Day: February 19, 2005

Automatic ads are getting weirder. Not quite as perishing as when you pop “Human Liver” into Google, but close. I’d prefer used, myself, but that’s just a personal preference. Science gets tricky when you’re working with the new.

There’s been a lot of mention on-line of The Gates, an arts installation temporarily up in New York. I’ve been enjoying more what people have been doing with it, like the semi-illegal pictures cropping up of The Cloud Gate in Chicago’s Millennium Park. I find it an irritation that Vancouver hasn’t any ambitious pieces of public art. We don’t even have any architecture. (This may be more a new world thing, but I have my doubts. We do not require history to create.) All of Canada seems rather lacking in interesting public art, the best we have are corporate sponsored pieces of bronze scattered randomly about. There were some nice Moose in Toronto for the year 2000, but as that spread to other cities, the original creativity seems to have petered off, sheared away by the tourist boards and the repetitious choice in artists. “I give you bitter pills with sugar coating. The pills are harmless; the poison is in the sugar.“

He’d broken his ankle. I could feel the bone grinding when I set it. I was asleep, yet this was real. Sensation traveling through flesh to sink into my hands with striking clarity. It had the grit of sand on concrete, the heavy sound of pain muffled by meat. Under the skin was turning green and blue, shot through with spidered red.

I’ve been cleaning haphazardly during lulls in work for the get together tonight. Poets flooding the apartment, mostly people I only know by name and face. I stayed up until too late last night sorting through pictures of the show for them. I’m wondering now what sort of strange impression I must be giving. Yesterday I was late meeting people before the show because I helped an old lady carry her groceries home. How.. old fashioned of me. Maybe yesterday I was an antique, charitable and smiling. Today I’m only chilly, wrapped in a blanket, forcing myself to type with stiffening fingers. I keep expecting letters, spilled from the trembling minds of my loves. My hope is holding me up today, it’s driving the blood through my body, but not enough to keep me from cold. There hasn’t been sung one singular note.

I talked to Mishka today. She called long distance from Invermere. She’ll be back in Victoria well before the days I’ll be there, the 23rd, 24th, and 25th. We talked about relationships, it’s really the most common ground, her track record of assholes. “This one’s not as bad as the others” she says, and I cringe. “It’s not the way to judge people, a partner,” I say. “Their worth should be apparent without such comparison.” Do you love him? Would you know if you did? She’s too far away for me to help very much anymore. It’s been six months, I expect to answer the phone to her crying some time in the springtime. It will be sweet to see her, to let her release her litany of worries in my general direction. Is there anyone in Victoria who would like to go for coffee or to a play?

 link
Address by Prime Minister Paul Martin on Bill C-38 (The Civil Marriage Act). February 16, 2005

…The Charter was enshrined to ensure that the rights of minorities are not subjected, are never subjected, to the will of the majority. The rights of Canadians who belong to a minority group must always be protected by virtue of their status as citizens, regardless of their numbers. These rights must never be left vulnerable to the impulses of the majority.

We embrace freedom and equality in theory, Mr. Speaker. We must also embrace them in fact.

…Some have counseled the government to extend to gays and lesbians the right to “civil union.” This would give same-sex couples many of the rights of a wedded couple, but their relationships would not legally be considered marriage. In other words, they would be equal, but not quite as equal as the rest of Canadians… We must always remember that “separate but equal” is not equal.

…To those who value the Charter yet oppose the protection of rights for same-sex couples, I ask you: If a prime minister and a national government are willing to take away the rights of one group, what is to say they will stop at that? If the Charter is not there today to protect the rights of one minority, then how can we as a nation of minorities ever hope, ever believe, ever trust that it will be there to protect us tomorrow?

…The people of Canada have worked hard to build a country that opens its doors to include all, regardless of their differences; a country that respects all, regardless of their differences; a country that demands equality for all, regardless of their differences.

If we do not step forward, then we step back. If we do not protect a right, then we deny it. Mr. Speaker, together as a nation, together as Canadians: Let us step forward.

 

link found by , bless her with chocolate sauce

Once again, in some unexpected way, I’m spreading over the internet. This is a needle in a haystack kind of place, finding tiny magnets. At least it’s not always directly about sex, (I may be an anthropormorphic fox, but I’m an archaeologist in that set), though it does seem to be about my image. My mother asked me again yesterday why I don’t have a paypal button and finally I replied with, “What would I use it for? These are my friends, when I say I’m their whore, that’s not what I mean.“

Tonight I went to the spoken word piece of theater up at the Havana. (The wrap party is to be at my place tomorrow, I volunteered tonight when I found they had no venue.) It’s quite a nice piece of work, full of clever moments and delightful poetry. There’s enough impromptu and audience participation to create something refreshingly new every night. The cast is such an interesting mix of different performance styles that it’s enticing on it’s own. Rowan plays accordion and haiku, Fernando is the Duke of Deadpan, and R.C. is raunchy in the sweetest creepiest way. Matthew, of course, does Superboy. They’re set off nicely by Al Mader singing with his minimalist base about how he’s a lousy lover and the poet Martin Von Steinburg explaining how the city is bringing him closer in love to your bitchin face. Look at this mess. No wonder poets never get laid. The humour is highlighted with the occasional somber moment and waylaid completely by the puns.

Nicole came with me and together we kept Dominique from leaving. We were a proper Globe theater audience, with comments and suggestions at appropriate intervals. Two people are playing scrabble on the floor in a shuffled mess of paper airplanes as the audience filters in from the gallery and the restaurant. From then on is carefully contained chaos, mostly skits settled in a framework made of words. There are long poems and short poems and long introductions to short poems. There is beer on stage, music played, and costumes. At one point R.C. has a television for a head. Rarely does it drag and such areas are quickly done and even faster forgotten, replaced with a new crackerjack distraction. Tomorrow is Last Chance To See, so I recommend leaving your houses and moseying over to the Drive. I uploaded some pictures, but they sincerely don’t do it justice. There was too much movement for a camera, too many sudden outbursts of sound and motion to capture in a still. Lucky I got a little video.

I’m considering rushing up to see it again after work tomorrow.
8pm at the Havana restaurant, across from Grandview Park on Commercial Drive.