How long, would you say?

We, in Canada, often follow the States in trend on debate issues.  We don't make the same choices but we often find ourselves embroiled in similar debates after or as issues are being batted about south of us.  No matter what you do, the loudest and the biggest tends to dictate the culture in the classroom.  And we happen to have the seat next to the loudest and the biggest.

This tendency is being exacerbated by our current Conservative government that believes it has a mandate to change our very way of life in this country.  Our Conservative leaders seem to be dutifully following the leaders of the United States as they attempt to control their constituent populations while at the same time denying that population its voice, rights, and freedoms.

Well, now, down there, they are having debates over women's reproductive rights -- and it looks like the debate has devolved to removing women's rights period.  One female senator is suggesting that women need not have the right to vote.  Nice.

Where is the backlash coming from?  What fear?  Is it to take our minds off of the rich and their bailouts?  Or take our attention away from bill after bill that attempts to limit rights and freedoms?  Or would folks really strip over half the population of its rights to spite Obama?  No idea.  None, really.  I am pretty sure that even the people spouting these opinions and restrictions may not fully believe them.  That it's all political.  Who really wants extremists to be in charge of anyone's health care.

Because here is what I believe:  No one in their right mind would limit freedom of speech, unless they were frightened that they could not support their own position.  No one in their right mind would deny a woman providence over her body unless her power is intimidating.  No one in their right mind would rescind Habeas Corpus unless they need to operate in secrecy.  No one in their right mind would limit my ability and access to information if information weren't powerful.  The privileged put up fences when they are frightened, when they know the world is not fair but want to keep what is theirs, whether they deserve it or not.

I am pretty sure this debate is being kindled here in this country and we will soon have to argue women's reproductive rights again.  Just as bills limiting information sharing and increasing the government's access to private information are being tabled -- just like they were down there in the States.  I say bring it on.  In this day and age, are you really going to expect me to sit down and do what you tell me to do because you believe in some god or other? Or want to preserve the privilege of the rich?  Do you really think that I am so addicted to computer games that I'm not listening?  Really?  I think I'll be able to put them down.

Why, look.  I already did.

Subversive Kitchen? Or Convenient?

Years ago, I thought I would take aim at rampant consumerism in my home by investing some thought, time, and effort into running an efficient kitchen.  I would learn how to cook well and stop eating crap out just because it was easy.  I would make menus and lists and waste less food.  I would host dinner parties as opposed to eat out.  It`s been working.  Really working.  Fun, even,except for the dishes.  But even that`s not so bad.

Now, as some of you know, we have been struggling financially the last couple of years; so, funnily enough, these initiatives that started out as quiet ways to reduce the grip of consumerism on our household actually saved our bacon, if you`ll pardon the pun, (along with the generosity of a very close friend without whom we most certainly would be lost).  But it was satisfying to see that we could struggle along, maintain our core values and objectives, and make it through despite trying circumstances.

So, I am looking forward to the next year as things turn around financially.  I am pretty sure that we will maintain our modest ways and see the real impact of what we set out to do.  And, with that extra money, we can do other things like insulate the house better, install solar panels, or a quiet wind turbine, or both.  Seems ironic that we need money to save money.  But it was ever thus.

Unless, of course, we cave.  I am not sure if we can take credit for what we've done because it was maintained out of neccesity and the austerity has been trying.  I am immature enough to have wanted better rewards along the way.  I don't half like my gold stars.  And it's super difficult to walk through the world and constantly say 'no' to yourself, trebly so your daughter, when everything is advertised everywhere and everything looks so good.  Impulse control is a lot easier when you simply don't have the money. So, I am interested to see if, as things ease, we can keep our heads clear and listen to our hearts as opposed to the gonads as it were

As I write this I am contemplating the menu for the next couple of days, even though my husband and daughter and I could afford a night out.  I think I'll quash that impulse and, in my Subversive Kitchen, feed the soul not the Beast.

Let's all send Mr. Ford a cup of coffee.

I'm a big girl.

Well, actualy I'm not.  I can be as petulant, arrogant, and blind as the next person,  perhaps even more so because of my turbulent nature.  But I can, now that I've been in this body for a few (okay a lot of) decades, see the symptoms of full blown denial and can back down until I get my reason back on.  In those moments, if I can embrance what's really in front of me, if I can hear what the statistics are saying, sometimes I can change my mind.  It is rare for folks to change their minds and irrationally held beliefs are the most difficult to shake.

And, if you've been following Mr. Rob Ford's odyssey with the TTC, you've seen a prime example of a guy who isn't looking at the facts, justing doing what he believes is right.  And, as schmarmy and lowbrow as he is, he should be lauded for doing what he believes is right.  I will defnitely grant him that.   However, when we start to mix in some of the facts, his position looks myopic at best.  He's digging in his heels on the transit issue (perhaps because he's faltered on so many others) and, again, perhaps laudably, he's doing this for the most noble of reasons.  I just wish he could support his position.

For those of you who might be new to this conflict in the fair city of Toronto:  Rob Ford, the city's Mayor, is currently fighting for his vision of mass transit.  This includes cancelling the proposed Transit City program, a comprehensive transit plan that would service 175 million riders a year, of which there would be a projected 75 million new riders, in favour of the Eglinton-Scarborough Crosstown Line, a subway that would run along Eglinton from Black Creek in the west to Kennedy Station in the east, a significant reduction in overall service.  Both plans would cost about the same amount - somewhere around 8-9 billion dollars.  Ford insists that transit routes do not belong on roads because they  contribute to congestion and make the city less livable.  Proponents of Transit City believe that all that new ridership would take vehicles off the road and reduce congestion not only on Eglinton but on twenty other extremely busy routes in the city, making the city more livable. 

Ford says he was originally voted in on a subway-subway-subway platform.  Actually, he was voted in on overall budget issues, the promise that he would cut spending without cutting service.  The TTC was also an issue on his platform but I think people only heard the following message during Ford's campaign:  That Toronto was grossly overspending and that if it were run more like a business with business folk at the helm, there would be a lot of money saved without sacrificing services.

But it looks very much like Mr. Ford didn't know what he was talking about where the city budget is concerned.  He was only expressing a heatfelt opinion.   Once the city budget was analysed, it became clear that, in order for the city to meet Rob Ford\s bottom line, services would have to be cut.  This was exacerbated by Mr. Ford pushing through a tax reduction for folks driving cars.  Instead, it made sense to reduce children's access to city pools and libraries.  Because sixty bucks a year to a person who drives a car is a pittance and access to knowledge and fun is paramount for children, I am having trouble embracing this logic.  And we must remember that Ford's basic premise, that the same services could be provided for less, was deeply faulty on analysis.

But he kept on going.  Oh boy, for sure.  Best not change your opinion just because a few facts get in the way.  He had to reduce the budget at any price.  And he did.  Services are being cut across the board.

So, now Ford is pushing his vision for mass transit.  If he's able to force this through, his crosstown line will service only a fraction of the original proposal and rapid transit services will take, probably, fifty or sixty years to reach parts of the city that desperately need them right now.  Doug Ford, Rob's brother, has even gone so far as to say that the TTC needs an overhaul, that it needs a businessman to run it.  He actually said that the TTC needs an 'enema'.  Because he's really a class act. 

But doesn't this refrain sound familiar? Rob Ford is, again, saying that as a business person he knows best and that the TTC is, obviously, poorly run because there is little mind to the bottom line.  The standard neoliberal refrain.

Okay, actually, the TTC is one of the least, if not the least, subsidized transit system in all of North America.  The least. (The fact that it is the least subsidized transit service is a crime but let's talk about that another day.) I am not sure what bottom line the Ford brothers have in mind for the TTC but if they want to reduce costs, then they will have to cut service.  Oh wait!  That's what they're already doing as part of the city budget overhaul.  Excellent.  If they want to overhaul the TTC, then, they will, likely cut services even more.  Cheers.

I am really feeling that on this issue it is not the TTC that needs an enema.

So, on that note, I would invite all of you to go down to your closest Timmies, buy Mr. Ford a coffee, and take it down there to the city hall.  If Ford drinks enough coffee, I hear tell that the caffiene might get the body going enough to allow him to clear up any constipation of...thought.  It might not change his mind -- like I say, it is rare for a person to change their mind on deeply held beliefs and irrationally held beliefs are the hardest to shake -- but, at the very least, it might help him lose a few pounds.

Is it getting a bit cold in here?

The ultimate reality is we don't really have free speech.  Sure, we can chitter away but if we think we are blabbing without consequence, we are young, or naive, or both.  I am sure there are government bots scouring the interwebs for keywords that flag not only deranged but merely opinionated individuals as possible threats.  And I would guess that mentioning free speech in this blog might put me on somebody's list.  It doesn't bother me because I really have very little to hide.

But, apparently, Twitter has a lot to hide.  Or to filter.  The company has developed a system of filters that will censor Twitter posts to conform with any particular country's laws, one assumes to vouchsafe the company from legal action in said country just in case an irritating opinion on a touchy subject like, oh, child labour, happens to slip through:  http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/technology/tech-news/twitter-to-censor-tweets-in-individual-countries/article2316879/ .

This news piece brings up a few issues for me.  Of course, I find it deeply distasteful that speech would be censored.  'nough said.  But even on that issue, even if one feels that things should be censored, do ya really want Twitter in charge of that?  Huh?

If you've been living under a rock:  Twitter is an instant messaging service with over 300 million users worldwide as of 2011, handling over 300 million tweets per day.  It is the second most visited site on the planet right now and has revenues in the millions per year with a projection of over a billion users by 2013.  You can learn more over there at the Wikipedia.

Twitter has always filtered messages to comply with local laws but this is their first comprehensive solution to the problem of censorship worldwide.  They say they are doing it for us -- so that more tweets get out to more places and they are working closely with chillingeffects.org to make sure that we are updated on what country is demanding what censorship.  And they let you know that a Tweet has been censored.  It's nice of them, eh?

But I really have to wonder at how quickly Twitter complies.  Quickly.  Immediately.  Preemptively.  This should give us pause.  We must keep firmly in mind that companies are there to make money.  That is their imprimatur, as it were.  Nothing trumps that central goal including free speech and, with some companies, child labour and all manner of bad.  And even though the geeks fought back and stopped SOPA, it won't be long until the central issue on the interwebs is making money out of all these users.  It won't be the geeks but the lawyers running the internet. 

People are always surprised.  Over there at the Facebook, Mr. Mark Zuckerberg managed to compile the world's largest marketing database ever.  And we all did it willingly.  We all clicked 'like' happily.  I am sure Mr. Zuckerberg is giggling himself silly while he rolls around in his net worth of 17 million.  And just like Twitter, Facebook censors sites in order to comply with mores and laws.  And if Facebook is any indication of how the censorship will work with Twitter, Facebook commonly censors sites that include pictures of mothers breastfeeding (because showing a partial breast with a baby sucking is obscene), but commonly leave up advertisements that include topless models.

I would expect that even those sites that scream about sharing free information and went dark in protest against SOPA probably, already, censor their content in some way to avoid legal hassles.  Be sure that the interwebs are no longer the wild, wild, west.  Big Brother and all his little corporate toadies are not only watching, they are logging, recording your details, cooperating with investigations, passing judgement, and censoring.  And they are doing it faster than you can type 140 characters.

The central question is this:  Do their core values actually agree with yours?  Because, if they don't, you have little, if any, recourse.  It won't be initiatives like SOPA that change the internet.  Self-censorship already has.

It's raining.

Just recently we had the SOPA and PIPA threats to free speech and open information, and an attempt to control artistic profit and output.  The ACTA agreement vote in Europe looms in the near future as solid dodge of democratic process and another a threat to free speech.  It feels like every day it's something else attacking what I perceive as our way of life.  If it's not one thing, it's another.  Man, it's raining out there.

Back in the seventies, social commentators were discussing the fall of the American Empire.  University pubs and cafeterias were rife with this kind of talk and we, in Canada, were so smug in our intellectual superiority. (Well, what else did we have to feel smug about regards the juggernaut to the south?  Hockey.  Maybe hockey.)  But we, as the client state, the little brother next door, we somehow felt immune to the effects of the process of decline of the American Empire.  I definitely remember our pronunciations about what would happen in the States and the clucking, the shaking of the heads, but no acknowledgement that anything would happen here.

As it turns out, we were in denial then just as most folks in North America are in denial now that the whole of western civilization has been on the decline for decades. You would be surprised what we predicted at those tables over coffee or cheap draft beer.  We predicted the emergence of religion as a dominant force in politics.  We predicted the emergence of form over function.  We predicted a slow, steady decline in civil rights and women's rights and the slow, steady decline of our own values, institutions, etc.  We predicted unfair wars and dominance.  All this and more, all from studies of the fall of the Roman Empire.  We knew what was going to happen just not what particular forms it would take.  So we were aware.  It was already raining but we were only ankle deep.  A nuisance but not life threatening.

And then, culture seemed to ramp up to bursting.  It was raining movies, television shows, internet culture, all falling steadily practically free from the sky.  It was fun.  It made one laugh.  It distracted one.  And there was so much falling that there wasn't enough of a filter for the average person to see the danger that some of what was falling was pure acid and that shared core values, civil rights, reproductive rights....  These would start to erode as a result.  And, in the nature of gentle rain, so slowly that we wouldn't notice.  So, now, here we stand on tippy-toes trying to keep our heads above water.  Forty years not forty days.  A quiet deluge.  We are swamped. 

The cultural process is unstoppable at this point, I expect, and it's hard for me as an individual to understand what I can do about it; the very process has made me feel so small and ineffectual.  Well, maybe I am still in denial, but I believe I won't drown. I am going to try to continue to be a voice for free thought  and civil rights - as small as this voice might be.  It's going to be hard given all this rain.  Glad I've always been an excellent swimmer.

But that was me fourteen years ago...

My past success as a stage manager is well known in a small circle of folks in community theatre in Scarborough, a suburb of Toronto.  And it is from this crowd that I still, from time to time, get offers of community level work. Two folks have asked me if I would consider stage managing for them this month. Crazy. I haven't stage managed a show in fourteen years. So odd.  I know I project an air of competency and that's probably why folks from time to time ask me to stage manage. But, really, that was me fourteen years ago.

I don't mind the question though. Other than the fact that it's flattering, it always makes me look backward for a moment. The very nature of what I do requires me to focus on the now and the future. As a director -- well, as a person -- I seem to need to keep going. Keep adding skills, moving on to the next project.  But when someone reminds me that I was once this feisty little stage manager, I pause for a bit and look back.

I've come a long way, baby -- and really glad for it. Every show I direct takes me farther down this path, makes me think a little bit differently, challenges me to learn more, try harder. I like it. Love it, in fact, and have an awful lot of fun on the way. One of the reasons why I stopped stage managing?  I wasn't having any fun.  That little fact is key for me.  We should spend our time doing those things which make us happy. It took me a long time to learn that.

About thirty years, I guess.  Somewhere in my twenty-ninth year, I decided to discard 'aught tos' and start doing what I wanted.  Decided to put myself first.  This new attitude sent me along the road that led to directing, writing, mothering.  That decision twenty years ago has made me what I am today.  It's fun to stop, look back, and see your own trajectory, how far you've come.  It can give you an idea of where you might go.

So, would I ever go back to stage managing?  I don't think so.  But thanks for asking. 

What is an artist?

I have often assuaged my raw feelings toward my low income by telling myself that anyone who drives a Prius probably isn't an artist.  I know it's complete carp but it makes me feel better. Then, of course, swimming through the confusing eddies of my own mind ever since, has been the question of whether I am really an artist or not.  Perhaps, as a theatre director, I am just a clever salesman. I come from a family of salespeople after all.

I am willing to accept that, as a writer, I could be an artist because I earn exactly nothing as a writer; so, therefore, must do it for the love of it.  So either I am an artist or an idiot.  Uh, maybe a little bit of both.  But this fact that I earn nothing from being a writer is a state of being I am trying to change with regular blogging and a insidious thing called Google Adsense.  I thoroughly expect them to send me a cheque for twenty-five cents US next month.  Can't wait.

But just as the Prius being a false indicator, poverty as a true indicator of artistry is just as carpy.  So, so.  Does just being involved in the arts make one an artist?  No.  So, what is it?  I thought I would check dictionary.com for a definition.  It's always good to go back to basics:

art·ist

 [ahr-tist] Show IPA

noun

1.a person who produces works in any of the arts  that are primarily subject to aesthetic criteria.

2.

a person who practices one of the fine arts,  especially a painter or sculptor.

3.

a person whose trade or profession requires a knowledge of design, drawing, painting, etc.: a commercial artist.

4.

a person who works in one of the performing arts,  as an actor, musician, or singer; a public performer: a mime artist; an artist of the dance.

5.

a person whose work exhibits exceptional skill.

 

 

 

Not a lot of help here.  Almost all of these definitions turn on themselves - an artist is and artist kind of defintion.   Except for number five.  I like number five.  Five makes sense to me.  I have often thought that the term artist should not be restricted to the arts.  That there is something about how some people approach whatever they do be it painting, poetry, or plumbing that is deeply connected and beautiful.  Perhaps that is art.  Perhaps.

 

But, for sure, I like number five.  I would like my work to exhibit exceptional skill.