Thursday, April 27, 2006
New Link
Please note new link under "Links": Lama Yeshe Ling, which is the website for the amalgamated Waterloo, Burlington, Oakville and Hamilton Dharma groups currently morphing into a CENTRE.
Tuesday, April 25, 2006
World Religions at the Yoni School
Things have taken a decidedly cultish turn at the Yoni School for Wayward Poets ever since the arrival of Miss Blythe Lee Looming-Catastrophe.
I don’t think I’ve told you about Miss Blythe Lee Looming-Catastrophe. First of all, she insists on having her full name used all the time, including the Miss.
Miss Blythe Lee Looming-Catastrophe. A product of WWII, the big one, her mother was one of the Philadelphia Loomings of “Automatic Awning” fame. Her father was a drill sergeant in the Italian army, one Giuseppe Catastrophe. They met during the battle of Monte Cassino where Faith Looming had been airdropped in order to service the servicemen. After searching high and low on the Monte, she finally discovered a serviceman to service…one Giuseppe Catastrophe. She found him under a small round table covered with a red and white checked table cloth at an outdoor café just around the corner from the Cassino. Giuseppe was hiding. Whether from the Allied troops or from his own lieutenant was never clearly established. What is known is that it was love at first sight. Faith and Giuseppe were united before daybreak.
Miss Blythe Lee Looming-Catastrophe was the result of that union, a true prix de guerre. As it turned out, though, Giuseppe could never get out of his habit of running and hiding. One morning he left the villa to grab a pack of smokes and never came back. Faith Looming was thrown upon her own ample resources in the raising of her daughter Miss Blythe Lee Looming-Catastrophe. The lack of a father-in-residence had only one apparent consequence. Miss Blythe Lee Looming-Catastrophe developed an abiding faith in the eventual manifestation of a spiritual father-figure, and so she has spent her entire life engaged in the practise of assorted occult rituals designed to turn the dross of her family history into golden slumbers.
And she’s had quite an effect on the inmates of the Yoni School. Suzy Homemaker is now a member of a group called the Castrati di Naturo Pathogen. The founder of this society, she says, was an alchemist in the south of France during the ninth century. Little else is known about him, but it seems he was a demanding taskmaster. Devotees risked his wrath at their peril, for he was known to possess a quick temper and a biting sarcasm that could flay the flesh from one’s very bones. The main ritual these Castrati seem to engage in is to anoint themselves with oil (by jumping in the bathtub), wrapping themselves in flannel nighties and repeatedly mumbling arcane phrases such as “I toleja so I toleja so I toleja so…” The result is a hypnotic trance similar to voodoo practices, followed by sleep during which one dreams of lettuce.
LaLaLeo has joined the Vibratos. As far as I can tell, they’re similar to the Sufi Dervishes. Except they don’t whirl. They just perch on their hind legs, imitating humans, and oscillate.
Finally, Cosmicat, not to be outdone, has become the most vocal cultist of all, thanks to her membership in the Flying Yowlengas, a reputedly demonic sect whose main ritual is to pace stealthily within an inverted pentagram at midnight while uttering bloodcurdling howls at a preferably full moon. Cosmicat’s main problem is that she can’t decide whether to do this indoors or out. One minute she wants out. Next she wants in. The keepers of the zoo, excuse me, the school, are at their wits’ ends, not knowing whether to make the sign of the Cross, shoot silver bullets or use wooden stakes. Mostly they open the doors when required.
Some of the inmates celebrated Easter in the old-fashioned way. Chocolate bunnies.
I don’t think I’ve told you about Miss Blythe Lee Looming-Catastrophe. First of all, she insists on having her full name used all the time, including the Miss.
Miss Blythe Lee Looming-Catastrophe. A product of WWII, the big one, her mother was one of the Philadelphia Loomings of “Automatic Awning” fame. Her father was a drill sergeant in the Italian army, one Giuseppe Catastrophe. They met during the battle of Monte Cassino where Faith Looming had been airdropped in order to service the servicemen. After searching high and low on the Monte, she finally discovered a serviceman to service…one Giuseppe Catastrophe. She found him under a small round table covered with a red and white checked table cloth at an outdoor café just around the corner from the Cassino. Giuseppe was hiding. Whether from the Allied troops or from his own lieutenant was never clearly established. What is known is that it was love at first sight. Faith and Giuseppe were united before daybreak.
Miss Blythe Lee Looming-Catastrophe was the result of that union, a true prix de guerre. As it turned out, though, Giuseppe could never get out of his habit of running and hiding. One morning he left the villa to grab a pack of smokes and never came back. Faith Looming was thrown upon her own ample resources in the raising of her daughter Miss Blythe Lee Looming-Catastrophe. The lack of a father-in-residence had only one apparent consequence. Miss Blythe Lee Looming-Catastrophe developed an abiding faith in the eventual manifestation of a spiritual father-figure, and so she has spent her entire life engaged in the practise of assorted occult rituals designed to turn the dross of her family history into golden slumbers.
And she’s had quite an effect on the inmates of the Yoni School. Suzy Homemaker is now a member of a group called the Castrati di Naturo Pathogen. The founder of this society, she says, was an alchemist in the south of France during the ninth century. Little else is known about him, but it seems he was a demanding taskmaster. Devotees risked his wrath at their peril, for he was known to possess a quick temper and a biting sarcasm that could flay the flesh from one’s very bones. The main ritual these Castrati seem to engage in is to anoint themselves with oil (by jumping in the bathtub), wrapping themselves in flannel nighties and repeatedly mumbling arcane phrases such as “I toleja so I toleja so I toleja so…” The result is a hypnotic trance similar to voodoo practices, followed by sleep during which one dreams of lettuce.
LaLaLeo has joined the Vibratos. As far as I can tell, they’re similar to the Sufi Dervishes. Except they don’t whirl. They just perch on their hind legs, imitating humans, and oscillate.
Finally, Cosmicat, not to be outdone, has become the most vocal cultist of all, thanks to her membership in the Flying Yowlengas, a reputedly demonic sect whose main ritual is to pace stealthily within an inverted pentagram at midnight while uttering bloodcurdling howls at a preferably full moon. Cosmicat’s main problem is that she can’t decide whether to do this indoors or out. One minute she wants out. Next she wants in. The keepers of the zoo, excuse me, the school, are at their wits’ ends, not knowing whether to make the sign of the Cross, shoot silver bullets or use wooden stakes. Mostly they open the doors when required.
Some of the inmates celebrated Easter in the old-fashioned way. Chocolate bunnies.
Saturday, April 22, 2006
Song of the Day
The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down
The Band's version. Never liked Joan Baez'z'z'z'z version much.
The Band's version. Never liked Joan Baez'z'z'z'z version much.
Thursday, April 20, 2006
Song of the Day
Who Stole the Keeshka
Update June 5/07: This is not really the version I was thinking of. As far as I'm concerned, the Black Forest Band plays the definitive version. But it's only available on a cassette, recorded live, not commercially available. (ie. it's in HWSRN's basement.) This is a version by the Polka Family.
Update June 5/07: This is not really the version I was thinking of. As far as I'm concerned, the Black Forest Band plays the definitive version. But it's only available on a cassette, recorded live, not commercially available. (ie. it's in HWSRN's basement.) This is a version by the Polka Family.
Wednesday, April 19, 2006
Busman's Tour of the 401 Corridor
I ventured farther east today, by land at least, than I have for twenty years, having abandoned Montreal to the French in the last quarter of the 20th century. Lunchbucket to Cornwall, all in the name of commerce. A rarity, that…a direct drive package going that distance.
The tour starts with the skunk just outside Lunchbucket at the entrance to the 401 eastbound. ‘Nuff said.
The next major point of interest is the Niagara Escarpment. Several things may be said about the escarpment. It is the backbone of southwestern Ontario, winding its rocky way from Niagara north until it plunges unceremoniously into Georgian Bay. (According to the geological map, it actually then curves around the north end of Lake Michigan and winds up in Wisconsin! I never knew that…) The escarpment is breathtaking in the fall when the fall colours fall. The escarpment is apparently composed mostly of gravel, or aggregate as the road-builders like to call it. Finally, there’s a big long hiking trail on it.
Ten minutes down the road is Milton, where I spent nearly every Sunday for ten years playing in the house band at a dubious German restaurant. Frozen schnitzel, exploding Hungarian sausages, and gravy that performed the same function as Ex-Lax. Periodically, members of the Bruce Trail Hikers Association would come into the restaurant after exploring the gravel byways of the previously mentioned escarpment hiking trail. Somehow they always managed to find things not gravel along their path. They would come in, eat iffy goulash and dumplings, dance a polka or two and leave large clumps of mud on the floor.
After Milton comes the sixteen-lane metromadness stretching across perhaps 100 kilometres of alien landscape sometimes referred to as the GTA. Somewhere near the middle of this, one passes over the longest continuous road in North America (the world?) with barely a whimper.
Then, off to the mythical mystical east. Pickering. Darlington, where you see a commercial strip plaza perched precariously in the shadow of the nuclear power plant. Ajax. Whitby, home of a former world championship hockey team. Little more than GTA now.
Oshawa, where in 1937 Mitch Hepburn, the irascible Liberal premier set back the Liberal cause in Ontario for decades by organizing a private police force known as Sons of Mitches to put down the General Motors strike. How easily we forget how hard the workers had to fight in those days for anything resembling rights, and how bare-faced our governments sometimes were in their acts of repression. But then, Mike Harris did remind us now and then, didn’t he?
Never mind. Keep driving. Bowmanville, home of World Records, where the band had its first vinyl albums pressed. Personal history. Went to pick them up myself. Eleven boxes or something like that. I think we still have some!
The Big Apple at Colborne. Over 2 million pies sold. Through Trenton I whistled a few bars of In the Mood, passing by Glenn Miller Rd. and thought about the one gig I played at CFB Trenton. Belleville and the Bay of Quinte, other gigs, and Al Purdy mooning around. On to Napanee, home of a doe-eyed waitress I once knew who worked, in fact, at that same Bavarian restaurant. During that same Trenton trip, we actually did the Highway 2 Kingston Road scenic version. I always loved that Kingston Road in Toronto was in fact the road to Kingston. “Here,” you could say, “Get on this road, follow it all the way and you’ll end up in what might have been the capital of Canada.”
And we’re getting there. Stop for gas in Napanee, the cheapest along the entire route. A nod to Prince Edward County, the occasional view of Lake Ontario. See the sign for Sharbot Lake where my buddhabuddy Lynn now lives in rustic simplicity and relative solitude. I would have phoned her but discovered I neglected to load her number into the cell phone. By the map, it looks like a hell of drive north from the 401, but I’m sure she’s said it’s only about an hour.
And Kingston. Raise a glass to Sir John A. More gigs here. In particular one we played at Queens for homecoming, along with a band called Phil ‘n’ the Blanks, who, as of a couple years ago, were still gigging. We all got very drunk along with purple and yellow face-painted froshes, and went to a greasy pizza joint in downtown Kingston where the keyboard player from the other band demonstrated that he could touch his Adam’s Apple with his tongue. Ahh, those were the days.
Let us not forget that this is also Prison Alley, from Warkworth up there in Campbellford, to Collins Bay to Kingston (where I got yelled at for taking pictures of that musty old pile of bricks and broken hearts) to Joyceville.
Cruising out of Kingston I pondered the sight of the old City Hall and its farmers’ market in the back yard. Lunchbucket used to have one of those. Now, it’s Your Farmers’ Market, if you please. Anyway…the highway reminds us that we live in a land of granite and pines. Explosives. Whether you’re blowing the gates to the Kingston Pen or the Gateway to the East.
Here comes Gananoque and the Thousand Islands. I counted five of them.
And Brockville, hometown of Xena the Kayak Princess, where I caught a fleeting glimpse of the St. Lawrence. Prescott, which in latter days has bad connotations. Iroquois with its strange First Nations vibe.
The last stretch is long and straight and nondescript. It’s a headlong rush to Montreal, really. But you notice that the transports begin to have more French names on them. And Quebec license plates. And Maine, Vermont, Massachusetts. See, that’s different! In our neck of the woods it’s New York and Michigan.
Cornwall? What do I know? I drove on three streets in Cornwall: McConnell, Marleau and Campbell. In and out. It’s what couriers do. All the streets in Cornwall are French and English. Everyone I spoke to, three people I think, spoke English, though one only barely because he arrived from Pakistan only three weeks ago.
And so home. I ran the reminiscences in reverse. Stopped for a sub in Brockville and gas again in Napanee. Just over 1100 kilometres. Eleven hours there and back. And a half tank of gas from Napanee to Lunchbucket.
The tour starts with the skunk just outside Lunchbucket at the entrance to the 401 eastbound. ‘Nuff said.
The next major point of interest is the Niagara Escarpment. Several things may be said about the escarpment. It is the backbone of southwestern Ontario, winding its rocky way from Niagara north until it plunges unceremoniously into Georgian Bay. (According to the geological map, it actually then curves around the north end of Lake Michigan and winds up in Wisconsin! I never knew that…) The escarpment is breathtaking in the fall when the fall colours fall. The escarpment is apparently composed mostly of gravel, or aggregate as the road-builders like to call it. Finally, there’s a big long hiking trail on it.
Ten minutes down the road is Milton, where I spent nearly every Sunday for ten years playing in the house band at a dubious German restaurant. Frozen schnitzel, exploding Hungarian sausages, and gravy that performed the same function as Ex-Lax. Periodically, members of the Bruce Trail Hikers Association would come into the restaurant after exploring the gravel byways of the previously mentioned escarpment hiking trail. Somehow they always managed to find things not gravel along their path. They would come in, eat iffy goulash and dumplings, dance a polka or two and leave large clumps of mud on the floor.
After Milton comes the sixteen-lane metromadness stretching across perhaps 100 kilometres of alien landscape sometimes referred to as the GTA. Somewhere near the middle of this, one passes over the longest continuous road in North America (the world?) with barely a whimper.
Then, off to the mythical mystical east. Pickering. Darlington, where you see a commercial strip plaza perched precariously in the shadow of the nuclear power plant. Ajax. Whitby, home of a former world championship hockey team. Little more than GTA now.
Oshawa, where in 1937 Mitch Hepburn, the irascible Liberal premier set back the Liberal cause in Ontario for decades by organizing a private police force known as Sons of Mitches to put down the General Motors strike. How easily we forget how hard the workers had to fight in those days for anything resembling rights, and how bare-faced our governments sometimes were in their acts of repression. But then, Mike Harris did remind us now and then, didn’t he?
Never mind. Keep driving. Bowmanville, home of World Records, where the band had its first vinyl albums pressed. Personal history. Went to pick them up myself. Eleven boxes or something like that. I think we still have some!
The Big Apple at Colborne. Over 2 million pies sold. Through Trenton I whistled a few bars of In the Mood, passing by Glenn Miller Rd. and thought about the one gig I played at CFB Trenton. Belleville and the Bay of Quinte, other gigs, and Al Purdy mooning around. On to Napanee, home of a doe-eyed waitress I once knew who worked, in fact, at that same Bavarian restaurant. During that same Trenton trip, we actually did the Highway 2 Kingston Road scenic version. I always loved that Kingston Road in Toronto was in fact the road to Kingston. “Here,” you could say, “Get on this road, follow it all the way and you’ll end up in what might have been the capital of Canada.”
And we’re getting there. Stop for gas in Napanee, the cheapest along the entire route. A nod to Prince Edward County, the occasional view of Lake Ontario. See the sign for Sharbot Lake where my buddhabuddy Lynn now lives in rustic simplicity and relative solitude. I would have phoned her but discovered I neglected to load her number into the cell phone. By the map, it looks like a hell of drive north from the 401, but I’m sure she’s said it’s only about an hour.
And Kingston. Raise a glass to Sir John A. More gigs here. In particular one we played at Queens for homecoming, along with a band called Phil ‘n’ the Blanks, who, as of a couple years ago, were still gigging. We all got very drunk along with purple and yellow face-painted froshes, and went to a greasy pizza joint in downtown Kingston where the keyboard player from the other band demonstrated that he could touch his Adam’s Apple with his tongue. Ahh, those were the days.
Let us not forget that this is also Prison Alley, from Warkworth up there in Campbellford, to Collins Bay to Kingston (where I got yelled at for taking pictures of that musty old pile of bricks and broken hearts) to Joyceville.
Cruising out of Kingston I pondered the sight of the old City Hall and its farmers’ market in the back yard. Lunchbucket used to have one of those. Now, it’s Your Farmers’ Market, if you please. Anyway…the highway reminds us that we live in a land of granite and pines. Explosives. Whether you’re blowing the gates to the Kingston Pen or the Gateway to the East.
Here comes Gananoque and the Thousand Islands. I counted five of them.
And Brockville, hometown of Xena the Kayak Princess, where I caught a fleeting glimpse of the St. Lawrence. Prescott, which in latter days has bad connotations. Iroquois with its strange First Nations vibe.
The last stretch is long and straight and nondescript. It’s a headlong rush to Montreal, really. But you notice that the transports begin to have more French names on them. And Quebec license plates. And Maine, Vermont, Massachusetts. See, that’s different! In our neck of the woods it’s New York and Michigan.
Cornwall? What do I know? I drove on three streets in Cornwall: McConnell, Marleau and Campbell. In and out. It’s what couriers do. All the streets in Cornwall are French and English. Everyone I spoke to, three people I think, spoke English, though one only barely because he arrived from Pakistan only three weeks ago.
And so home. I ran the reminiscences in reverse. Stopped for a sub in Brockville and gas again in Napanee. Just over 1100 kilometres. Eleven hours there and back. And a half tank of gas from Napanee to Lunchbucket.
Tuesday, April 18, 2006
Monday, April 10, 2006
Plexus
The last chapter of Plexus (the second volume of the trilogy The Rosy Crucifixion) by Henry Miller is in fact an essay in praise of Oswald Spengler and his book The Decline of the West.
In it he says, among other things:
Funny how we pursue knowledge. Reading Miller led me to Spengler. And also Knut Hamsen. Reading Kerouac convinced me to read Celine, Buddhist writings, Ginsberg and other Beats, Thomas Wolfe. (Reading Thomas Wolfe didn't lead me to anything...) Funny, also, but I'd completely forgotten this...at one point Miller spends a couple pages talking about a book called In Tune With the Infinite by Ralph Waldo Trine. I'm sitting here at the computer looking at that very book on the shelf above me. That book I read in my New Age period, what I call my "attitude adjustment" phase. Miller had nothing to do with my picking up that book, as far as I know, but I think it's fascinating that it should have been known to him.
In it he says, among other things:
The dragon snorting fire and smoke from his nostrils is only expelling his fears. The dragon does not stand guard at the heart of the world--he stands at the entrance to the cave of wisdom. The dragon has reality only in the phantasmal world of superstition.I remember now...the first time I read Plexus, Miller's enthusiasm for Spengler was so infectious I went to the Lunchbucket Library and took Decline of the West home with me...read it and even made notes, which might, possibly, still be in my filing cabinet. That was so long ago now, and reading Plexus again has renewed my interest. History repeating itself, what?
Funny how we pursue knowledge. Reading Miller led me to Spengler. And also Knut Hamsen. Reading Kerouac convinced me to read Celine, Buddhist writings, Ginsberg and other Beats, Thomas Wolfe. (Reading Thomas Wolfe didn't lead me to anything...) Funny, also, but I'd completely forgotten this...at one point Miller spends a couple pages talking about a book called In Tune With the Infinite by Ralph Waldo Trine. I'm sitting here at the computer looking at that very book on the shelf above me. That book I read in my New Age period, what I call my "attitude adjustment" phase. Miller had nothing to do with my picking up that book, as far as I know, but I think it's fascinating that it should have been known to him.
Friday, April 07, 2006
Minnie Van Nice Takes a Hit
Poor old Minnie Van Nice ain’t quite so nice anymore. I got rear-ended coming into Lunchbucket today on Hwy 8 just past the Bland River bridge. Three in the afternoon, heavy traffic moving fast, heavy rain coming down hard. All of a sudden the cars in front of me were stopping. Very quick. I slammed on the brakes and managed to avoid hitting the guy in front. The young woman behind me wasn’t quite so fortunate. And the guy behind her. Luckily for me, she wasn’t going fast enough by the time she hit me to push me into the car in front.
Nobody hurt (so far). But the last guy in our line of vehicles did a pretty good crunch job on the front of his 94 Saturn cuz he smacked into a trailer hitch on the back of the Jeep Cherokee. The Cherokee cracked its front bumper (which had only just been replaced two days ago) on my rear. And now Minnie’s rear bumper’s all bent out of shape, and the back door’s stiff and sore. Not closing very well.
Call the police. Report filed. Took an hour. Quite remarkable, really. I guess we hit a slow time. Two police came to take statements. They charged the other two with following too close. No kidding. (However, really, everyone was following too close and going too fast. They were just the unlucky ones….And me, for being in front of them.)
I saw her coming in the rear view. But there was nowhere to go and before it happened I was resigned to getting hit. You might say the whole episode put a dent in the rest of my day.
Meanwhile, I'll be taking Ibuprofen before I go to bed tonight. The OPP officer said I'd probably feel like a pretzel in the morning.
Nobody hurt (so far). But the last guy in our line of vehicles did a pretty good crunch job on the front of his 94 Saturn cuz he smacked into a trailer hitch on the back of the Jeep Cherokee. The Cherokee cracked its front bumper (which had only just been replaced two days ago) on my rear. And now Minnie’s rear bumper’s all bent out of shape, and the back door’s stiff and sore. Not closing very well.
Call the police. Report filed. Took an hour. Quite remarkable, really. I guess we hit a slow time. Two police came to take statements. They charged the other two with following too close. No kidding. (However, really, everyone was following too close and going too fast. They were just the unlucky ones….And me, for being in front of them.)
I saw her coming in the rear view. But there was nowhere to go and before it happened I was resigned to getting hit. You might say the whole episode put a dent in the rest of my day.
Meanwhile, I'll be taking Ibuprofen before I go to bed tonight. The OPP officer said I'd probably feel like a pretzel in the morning.
Lama Chants Ancient Mantra!
HWSRN announced today that Lama Karma Phuntsok, a Tibetan monk of the Karma Kagyu order, spent last evening making a recording of Buddhism’s most famous and enduring mantra, Om Mani Padme Hung. This mantra, recited and chanted daily by millions of Buddhists around the world, is said to contain the essence of the body, speech and mind of Chenrezig, aka Avalokiteshvara aka Kwannon, the revered bodhisattva of compassion. The recording reportedly took place in an isolated home studio somewhere in the southwest section of Lunchbucket. Lama Phuntsok was unavailable for comment, but HWSRN speculated that the purpose of making the recording was to demonstrate the emptiness of sound in the digital age.
***
OK, so you’re wondering what’s so surprising about a Tibetan monk chanting a mantra. It would be more astonishing if he were not doing so. What’s different about this particular recording is that it was done to music composed by HWSRN. HWSRN has put together a rather New-Agey piece approximately ten minutes long and given the ancient mantra a westernized treatment, ably assisted by buddies Voin and Paulie on guitar and bass respectively (not to mention editing wizardry). Lama Phuntsok blessed the project and gave it true authenticity by chanting the mantra in his own inimitable way. Only two takes were required to capture his performance, the first having unfortunately not been recorded.
This is certainly a historic moment in the region, as Lama Phuntsok becomes the first Tibetan monk in Lunchbucket to make such a recording. Other recordings are sure to follow.
The immediate plans for Om Mani Padme Hung are to release it as part of the disc previously mentioned in this blog, This One’s For Kenny by the local collective known as 2 Cents Left. The project’s director, Voin, said, “We’ve got everything in this recording from Alpine yodelling to animal sounds to church bells, whales and a twenty second scream…Why wouldn’t we have a Buddhist chant?” In all likelihood, the recording will also be released later as part of a collection of more strictly Buddhist recordings.
This One’s For Kenny is, of course, still not quite ready for prime time, but its release is imminent. Really. Meanwhile, the recording continues with additional chanting by the Dharma Pips and the Karma Kagyu Koir. Stay tuned.
Sunday, March 26, 2006
Colonialism...Phew!
I've been reading, on and off, the 1971 edition of the Norton History of Modern Europe. The section I'm on lately is the late 1800s, the era of Bismarck, Gladstone, Disraeli, Queen Victoria, the height of colonialism.
Sometimes reading history is rather dry. Political movements, war machines, diplomatic manoeuvring. You don't get a sense of the life raging behind the recitation of facts. I'm beginning to get that feeling with this history...The authors go on blithely about the various machinations of European nations with apparently little consideration of what really was going on there.
Here's an example:
I shake my head at the presumptions of politicians and so-called statesmen. This happened after WWII as well...they carved up the earth into spheres of influence, as if they owned these particular patches of territory, as if the people living in them were negligible. It's colossal arrogance. And of course, we well know that imperialism and colonialism continue to reverberate through our contemporary history. We need look no farther than Palestine.
Sometimes reading history is rather dry. Political movements, war machines, diplomatic manoeuvring. You don't get a sense of the life raging behind the recitation of facts. I'm beginning to get that feeling with this history...The authors go on blithely about the various machinations of European nations with apparently little consideration of what really was going on there.
Here's an example:
By 1885, largely as a result of diplomatic agreements imposed on Britain through Franco-German cooperation, Bismarck had succeeded in securing international recognition of Germany's claims to Southwest Africa, Togoland, the Cameroons, East Africa, and part of New Guinea. The French for their part were conceded French Guinea, part of the Red Sea Coast, and predominant influence in southeast Asia.I'm not sure what disturbs me more -- the bland presentation of the authors or the obvious arrogance of the actors. Probably the latter. "International recognition" means European states. And who "conceded" territory to the French? Not the inhabitants of French Guinea or southeast Asia, I think. I'm continually asking myself the question, "Where do people get the idea that they should have rights over any territory except the one they're standing on?"
I shake my head at the presumptions of politicians and so-called statesmen. This happened after WWII as well...they carved up the earth into spheres of influence, as if they owned these particular patches of territory, as if the people living in them were negligible. It's colossal arrogance. And of course, we well know that imperialism and colonialism continue to reverberate through our contemporary history. We need look no farther than Palestine.
Saturday, March 25, 2006
Notes on Emptiness #10
Struck by the danger of thinking "All is emptiness..."
the folly of concluding "It doesn't matter..."
it matters immensely
the immensity of matter
the minuteness
matters
it's the air we work in
emptiness
the water we wade through
empty wet
the words we say
empty meaning
the actions we take
empty relations
the cause and effect
bricks empty but liable to bruise
it matters
the folly of concluding "It doesn't matter..."
it matters immensely
the immensity of matter
the minuteness
matters
it's the air we work in
emptiness
the water we wade through
empty wet
the words we say
empty meaning
the actions we take
empty relations
the cause and effect
bricks empty but liable to bruise
it matters
Wednesday, March 22, 2006
2 Pieces of Lunchbucket Trivia
1. Gordon Pinsent was in town today, filming some thing or other written by that radical Anne of Green Gables Sarah Polley.
2. Today is the anniversary of Foster Hewitt's first play by play broadcast of a hockey game in 1923. One between the Toronto Parkdales & the Lunchbucket Greenshirts at the Mutual St. Arena. The game went into 3 overtime periods! Unfortuately, my sources can't tell you who won.
2. Today is the anniversary of Foster Hewitt's first play by play broadcast of a hockey game in 1923. One between the Toronto Parkdales & the Lunchbucket Greenshirts at the Mutual St. Arena. The game went into 3 overtime periods! Unfortuately, my sources can't tell you who won.
Saturday, March 18, 2006
I Don't Mean to Harp, But...
Boy do I have mixed feelings about this whole seal hunt business. First, there’s Sir Paul who may be the Walrus. Or was John the Walrus? No matter, Walri and Harp Seals, what a combination!I am Buddhist person, you know? This killing of seals does not sit well with me for that reason. How I would like it if some other way could be found for people to make a living. But that’s OK, Sir Paul the Fabulously Wealthy Walrus has no problem coming along to tell people how they should live their lives. I wouldn’t mind so much if I hadn’t heard (some time ago) this (admittedly second-hand) story from someone who worked in McCartney’s road crew. Sir Walrus is a vegan. Everybody knows. What everybody doesn’t know is that when you work for McPaul, you also become vegan for the duration of the tour. God help you if you get caught with McDonald’s breath, because Mr. McVegan certainly won’t. In fact, you get tossed out on your ear unceremoniously. In other words, Sir McVegan, the fabulously wealthy Paulrus, not only chooses himself to be vegan but insists, on pain of dismissal, that everyone else be vegan as well. In other words, the Dalai Lama would be unable to work on the McCartneys' road crew.
Sure, I agree, much better if we could all be vegans, or at least vegetarian. But we can’t. We aren’t. Suck it up, buttercup. (A phrase lent to me by my other Buddha-buddy Sheryl (not one of the Hyannis Port Kennedys.)
Meanwhile, there are real, ordinary people earning their livings in a crappy, messy business. Here’s the problem: it ain’t done behind closed doors in a factory setting. Many years ago, I spent a summer working at Lunchbucket’s largest meat-packing plant. I was a little runt then, so I managed to avoid being assigned to the beef or hog kill floor. Still, I know the technique for killing a big cow or hog is not much neater than that for a harp seal. It’s bloody bloody! I did work in the chicken shack, and that was a daily orgy of fowl destruction by the thousands, poor chickens literally scared shitless. But it’s institutionalized. It’s hidden. Our meat comes in bite-sized morsels. Not much to remind us it was once a sentient being. Not so with harp seals. Right out there on the ice floes, snuggling up to Sir Paulrus. Blatant barbarity begging for photo-op. I say, Paul, go check out Tyson, the largest meat processor in the US. If you got a beef, why not take it to them, eh? Tell the meat-sucking Yankee denizens of McDonald’s, Wendy’s, Burger King, A&W, KFC that they must give up their meat! Go pick on the Americans, eh?…Not bloody likely.
And now we have the Canadian Senate entering the fray, in the form of Gliberal Valkyrie Celine Hervieux-Payette. Here’s, possibly, an example of how much the average American (even in the border states) knows about Canada.A Minnesota family sent letters to all the Canadian Senators telling them to stop the “horrific” slaughter of lovable seals, and if they didn’t, said Minnesota family would no longer vacation in Canada and also tell all their Murrican good buddies to boycott the Great White (tho somewhat blood-stained) North.
OK, they’re American. American Senators are powerful people…so…Canadian Senators must be the same, right? Member of Parliament? What’s that? Prime Minister? Isn’t that the guy in England? No, no, give them Senators hell!
Anyway, that’s a slight digression. Point here is, Senator Valkyrie took exception to snooty Yanks telling us what we should do, and sent them back a sharp letter in which she said that the really horrifying stuff to her was "the daily massacre of innocent people in Iraq, the execution of prisoners – mainly blacks – in American prisons, the massive sale of handguns to Americans, the destabilization of the entire world by the American government's aggressive foreign policy, etc." Of course, she’s right, if somewhat tactless. I have visions of poor Minnesota kids recoiling in horror at the harsh words of some crabby Senator Valkyrie from that French state up there in Canada. “Hey Mom, what’s she so mad about anyway? All we wanna do is play with the seal pups…!”
Well, at least she’s not the Canadian ambassador to Washington.
All this merely shows that people who live in glass houses…you know. And guess what? We all live in glass houses! I vaguely recall something about questionable fishing practices on the US west coast that was harming…what…whales? Or dolphins…something. It’s bootless and fruitless to start making comparisons.
Let the Minnesotans stay home if it suits em. And Sir McPaul Walrus too. (You may remember his movie theme from the Bond flick, Live and Let Die, which I think won a Grammy…so he doesn’t mind spouting nonsense or things he doesn’t believe in if there’s commerce in it…)
Really, I’d rather play the harp than kill it. You have to give people an alternative. McSir Paul Walrus could donate some of his millions to the Seal Hunt Retirement Fund. The Minnesota family could demand that the US government stop paying billions for foreign wars of dubious morality and use the money it saves to buy every Iraqi citizen a Big Mac. Canada can supply the Timmy's. That kind of good will would be cheap at twice the price.
Monday, March 13, 2006
The Okie Dokie Diamond
This is so cool.
An Oklahoma State Trooper, Marvin Culver, took his family to Crater of Diamonds State Park in Arkansas. This place is an old mine site, I think, and what they do is allow the public to do some prospecting. And old Marvin bagged himself a 4.2 carat diamond, the 17th largest ever found there. (The largest was 40 carats!) Worth $3000 for starters, depending on clarity etc. Nice way to spend the day, eh?
An Oklahoma State Trooper, Marvin Culver, took his family to Crater of Diamonds State Park in Arkansas. This place is an old mine site, I think, and what they do is allow the public to do some prospecting. And old Marvin bagged himself a 4.2 carat diamond, the 17th largest ever found there. (The largest was 40 carats!) Worth $3000 for starters, depending on clarity etc. Nice way to spend the day, eh?
Friday, March 10, 2006
Song of the Day
Winnipeg Wind -- one of Voin's tunes, due to be released SOON -- album title This One's For Kenny -- name of the band 2 Cents Left.
SOON!
SOON!
Monday, February 27, 2006
Power Play
Last summer I fired off an (exceedingly rare) letter to the neditor of the Lunchbucket Lament in which I castigated the Ontario governments past and present for their lamentable lack of foresight on the energy front.
Lately, this has been on my mind again. In all this blather about the shortage of power generation plants, why, oh why, has no one been able to think outside the box even a whit? I seriously lost faith in Bob Rae’s intelligence when, after months of tooling around the Ontario universe talking to the oracles, the best he could come up with was a suggestion that we build more nuclear power plants!
Nuclear! The recent audacity of the nuclear industry – to suggest that nuclear energy is clean – is breathtaking, to say the least. We’re hard up against a samsaric duality here, I think: it’s so dirty, it’s clean!
Everybody’s so hung up on the giant power plant. Billions of dollars to spend on massive power generation. Grand Coulee dams of power generation! James Bay destructions of power generation! Million-year radiations of power generation!
I’m thinking of E.F. Schumacher, and his book Small Is Beautiful. Instead of thinking on a gigantic scale, we should be planning on a downsized scale. Screw the effin power grid! Rather than spending billions on hyper-steroid power plants, why not spend billions on these two things:
The problem here is that it requires a monumental shift in our thinking. A paradigm shift, to use an old New Age phrase. Goddammit, what is wrong with these bozos we call our leaders?
Lately, this has been on my mind again. In all this blather about the shortage of power generation plants, why, oh why, has no one been able to think outside the box even a whit? I seriously lost faith in Bob Rae’s intelligence when, after months of tooling around the Ontario universe talking to the oracles, the best he could come up with was a suggestion that we build more nuclear power plants!
Nuclear! The recent audacity of the nuclear industry – to suggest that nuclear energy is clean – is breathtaking, to say the least. We’re hard up against a samsaric duality here, I think: it’s so dirty, it’s clean!
Everybody’s so hung up on the giant power plant. Billions of dollars to spend on massive power generation. Grand Coulee dams of power generation! James Bay destructions of power generation! Million-year radiations of power generation!
I’m thinking of E.F. Schumacher, and his book Small Is Beautiful. Instead of thinking on a gigantic scale, we should be planning on a downsized scale. Screw the effin power grid! Rather than spending billions on hyper-steroid power plants, why not spend billions on these two things:
- R&D on alternative energy sources like, say, the sun?
- Subsidies for every household in Ontariariario to retrofit dwellings with solar panels, wind generators, big big batteries and everything else we can think of to give each of us self-sufficiency (or as close to it as possible) in power supply, and actually remove us from the grid, or allow us to feed back into it.
The problem here is that it requires a monumental shift in our thinking. A paradigm shift, to use an old New Age phrase. Goddammit, what is wrong with these bozos we call our leaders?
Ipperwash Hogwash
I was startled to hear today of the death of Kenneth Deane in a traffic accident on Sunday. Deane was the OPP sergeant who was convicted of criminal negligence causing death in the shooting of Dudley George at Ipperwash in 1995.His death is rather untimely (or, some might say, fortuitous) since Deane was scheduled to appear at the Ipperwash inquiry in the next few days. Although I’m not convinced anything new would have come out of his testimony, since he’d already undergone a criminal prosecution, still there was a possibility that he might have become tired of being the sole fall guy in what turned out to be a tragic mismanagement of a native land claim. If so, maybe he would have blown the lid off what so far seems to have been tightly capped.
The inquiry (what I know of it) has been frustrating. No one is accepting any responsibility. (Reminds me of a movie I saw as a lad: Guide for the Married Man: in which one of the cardinal rules was, if you get caught cheating Deny Deny Deny.) Even former premier Mike Harass slimed his way through two days of testimony. His former henchman Bob Dunciman pointed a nasty finger at Harass and said that Mikey called them injuns effin injuns! This caused quite a stir in the press. As if the whole world doesn’t know that anybody at any time might call anybody an effin something or other. This was a red herring designed to inflame the passions of the masses without imparting any real information:
Ah-hah! Another case of UNFORMATION!
I’ve heard Peter Edwards, the man who wrote the book One Dead Indian, several times over the last few months discussing the progress of the testimony at the inquiry. Every time he’s spoken he’s said that the versions of the story told by various witnesses are so diametrically opposed that one cannot escape the conclusion that someone is lying. And it all depends on who is determined to be most credible. And the answer to that is another question: Who has the most to lose?
Kenneth Deane had already lost his job. Spent time in jail. Been vilified by the judge. By the press. Kenneth Deane had nothing to lose.
Except his life. Impeccable timing, I’d say.
BTW, I couldn’t confirm this in the miniscule amount of research I did today, but I did hear on the radio that Deane is the third important witness to die before having the opportunity to testify at the Ipperwash inquiry.
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