So, like, since the vote last Saturday, I’ve been trying to figure out how to blog about the repeal by the United States Senate of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, the law that was essentially a passive-aggressive ban on non-heterosexuals in the various branches of that country’s armed forces.

As a Canadian (a country in which queers have been accepted in the military for eighteen years without the sky falling) I hadn’t really paid much attention to the DADT issue in the United States, mainly because, quite frankly, I don’t really care. I read the news, so I’ve been half-consciously aware of what’s been happening, but I haven’t focussed on it, the same way I haven’t focused on news about Republican evangelical Ted Haggard snorting crystal meth off of the gluteals of gay prostitutes, or news about pre-pubescent boy-singer Justin Bieber. (Sorry about that last sentence – I just threw it in so that I can amuse myself later when I read the blog’s traffic stats).

Lately, though, DADT has kind of wormed its way more deeply into my news-cluttered brain, mainly because an American friend in upstate New York launched a blog dedicated to the subject in October. Harry has been writing a letter to Barack Obama every day, demanding that the President work harder to repeal DADT, and then posting the letters on his blog. I appreciate Harry’s efforts, even if at times I thought he was being a little hard on Obama. Harry’s a thoughtful, caring, generous member of his community, and I congratulate him on walking the talk, as they say. He’s participating in his government, and that should be a good thing.

As much as I admire Harry’s willingness to speak up for equality, I’ve been reading his letters with a continuing unease.

Now, there’s no question that I’m happy that progress is being made on civil rights: there’s absolutely no justifiable reason to deny equality to people because they are gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgendered, particularly in a federal agency. I’ve been an enthusiastic participant in the queer rights movement for almost a quarter of a century. I support equal opportunity in all cases. Nevertheless, to say that I was excited to see the repeal of DADT would be slightly over-emphatic.

A big part of my problem is that the idea that a queer youth would choose to join the military just seems utterly incomprehensible. In my youth, we would amuse ourselves with the idea that if there were ever a draft we’d simply show up at the recruitment depot in dresses, likely guaranteeing quick rejections. [Trivia note: Did you know that the DADT law that requires that homos be kicked out of the military has a notable exception: that anyone who “engaged in conduct or made statements for the purpose of avoiding or terminating military service” are not required to be kicked out. In other words, if you get caught with your pants down, you're outta there, but if you affect a Max Klinger routine they might make you keep your job, and somehow your presence won't affect troop morale negatively. Attention Pentagon: logical weakness.] Of course, many queers, it stands to reason, might discover their homosexuality after they enlist. Standing in a shower with ten guys with buzzcuts ought to make a fag out of anyone.

But here’s where we have to think about why all of these people are in the military in the first place. Are there really all that many young queers who want to leave home, live in a desert, and risk having their heads blown off in order to defend the interests of the “oiligarchy” that is running their homeland into the ground? Not likely. Most of these kids aren’t in the army out of some patriotic desire to “serve their country” – they’re there because they can’t afford college, and they have a choice of joining the army and getting their education paid for, or working at KFC for the rest of their lives.

The word “pride” is closely associated with the queer rights movement, but I can’t help but feel that this word that has long been used (overused, some would argue) as a positive slogan in the pursuit of social justice is now being incorporated into the lexicon of the drum-beating patriotic rhetoric that pollutes much of American cultural conversation. To his credit, Harry has largely refrained from engaging in the pro-war language that we usually hear and sticks to talking about things like how institutional inequality in the the military reinforces homophobia in all aspects of civilian life. Other commentators, however, have been greater proponents of the sort of mindless patriot-speak that, while not new, has certainly become much more prevalent since 9/11. Pride, unfortunately, is often invoked by proponents of DADT repeal, who speak of being able to serve their country with pride, the word having dual meaning in this context.

In his speech at the signing ceremony for the repeal, President Obama said:

There can be no doubt, there were gay soldiers who fought for American independence. Who consecrated the ground at Gettysburg. Who manned the trenches along the Western Front. Who stormed the beaches of Iwo Jima.

He’s undoubtedly right. There can be no doubt, however, if we follow this logic, that there were also gay soldiers among those who tortured prisoners in Abu Ghraib, blew up 13 children and the rest of their wedding party in Iraq, or massacred hundreds of unarmed peasants at My Lai. If we’re going to accept that gays and lesbians are as good as anyone else, it seems reasonable that we should also accept that they are as capable of evil as anyone else. Are we doing queers a favour by helping them discover that evil?

In the same speech, Obama also related the words of a heterosexual soldier:

We have a gay guy in the unit. He’s big, he’s mean, he kills lots of bad guys. No one cares that he’s gay.

If, in order to advance civil rights, we have to resort to language that glorifies war and killing, perhaps we need to think a little harder about what we mean by “civil” and “right”. I’m tempted to quote Jane Rule out of context:

“With all that we have learned, we should be helping our heterosexual brothers and sisters out of their state-defined prisons, not volunteering to join them there.”

Putting guns in the hands of our young and sending them into peril in order to advance American hegemony is repulsive. It’s no less so if those young people happen to be queer. Now that DADT is officially doomed, I look forward to seeing all those Americans who campaigned for its repeal to turn their attention and energy toward the dismantling of the military-industrial regime and building a truly just society for all.

edwards block

On the whole, i suspect, there aren’t a great many things that Gordon Price and i would find in common were we ever huddled together in an election voting booth. I’ve never actually met Mr. Price, and therefore have had no opportunities to delve deeply into his his psyche, or any of his other parts, so i can’t make this claim authoritativey. In fact, the claim is largely based on experiences from many years ago, when Price was a Vancouver alderman (as city councillors were then known), elected under the banner of the Non-Partisan Association (NPA), a municipal political party that claims it isn’t a party at all (a contention with which Vancouver’s No Fun City complainers would happily concur).

Having been intimately involved with the NPA myself back in the 80s, i abandoned the non-party shortly after Price was elected for the first time, though my decision had nothing to do with Price, personally. It did, however, have a lot to do with the greedy cronyism of the privileged, along with increasingly Soviet-style nomination meetings. As i said, i’m not intimately acquainted with Price’s actual positions on things, but that he stuck with the NPA for six elections as alderman (three of those under the leadership of the ever charming Gordon Campbell) hints at some incompatibilities in how we each experience the world.

This disparity in worldview was demonstrated in my only real interaction with Price in, i think, 1996. I was participating in a financially disastrous AIDS fundraiser that involved 1,500 or so cyclists pedalling to Seattle. As the crowd was crossing the Grandview Viaduct, just a few kilometers in and still full of energy, everyone was yelling and honking bicycle horns, and prompting motorists to do the same. Price pedaled up beside me and called out enthusiastically, “Isn’t this great?”.

“Too much noise!” i answered, me being rather sensitive to unnecessary aural stimulation. I just wanted to ride and couldn’t wait to get out into the country.

“Noise is good!” replied Price, who then pushed on to share roadspace with someone more cheefully responsive. I ceased henceforth casting ballots in his favour on that opinion alone.

This anecdote does reveal, however, one common interest: cycling. Price is well known to be an advocate of urban cycling, a cause that is of some significant interest to me. Since i have paid only peripheral attention to civic politics in the years since my flight from formal involvement, i can’t recall how Price actually voted on questions that came before council pertaining to cycling infrastructure. Since i’m insufficiently motivated to do any research on the subject, i’ll give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that he voted in ways that i’d have approved of. If he’s anything like that other NPA cycling advocate, Peter Ladner, though, he may have voted against his own beliefs in favour of maintaining the support of those who have a vested interest in the continued growth of car culture. Not that i’d blame him, necessarily – such is the way of governing in our fucked up electoral system.

Meanwhile, Michael Geller, a local architect who likes to describe himself as a “failed NPA candidate”, mainly because he is a failed NPA candidate, has a blog. Recently on this blog he posted a photograph of Dunsmuir Street, apparently taken from the Pacific Centre overpass looking east, that shows a long line of idling cars beside a bike lane that is devoid of any bicycles. Geller claims that the photo was sent to him by “some of my colleagues”, who perceive him to be an advocate of cycling infrastructure (based, presumably, on a single article he wrote that voiced flighty enthusiasm for the separated bike lanes he saw in Amsterdam). The unnamed colleagues, it is assumed, consider the photograph evidence that the bike lane is not being used and therefore cycling infrastructure is a grossly unfair inconvenience to poor tortured motorists.

Geller, apparently inspired by the unnamed colleagues, says that Mayor Gregor Robertson may be doomed in the next election “unless these lanes attract a much higher level of use by cyclists, and the congestion and traffic safety issues caused by the lanes are addressed.” I have no problem at all with Geller writing thoughtfully about negative perceptions about the Dunsmiur bike lane, but his lame attempts to brand himself a cycling advocate are laughable, and his reaching a conclusion on an important issue based on a single photograph as evidence in support explains why Vancouverites sensibly declined to offer him a seat on council. By all means, Mr. Geller, write a post about concerns of the mysterious unnamed colleagues and their issues with bikes, but if you’re really a balanced advocate for cyclists, at least have the decency to critically evaluate the opinions of the unnamed colleagues. I didn’t see a single word questioning the logic of the unnamed colleagues. Is the congestion caused by the bike lanes? Or are the bike lanes caused by the congestion? Why are cars idling a traffic safety issue? Isn’t it a bigger safety issue when those cars are racing up Dunsmuir, trying to get ahead of each other, because the green lights are timed in a way that encourages them to do so? What is it about the way people drive cars that makes people so afraid to ride their bikes downtown? But no, Geller just throws the picture on his blog along with a not-so-veiled threat toward the Mayor.

Geller suggests that the Mayor “could” lose the next election, but then says that “The new Mayor will remove [the bike lanes] in whole or in part after winning.” The use of “will” seems pretty revealling to me. How does Geller know what the new Mayor “will” do? The NPA hasn’t even got a nominee yet. I’m not buying this “some of my colleagues” stuff that Geller has posted. It sounds more like Geller is using his blog to begin the official NPA baiting of the anti-car crowd, a Fordian tactic designed to stir them into a bloodthirsty fervor that will throw the bike-loving bastards out and get city hall safely back into the hands of the “cronyistes”.

Anyway, enough conspiracy theorising. I don’t actually dislike Geller, the guy. I’ve heard him speak at various events, and i think he really is interested and thinking about the city. The trouble is, he’s a bit like the NPA’s only sitting councillor, Suzanne Anton (except, you know, with some brains). They’ve both either been born with money and privilege, or they’ve had money and privilege long enough that they’re grown completely out of touch with the reality on the street. And, perhaps they’re so addicted to the pleasures of this privilege that they’re single-mindedly occupied with keeping it.

So, getting back to Gordon Price. Price, to his credit, posted on his blog a mildly critical response to Geller’s post. Okay, he doesn’t actually criticize Geller, but he does point out the logical failures of Geller and/or the unnamed colleagues, using an old postcard. Check it out.

edwards block

Generally speaking, I’m fairly pessimistic when it comes to expectations from commercial products. Quality has been in steep decline since long before Ford laughingly trademarked the phrase “Quality is Job One” and then filled the streets with shitty cars. Their competitors got into the game too, so now they all compete to see who can build the worst automobiles while altering their business model so that most of the real profits are made on repairs and maintenance. Such is capitalism. Soon the automobile makers, taking their cues from the makers of computer printers and toner, will be selling cars for $39.95 but charging $17,000 for fan belts.

It often seems that pretty much everything is crap these days, including the designer brand crap. Recently I bought a small hand trowel from a large home supplies super–discount-mega-store that shall remain nameless. It’s a metal-bladed trowel, with a heavy, hefty plastic handle. After just a few uses – digging small holes in soft garden soil – the blade snapped off of the handle. It seems that those two heavy-duty parts were joined together with a piece of plastic of such quality and robustness that it might alternately have been used to house a small plastic gold ring in a ten cent bubble gum machine.

None of this is new, of course. So why am I griping about it now? Sometimes I find a product of such exceedingly low quality I just have to talk about it.

For the past few days I have been undertaking a few upgrades to my living room. Specifically, I’ve been repainting the walls and ceiling and covering the the old floor (comprised mostly of a hodgepodge of plywood, cedar shingles, and mortar) with new laminate.

In order to facilitate these upgrades, I purchased a few devices to make things easier. One was a pole to extend my paint roller. While using it to roll paint onto the ceiling (a perfectly reasonable application of the tool, I’m sure you’ll agree), the flimsy plastic joint that holds the pole to its threaded end snapped, in the same manner as the trowel. Except that the trowel did not bounce off of my head and leave a paint smear across my forehead as it fell to pieces.

Most galling, however, was the performance of the kneepads I bought. I’m getting a little too old (and perhaps, therefore, osteopathic)  to be crawling around on my knees on surfaces that aren’t beach sand, so investing in these seemed a good idea while installing laminate flooring. The first thing I did was roll out the foam vapour barrier. There I was, crawling around on layer of foam, the plastic caps on the fronts of the kneepads protecting my knees, when I heard a crack. At first I thought the foam was collapsing under my weight, or from the force of the hard plastic caps. But no. The crack was the plastic on the kneepad breaking.

This is a tool that is supposed to protect my knees. It’s a bad sign when the safety equipment breaks when it is pressed against… a hard surface? No. It’s essentially bubble wrap. Bubble wrap broke my kneepads! To make matters worse, the plastic on both kneepads cracked within five minutes, and pieces fell off. The resultant sharp remaining shards poking out of the pads kept tearing my vapour barrier. I had to seal the tears in the vapour barrier with duct tape, and for good measure put some on the kneepads too.

The manufacturer very wisely declined to affix a corporate logo to the kneepads, so I can’t steer you away from them by name. But here’s a picture, sans tape. Don’t buy them!

edwards block

A couple of months ago I bought Charles Demers’ most recent book, Vancouver Special, and I’ve just started reading it. Published by Arsenal Pulp Press and a finalist for the Hubert Evans Non-Fiction Prize, the book is a collection of essays about Vancouver, mostly centred around its neighbourhoods and cultures, accompanied by some great photographs by Emmanuel Buenviaje. On Demers’ website, he calls the book “a love letter to the city”, though I expect it will not be a love letter in the style of, say, a romantic poet, all gushing uncritically about how great is one’s lover, etc. etc. Besides an author, Demers is a comedian as well as an activist, the latter being more of the left wing bent, if one must be simplistic enough to assign an ideologically-based label. Perhaps I’ll just say that he’s not of the right-wing, chamber-of-commerce-booster bent and leave it at that. At any rate, I expect a love letter well-chocked with irreverence.

Though I don’t yet know precisely what Demers has written (I have heard him read short excerpts in public appearances), I feel like it is probably a book that I would have liked to have written myself. There are multiple reasons why I haven’t, of course, not least of which is that my affection for the city has been dwindling in more or less direct proportion to the city’s growth. For me to have written a love letter to Vancouver in recent years (without relying heavily on irony) I likely would have had to ingest a strong cocktail of psychiatric medications and have done the actual writing from somewhere like Bismarck, North Dakota, where I couldn’t help but recall the assumed charms of the city of my birth, if only based on comparison.

Until this book came out, I had been contemplating a series of blog entries with the working titles of “The Ten Best Things” and “The Ten Worst Things”, about Vancouver, along with accompanying photographs. It wasn’t my objective to compile a simple set of lists, but to actually write essays about the items on the lists, however tenuously. There have been stumbling blocks, though. The “worst” list hasn’t been too difficult. The challenge there has been in paring the list down to a mere ten. It’s the “best” list I’ve been stuck on. Maybe I’m not thinking creatively enough, but I seem to be stuck at three (and one of them is, technically, not even an official part of Vancouver proper).

Fortunately, Demers has done me the favour of rescuing me from this seemingly doomed plan. Reading his book may not relieve me of my desire to write about Vancouver – it may not even relieve me of the desire to write about it derisively – but I have a feeling that it may inspire me. I don’t think it will inspire me to run around town in a Remax jacket gushing with seemingly lobotomised zeal about sports arenas, strip malls, or shitty t-shirt merchants in Gastown (the latter of which I have heard city councillor Suzanne Anton point to as a desirable example of the kind of urban funkiness to which we should aspire. What the fuck is she smoking?).

No, rather, I think that Demers might inspire me to something higher, nobler, more charitable. “Ten Best and Worst” sounds so black and white, so simplistic, so Lettermanesque. Therefore, I have set a new objective for the coming summer. I will undertake to look at Vancouver through new eyes. I will try to see this city through the eyes of the tourist that I often wish I was, as though I were visiting the city for the first time. I’ll visit Vancouver with the sort of vision that I once experienced when visiting Toronto, or London, or Prague, Berlin, Krakow, Salzburg. Of course, I’ll never be able to “visit” Vancouver completely devoid of preconceptions, but I didn’t go to any of those other cities without some sort of expectations either. The difference, perhaps, is that I went to them with at least some willingness to look with open eyes. I was looking for the unknown, the unexpected. I was looking for adventure, and often found it. In Vancouver, I’ve fallen into the lazy habit of focussing on what I already know and despise.

So this is my mission between now and the end of August: to be an inexperienced visitor in my own city. At least twice a month, I will put a tourist map in my pocket, hang a camera around my neck, consult Lonely Planet Vancouver, and then set out to see what this city is all about, looking at every intersection, every building, every puke encrusted alley, as if I’d never seen them before.

Don’t get me wrong – I have no intention of faking an arrival at the airport and then spending time in the same tourist traps that exist identically in every large city in North America. I doubt I’ll set foot in a mall the whole time. But I’ll visit the neighbourhoods slowly, casually, alertly, virginally, looking for the unique, the humour, the sad, the pathetic, the beautiful. I just hope I don’t get taken for an elderly cruise ship passenger and get mugged.

One Last Rant Before I Go All Touristy

Before I head out on this mission, I must make one last habitual gripe about Vancouver, perhaps just to clear the gullet before I take a vacation from my adored scepticism for this town.

I’m sitting in the Vancouver Public Library. It’s a building that I feel like I’d have a hard time appreciating as a tourist. I can’t imagine stepping off of the stupid imitation San Francisco streetcar (a crappy open-air bus painted red with a streetcar bell mounted on it – attention city boosters: this sort of imitation is the sincerest form of provincialism) onto Homer Street and exclaiming “Oh! What a lovely example of Roman architecture. Take my picture, Blanche!”.

I remember, somewhat fondly, the old Vancouver Public Library on Burrard Street. It was turned into a record store when the new Coastal Colosseum was opened. Yes, it was dark, dank, and smelly. Yes, the elevator was slow and jerky so most people used the convenient and central stairwell. Yes, there was limited space for books so sometimes if you wanted a particular title you’d have to fill out a slip and wait while the librarian went to the basement to retrieve it for you. On the other hand, one could easily get a blowjob in the basement washroom while waiting for the title in question.

Then the Colosseum opened. The designers of the place must have been a little drunk during the planning sessions. The elevators are slow and the stairwells are often locked, so using the the escalators is best, but they were installed so that on every floor you have to walk in a circle to get to the next escalator, forcing patrons to walk through departments in which they are not interested. How did that get approved? Even The Bay doesn’t make customers walk through the Underwear department to get to the escalator to Hats and Wallets. Then there are the washrooms. Tiny. I can’t speak for the women’s, but the men’s has one stall and two urinals. The urinals have a nice privacy plate between them so that one doesn’t accidentally glimpse someone else’s penis, but the urinals are jammed into a corner and are mounted so close together that you practically have to stand on the next guy’s foot to take a leak. If he shakes too hard you have to wipe your shoe off on the way out. And, if the guy in the corner finishes first he has to wait for the other guy to finish before he can back out, for the sink counter is so close behind that there’s no room to squeeze through without an accidental goosing. The washrooms are wheelchair accessible, but I suspect that a wheelchair user might have to back his chair in or risk getting stuck trying to turn around.

In a big new building, you might think that they cramped up the washrooms to ensure room for books, but no. They put in expandable shelves. Now, if you want a particular title, you have to fill out a slip and wait while the librarian operates the moving shelves and retrieves it for you.

There are some seemingly great additions to the library. One is workstations with light and power for laptops. Another is private meeting rooms that can be booked for half hour blocks, but can’t be booked in advance, so it’s pretty easy to get one when you need it. There are two on each floor. Unfortunately, they put a wall around them, but no ceiling, so the other library patrons are forced to listen to all the babble and laughter that takes place in these meetings.

The biggest irritation about working in the library, though, has little to do with the building. It’s the other clients. In my day, if you tried to whisper to someone, the librarian would come by and shush you. Now, you have to listen to barely concealed cellphone conversations. Most – but not all – users have the decency to put their phones on silent, or vibrate. But then they answer them. And talk! Generally, few users can be found in the stacks looking for books these days. Rather, the stacks are full of people talking on cellphones.

Recently, I was here working and my deskmate, a young woman, had her cellphone sitting on the desk. About every two minutes it would vibrate, rattling on the desk until she picked it up. She would reply to a text message and put it down again. Then one time it vibrated and she answered an incoming call. She sat there gabbing into it until I blurted out, quite a bit more loudly than I’d intended, “Could you possibly be more annoying?” Sensing hostility, she shortly thereafter packed up and left, much to my relief.

Today, I have a much quieter deskmate. Here he is:

I don’t mind sleepers, unless they’re snoring (as they sometimes do). But check out this guy’s electrical draw. He’s got three devices plugged into two splitters, and none of them are foreign converters. The laptop and cellphone are charging away, but I’m not sure what the third device is, for it’s hidden in his hat. Judging by the curly power cord, though – not to mention his five o’clock shadow – my guess is that he’s got an electric shaver hidden under that scarf. Based on my previous experiences here, I won’t be at all surprised if at some point he pulls it out and starts shaving. On past visits, I’ve had deskmates pick their noses, pop their zits, apply makeup, and clip their fingernails quite unselfconsciously. Oddly, this sort of thing is apparently acceptable but getting a blowjob in the privacy of the washroom is frowned upon.

On the other hand, the place does have its good points. It has loads of natural lighting and it has a fairly neutral smell. What else does a 21st century library need?

Okay, I’m done ranting. Off I go to touristville. Stay tuned.

edwards block

I came downtown this morning so that I could attend a noon lecture at the library titled The Age of Pretence: Reflections on Post-Modernism. I’d heard about the lecture, sponsored by the Langara College Community Lecture Series, from the events section of the VPL’s website, which didn’t provide much more of a description beyond the title and the speaker.

I’m no scholar of post-modern theory. In fact, I’m woefully ignorant about post-modernism beyond the simplest of understandings. That’s why I went. The more discourse I hear about the subject, the greater the depth of my knowledge and understanding. That’s the theory, anyway, and it was with that expectation that I planned to attend this lecture.

I first suspected that my expectation was not to be satisfied when I entered the Alice McKay room at the library, sat down and looked around at the audience. I unscientifically calculated that the median age of the attendees was about 106, and pondered why the audience was so heavily represented by the apparently well-to-do elderly demographic. I’d picked up a brochure at the door listing all of the series’ speakers, at the top of which in large letters was the word “Success”. Imagining that it might be an acronym for some sort of seniors activity club, like perhaps Sexegenarians Undergoing Continuing Community Education Services Society, or the like, I searched for a clue, but nowhere in the the brochure was there any explanation of the “Success” title. It’s a weekday, it’s free, and it doesn’t require a bingo dabber is all the explanation I could come up with for the makeup of the audience.

I have nothing against the elderly. In fact, I often get along better with seniors than I do with those in my own age group, so I’m not complaining about their presence at the lecture. I think it’s great that they choose to do something ostensibly intellectual with their free time. I simply raise it as a reasonable curiosity, since I have not attended a public meeting at which the median age was so high since I went to the annual general meeting of the Social Credit Party in 1985, where one could sit in the back row and be amazed at the preponderance of blue-rinse.

As it turned out, the Socred blue-rinse image was not wholly inappropriate. The lecture was not so much an explanation of post-modernism as it was a diatribe against it. Either the speaker, a retired Langara lecturer named Martin Toren, tailored his speech to the tastes of his audience, or his reputation amongst the conservative blue-rinse set attracted the audience. He started out by summing up post-modernism as a reaction to the enlightenment in which all certainty about scientific, philosophical, and religious truth has been inadvisably discarded, and then spent the rest of the lecture blaming post-modernism for such current atrocities as bad grammar and blue jeans.

Toren bemoaned the lack of respect for authority, the abandonment of proper and sensible fashion (including the tragedy of women failing to wear skirts), and awful architecture, blaming the French (specifically Foucault and Derrida) for introducing all kinds of crazy ideas. In one appalling example, he talked about the decline in dressing standards by describing how modern fashions come about.

According to Toren, designers such as Nike go down to the “black ghettos” and see what clothing trends all the young black men have created for themselves, then sell them to the rest of “us”. Apparently, 25 percent of all black men do time in prison (Toren’s figure), where they are not allowed to wear belts in case they try to hang themselves. Therefore, when they get out of jail black men run around the ghetto with their pants half falling down.

Toren also inferentially blamed black people for the decline in the appreciation of classical music by explaining that post-modernism demands that we all strive for the lowest common denominator in our cultural practises, as exemplified by the “fact” that the biggest selling music today is rap and hip hop. According to Toren, anyone who can rhyme and create a backbeat can write a rap song, which he embarrassingly proved by reciting his own, mercifully brief, rap. Except for the fact that each line of his little poem ended in the same rhyme (and I’m not even sure that that is characteristic), it bore no relation to rap at all, as far as I could see. I was just relieved that Toren didn’t put a ball cap backwards on his head and tap out a backbeat on the lectern while affecting an ebonic inflection.

Throughout all of this, the elderly members of the audience who were still awake were chuckling and nodding knowingly, for it seemed that they had probably got what they came for: a speech by an old geezer complaining about how the world has changed by pointing fingers at everyone and everything that doesn’t fit their Victorian sensibilities, without acknowledging their own complicity, and without once mentioning the word “capital”, that force through which they were able to amass their privileges at the expense of many of those they blame for society’s decay.

I could be misreading Toren’s lecture. Perhaps I’m taking too seriously what was secretly intended to be a stand-up comedy routine suited to the entertainment on a cruise ship, but I suspect not. There certainly was an undercurrent of humour to the lecture, but it’s the kind of humour that isn’t really about being funny. Rather, it is the kind that camouflages a cowardly sort of intellectual dishonesty that allows one to express his classism, sexism, racism and, yes, ageism, in subtly destructive, yet socially acceptable, ways.

I did a couple of semesters at Langara, and I’m happy to say that I did not have to suffer any of Martin Toren’s classes. The college would do well to work on improving the content of future lectures.

edwards block

Speaking of the Vancouver Museum, while I was there checking out Ed Pien’s opening (as it were), I stepped into one of the museum’s other exhibits for a few minutes. Ravishing Beasts is an exhibit of creatures that have been preserved, primarily through taxidermy. Most of the collection was apparently acquired from Vancouver residents between 1894 and 1950, and before being moved to the Vancouver Museum was housed on the top floor of what is now the Carnegie Community Centre.

I have mixed feelings about taxidermy, generally. I am capable of admiring a well-preserved specimen of almost anything (except perhaps an over-Botoxed Kerrisdale arts matron). My grandparents had a mounted Great-horned owl in the living room of their farmhouse for many years that I was both fascinated and frightened by as a child. I like to think that the owl died of natural causes, or perhaps flew into the living room window one night and was subsequently stuffed, but the more likely explanation is that someone shot it, whether for stealing chickens or just for the hell of it.

That explanation was forefront in my mind as I toured this exhibit at the museum. I can’t walk through a room full of dead, stuffed and mounted critters and not be appalled at man’s inhumanity to beast, even while I am simultaneously awed by those that are – or rather, were – quite majestic, such as the enormous Canadian moose or the African lion. It’s possible that some of the creatures were killed out of necessity, for food, or in self-defence, but the likelihood is that most of them were killed for what enthusiasts of such killing call sport. The pursuit of a trophy at the expense of a life.

The museum does not, as far as I could discern, explicitly express an opinion about the collection of such trophies. It seems likely, given the accepted standards of the era, that in its earlier days the directors of the museum may have been enthusiastic collectors of such things, but also likely that those now in control of the museum have somewhat more modern attitudes toward trophy hunting. Whether they would turn down the opportunity to have something killed in order to expand the collection is unknown.

However, the museum’s materials do prompt the visitor to question the “legacy, current value, and future relevance” of taxidermy. Additionally, there is one small corner of the room in which an interpretation display asks the visitor a rhetorical question about whether a dead, stuffed animal retains any of its dignity of life. It’s an interesting question, but not, I feel, one that can be answered simply by staring at a preserved corpse. The taxidermist may have preserved many of the physical attributes of the creature that – in its living state – made it impressive, or noble, or dignified to us, in a sort of mental personification, but in order to determine whether the creature maintains any of that dignity, I need to know where it lived, who killed it and why, and how, and when, and with what intention. Dignity in this case is not simply a matter of the taxidermist using the right sized eyes, or setting the best pose, but in determining the whole experience of the animal from death to being propped up in a museum.

I suppose that each person who visits the exhibit will view it through the filter of his or her own world view, though I think that the museum did provide some signals to help those without preconceived opinions to view this sort of taxidermy with a more critical eye. For instance, they included in the exhibit some items that probably would have been left out of another exhibit that focussed more on taxidermy as a fine art than as a cultural and historical curiosity. Among these are a stuffed squirrel wearing ski goggles and propped up in a mountain diorama constructed in a hollowed-out television console, and a description of another diorama display comprised of a dozen stuffed kittens dressed in knickers.

The item I found most appalling was an end table made from the leg of an obviously very large elephant, including the leg hairs and the toenails at the base. This piece is not displayed prominently or particularly highlighted, which I think is to the museum’s credit. Casually mixed in with other, less startling pieces, and looking like a simple pedestal to display a stuffed mynah, one comes to the sudden realisation of what it actually is. I can’t imagine anyone finding it and not being at least a little disturbed. What sort of person would imagine, and commission, such a tasteless thing? If the law allowed for someone to be charged with committing an indignity on a non-human body, that surely would have qualified.

The most obvious evidence that someone at the museum holds an unfavourable opinion toward taxidermy, or at least toward bad taxidermy, is a stuffed fox. The poor thing has been manipulated into an absurd position, with an even more absurd countenance, presumably by a taxidermist that was either untrained or working under the influence of mescaline. The museum apparently bought the fox on eBay (for which they were the sole bidder) for all of $15.

Naturally, when I got home I took a glance through the taxidermy listings on eBay myself, not a category that I’d ever felt compelled to browse previously. I was curious: if you can get a fox for $15, what else can you get?

There are a few actual, mounted beasts of the kind that you might see in a rural tavern or over the fireplace of an America businessman, like a bear, or an elk, or some such, but they are few and far between, really. Mostly there are a lot of other things that at best reveal poor taste and at worst reinforce this idea that committing an indignity on a non-human body should be added to the criminal code.

For instance, there are quite a few stuffed frogs available from someone in Wisconsin who has a lot of time and little aesthetic pretension. For the same price that the museum paid for the fox you can get a frog riding a wooden motorcycle, playing a wooden harp, or drinking from a wooden bottle. There are stuffed bats ($25), lamps made from blowfish ($18), and several “jackalopes” (rabbits to which small antlers have been attached) for just $9.99.

If those are insufficient to define “a beast deprived of its dignity”, how about a kangaroo scrotum coin bag ($17.95) or a bottle opener made from a kangaroo’s claw ($6.77)? One entrepreneur in Wyoming is selling packages of five raccoon tails for just $9.99. The notes say “may have picked up a slight purple tint during the tanning process“. First lesson of pelt preservation: no Kool-Aid in the tanning booth.

If you’re fond of deer and don’t have a sister who is also your mother, you probably won’t feel compelled to order the “deer foot thermometer” ($4.99), the “deer hoof salad servers” ($29), or the “deer antler toilet paper holder” ($19.99). Nor will you likely have a burning desire to own the wall hanging made from the ass end of a doe, the anatomical features of which have been enhanced with accessories to make the face of a dog with a goatee (“Would make a great conversation piece”). Only $11.50! Oh hell, see for yourself. But if you decide to buy it, please un-friend me on Facebook.

Ravishing Beasts is on display at the Vancouver Museum until February 28, 2010.

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Last night I went to the opening of Tracing Night, a work by Edward Pien at the Vancouver Museum. Pien’s piece is a maze-like structure suspended from the ceiling in one of the museum’s galleries. It appeared to be constructed from paper, possibly coated with a light wax or some similar material. The surfaces of the hanging paper “walls” of the maze are imprinted with images of fanciful creatures that seem to incorporate characteristics of humans, animals and insects, while the installation also includes projected video and soundscape that support the overall feeling.

The museum’s information sheet suggests that the imagery was inspired by Chinese and Inuit mythology that confront uncertainty and fear, and there is a slight spookiness to the work that, as the museum says, recreates “the phenomenon of night and darkness”. The work is primarily lit from within and from above, so the visitor is not exposed to direct lighting, but it is still quite light, as the paper is illuminated and distributes light in the room as if it were an extremely large paper lantern.

Visitors are encouraged to wander through the maze, between the hanging sheets, where one can view the imagery on the walls, as well as peer into several small vortexes in which tiny characters can be viewed. These vortexes seemed to slightly evoke the erotic for me, though I am undecided as to whether that was to some extent intended by Pien, through the detail of the viewable characters, or if I was simply projecting my own latent memories of dark rooms with holes in the walls.

I was also entertained by the apparent natural animation of the maze walls. As I walked between the paper sheets, they seemed to part before me, expanding to allow just enough room to permit my physical form to pass through without brushing against them. I didn’t hang around to wait for someone considerably larger than I, to see if they would expand to their size too, but I assume so.

Though some smaller children might find the spookiness of the installation slightly frightening, I suspect that most would be fascinated by it, as children often are with things in museums that are somewhat interactive, as long as the parents prevent them from grabbing and pulling.

Tracing Night is well worth a visit and will be at the Vancouver Museum in Vanier Park February 4 through April 11. For more information about Edward Pien, see his website.

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I was sitting in my window this morning drinking tea, intermittently looking at the birds in the trees outside and re-reading The Catcher in the Rye, now that poor old Salinger is dead. I’m not a celebrity worshipper or anything goddam stupid like that, but now that he is dead, it seems a little like Holden Caulfield himself has died, too. Of course, being fictional, Holden will never die, despite the attempts of crazed Catholic hypocrites to suffocate him.

Perhaps Holden put me in this frame of mind, or maybe I simply channel Holden’s disdain for bourgeois phoniness generally, but as I was sitting there, I noticed all the people walking past my house after having visited the farmer’s market, which is held Saturday mornings one block over. There they were, with their wicker baskets and re-usable grocery bags made from recycled pop bottles, carrying their groceries down the street. To their cars.

Yes, to their gas-powered, carbon-emitting piles of oil and steel and rubber and plastic. And not just one or two. My street is full of cars parked by people going to the market. Now, perhaps it’s my own literary projection, but this seems to me like just the kind of behaviour that Holden would identify as bourgeois phoniness. It might make them feel all warm and gelatinous inside to know that they’re directing their money toward presumed environmentally friendlier independent growers and merchants, and generally I think that is a good thing to do. But driving an automobile christ-knows-how-far in order to do so seems counter productive. Burn some non-renewable resources, pump some carbon emissions into the air, so that you can buy an apple that was grown within 100 miles and reduce the carbon emissions that are caused by food shipping.

It’s kind of like those dough-heads who went to the local green rally and held cutesy signs that read “We Don’t Want Your Truckin’ Freeways”, in opposition to the provincial government’s highway expansion plans known as Gateway. Have you looked at the freeways around here lately? For every truck, there must be 10,000 private automobiles. Trucks are not the problem. People driving their single occupancy vehicles to the mall, or to the farmer’s market – there’s the problem. They’re building another bridge over the Fraser for minivans and SUVs, not for commercial trucks.

Go ahead and use your wicker basket to carry your local apples, but if you’re going to carry it to your car and drive home, you may as well have bought the imported apples in the first place.

I leave you with a few words from Holden:

Take most people, they’re crazy about cars. They worry if they get a little scratch on them, and they’re always talking about how many miles they get to a gallon, and if they get a brand-new car already they start thinking about trading it in for one that’s even newer. I don’t even like old cars. I mean they don’t even interest me. I’d rather have a goddam horse. A horse is at least human, for God’s sake.

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