Wise Words

If we know that our world is necessarily the world we bring forth with others, every time we are in conflict with another human being with whom we want to remain in co-existence, we cannot affirm what for us is certain (an absolute truth) because that would negate the other person. If we want to coexist with the other person, we must see that his(sic) certainty - however undesirable it may seem to us - is as legitimate and valid as our own because, like our own, that certainty expresses his(sic) conservation of structural coupling in a domain of existence - however undesirable it may seem to us. Hence, the only possibility for coexistence is to opt for a broader perspective, a domain of existence in which both parties fit in the bringing forth of a common world.

Humberto Maturana and Fransisco Varela, The Tree of Knowledge

The Right to Rave - El derecho al delirio

Eduardo Galeano is a great hero of mine. I'll spare you my waxing on about his greatness and let you get to listening to him more quickly. Clara sent me this video of an interview done in the context of the current Spanish Revolution. While it is in Spanish, i do recommend that those of you who do not understand spanish nonetheless listen at least to the section of the interview in which Galeano recites, with piano accompaniment, a poem called The Right to Rave or El Derecho Al Delirio. You can follow along with the text below or read the english translation here. Galeano begins the poem at the 31:15 mark.

The following is my imperfect transcription - i apologize in advance for my errors:

¿Qué tal si deliramos, por un ratito? Vamos a clavar los ojos más allá de la infamia, para adivinar otro mundo posible:

el aire estará limpio de todo veneno que no provenga de los miedos humanos y de las humanas pasiones;

en las calles, los automóviles serán aplastados por los perros;

la gente no será manejada por el automóvil, ni será programada por el ordinador, ni sera comprada por el supermercado, ni será tampoco mirada por el televisor;

el televisor dejará de ser el miembro más importante de la familia, y será tratado como la plancha o el lavarropas;

se incorporará a los códigos penales el delito de estupidez, que cometen quienes viven por tener o por ganar, en vez de vivir por vivir no más, como canta el pájaro sin saber que canta y como juega el niño sin saber que juega;

en ningún país irán presos los muchachos que se nieguen a cumplir el servicio militar, sino los que quieran cumplirlo;

nadia de vivida para trabajar, pero todo trabajaremos para vivir;

los economistas no llamarán nivel de vida al nivel de consumo, ni llamarán calidad de vida a la cantidad de cosas;

los cocineros no creerán que a las langostas les encanta que las hiervan vivas;

los historiadores no creerán que a los países les encanta ser invadidos;

los políticos no creerán que a los pobres les encanta comer promesas;

la solemnidad se dejará de creer que es una virtud, y nadie tomará en serio a nadie que no sea capaz de tomarse el pelo;

la muerte y el dinero perderán sus mágicos poderes, y ni por defunción ni por fortuna se convertirá el canalla en virtuoso caballero;

la comida no será una mercancía, ni la comunicación un negocio, porque la comida y la comunicación son derechos humanos;

nadie morirá de hambre, porque nadie morirá de indigestión; los niños de la calle no serán tratados como si fueran basura, porque no habrá niños de la calle;

los niños ricos no serán tratados como si fueran dinero, porque no habrá niños ricos; la educación no será el privilegio de quienes puedan pagarla;

la policía no será la maldición de quienes no puedan comprarla;

la justicia y la libertad, hermanas siamesas condenadas a vivir separadas, volverán a juntarse, bien pegaditas, espalda contra espalda;

en Argentina, las locas de Plaza de Mayo serán un ejemplo de salud mental, porque ellas se negaron a olvidar en los tiempos de la amnesia obligatoria;

la Santa Madre Iglesia corregirá algunos erratas de las tablas de Moisés, y el sexto mandamiento ordenará festejar el cuerpo;

la Iglesia también dictará otro mandamiento, que se le había olvidado a Dios: «Amarás a la naturaleza, de la que formas parte»;

serán reforestados los desiertos del mundo y los desiertos del alma; los desesperados serán esperados y los perdidos serán encontrados, porque ellos son los que se desesperaron de tanto esperar y los que se perdieron por tanto buscar;

seremos compatriotas y contemporáneos de todos los que tengan voluntad de belleza y voluntad de justicia, hayan nacido donde hayan nacido y hayan vivido cuando hayan vivido, sin que importen ni un poquito las fronteras del mapa ni del tiempo;

seremos imperfect, porque la perfección seguirá siendo el aburrido privilegio de los dioses; pero en este mundo chambón y jodido, seremos capace de vivir cada dia como si fuera el primero y cada noche como si fuera la última

The Real Winner: FEAR

Should i be surprised that Harper's ghoulish implication that The Apocalypse would be hastened if he didn't get his majority so that he could "get on with the business" of managing the economy? Is it surprising that in our woeful political culture (and antiquated parliamentary system) that fear is more persuasive and powerful than hope? Our politics is the victim of religion. But i'm not talking about churches. Even though judeo-christian-islamic religions (and so many others) are robust, the most dominant religion in the world is economics. To be more specific: capitalist economics. For more than math and science (long-known to be a dubious claim), economics is first about values and ethics. And the idea that the invisible hand of the unfettered market (read: deregulated capitalist market) is the most effective way to organize an economy is a belief - a religious belief - for which the science is notoriously partisan and contradictory (not to mention arcane).

The religious belief that private, capitalist, profit-making is a natural way to conduct business is a big part of why we face the global environmental crisis that we do. And rather than turn away from this mad course (which included the greed-run-amok that precipitated the most recent global financial crisis) we accelerate: more exploitation of fossil fuels, getting "tougher" on crime, privatizing health care (or pursuing "alternative service delivery"), freeing private corporations of social responsibility and more. This is an economics of greed, fear and war. And, not surprisingly, it gives rise to crime, violence and an always growing machinery of policing and punishment.

But in the absence of a different kind of economics, one that inspires and gives hope to people, is it surprising that people take fearful shelter in what the dominant common sense assures them is completely natural: economic growth, business-as-usual, an elite of super-wealthy, a majority of I-wish-i-was-super-wealthy and always growing underclass of poor, homeless and starving? Oh, but they won't admit that it is fear that compels them. Many will assert bravado, will give voice to the ethics of individual initiative, entrepreneurship and free-market competition. And surely these attitudes, sincerely believed in, require more than fear as a motivation. Indeed, much of the common sense that makes up our lives steers people firmly into this ethical terrain. And it is one that is powerfully forgetful of history - for instance, that Canada remains the home of many indigenous nations with whom we have treaties and obligations.

But what is a different economic/ethical way of looking at the world? What different economics CAN we propose? Can we imagine an economics that is based on compassion, cooperation, collective action and well-being? And i would say, yes, it is already here. Look at the non-profit economy which is about 8% of the GDP. Cooperatives, barter (including the so-called grey market), gift exchange (which, notably, includes blood and organ donation), government supported social programs and even the black market are all economies that are different from the dominant for-profit economy. I would say there is a different economic ethics to be discussed. One that can inspire quite a different world. And this is a project to which i will devote much energy in the coming years.

But for now, the Conservatives have formed this unfortunate majority with barely 40% of the vote. 60% voted for something different. Add to this math that only 61.4% of eligible voters actually voted and this means that six million people (beating nine million) determine the fates of almost 34 million. And, to look even closer, given that Harper formed his minority in 2008 with 5.2 million votes this means that Harper's campaign pulled out only 800,000 new votes while all the other parties drew out only 400,000 new votes. So another way to look at all this is that 400,000 (about 1% of the population or 1.6% of electors) votes made the difference between the government we're now stuck with for at least four years and a government of the true majority. Our ridiculous system of first-past-the-post parliamentary ridings allows for a party who win a minority of votes to rule the majority. Our "majority" government was formed by less than 18% of the population. That's who the Conservatives represent. And it ain't me.

Some post election opinion worth reading:

• The morning after: Where are we and where do we go from here? by Judy Rebick on rabble.ca
• Fair Vote Canada's analysis based on proportional representation
• Harper's majority: What's Left for us By Murray Dobbin on rabble.ca
  
  

Coalitions are Nothing to Fear

We're having an election here in Canada and, while many people (in Libya, Egypt, Syria, Gaza, et al) are currently risking their lives and dying for a more just system of political rule many Canadians treat blithely if not contemptuously their right to vote. The media reports of "annoyance" with "another election" were a discouraging start to our democratic ritual. Nor can i be surprised at this when most people believe democratic participation begins and ends with voting. The current common sense that rules our lives encourages passivity and trains too many of us to respond with irritation to anything that disrupts our shopping and TV-watching. There are signs of hope everywhere for those of us who look. But today i feel like ranting (just a bit) at the dangerous foolishness that abounds. And while i may sound like a pessimist (or even cynic, which i most definitely am not) my words are fueled by discouragement (which, as Eduardo Galeano writes, is evidence that one has courage) and, perhaps more passionately by my deeper desires for hope and love.

My frustration in this political moment is spurred by two things which upset me in equal measure: one is the repetition of lies by Stephen Harper (or call them falsehoods or half-truths if "lies" seems too aggressive). The second is that so many people seem unphased in their support for Stephen Harper's Conservatives. So, what is the link between the lies (of which there are so many) and the docility of supporters for Stephen Harper's Conservatives? And here is where can be found some hope for better public discourse. Watching CBC's Peter Mansbridge interview with Harper in which Harper once again asserted (and alleged) the "threat of a coalition" i was reminded of the work of University of Guelph philosopher John McMurtry who wrote many years ago about the mass media and what he called "unspeakable truths". (If you're interested in his philosophical argument/explanation of these you can find the original 1988 article here.)

While his philosophical reasoning is a tad beyond my capacities (or patience, perhaps) I was deeply moved when, many years ago, i first read McMurtry's list of "unspeakable truths." (i list them all at the end of this post.) They were thirty examples of assertions (of "truths") that are never or very rarely included in the mass media which, supposedly being objective and covering all sides of an issue (or at least the proverbial "both" sides) in a way that allows viewers/readers/listeners to make up their own mind, means that these different "truths" are virtually "unspeakable". For instance, McMurtry's first example is "Taking more out than you put in as a regular practice – as in money profits – is morally wrong." I trust that the "truth" expressed here is neither cryptic nor new. And it is a "truth" (or call it an opinion, a principle, a position, if you prefer) that i know many people believe. And yet, it is one excluded from public discourse except in rare instances where it is firmly framed as a fringe notion and thus ensuring that the common sense remains undisturbed. I am struck on re-reading McMurtry's thirty examples of how firmly i remain in the grip of common sense. While most of his "truths" do, in fact, represent the way i see things (when i stop to think about it), i realize that most of the time, by default, i behave as if their opposites are true.

And so, to Harper's continued fear-mongering around coalitions. I did watch Peter Mansbridge's interview last week with a bit of relief as, for once, someone in the media was pushing the point that our system of parliamentary democracy includes the option of coalitions. There is nothing, procedurally, wrong with them. And for once, Harper came off looking prissy and bratty about his position. (I only hope enough people were watching and listening critically.) That Harper is politically against the notion of coalition is fine. He's entitled to his opinion (even if hypocritical, given his earlier actions well-exposed by Gilles Duceppe). While i am convinced that Harper's denial of his earlier support for a coalition is a lie, this is a peccadillo compared to the lie that he is repeating over and over again in that repeat-a-lie-often-enough-and-it-becomes-true dynamic. Every time Harper makes this assertion and the mass media fails to "correct" him with the truth that coalitions are, in fact, a legitimate option in a parliamentary system, the lie gains more purchase and for more and more people it becomes true. And there is a more insidious "truth" that is piggybacking along for the ride: that somehow coalitions are not the "Canadian way" which, by implication, means that anyone promoting the notion of coalition is being anti-Canadian. This last piece of Harper's truth is contemptuous and hateful. I feel there is more than enough evidence of Harper's contempt for both democracy and the Canadian people: his framing of parliamentary process as "bickering", his assertion that Canadians aren't interested in parliamentary process, his actions on the long-form census and so much more. And yet it seems like people are more prone to being made fearful about economic uncertainty than they are to being angered over being treated like spoiled children who need a disciplinarian father (whose face, when extolling his ideology, is set on perma-smirk).

I am heartened by Jack Layton's rising popularity and i do hope that more Canadians do rise to act more critically and thoughtfully than Harper is counting on. Our choice is between fear-mongered-narrow-self-interest (i.e. cut my taxes, "don't bother me with all this democracy crap") and learning better how to care for each other.

Here are McMurtry's 30 examples of "unspeakable truths" (written in 1988) which you can test for yourself by asking "how many times do i see this "truth" in the mass media:

1. Taking more out than you put in as a regular practice – as in money profits – is morally wrong.
2. The capitalist workplace is anti-democratic.
3. General Motors, Dupont. IT&T, Standard Oil and Ford Corporations all produced military supplies for the Nazi armed forces during World War II while the United States was at war with Germany.
4. Unearned wealth should be abolished as a matter of just public policy.
5. The government needs to regulate the investment of Canadian/U.S. capital abroad to societies with poor human rights and environmental standards, so as to protect these standards in both North America and the developing world.
6. The free market means that those without money to buy what they need do not have the right to live.
7. The major player in the international drug trade since the Second World War, using drug enforcement laws to maintain its monopoly, has been the United States government to finance internationally illegal foreign interventions.
8. Over 70% of eligible U.S. and British voters did not vote for Reagan or Thatcher "landslides".
9. The arms race and international wars are very profitable for most multinational corporations.
10. The long-term pattern of U.S. and Canadian foreign policy in the non-white world has been alliances with fascist-type governments rather than their opponents.
11. The "free world" is not truly free because its citizens do not have the effective right to criticize the capitalist system.
12. The history of Western civilization is largely a history of genocide against nonwhite peoples and cultures.
13. The greatest danger to Canada's freedom and security comes from the United States.
14. There is no Correlation between people's wealth and their merit.
15. In many cases, social ownership of major industries is sound social policy.
16. The very rich ought not to be admired, but rather condemned for their acquisitive self-interest at others' expense.
17. A small minority's monopoly ownership of society's means of production is an issue that needs to be carefully examined.
18. Pollution/poverty are specially advantageous to the major shareholders of private enterprise.
19. Our major social problems are caused by the profit imperative overriding all other values.
20. The belief that God sanctions our social order or our state at war is a superstition.
21. There may be better alternatives for long-term sexual union than the private property structure of state-regulated marriage.
22. The Soviet Union pays significantly more than the world-price for imports from the countries of East Europe, and charges significantly less for its exports.
23. Socialist revolution has been by and large beneficial for the living standards of most citizens in societies where it has occurred.
24. Over 90% of Canadian citizens are not capitalists but members of the working class who depend for their living on wages or salaries.
25. Unions have historically led the struggle for improvements in health care, working conditions and social security for the population as a whole.
26. The business community has excessive political and economic power in our society.
27. Our schools do not train the young to think critically, but to obey corporate or office authority without question.
28. The President and his leading advisors arc provable war criminals.
29. Christianity calls for the redistribution of wealth.
30. The mass media are essentially a joint-stock company of profit and advertising, for major private corporations.

Paper Cranes in Space

Origami has been part of my life since before i can remember. Fortune-tellers, water bombs and, of course, paper airplanes. I'm not sure i knew about origami per se until my best friend Majid, a fellow CEGEP student (an immigrant from Iran) taught me how to make a paper crane - something he's learned in the UK from a fellow language student from Japan. I made hundreds of cranes, perhaps thousands before eventually developing curiosity about what else could be done. It was my good luck to find a book in the Vancouver Public Library (while living in Vancouver one summer in the early 80s) by Akira Yoshizawa. It opened up a world for me. One that has grown and one that dazzles me regularly.

Abuela Grillo

Abuela Grillo from Denis Chapon on Vimeo.

A simply delightful animation by Bolivian artists. Grandmother Cricket is perhaps part of the force behind the famous resistance of the city of Cochabamba to the attempted privatization of water by the World Bank, a consortium of private corporations (including Edison, Becthel Corporation and others) and the Bolivian government of Hugo Banzer. Thanks to Christine at Equitas for passing this on to me.

Neoliberalism as Water Balloon

Just came across this playful presentation on neoliberalism by Tim McCaskell who should be a national treasure. Tim worked for many years for the Toronto District School Board in the anti-racism department. Thousands of Toronto highschool students went through multiculturalism and anti-racism workshops that Tim was instrumental in leading. A leading queer activist and educator in Toronto, Time has also published Race to Equity: Disrupting Educational Inequality.

In addition to a persuasive presentation about the flaws of neoliberalism, this video begins with a powerful graphic presentation about the structure of inequality according to class, sex, sexual orientation and "race". This alone makes the video pedagogical gold. I highly recommend this resource (either showing the video or reproducing some of its contents yourself).

My New Favourite Book on Popular Education

A friend just sent me the link to Jugar y Jugarse: 2da edición: Las técnicas y la dimensión lúdica de la educación popular by Mariano Algava (thanks, Josh) and i am wowed. Algava appears to be an Argentinian professor and popular educator. He's one helluva writer, for sure. I read spanish slowly but it was quickly obvious to me that here was a discourse of popular education that is rare in the english-speaking world. He articulates a radical vision of popular education that is very much in keeping with how i have always imagined popular education could become - despite the limitations and resistance of a liberal, hegemonic culture such as Canada. (You can download the whole book on this page or from this link to the 6MB PDF.)

I've worked on a translation of a few paragraphs (see below) from the introduction (with thanks to Clara, Patricia and Olivia) and i would dearly love to have access to a full english translation so i could make wider use of this in my work in Canada and with the Catalyst Centre. Algava is also part of a popular education collective called Pañuelos en Rebeldía (Scarves in Rebellion or Rebellious Scarves). There is some remarkable stuff here as well and i'm working on some translations. Feel free to work on some yourself (i'm starting with the page on Sistematizacion).

A word about the title (thanks to reflections from Patricia and Clara): Jugar y Jugarse can be translated as "Play and Playfulness" but "jugarse" (likely an argentinian idiom based on jugársela) has a different sense than mere playfulness in that it includes a notion of risk taking which, though always a part of successful play, is not often thought of consciously. In english, my best guess for a more accurate translation would be "abandon" as in "to play with abandon" or "to abandon oneself to...". This has provoked for me many thoughts about the role of play in education and i will incorporate this into my ongoing project of articulating a trickster pedagogy.

Thus, by way of concluding this post, my translation of a part of the introduction:

We would like to say something about this delayed re-release of "Play and playfulness." Delayed in the face of the four years of demand for this book during which we have been asked at marches, meetings and assemblies, “don’t you have a copy of ‘Play and playfulness’?” When we’ve discussed this in popular education groups, it gets out of hand quickly: word spreads widely from person to person and we end up exhausted with the "conference presentations" we’re asked to do.

One tendency of paternalist politics regarding "popular education" has been the movement of a watered-down form into teacher training institutes, government programs, courses for volunteers, etc. However it is the “nice” version that moves this way – where popular education is seen as a “nice” way to intervene, a way to "look good" in group work, a “fun” alternative to transfer content, and, what is worse, includes the fatalism of naturalizing poverty and oppression. This is popular education acting within the framework of "the possible", where anything that dares dream beyond the horizon of "the possible" is repressed, jailed, frowned upon. The intent here is to drain Popular Education of its rebellious nature, of its origins in pedagogy of the oppressed, in order to integrate a dumbed-down form that can safely supplement the paternalism of "risk control."

Given this, we affirm once again from our practice, that popular education is not a set of techniques and workshops for use by marginalized groups as remedial education for those who “dropped out”. Popular Education does not replace the "organization" needed to transform reality, nor is it a place for militancy without class consciousness. Popular Education aims to support diverse forms of resistance to capitalism, patriarchy, colonialism, racism, imperialism; and for socialism and challenging the commodification of all aspects of life. The construction of popular power (for the individual and the social) subverts and problematizes; this action is joyful, embodied and intellectual at the same time, creating new ways and new forms, is playful.

It is the power of dreams and utopias and a radically liberating Popular Education that cannot be arrested. It is flowing water giving verdant life to the driest of deserts, nurturing seeds of rebellion, making it flower. Play and playfulness is the water that flows through local, popular and activist experience.

Telling Does Not Exist Without Listening

Reflecting on so-called "community arts" in preparation for teaching this Fall, i've been revisiting many texts about arts, creativity and activism. This book, If You Want To Write: A Book about Art, Independence and Spirit by Brenda Ueland was recommended to me over 20 years ago by a friend (thanks, Clara). It remains one of the most inspirational and useful texts i've read in my life. Over and over again Ueland makes the point that everyone is creative, that creativity is hardwired, as it were, into what it takes to be human. She puts it plainly and unequivocally in the first pages: "This is what I learned: that everyone is talented, original and has something important to say." The rest of the book, in one sense, is the persuasive case for this proposition. It is filled with practical advice and it is also one very extended and effective pep talk. Ueland is very good at persuading you that you have it in you to write or create with whatever medium on which you set your hands and eyes and imagination. Strangely, having read this book, i did not think to hunt down other writing by Ueland. This is unlike me; characteristically i "discover" an author i like and then proceed to hunt down everything they ever wrote. As a teen this was almost exclusively science fiction and fantasy writers (Heinlein, Clarke, Asimov, Bradbury, Leinster, LeGuin), later it was politics, pedagogy and spirituality (Starhawk, Freire, Galeano, Alice Miller) and so on. I'm uncertain why i did not apply my usual readerly zeal to Ueland but perhaps it was because i knew it would be years before i had satisfactorily absorbed the lessons i had to learn from her words. And simply exercising my normal fanboy instincts would, ironically, be an act of avoidance. Re-reading Ueland's work after 20 years i can see that i have internalized many of her ideas so effectively that i cannot recall the moment (if there was such a thing) when i did this. And what i'm noticing is a profound similarity between her ideas and those of Paulo Freire, Augusto Boal, Alice Miller, Corita Kent and many others. These are ideas that have shaped my life.

Now i have turned to see what else Brenda Ueland has written and i am eager to read her autobiography and her essays. I have found one essay that i already know will be a core text in my teaching: Tell Me More: On the Fine Art of Listening. I found an HTML version of it here and a PDF here. I often speak of the power of listening in both my popular education and work and storytelling. Ueland again writes plainly about the "powerful thing that listening is" :

This is the reason: When we are listened to, it creates us, makes us unfold and expand. Ideas actually begin to grow within us and come to life. You know how if a person laughs at your jokes you become funnier and funnier, and if he does not, every tiny little joke in you weakens up and dies. Well, that is the principle of it. It makes people happy and free when they are listened to. And if you are a listener, it is the secret of having a good time in society (because everybody around you becomes lively and interesting), of comforting people, of doing them good.

It is a strange thing about language or perhaps it's just our use of it that we talk about "writing" as though it were a thing apart from "reading" - first one, then the other. We do the same thing with "telling" (or "speaking") and "listening". I have long been persuaded about the power of listening and i am really excited to find this elegant and persuasive text. If this is what listening meant in our political, pedagogical, economic world, what then?

Art for Social Change

This fall i will be teaching Community Arts Practice Practicum Seminar at York University. It's the culminating course for students of the Community Arts Practice certificate program. This is giving me a chance to revisit much of my own art practice and learning as well as remember fondly a dear friend dian marino who taught at the Faculty of Environmental studies until her death from cancer in 1992 and with whom i worked on mural projects and some important theory of art and social change (see Wild Garden: art, education and the culture of resistance.) As i've mentioned previously, dian had a teacher, Corita Kent, whose work, for me, has also been an inspiration. I was quite excited to learn that Corita's book Learning By Heart: Teachings to Free the Creative Spirit has been republished in a second edition. I found the video clip above on the blog Chumpchampion (which has a number of entries featuring Corita's work) - it is an excerpt of a documentary about Corita: Become a Microscope - 90 Statements on Sister Corita “ABC”.

In 1980 or '81 i had a radio show at CKUT (campus-community radio station based at McGill University). My show was from 6:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. which pretty much ensured that no students were listening. But i did have a few listeners who connected through cable. Rooting through the bank of vinyl i looked for anything but pop music and one morning found a record by Willie Dunn that included the song Ballad of Crowfoot. I was immediately struck by it played it that morning (and probably several others after that). I learned about the NFB film and tracked it down. I was very moved. And am delighted to find that it is on the NFB site and available for embedding in other websites. So here it is.

Gil Cardinal, on the NFB site, writes:

Notable for being one of the first films produced by the NFB’s Indian Film Crew, The Ballad of Crowfoot is also remarkable for its haunting archival images set to an impassioned ballad written and performed by director Willie Dunn...

I am moved once again to watch this film and listen to this song. Especially given the context of recent aboriginal activism in Canada (from the work done on the legacy of residential schools to Defenders of the Land). And given the nature of my family, i am more connected to this history than i ever imagined i would be.

The NFB site also notes that this film was made in cooperation with the Company of Young Canadians, a fascinating community development/youth program that started in 1966 and lasted until 1969, 1972 or 1977 depending on who you ask (it lost its autonomy in 1969 when the government felt it had to impose controls; the CYC is, unfortunately, mostly-forgotten community development history but i found a few interesting pages on the internet: excerpts from two books about the CYC; an article Strange Bedfellows: Youth Activists, Government Sponsorship, and the Company of Young Canadians (CYC), 1965-1970; a short entry in The Canadian Encyclopedia).

I tracked down more of Willie's music and have enjoyed his songwriting and his beautiful baritone voice for a long time. And about fifteen years ago i had the pleasure of meeting and working with Willie for a week on a theatre project.

It is interesting to compare this film with the now famous work of american documentarist Ken Burns who has a film process named for him (the Ken Burns Effect) which uses panning and zooming in and out to dynamize the use of (mostly) black and white photographs. This film uses some of this (effect) and, notably, it was made in 1968. The NFB does have a remarkable history of documentary film-making and one that is well-worth exploring. You can do so here: Challenge for Change.

Out of Place - Jumblies Community Arts Writing

This publication includes some excellent articles on community arts practice by Jumblies members - a Toronto, Ontario-based arts group. Ruth Howard introduces the collection:

This publication was conceived in 2007, out of enthusiasm for Jumblies’ new public seminars, which grew, in turn, from our learning and mentorship program – the Jumblies Studio – and the realization that there is a lot of knowledge and experience to share.

There is a groundswell of community arts practice in Toronto, both as a result of the excellent work of several groups that have been creating wonderful work and community for years: Jumblies, Shadowlands, Clay & Paper, Red Pepper Spectacle, Sketch, ArtsStarts, Regent Park Focus, Storytelling Toronto, 1,001 Friday Nights of Storytelling, Carlos Bulosan Theatre and many more. For several years now York University has had a Certificate in Community Arts Practice (CAP), unique in Canada (here's their blog), and a joint program of the Faculties of Environmental Studies and Arts.

Michael Burtt, a friend of many years, in his article Community Art-Making: Where Heaven and Earth Meet shares his thinking and practice connecting his art with his explorations into spiritual contemplation. He shares a term from writer Alan Clements that i loved immediately: "the holy unexpected." Maggie Hutchison, a fellow community artist of many years, in her article The community artist in the Creative City Engaged citizen or‘regeneration bulldozer’? writes critically of the "creative city" phenomenon. She opens the article with what i consider quite the shocker:

[Joe] Berridge [a partner in Urban Strategies] encouraged conference attendees to revitalize our workplaces, our working practices and, ultimately, our cities; transforming them into exemplary hubs of creativity. And he had specific ideas as to how we should do it. In order to revitalize, Berridge suggested that we abolish meetings and other collective processes, and embrace the individuality and inductive thinking that he argued are essential to an artistic modality. “Beauty is not a collective product, it is an individual product...This runs completely counter to the way we have structured all of our institutions, in which the power of the collective suppresses the power of the individual”, Berridge insisted.

I find it rare that advocacy against collective creativity and for an individualistic notion of the artist and art is as brazen as this. I'm sure Joe has some goods ideas about art in the city. But this opinion that Maggie reports is one of those dominant notions that fits so nicely with a capitalist-individualist (even aynrandian) world. And it is one that i think is wrong - but that's a longer discussion than i have time for now.

Here's a few reports of community arts discussions that are worth reading:

• Discussions from 2008 Art at the Hub Symposium - Relationships, Relevance and Responsiveness (1.20 MB)
• A Discussion Paper - A City Creative to its Bones - September 2008 (584.97 kB)

What About Me - CFS/ME Trailers

What About Me? Trailer - USA from Double D Productions on Vimeo.

A good friend who lives with CFS/ME sent me the links to two trailers being used to raise funds to produce a feature length documentary. CFS/ME remains misunderstood, misrepresented, disbelieved in and ignored by medical systems and practitioners around the world. The suffering that people living with CFS/ME is made all the worse by this ignorance. This documentary could help a great deal.

The joy, the joy, the wonder

I learned from my aunt in Bath many years ago that my scottish grandmother's favourite expression was, "and this too shall pass." I learned these words from the story of King Solomon's ring:

King Solomon once commanded his councillors to fashion him a ring and inscribe on it something that, when read, would turn his mood of joy to sorrow and of mood of sorrow to joy. The councillors worried over this conundrum for some time and, after much thought and work, presented Solomon with a ring. Solomon took the ring and was pleased when he read the inscription: and this too shall pass.

The whimsy and wonder of this video fills my heart. And the dedication and hard work it took to pull this off is an inspiration. Mostly, this is simply wicked funny! It's also a brilliant study of the wildness of creativity. Anyone who feels stuck on a creative project should watch this as medicine.

Our World, Our Imagination and the Gods

I picked up John Banville's new novel The Infinities, read the first paragraph and was instantly hooked. Narrated by none other than the ancient winged-helmeted trickster Hermes, the prose packs a poetic wallop that brought tears to my eyes. Here's how the novel opens:

Of the things we fashioned for them that they might be comforted, dawn is the one that works. When darkness sifts from the air like fine soft soot and light spreads slowly out of the east then all but the most wretched of humankind rally. It is a spectacle we immortals enjoy, this minor daily resurrection, often we will gather at the ramparts of the clouds and gaze down upon them, our little ones, as they bestir themselves to welcome the new day. What a silence falls upon us then, the sad silence of our envy. Many of them sleep on, of course, careless of our cousin Aurora’s charming matutinal trick, but there are always the insomniacs, the restless ill, the lovelorn tossing on their solitary beds, or just the early-risers, the busy ones, with their knee-bends and their cold showers and their fussy little cups of black ambrosia. Yes, all who witness it greet the dawn with joy, more or less, except of course the condemned man, for whom first light will be the last, on earth.

This morning's Astronomy Picture of the Day (above) got me to thinking about terrestrial and celestial phenomena and the fantastic imagination of human culture. Is it any wonder that humans once looked upon such sights and created stories of angry and fearsome superbeings? Do we see here Zeus' or Odin's wrath? And, as we know from geological science (if not simple observation) following such volcanic activity is the formation of new land which, as many know, is what the word lava means. And so we have a piece of the puzzle of wrathful, titanic gods and their equally titanic abilities to destroy and, of course, to create.

Ethics for Activists 20

What are you carrying?

Two monks, one old and one young, were walking through the forest from one monastery to another when they came upon a woman standing beside a river. She was finely dressed in delicate fabrics and was clearly afraid to attempt crossing the river however shallow it might be. The old monk approached the woman and offered to carry her across. The young monk was shocked. Once on the other side the old monk put the woman down and together with his young companion continued through the forest. Many hours later, as the day was drawing to a close the young monk spoke up saying, “Master, I do not understand. It is strictly forbidden in our order to touch women and yet you didn’t hesitate to pick up that woman and carry her across the river.” “Ah, yes,” said the old monk. “I am surprised at you. I put her down many hours ago. You must be very tired from having carried her all day.”

Ethics for Activists 19

Almost
One day, a talmudic student was meditating in the synagogue when the rabbi came in, went to the front of the synagogue, fell down on his knees, shouting, “I am nobody! I am nobody!” The student, so overcome by this display joined his rabbi and also shouted, “I am nobody! I am nobody!” This went on for a while when the caretaker of the synagogue witnessed this strange scene and, also overcome, joined the rabbi and the student shouting, “I am nobody! I am nobody!” It was then that the student nudged the rabbi, saying, “Look who thinks he’s nobody.”

Ethics for Activists 18

Tetsugen was a zen monk in 17th Century Japan and he had a dream to publish the sutras (buddhist teachings) in Japanese for they were only available at that time in Chinese. His plan was to carve wood blocks with which to print the sutras in 7000 copies. And so he began to travel and collect money. He would ask for donations wherever he went. He thanked everyone equally, whether they gave him 100 gold pieces or only a few small coins. After ten years he had the money he needed to begin. But at that moment there was a flood; the Uji River overflowed and many lives were lost and many destroyed. Tetsugen used his money to help the people, to save as many as he could from the starvation that followed. And once again he began to travel and collect money. An epidemic swept the land and many people died and many suffered. Tetsugen used the money he'd collected to help the people. And then he returned to his task. Finally, after twenty years, he'd collected enough to begin carving the wood blocks to print the sutras. The wood blocks that Tetsugen carved can be seen today in Obaku monastery in Kyoto. However, people say that Tetsugen made three sets of the sutras in his lifetime and that the first two are invisible and far surpass the third.

5th Int'l Conference of the Popular Education Network

I've just learned about this 5th Int'l Conference of the Popular Education Network and am urging people to connect with it. If anybody trips across a pot 'o gold and feels like sharing... hint, hint. More likely, if someone from the Toronto-area can make it, please bring back news. Edinburgh, folks! Sweet. (It's my father's land).

I learned about this network a year ago and, despite a number of e-mail attempts to connect, i've not actually connected with anyone. It is volunteer-run and that, no doubt, is a huge limiting factor. It also seems to be exclusively academic - "not that there's anything wrong with that" (some old Seinfeld humour for you fans). And there is some excellent theory emerging from this network some published in Popular Education: Engaging the Academy - International Perspectives (eds. Crowther, Jim et al; NIACE) and some found in some excellent podcasts found here (i particularly recommend the two-part interview of Joyce Canaan by Dr. Gurnam Singh).

It's been a dream of the Catalyst Centre to connect some of the many popular education groups around the world - the Freire Centre in Sao Paulo (and some of the many other Freire Institutes/Centres that have been established in the past ten years), Highlander in Tennessee, Popular Education for People's Empowerment in the Philippines, L'Institut d'Education Populaire outside Bamako, Mali, IMDEC in Guadalajara and more. However, finding the resources for such networking has proven, to date, fruitless. The grassroots nature of many of these groups compared to the somewhat better resourced academic networks, is certainly one limiting factor in doing more than e-mail, website linking and (the rather overly-vaunted) social networking. Still, the dream persists.

Spread the word about this conference. Looks like some excellent connections to be made.

The Power of Puppetry

This music video, featuring the most adorable sock puppets i've seen in a while, tells a very sad story. There's one moment in this puppet performance that is an act of genius. And, overall, this work demonstrates what beauty can be created by simple things. Thanks to Dana for sharing.