Forget all that - Canada deserves some heated patriotism right now. Go Canada!

Olympics

I've never seen anything like it - I don't think anyone has, in Canada at least. Literally thousands of people flooding the downtown streets so overwhelmed by their sense of patriotism that they can't contain it. Screaming, chest-pounding patriotism; oceans of red and white; young dudes wearing nothing but the Canadian flag and Dickies, their faces painted, breaking into the anthem every two seconds. I hate to be a downer, but being on Granville last night made me uneasy, in part because I was the only one sober.

And maybe sobriety is unpatriotic, because there was something ominous about the fist-pumping, howling patriotism on display last night. There's too much history of bad behind it. It's a baby-step from jingoism, from exclusion and group-think and a sense of the un-Canadian. At the same time, it's like, let the kids feel a sense of pride in their country. why not? As long as they're not beating on immigrants. It's very Canadian of me, actually, to be weary of too-outwards of an expression of this.

But I always believed that one of the reasons Canadians didn't display their patriotism in such a fanatical way was because of a collective distaste of it. We see what happens south of the border and are a bit repelled. I feel like something really changed with these Olympics. Like one woman said on TV, Canadians are finally allowed to express the pride they feel for their country. And there's nothing wrong with that.

Olympics

There's a collective feeling that bringing the Olympics here was a big mistake. A corporate orgy, a bankrupt city. A Coke-a-cola truck leading the torch across the country with it's bass turned high. No snow, tragedy, the bad design of sledding track, rain, mud. One billion dollars in security alone. Six billion dollar bill that we'll have to pay $4000 each to settle up. But, i have to say, those opening ceremonies were beautiful, inspired, and I felt proud of how we as a country were being represented.

Yes there are the political questions of our tendency to prop up our native cultures for international consumption when we need to look like a diverse nation, but then once the revelry is done, implementing policies that might not be the best for first-nations people. But, still, it was gorgeous and inclusive, and not only did we have a slam poet wrap up the cultural event, we had freak'n punk fiddlers. The prairie segment embodied that particular feeling of being on the plains beautifully.We were reminded why kd lang, who borrowed her suite from David Byrne, rocks. Yes, there was the awkward moment of Gretzky waiting for the sliding doors to open as he help the torch, only to get into a pick up truck and be chased by random dudes. And, yes, one of our props had erectile disfunction. But you have to be pretty cynical not to be at least partially impressed by what they accomplished last night.

Here are my pics from last night revelries... and here's my favorite coverage so far - Brian Lynch is telling it as he sees it, but keeping his mind open.

Outsider Art

There's a story in the NYT's about the Outsider Art Fair that's happening in New York this week. In discussing what makes this kind of art "outsider," they mention Canadian painter Holly Farrell, who had quite a presence at the fair. You can see her paintings here. I think they're lovely. Pretty, simple, and well-executed. I guess what makes them outsider art is that there doesn't seem to be much more to the message than, here are the things in my world, and I'm going to paint them. They're not self-referential, or aware of the texture of their own paint, or anything like that. Each object is useful, and prized for its utility. They are simply pictures of things. It's like she's saying, I'm going to honour the small things that make up my life by painting them. But I don't know. The objects takes on a haunted quality (and some are just cute.) The washstand and the white chair are eerie. They're from a life that happens outside of the frame that you can only guess at. But in the end, they're simply pretty pictures of things. I go back and forth on it. Does a painting need to be more than a shiny vase in front of an attractive pattern? It's good enough for me, but then it's also just decoration. And what's the difference? What does it need to say to become Art?

But it's interesting, the idea of what makes outsider art "outsider." I guess obsessiveness, mental illness, a child-like quality, a disregard for the rules of the art world, a turn away from the conceptual. I went to the American Folk Art Museum in NYC when I was there in September and it was an amazing experience. They had a whole wall of Henry Darger, of quilters and muralists and sculptors, all otherworldly, all beautiful. But a drawing made 20 years ago could have also been made 100 years ago and also five years ago. There was something timeless about the pieces I saw, similar to how folk art seems to remain consistent. But I could very well be wrong about that.

Push Festival

Tonight went to see a New York based group called the Nature Theatre of Oklahoma do a piece called Poetics: ballet brut. Four average people taking a series of about twelve clumsy movements seemingly observed in coffee shops and street corners, and knitting them into a cohesive piece, to songs like You Can Dance if you Want to. The message is that anyone can create dance, that it's not just for the trained. Many long moments spent staring at each other, then staring at the audience. Many long moments simply holding a hand behind their head, or putting their hands on their hips. And as soon as it got to be unbearably boring, they brought you back and did something cool. But there were definitely self-indulgent parts, when the message was too hit-over-your-head, when the charm of watching untrained hipsters jump around the stage was simply annoying, when you wanted there to be some display of grace. But that's the point as well - our reactions to observing "bad" dance. But the ending is all worth it.

Class resumes

I taught my creative writing class today for detoxing addicts. It had been a while - I had lost my three classes every six weeks gig due to being suddenly employed. But now I work from home, and have been begging for my spot back. No can do, but I am subbing once and a while. To my surprise, M, a music writer I had hung with back in the day through others worked at the facility and joined our class. My first exercise got off to a shaky start - they didn't quite get the rules, and I started making self-conscious quips that exposed my insecurity in the situation. A round man, round stomach, big round blue eyes, a round red face, a round, soft demeanor, who told us straight off that he had heard awful news earlier that day, reassured me. "No, this is great. Let's do this!" You write a sentence then fold the paper over, then right another sentience that the person next to you can see and they write a sentence, ect. Anyway, a half hour later we unraveled our creased papers, and laughed at farting goats and dying Santa's.

I find that there are starting to be types. The round man was the guy who always reassures me in what I do, wants me to like him, and wants me to feel comfortable as I'm obviously a fish out of water. And there's always a guy that resents me.

Next up,they had to write about the first time they drove. A man with a face like a fox, who was covered with a thin coat of sweat and obviously fighting back shakes, wrote and wrote and made us wait. He read his out loud then stared down at the paper for a second, smiling at the memory, and also smiling at what he had wrote. We all congratulated him on having a neat story to tell.

Another guy, a series of gashes on his face, wanted to rewrite his, wanted to skip his turn. I was like, "OK," and was ready to move on, but fox-face encouraged him, "K'mon man, read it, it's ok." He relented, and read his out loud, self-conscious, telling it as he went, not making much sense. When he was done, I smiled at him and moved on, thinking that my "that was awesome" would sound fake and patronizing. But M said it, and the guy looked at him and laughed and said "Yeah it was crazy!"

When the class was over, and we were moving the tables back, I started to feel my blood pressure drop - it happens every once and a while where my fingers and toes get ice cold, and I start to shiver. "Is it just me, or is it cold in here?" I asked the room. "It's just you," said the man with the gashes, bluntly, like something falling on my foot, and looked at M and raised his eyebrows.

I totally accept that I'm from another world from these guys. For some reason, when I get into that room I go all flakey. Round man, of course, thanked me, and told me it took his mind off of the terrible news of this morning. Gash just left without looking at me.

The last night of Chanukah

I was thinking of converting to Judaism and in the process Michael had contacted a rabbi he had met a few years ago. That rabbi had left, but the new youth rabbi (they're supposed to be the most open minded of any congregation) invited Michael over for the Orthodox service and then Sabbath dinner. After having a quick burst of a mini-fight on the white stone steps as the men in suits brushing past us pretended not hear, we kissed and made up and entered the building.

After hanging our coats, we approached the doors to the closed off, place-of-worship part of the synagogue. "Usually there is a place for women at the back," Michael told me, and we walked through. First thing I notice is a rabbi bounding towards us with his hand stretched out in front of him. "You must be my guests," he whispered as he pushed us back out the doors. "Hello hello," he continued once he had pushed us out of harm's way. "So good of you to come. Women's entrance is that way."

Myself and about a dozen women had box seats to a service about electric light on the Sabbath. Is it wrong to turn on the electrical lights on the day of rest? What about turning on an electric stove? On the Sabbath, one cannot change the status or stare of any material. What if you asked a trained monkey to start pedaling a bike that started a generator that would then bring electricity to an element?, the rabbi asked. What then?

By the end of the talk/service, I had learnt that if you live in a building with a key swab, you need to ask a non-Jewish neighbor to come down and let you in, and that turning the lights on prior to sunset and leaving them on through the night is the best way to avoid uncomfortable situations.

After service we walked the half block to the youth rabbi's two-bedroom apartment, in what looked like subsidized housing blocks. There was a group of us that had meandered over; a doctor as thin and long as a blade of grass with his silent, culture-shocked girlfriend, a round-cheeked family therapist, two teenagers. The rabbi's wife, bustling about the apartment, looked as if she had just stepped off the kibbutz, strong and stalky in a long cotton skirt with her hair back in a scarf. The family therapist's wife was there as well, in the same scarf and skirt, with two young girls under each arm. Her face seemed chiseled out of stone, with a roman nose at a long angle, and eyes that were sharp and deeply set. We all sat around the table, recited prayers then sang. The rabbi's wife went to get the bread. The doctor, sitting across from us started humming and tapping the table with his hand. Mike and I leaned in to each other and cracked a few jokes about our ignorance of gender placement in the area of worship. The doctor kept humming, louder now.

"I guess I'm your non-Jew in residence," I said. "If I choose to swab you in."

"You can be my monkey for a day."

"I'm not going to be your monkey."

"You'll have to turn on the elements at least."

"You never turn them on anyway. Everyday's the Sabbath for you when it comes to the stove."

"LA LA LA LA LA LA LA," said the doctor, staring at us and now pounding on the table.

The rabbi sat back down after grabbing something from the kitchen. He began slamming his hand against the table too, humming and swaying from side the side.

"Oh," Michael said, and whispered "I forgot. We're not supposed to talk between the first prayers and the breaking of the Halla. Ooops."

We were dutifully silent as the dinner guests swayed and hummed and pounded the table until the bread was passed around. They read from the prayer book, and broke into song. The therapist had moved to Vancouver from the US only three weeks ago, and his wife had only flown in the night before. She seemed tired and barely ate. They were staying there at the rabbi's apartment until their move in two weeks. The doctor wanted to practice medicine for rural populations. The rabbi sang. Lots of laughter. I had this flash of what it would be like to have a framework through which to see everything, one that would unit all the dangling strings of my life, but one that brought laughter and community and God. I felt as if I had had a glimpse of how shallow my life was, constantly skidding on the surface of whatever it was that I was interested in that week. For a second I felt hollow.

With dinner over we cleared the table and started a game of kibbits, which had to do with numbers and dominoes. I found my way to the bathroom, and caught a glimpse of the therapist's wife curled up on a mattress on the floor, as if tucking herself into the rectangle of light from the doorway. When I came back from the bathroom (All the toilet paper had been pre-torn into little squares so that no one would have to change the shape or status of any material) the rabbi's wife and the therapist were standing at the head of the table and the mood had changed. "What if we got the neighbor from the first floor to come and do it?" she was saying. "Would that be allowed."

"I guess so, but I advised against this from the beginning."

"I'm a non-Jew. I can help with any Sabbath situation you might have," I said, kind of in a jokey way, which I immediately realized was totally inappropriate.

"Carrie, there's something you have to do. It's serious," Mike said, a little pale.

"We have a couple of text messages on her cell phone. We can't even touch the phone on the Sabbath, so could you read them for us?"

"Sure, of course, and I walked over to the phone with the therapist.

I picked it up. Two messages. I opened the first.

"Im sorry to say Mom died tonight at 7:30 tried to call yr not answering."

"Oh my god," I said.

He nodded and thanked me and began to cry. He went into her bedroom and shut the door.

I walked back to the table and the rabbi stared at me. "She's dead," I told them.

All we could do was stare at the dominoes in silence.

After a minute, the rabbi's wife said "She had been dying for a long time. She was very ill."

"I told them to wait until after the Sabbath," said the rabbi. "There's nothing she can do except grieve in private until Sunday."

"Maybe that's a good thing," I said. More silence.

"It's your turn," said one of the teenagers, and we continued our game.