Writings, Reviews, Cultural Criticism
The category, Heart, is for posts that make us feel.
While in Rome, we did as the Romans do, and lined up to file past the body as it lay in state. Although not Roman Catholic, it seemed necessary. After all, how often do you get to see a dead Pope? If I had closed my eyes and focused solely on the mood of the crowd, I would have sworn that I was standing in line for Disneyland’s Pirates of the Caribbean.
The first question that entered my head was: What happened to the roof? As a Canadian boy, I had no experience of medieval anything. My experience of sacred architecture was pretty much confined to churches built in the postwar suburban boom.
It is arguable that in the summer of 1978 the whole world felt an innocent pause, a shining moment in time when people of the West could pretend there was nothing pressing at the doorstep. Saigon had fallen which meant American and Vietnamese kids weren’t getting killed anymore. A peanut farmer was President of the US of A. Canada’s leader was a playboy/media darling who seemed to swing the world by its tail.
Le Grand Continental is a 30 minute line dance inspired production choreographed by Montreal’s Sylvain Émard.
This year’s theme was Until We’re Safe, acknowledging, among other things, the murders committed by Bruce McArthur. It was disheartening to see a group of “Christian” freaks near the end of the parade standing on the north side of Dundas at Victoria Street.
There are two kinds of people: those who share their umbrella, and those who do not.
Following my personal theory that “scary-looking” dudes are sometimes lonelier than the rest of us precisely because they are “scary-looking” and are therefore dying to talk to people, I asked if he’d mind me taking some shots. Once again, my theory seems to have been validated. He smiled. His face opened up. We started to talk. His name is Ben.
In the age of Trump, the startling rise in Ontario of yet another populist leader, nationalism, political fear-mongering, scapegoating, press-bashing, and power grabs by craven oligarchs, it’s important periodically to remind ourselves what it means to live in a free society. It’s likewise important periodically to test the limits of that freedom to make sure those limits haven’t contracted around us while we were asleep.
Carrying a camera to a museum, I feel a kinship to the curators who develop the exhibits. How do we classify a vase or a bust or a coin? By geography? Historical period? Influences? Provenance? Materials? How does it speak to us? What do we discover about ourselves when we examine it? And how do we think ourselves into the future? Something similar happens with my photographs.
Is there a difference between the dirt-smudged smile pasted to a seven-foot face on a billboard and a Netflix scientist riffing on the stardust that lives and moves and shapes our being? The teeth survive the body; our dentists have seen to that. But they’re no match for the stars which wheel through our dreams…
This is Atta. I met him in Dundas Square near the Yonge/Dundas intersection. Approaching through the crowds, this is what I saw: a slender man in a hoodie, sometimes still, sometimes moving with an exaggerated animation. He was laying pieces of paper on the pavement and fixing them in place with objects. Gusts blew the pieces of paper away and Atta chased after them through the square.
On a Saturday night in downtown Thunder Bay, Tamiko and I went to The Foundry Pub to hear Ruby Reds & The Silver Lining. No, this was not a random thing. Our daughter is, as Facebook puts it, in a relationship with one of the members of the band, Quintin Golka. They were really good!…
Once, it had been a going concern. You can still see the faded letters of the sign: “Truckers welcome” with the image of a cowboy in chaps. There was the motel, a place for truckers to park their rigs, and a restaurant, one of the few places to eat on the stretch of highway between Parry Sound and Sudbury. But then all the big chains set up in Parry Sound. Nowadays, it’s not good enough to have a room and a bite to eat. People want hot tubs and gyms, too. Their modest roadside motel couldn’t compete with the big chains so they gave up the business.
Yesterday was the year’s 2nd Open Streets TO. Bloor Street from Broadview to Dufferin, & Yonge Street from Bloor to Queen, were opened up to pedestrians, cyclists, longboarders, unicyclists, etc. while the city took a much needed rest from the rumble and rush of vehicular traffic. It was also a good opportunity for photographers. I got to take shots from places that, ordinarily, might cost me my life.
One of these days I’ll shoot a chess game with a tripod and a neutral density filter. I’ll slow the whole thing down so it looks like a sports shoot. A man reaches for his knight and his arm blurs across the board. His opponent answers with his queen. I’ll shoot low from the board like I’m one of the pieces. The queen will land on me in a flash and stomp all over me. Chess as a full contact sport. Mixed Martial Chess.