Let`s Go (let go)

I think of you from time to time,
when nobody is looking at me.
But you just can`t find the time,
and I mumble the words I want to rhyme.

I`m a window, you`re the curtain,
what you`re hiding, I`m not quite certain.
I`m the rowboat on an angry sea,
you`re the rippled reflection staring up at me.

So, let`s go,
through the trees, past the forest
where we can witness heaven
on our knees.
Let`s go,
through the city, past the limits
through the neighborhoods
of simple ways, the good old days.

Get lost in traffic lights, crumpled maps
and afternoon naps.
Cloud your conscience in the rain;
barefeet on pavement doesn`t feel the same.
This cold that surrounds you now,
sets in without a sound, but my hands
to hold you up are bound.

Pick up the leftover pieces of me,
and put them back together
like I`m your puzzle.
Your ink outlines me like a muzzle
as I stare with blank eyes from the wall,
didn`t get the chance
to lay down beside you.

Let`s go,
to your bedroom so I can come
to know you well, promise
I won`t kiss and tell.
This is a secret for you and me
two locks,
but you have the only key.

You are my care-taker,
my heart-breaker,
the pepper to my salt-shaker,
fork and knife, save my life
plan written down in dreams

so it seems
the stars keep moving back on me.

Reflections

Awake to the sound
of rain on the glass;

The bathroom mirror
still remembers the way
your face looks when you smile;
the candle`s still glows
to warm your hands;
the naked piano keys don`t
dance without your fingers.

All I see in the window
is myself without you;
as my saddness runs down the glass.

Funding Artists: a sign of the times

In his recent article entitled "real artists don't need grants," writer and author D'Arcy Jenish confronts Canadian cultural legend Margaret Atwood's attack on the Harper government's planned cuts to the arts community, with some thoughts of his own.

While Atwood makes the case that government funding for the artistic community is vital, Jenish seems to think that funding should only go to those that have talent, 'and precious few really do.'

Though he doesn't offer a definition of what 'talent' might be, he opens the closest of literary and artistic creativity -- embodied throughout the 20th century by such names as; Morley Callaghan, Sinclair Ross, Frederick Philip Grove, Ernest Buckler, Stephen Leacock, Gabrielle Roy, and artists Emily Carr, A.Y. Jackson, and Jean Paul Lemieux -- to make the case that these artists were not government funded and were able to produce works of high artistic merit and inspiration. And he is not wrong, they did.

Morley Callaghan was a Governor-General Award winning novelist (1951), who began publishing in the late 1920s. Sinclair Ross was known for his novel As for Me and My Horse (1941). Frederick Philip Grove, a immigrant from Western Prussia (now Poland), was frequently published in many genres until his death in 1948. Ernest Buckler, a mathematician from Nova Scotia became famous for his The Mountain and the Valley (1952). And rounding out the writers, the legendary Stephen Leacock, who died in 1948.

As for artists, Jenish names the Canadian icon Emily Carr, a native of British Columbia who drew her inspiration from the indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest of Canada, who died in 1945. Also, Alexander Young (A.Y.) Jackson -- founder of the Group of Seven artists who rose to fame in Canada during the 1920s -- who became famous with his painting Red Maple (1914).

Jenish was right to highlight their creative brilliance and their influence on Canadian culture heritage. However, while his appropriate name-dropping may seem clever, his article illustrates an ignorance to context. Yes, they had all established their careers pre-1957 --when the Government of Canada began subsidizing artists --but this time period is left unexplored in this article.

If he had bothered to, he would have discovered that there is a difference in the lives of artists then and artists now.

The nature of entertainment was different prior to the late 1930s, when televisions were first made commercially available. The average household got their entertainment, not from hours upon hours of cartoons, video games, and movies, but from novels, and radio plays.

In addition, what we consider cultural experience is different today than it was then. Prior to the television-revolution, people were more likely to get their entertainment from the theatre, art galleries, and novels. If you took a poll today, I'm willing to bet that many people would consider going to a foreign film, a football game, or a fashion show a cultural experience.

In sum, artists today live in a ultra-competitive creative world and face illegitimacy not only from critics, not only from other artists, but from other artistic and cultural mediums like television, movies, the Internet, and a plethora of sporting events.

Just because art -- be it in the form of the novel, sculpture, or painting -- doesn't seem to have the prominence it once had, doesn't mean that its funding is not important. Jenish's argument does little more than to highlight the conservative attitude toward public spending -- and that's fine -- but if that's the argument you're going to make, considering the whole picture and not just pieces of the puzzle would be a better way to make the argument.

Politics

Night air surrounds 

the students at the pub -

philosophy on the patio;

linguistics with the silverware;

sexuality in the cross-room stare.

I don't see the point of this;

though at times I myself

am unaware.

Backyards in New York City

Midnight in New Amsterdam,

America's bedroom for a one-night-stand.

Sexy jazz and jazz club sex,

sour house wine and cigarettes.

Confessional notes on the bathroom walls,

and sleeping it off in hotel halls.  

Awake with her lipstick still on your face, you search

yourself in the bathroom mirror.

You look from atop the Empire State Building,

and see a vision of prosperity the world traded. 

 

You, Me and Democracy

Elections for public office remind us that we have choices to make. If our aim is the improvement of our democracy, the most important choice any citizen living under a democracy can make, is to undergo the necessary work of participating in the decision making processes of our country.

This interaction must take place at the community level, and work up; the momentum of top-down government trickles out before reaching the neighborhoods and school yards that would benefit from the inertia of large-scale politics.

To produce charge, to motivate change, and most importantly to mother positive changes in the community, gathering the voices of the suburbs and neighborhoods should be step one. And the changes don't have to be national to make an impact. 

Consider these simple activities:

1) Promote local food networks:

Community gardens play an important role not only in controlling the cost of food, but also as a necessary component of conservation, partnership and cooperation. Considering the continual processes of urban sprawl, designating areas to be used for green space is the first step to ensuring natural habitats for local wildlife, creating space to plant new trees, and most vitally, making room to produce food for the community, which goes along way to ensure greater food security.

Cities across Canada have in recent years begun to grow their own community garden partnerships; the Toronto and Ottawa Community Garden Networks, for example. These networks play a useful role in the creation and city-wide expansion of areas designated to public gardens. Public gardens have also been useful in the restoration of run-down urban neighborhoods. By replacing abandon buildings, houses and vacant lots with productive gardens, they play a large role in shaping healthy gathering venues.

Above and beyond, however, community gardens foster good democratic values such as cooperation, participation and comradeship. The right to peaceful association is a right guaranteed to all Canadian citizens, creating space for peaceful assembly is up to us.

2) Get up and clean up!

Organizing highway and park cleanups is another useful tool for fostering and building participation in the democratic community. Canadians are fortunate to have such a large country with lots of space for everybody. Sometimes, though, our knowledge of this space allows us to forget that no matter how much space with think we have, it's important to use it wisely and treat it with respect.

Neighborhood-size cleanups are easy to organize. You can start by posting flyers in your community to get the word out fast; post them on lamp-posts, the local public library, grocery stores, liquor stores -- just be sure to ask the manager! Give a contact number for people to call for information. Once your message is out there, word-of-mouth is a useful tool to spread the idea around and build community involvement.

When I was in high school, our geography teacher organized a highway clean-up for the class. It was a great way to spend the day, outside, with friends -- after that, pitching in and doing our part for a greener globe was just a bonus.

For those living in apartment complexes, you can help by organizing building recycling days, where once a week, tenants go around and collect recyclable materials from participating apartments. Often times high-rise buildings have garbage shoots conveinatley located on each floor, while the recycle bin is down in the parking garage. More often than not, separating rubbish becomes an unlikely chore people are unwilling to do.

These exercises promote physical activity and play an important role in building community consciousness around a healthy environment.

3) Clearity for Charity

Getting physical exercise regularly promotes a healthy body. In times of stress, going for a workout can provide the clearity you seek, while putting problems in perspective. This too can be an opportunity to promote democratic values such as charity.

Why wait for the local Running Room race weekend, or M+M Meat Shop Charity BBQ, organize an event yourself. A simple community activity for example, would be a race-walk. It doesn't have to be long, only 5 or 10k, to be effective. Walking is something that almost everybody can do; it doesn't require expensive equipment, great physical strength or endurance; and most importantly, it doesn't limit the activity to a particular demographic. By using the same advertising message I previously mentioned, you could charge participants a small fee, and at the end of the day give the proceeds to a good cause in your community, like the Ottawa Mission, for example.

Group sporting activities are a great way to spread comradeship and sportsmanship around a community. Everybody goes at their own pace, everybody cheers for everybody, everybody crosses the finish line.

4) Volunteer

Almost everybody can say they're too busy to spend time volunteering. They have work, they have kids, they have soccer practice, band camp -- lots of reasons why they can't pitch in.

To working moms and dads; bring your kids! Participating in volunteering at a young age can be a useful tool to promote cultural sensitivity, compromise and understanding. Having your children volunteer on local political campaigns - handing out flyers, et-cetera - helps build the notion that it is their birthright to participate directly in their local, provincial and federal governments.

They will learn about the issues that will impact their futures; they will learn about the range of choices they have before them; they will learn how to achieve goals; they will learn to be passionate.

To the local jocks: bring your teammates! Sports teams are be effective at mobilizing change because, especially in small towns, they have a following. If you took a hockey team for example, and added all the people that come to their games, it wouldn't be long before you had a small army of helpers ready to clean up highways, hold bake sales, canvass for local political candidates. The energy of a team can also be inspiring.

These are just a few of the many examples that illustrate and emphasize the importance of community in democracy. If nobody knows what's good for the community, than those who live in it must make take the lead.

CFL or NFL?

On December 7, 2008, the Buffalo Bills of the National Football League (NFL) will play the first of eight games (scheduled over the next three years) in Toronto at the Rogers Center, formally the SkyDome. For the Canadian Football League (CFL) this is cause for concern.

The League and its American counterpart have always shared the continent, and both are rich in history. While the American league featured the NFL Championship until the merger of the American Football League (AFL) and the NFL in 1967 created the Super Bowl, the CFL (offically formed in 1958) can trace its origins back to the 1860s.

Growing up in Windsor Ontario gave me the chance to indulge in both forms of the game. During the high school week I played football the Canadian way, on the weekend I watched football the American way. To this day I watch both leagues.

If you ever get the chance to attend a CFL game live, say in Winnipeg, or Edmonton, or Calgary, you might be swept away by the seemingly cult following on which the CFL game survives. With only eight teams in the league, over the course of the 20th century some storied rivalries have developed. From Calgary and Edmonton to Hamilton and Toronto, these games have polarized fans, and have helped provide heat to the simmering crazy of game day at Ivor Wynne Stadium, for example.

However, the history of the CFL has seen teams become renamed, plagued by season after season of financial losses, with Ottawa's own team returning only to disappear four seasons later. While the NFL has seen teams relocate -- the St. Louis Rams from Los Angeles and the Indianapolis Colts from Baltimore --and has had teams leave and return again --the Oakland Raiders returned from Los Angeles and the Cleveland Browns reincarnated --these goings-on never seem to affect the financial success of the NFL.

If a team opens up in a new NFL city --the Jacksonville Jaguars, for example -- they land in an untapped resource of NFL followers, and the market soon expands on this. In the CFL, not only does the league not have enough money to infiltrate new football markets, when they do open a new team, the following isn't always there.

This is not an argument for Canadian football fans lacking a passion for football, or that the CFL lacks history; after all, the Grey Cup saw its 95th game last season! This is about marketing.

After many seasons watching both CFL and NFL games, I believe the NFL began doing something the CFL should have, long ago. PICK A DAY TO PLAY!!

It's hardly an epiphany or a ground-breaking revelation to proclaim that people like routines. The NFL has created its own image in the cornerstone of routine in people's lives --the same way that Hockey Night in Canada has also. The way the NFL clusters its games on one day --Sunday --has shoehorned itself into the lives of ordinary Americans.

The CFL doesn't do this; games could be on Thursday, Friday, or Saturday afternoons for example, which makes their tv schedule hard to follow.

Of course we can't chastise the CFL totally, the NFL has more money. Ever wonder why? The Super Bowl, Monday Night Football (now Sunday Night Football), have become regular events because they fit nicely into everybody's schedule, and everybody knows when the games are played. When is the Super Bowl? the first Sunday in February (it moved from the third Sunday in January); when is Sunday Night Football? EVERY SUNDAY NIGHT, like clockwork.

The bottom line; when you cement your games into the convenient routines of ordinary people, they will watch, they will become FANatics. The CFL needs a Sunday night!