetry

I have been looking for a while for a term that describes the kind of poetry I do .. whereby I combine subjective writing with sounds gathered from the real world. The term I came up with was "documentary poetry" ... and to see if anybody else thought of this genre, I turned to my good friend Google.

I was really excited to find out that it is a term used (and perhaps invented) by Canadian poet Dorothy Livesay. I'm glad to see my work fits into some kind of historical context, and I am also really happy that a poet who I admire and respect and I have something in common. I think we have a lot in common, actually, since she writes from her roots as an activist.

This from the Athabasca University website:

"She offered a theory that Canadian literature favoured a mode she called “documentary poetry,” long narrative poems that comment on particular social topics and that “are a conscious attempt to create a dialectic between the objective facts and the subjective feelings of the poet” (“The Documentary Poem: A Canadian Genre,” 267). Call My People Home (1950)--about the mistreatment of Japanese Canadians during the Second World War--and The Documentaries (1968) are examples of her own work in this genre. In the same vein, Right Hand Left Hand (1977), her remarkable autobiography about her life of activism in the 1930s, combines retrospective commentary with period photographs, newspaper articles, poetry, drama, and unedited letters that emphasizes the integration of the individual history with social history. She also believed in the close affinity between poetry and music. ( Vivian Zenari )

"A Model Wife and Mother"

I love this statue.

I'm sure you all know who this is. If not, let me give you a clue ... one of the reasons why I love this statue is because of her name. When I was in India, a number of people said to me "oh, Victoria, you have a very important name". And yes, I guess it is. After all, she was the first and only Empress of India.

The most amazing thing about this statue to me is the inscription:

VICTORIA
QUEEN AND EMPRESS
A MODEL WIFE AND MOTHER

It was dedicated to the Queen by the women of Hamilton in the early part of the century.

Queen and Empress --- yes.

But ... a model wife and mother ????

I guess it depends which model you're looking at. Model wife she was. She loved Prince Albert. In every sense of the word. Prince Albert, despite being regarded as her social inferior, was her closest advisor. When he died, she went into mourning and wore black for the rest of her life. By all reports, she was a woman deeply in love and a woman who deeply loved.

As far as the Model Mother part ... by all reports, that's stretching it quite a bit. She was the mother of nine children, but allegedly thought the act of childbirth and all things associated with it to be deeply disgusting. And she once referred to babies as being ungainly as little frogs. Deeply maternal she was not. Allegedly, anyway.

All that aside, what I find ironic about this statue is the juxtaposition of those words, Empress, Queen, Wife, Mother. It makes me wonder what statement was being made about ideal womanhood. Was it not enough to be Queen and Empress?

Or maybe it was an attempt to humanize her and minimize the distance between her and her loyal subjects in Hamilton?

Well, without reading too deeply into it, the statue just plain makes me smile. Partly because of the absurdity of it, partly because it's so damn dramatic ... I wouldn't describe her face as severe, but she is not a woman to be trifled with. "Mom" is not the word which comes to mind when gazing upward at this woman with sceptre in hand and a lion guarding her feet.

I like it because it's a great piece of art, a great piece of history. With a really great name.

In the Middle of Nowhere

Sometimes I google a phrase and see what comes up. Today I googled the phrase "staying with pain" .. tough day today. And I landed upon a page called Electronic Iraq and I found these words by the late Tom Fox, one of the men from the Christian Peacekeeping Team who was imprisoned along with Jim Loney and Harmeet Singh .. they were freed but Tom Fox didn't make it out.

There are a lot of brave words here, and also words which express the difficulties of peacemaking work. Amazing words from an amazing man ...

"The ability to feel the pain of another human being is central to any kind of peacemaking work. But this compassion is fraught with peril. A person can experience a feeling of being overwhelmed. Or a feeling of rage and desire for revenge. Or a desire to move away from the pain. Or a sense of numbness that can deaden the ability to feel anything at all.

"How do I stay with the pain and suffering and not be overwhelmed? How do I resist the welling up of rage towards the perpetrators of violence? How do I keep from disconnecting from or becoming numb to the pain?

"After eight months with CPT, I am no clearer than I when I began. In fact I have to struggle harder and harder each day against my desire to move away or become numb. Simply staying with the pain of others doesn't seem to create any healing or transformation. Yet there seems to be no other first step into the realm of compassion than to not step away."

Here, Fox quotes Buddhist teacher Pema Chodron, from her book The Places that Scare You: "Becoming intimate with the queasy feeling of being in the middle of nowhere makes our hearts more tender. When we are brave enough to stay in the nowhere place then compassion arises spontaneously."

Fox adds: "Being in the middle of nowhere really does create a very queasy feeling and yet so many spiritual teachers say it is the only authentic place to be. Not staking out any ground for myself creates the possibility of standing with anyone. The middle of nowhere is the one place where compassion can be discovered. The constant challenge is recognizing that my true country of origin is the middle of nowhere."

Hope that helps when you're wonder if you're standing in the middle of nowhere. Helps me. my struggle is small compared to his was, yet his words resonate ... which means his words still live and have power.

Berlin, are you there .. Prague .. come in ...

I spent the afternoon today in a radio studio celebrating Art's Birthday. Art who? ART. With a capital A. As in AHHT ... dahling.

My job was to search the internet and pull audio clips from all the Art's Birthday celebrations from around the world. Which would mean mostly Canada and Europe. Japan had a live netcast too, but their day was all finished by the time we got to the station. That international date line thing, you know.

I did a lot of listening today and a lot of surfing too. The best thing about it was that this was the first time I've used internet broadcasts as a programming tool. And I learned a lot.

First of all, you have to get up early in the morning to grab your material because by the time the afternoon rolls around, the net gets very congested and slow. And some streams don't even appear at all ... we techologically based artists are pretty good at this stuff but we're not infallible. I never could get Prague to come in.

And speaking of Prague, I sure wish those Czechs would put the little loudspeaker symbol on their web page so I don't have to figure out what the word "Listen" is in Czech. Some of these web masters make it awfully hard to figure things out. Respect the conventions of UWL, (Universal Web Language), folks.

I also realized that you don't ever plan a whole afternoon on live netcasts. Or, if you do, you always have a good backup plan in case Prague doesn't show up for your party either.

The other things I learned were about Art himself (who decided that Art was a guy, anyway?) After listening to a whole bunch of artists paying homage to their master, I have come up with the conclusion that Art is a pretty cool guy. Damn cold, as a matter of fact (actually, it's a matter of perception, not fact).

Art is a real machine these days. All those computer generated sounds. Beeps, squawks, machine sounds. So I have to ask, where is the humanity in all the beep squawking that is going in galleries these days? Where are the human voices? Where are the real world sounds? Where is the stuff that stirs the soul?

I enjoyed the workout that the left side of my brain got today, though. I'll visit my right brain again tomorrow and be glad that for me, Art's a whole lot softer than all that.

If you want to listen to some Art's Birthday celebrations yourself, click here.

P.S. the guy with the cake above is Pierre Filliou, the guy who decided over a hundred years ago that Art's Birthday should be celebrated. He was French. You probably figured that out ....

So Long, Catfish John

I just got the very sad news that Catfish John, co-host of the Sunnyside Up Gospel Hour at WMMT is no longer with us.

The news was emailed to me via L'il Willard of the Bluegrass Express Show, also from WMMT. I met Catfish Jean and Catfish John when Barry and I were living down in Kentucky. Barry was managing the radio station, I was taking a break from working and learning about the things I missed while I was working.

WMMT had a rule ... you could sing about God, but no preachin' and no prayin'. The Catfishes walked that line really closely. Devout Christians themselves, but they appreciated the station and its rules. And in all of the time I've talked to them, not once did they say anything that expressed anything other than love and respect for other people. Truly a model that other Christians would do well to follow.

One especially memorable day, we went to the home of two WMMT folks who could no longer do a show. Mallie and Levie Gross were their names. So they did their weekly radio program of gospel tunes with a guitar, a voice and a really tinny Sears tape recorder and microphone that no broadcast professional would ever let near a radio station. They did their show anyway and it was broadcast, every week. And what it lacked in depth of sound, they made up for in depth of spirit. We went up to Levi and Mallie's house, along with Catfish Jean and Catfish John, who played in the ensemble on his slide dobro. He was a hell of a (whoops ... I meant "heck of a") good musician.

I'm glad I still have the recording that I made of that day, and I will listen to it and think of Catfish John. I am sure Catfish Jean's heart is really breakin' right now. But her faith is so strong that I don't believe she doubts for a minute that there is a heaven, and that Catfish John will be waiting for her when she gets there.

Reminds me of a song I learned when I was in Appalachia:

"I'll be waiting on the far side banks of Jordan
I'll be waiting drawing pictures in the sand
And when I see you coming I will rise up with a shout
And I'll come running through the shallow waters reaching for your hand".

Alive and Well in Cabbagetown

I know. I've been neglecting my blog. So have you .. not a comment from anybody in over a month. (bitch, bitch, bitch) Guess I have to go to Antarctica to get your attention.

I am nicely settling for five weeks at a generous friend's home in Cabbagetown. I am housesitting while she is away. For those of you not familiar with Toronto, Centre of the Universe, Cabbagetown is in the centre of Toronto, not far from Yonge Street, the longest street in the world (Toronto claims that Yonge Street goes all the way up to Timmins or something like that. Which is stretching it, but Toronto and Texas have a lot in common because both places are really invested in the suffix "est" .. as in biggest, longest, smartest (okay, so Texas doesn't usually claim that one).

I like Toronto. And I don't like Toronto. Just like all the other Canadians, I have an ambivalent relationship with Hogtown (Hogtown is the alternate name for the city. Cabbagetown is a neighbourhood within Hogtown). Named because it used to be the hog slaughtering capital of Ontario. And because the people in my neighbourhood were so poor they had to eat cabbages.

I like the neighbourhood. It's a place where gentrification started to take hold about 20 years ago and then slowed down. Can't say it stopped entirely, but it's a mixed neighbourhood which has both very affluent people and also the Regent Park Community Housing Neighbourhood (aka The Projects). It's a neighbourhood where the day old vegetables don't stay on the clear out rack for long in the No Frills Grocery store, which is three doors down from the shop with the high end expensive cheeses.

Much to my surprise, this area has also become a big area in Toronto for Tamil settlement. When I was in Sri Lanka, I heard a lot about the conflict and life in Sri Lanka from the Sinhalese point of view. But I never heard much from Tamils. Likely because I was mostly in Colombo, which is a different part of the country than the area where Tamils live. I went for a walk and discovered a Sri Lankan restaurant which I must check out. And an Indian/Sri Lankan grocery store with a friendly man named Mahindra behind the counter. I told him I'd like to come back and talk to him about what life is like for Tamils in his home country.

I haven't lived in Toronto since 1990, so this is a really great opportunity to take advantage of what the city has to offer. Which is a lot. Come mid-February, I will be back to my old haunts in Hamilton where gentrification is moving even more slowly than here.

Looking forward to it. And in the meantime, really enjoying being here too. There is so much to explore no matter where you are. There is no excuse to be bored in this amazing place called Earth .. no matter which part of it you find yourself in.

Write to me! All this solitude can be too much of a good thing.