Okay - this you gotta see

If you haven't heard of Têtes à claque, you must check it out. You need to speak french to appreciate it fully. It's real Québec humour. This halloween scene is one of the funniest things i've seen in a long while (Thanks, Sean, for letting me know about this). Le Pilote is also side-splitting. And check out Le Willi Waller, if you've got the time.

Indigenous Peoples' Resistance to Economic Globalization

Indigenous Peoples' Resistance to Economic Globalization: A Celebration of Victories, Rights and Cultures is a must-listen-to-it episode of Democracy Now (one of the best news shows coming out of the US).

A Postcapitalist Politics

This new book- A Postcapitalist Politics by J.K. Gibson-Graham is a must read for anyone doing popular education and/or popular economics education.

Activist Training in the Academy

I've recently learned about a new Master’s Program in Environmental Advocacy and Organizing at Antioch University New England. Worth checking out. Steve Chase who has both written a dissertation and designed the program and argues that popular education is the most suitable pedagogy for this program. Here's what he writes in his abstract:

In the last part of this section, the study identifies 5 core curriculum content areas that are key to teaching environmental advocacy and organizing and then discusses the tradition of popular education as the most appropriate educational methodology for activist training programs.

You can get Steve's dissertation on this page. He's got a blog, too: The Well-Trained Activist.

Popular Education for Social Change 2006

A belated posting of the syllabus for the popular education course i'm teaching at the Faculty of Environmental Studies (York University). Feedback is always appreciated. Especially if you make use of this syllabus in some way.

Amapola y los aviones

For those of you who speak spanish, i recommend watching this trailer for a Spanish film being made by my friend Clara about Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. Most of what i've learned about this pernicious and invisible disability I’ve learned from Clara. Check it out! And here's more info here (Documental Sobre el SFC) and here (Conferencia del Profesor Dr James Baranjuk de la Georgetown University)

Rabbit

Thanks to Matt for passing this on. A bizarre little morality tale. Very, very creepy.

Vivienne Jones work

This is a belated post to introduce you to Vivienne Jones' work which i learned about from a mutual friend. I just went to Vivienne's exhibit (a collaboration with Ken Nicol) that closed today (my bad - in terms of spreading the word in more timely fashion). Vivienne's work has an organic elegance and roughness that i am very fond of, reminding a good deal of Nick Bantock's work of which i am a big fan. I learned of Vivienne's work while looking for an engagement ring (more on that in a later post). Her rings are enchanting and seem to me like they have been carved out of the earth itself as much as cast. This most recent exhibit of works (quite different from her jewelry) includes resin-encased collages of buttons, iron filings and other found items and the whimsical ephemera of plumb-bobs and fawcetts. Again it reminded e of Bantock's work as well as the work of Dave McKean who did the covers to the Sandman comics. Here's one of the first covers that he did that has inspired my own collage work for many years.

Eagleton on Dawkins

English evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins has just published The God Delusion in which he applies his scientific reductionism to religion. The certainty of atheists such as Dawkins has always struck me ironically to be most similar to that of fundamentalists. Weird. Terry Eagleton, one of my favourite writers (whom i yet disagree with about postmodernism), has written a blistering critique of Dawkins that is well-worth the read - more than a few laugh-out-loud lines. I wanna write like Eagelton when i grow up - though i'll never be as wicked smart as he is. Here's a taste:

Dawkins speaks scoffingly of a personal God, as though it were entirely obvious exactly what this might mean. He seems to imagine God, if not exactly with a white beard, then at least as some kind of chap, however supersized. He asks how this chap can speak to billions of people simultaneously, which is rather like wondering why, if Tony Blair is an octopus, he has only two arms. For Judeo-Christianity, God is not a person in the sense that Al Gore arguably is. Nor is he a principle, an entity, or ‘existent’: in one sense of that word it would be perfectly coherent for religious types to claim that God does not in fact exist. He is, rather, the condition of possibility of any entity whatsoever, including ourselves. He is the answer to why there is something rather than nothing. God and the universe do not add up to two, any more than my envy and my left foot constitute a pair of objects.

Thanks to Corvin for the link!

What journalism should be doing

You may have heard about Clinton's interview with Fox News. Well, check this video out that Matt put me onto:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qcYSHuGDqrU

And then treat yourself to the Daily Show's take on things:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PS8v94M4DCc

My ongoing thinking about love

I've rewritten an essay about love that i first wrote about 3 or 4 years ago. I'm interested in elaborating a theory of praxis that pushes the traditional definition to include love, humility and more.

On Broken Hearts - MSWord

On Broken Hearts - PDF

At Hollyhock

Here i am on the hem of the world. Hollyhock is, as i've heard from so many people, sublime. This is a shot of soe of the dahlias in the famous garden. And what a garden it is.

I am i the midst of a wonderful workshop with Nick Bantock, a writer/artist whose work has inspired me for many years. It's a group of 15 wonderful people and we get to play all day long with collage. Does life get sweeter?

Such immanence

I was in Cathedrahl Grove this morning and, as with previous visits here, i was deeply moved. As ouristy a stop as it might be, the majesty of the trees and the forest growth seems to silence my pessimistic and cynical reactions - even as they seem to silence the traffic on the road that cuts through this ancient place. I was reminded of hiking the West Coast Trail in 1980 with a good friend. No traffic three, unless you count the whales. I don't know what that trail is like today, though i do know you need to book well in advance (a year, i've been told) if you want to hike it. But that journey (over 25 years ago now) felt like walking through the world before we had wrecked it. But even now, standing in Cathedrahl Grove, the despair i often feel for the wreckage we have caused (and continue to) lifted for a moment and i could feel the pulse of the earth and i felt that no matter the damage, the earth will yet abide.

On the west coast

What a contrast from the populous plains and hills and coasts of Europe. I always forget how beautiful is this land of evergreens and water and snow-capped mountains.

Lamentations - Solo & Collaborative Paintings by Joshua Barndt

If you want to take in one art exhibit this month, and if you're in Toronto on the dates below, please check out this marvelous work. I'm shamelessly promoting the work of a young man i have know since he was a tot. Josh is the son of a dear friend with whom i have worked in popular education for 20 years. And now i look at Josh's paintings and murals and i see so much of our lives reflected and refracted through the eyes of the next generation. I'm moved and humbled. Here's the gallery info:

August 4 – 12 2006

Whippersnapper Gallery
587 A College Street (at Clinton) Toronto

Whippersnapper Gallery is one of Toronto newest, edgiest and hippest not-for-profit exhibition spaces. Recently relocated to the heart of Little Italy, Whippersnapper boasts 2500 square feet of exhibition space dedicated to emerging artists. With great success on July 19th we celebrated our grand opening, showcasing the work of 26 young, talented artists and attracting 550 people to the reception.

LAMENTATIONS is our first solo exhibition featuring the energetic, monumental and provocative paintings of Joshua Barndt.

Barndt is a graffiti and community mural artist, with a specific interest in socially critical content. Trained on the streets of Toronto and classically in the studios of Concordia University, he is exhibiting a large body of solo and collaborative canvases embedded in contemporary social critique.

For more information or interviews contact Joshua Barndt at josh@whippersnapper.ca or 647-201-7436
www.whippersnapper.ca

(The image above is titled "Lament for Relations" and is oil and latex on wood, 8x20 feet.)

The Universe is Keeping me Humble

Back home from France and Spain and what should happen but that i get a sore throat that has threatened all week to become a cold. Much rest and slowly-sipped hot water and i'm healthy again and heading to BC for a couple of weeks.

Ahh, how i yearn for more time in the south of France. But i'm sure that old training about worthiness and humility is working at some level and, what with being raised catholic, one can't go having too good a time without there being some soul-testing consequence. Thus the sore throat.

Superstitions aside, here's a lovely shot of Shawna & David on of the streets of Olargues on the day, a couple of long weeks ago, when we went walking about that ancient town.

Because they're so pretty - thistles in Calatanazor

Les Horts, Languedoc, France

A many hours journey brought me to the doorstep of the mountain “gites” (rental cottage) that my friends Shawna and David have rented for a couple of weeks. I am partaking of their generosity and offering a modest amount of writerly solidarity as Shawna and David also work on writing projects (between hikes up precipitous mountain trails, runs along converted rail tracks, swimming in pools of blissfully sparkling waters in any of a number of gorges, trips to the markets, and, of course, partaking of the cuisine – it’s France, after all). I confess that I am a total geek for French culture at the moment – the food, the food – is there any better? This are of France of fascinating and I will have to return to learn more – This was the place of the Cathar resistance to the Roman Catholic church. And these mountains – the Black Mountains are a piece of heaven on earth. The collaged photo above is the view from the front window of the chalet that we are staying in. Incroyable.

Our writing Corner

Angel bought a table to place under the awning of the garage so that Clara and I would have a place to write outdoors. Though the sun was rather hot, the air was so dry that this shady corner was ever a cool spot – perfect for writing as we were also spurred on by the ceaseless buzzing of bees on the honeysuckle.

A Parade for Hinojosa del Campo

Well, the dust had hardly settled from the Baja España when this quiet town was disrupted once again. This time by a parade of antique cars that was making its way from village to village. Everyone turned out to marvel at the craftsmanship and chrome and antiquity of this remnants of a more genteel age (even if that age is mostly myth).