OF FIELDS, FENCES, SAPLINGS AND THE (LESS) BLUE SEA: Some Notes

--Nancy Jo Cullen (some cool graffiti)

--Kathleen Reichelt (4 fragments)

--Kathleen Reichelt

--Kathleen Reichelt

--Kathleen Reichelt

OF FIELDS, FENCES, SAPLINGS AND THE (LESS) BLUE SEA: Some Notes

Leaving the People’s Summit Launch on Friday June 18, 2010, with a sense of hope and possibility that I haven’t felt at activisty gatherings in a long while, I was met by a swarm of blue-clad cops (around a dozen or a dozen-and-a-half) on bikes, their insinuating thighs pumping rhythmically up Yonge St. toward the light at college. I had to pause for a moment and remind myself (with the Toronto Fringe Theatre Festival around the corner) that no, in fact I wasn’t in the middle of a visualization exercise to help prepare me to act in a Russian Absurdist play about authorities barging into the homes of artists (Elizabeth Bam by Daniil Kharms—we did that in the 2003 instalment of the Fringe), that indeed I was out walking on the street in my cushy North American city. Of course, with my government having ostensibly spent 66 times what the South African government has spent daily on the security of the World Cup, a touch of spectacle is hardly surprising. Guns flexing, ripping sapling trees that find themselves unhappily within the “red zone” (aka Harbourfront) lest conchies with superhuman powers rip them from the earth with their bare hands and use them as weapons against the 11000 or so paramilitary and other types of officers (there were only 6 000 in Vancouver for the Olympics) with their newly acquired paraphernalia that have converged on the city— Hog Town indeed!— the worst of the “parade” is yet to come.

Let me turn for a moment to discuss what went on inside Carlu hall at College Park on Friday in the hopes of inspiring yet more poetry and art as a way of producing a counter-serum, or multiple lines of flight from these mammoth footfalls that are leaving footprints oozing blood and tar everywhere. The event was called “Stories and Solutions from North and South” and was co-organized by The People’s Summit (a collaboration of many organizations and communities) and Oxfam Canada, with help from The Council of Canadians and The Canadian Labour Congress. It had an impressive line up of speakers: Mary Walsh (Actress and Comedian), Maude Barlow (National Chairperson, Council of Canadians), Lorena Aguilar (Global Gender Advisor, International Union for Conservation of Nature, Costa Rica), Victor Baez (General Secretary, Trade Union Confederation of The Americas, Brazil), Dorothy Ngoma (Founding member of W8 and Executive Director of National Organization of Nurses and Midwives of Malawi), Robert Lovelace (Adjunct Professor at Queen’s University in the Department of Global Development Studies), Ambet Yuson (Secretary General, Building and Woodworkers International, Philippines), Jessica Yee (Executive Director, Native Youth Sexual Health Network) and performances by Sarah Marlow and Eternia. The evening was hosted by Annahid Dashtgard.
The highlights for me were (in order of appearance):

1)Maud Barlow’s discussion of the G77 and the Universal Declaration of The Rights of Mother Earth http://climateandcapitalism.com/?p=2268

2) Robert Lovelace’s perspective on the role of direct action and peace as a process. In his talk he stressed that “peace is a process and not an outcome. It’s a process of relationships…of family. As soon as we see peace as an end or a goal, we are lost.” He went on to say that “We all have a right to an indigenous relationship with the land we live in and with this comes an indigenous responsibly to care for the land.” He went on to speak of decolonization and stressed that “sustainability is recognizing the realities of a place. Direct action is often the signature of a movement…This responsibility has to be taken to [one’s] whole life, all 365 days a year…In whatever you do, direct your actions towards the future.”

3)Lorena Aguilar’s passionate and reasoned plea to have gender equality and perspectives taken into consideration at all levels of planning from the local to the international. She gave a very moving speech about the realities of lack of education and resources among women especially in the Global South, saying that although women produce %80 of food harvested worldwide and have a major role in reforestation, yet women are four times more likely then men to die in major natural disasters, not because of an inherent weakness, but because of a lack of proper education, information and recourses. Her challenge to the room was “learn a name of a woman from the Global South, put her name in your pocket, walk with her needs in mind whenever you go out this week”.

(I have to admit a discomfort when asked to “speak for” or “represent” someone…but then politicians do it all the time, and so I’ve been mulling over how I can bring the voices and concerns of women whose lives may never cross my own but who I must consider, not “speak for”, not “represent” but build a relationship with somehow that overcomes the disastrous and inequitable one that we seem to be having right now … here I think of Judith Butler’s concept of precariousness and wonder if this can help… I also recognize that there are many women here in Canada who I can develop perhaps an in-person relationship with, one born of listening and unlearning…and collaborating with artistically!!)

4) Dorothy Ngoma’s powerful plea for the women of Malawi and her involvement in the impressive W8 project http://www.oxfam.org/w8. She made it clear that 16 women die every day in her country of pregnancy related problems (that’s 350, 000 per year) the majority of which are treatable/preventable. She made it clear that it is a lack of resources coupled with rich countries policies on things such as contraception, abortion and other types of family planning. Noting that in a population where many families live on less than a dollar a day, to refuse funding based on family planning is inhumane and results in the reality that %40 of the above mentioned deaths are caused by botched illicit abortions, asking: “Do these women not have a right to chose how many children they have?” She stresses public heath initiatives, universal health care and especially education for girls.

Still think feminism is an issue of the past??????

5)Jessica Yee’s impassioned and eloquent discussion of the future of activism and how it’s tied to class, race and gender through sexuality. In case anybody in the room was starting to feel smug about Canada’s position in things (I don’t think many in the room actually were, I for one agree with Yee’s sentiment: “I’m ashamed of Canada”), the 24 year-old power house and member of the Wolf clan who was a child when the “Oka Crisis” (aka the invasion of Kahnawake by the Canadian Forces and the SQ), pointed out that: Ontario doesn’t support sex education; that Aboriginal women in this province and country don’t have proper access to reproduction health, abortion, and harm reduction; that the suicide rate of young Aboriginal women in Canada is 8 times the national average; and that colonialism is still a major factor in day to day lives particularly on reserves but everywhere. Her message was that in order to move forward as social justice seekers we must all begin by questioning our own selves first, that any action that could truly advance the process of peace and decolonization will have to come from the heart and be a way of life. She also said that this kind of work will need resources outside of the non-profit industrial complex and that developing such an economy should be a major undertaking of artists and activists.

I have to admit that I left feeling a great sense of hope and humility… I’m only beginning to apply many of my ruminations of the past few days in an artistic way. Fortunately, many of you are way ahead of me so here is a collection of the collaborative artistic acts of resistance and creation that you have sent me. Thanks to everyone and Keep ‘em coming!

20 AFTER HENRI CARTIER-BRESSON

3. Downtown, New York, 1947.


The city encloses us and them. Company
may be mute or demanding.
The animals aren't often taken in,
see through us Rilke said. Sometimes we aren't either.


Expect clean streets. Expect trim ironic youth.
Expect the domesticated dissent of urban stars.
Expect feral affection. Expect sitting on the curbside
fearing, wanting, waiting for terrible beauty to take me in

--Ralph Kolewe

UNNAMED

I'm looking for a third way through this fence. I hold up wire like lines by waiting here, in the shadow of the violence of post-industrial transnationalism protected by police. They eye me, do not protect but limit me by reading me. I go forward unto the gate. They read me, make me mean what they want until I am. That's the one I don't like.

The other is a press pass: it's true that I work for this monster machine. I interviewed Harper about his fucking million dollar fake-lake. I sell stories, politics get edited, ads get sold, stories get printed, papers get delivered, people buy computers, companies edit content, content shapes
governments. In that line, I become them. For the more I get read, the more my voice is shaped fit to print.

I need to find another way into this beast that won't destroy, I mean de-story, the democratic narrative. It must be open and unfettered, a thousand voices rising against order. We sing together, we write songs, we must write a song that crippling all order, stumbling into openness off the page, uncovers something irrevocable - something outside order. I believe in the possibility of a third way. So I protest. I write witty slogans on signs, hurl hockey pucks, and smash windows. And I re-tear gas police on the front lines, in the headlines. I make a romantic scenario of this tragic battle. I know there is no escape. Two lines enter, one line dissolves in
the face of the army. We tried to pull down the fence that protects. We pulled it down and made straight for tyrants - ending up here, locked in cells with all the faceless but booked. In my clothes lingers tear gas, but in truth, since the G8, the smoke goes.

--Gregory Betts

TWO POEMS AND PICS OF FRAGMENTS

1.

5 am and I'm awake
in my bunkered down Toronto-as-police-state
helicopter circles in time with the city machine
blackout
I'm asleep and into another dream
on my bicycle I see
the remaking of a film on st francis
in colour the saints wander the desert
pulling up roots for water
feet trapped in plastic
cups
I am up
again with the alarm
Kafka was saying its time to wake up

2.

my hair grows longer
tangles in the summer garden
when I kneel down to pick the sage
overhead the helicopter circles
resembles a dragonfly
that lands on the boat in the lake
only this one never lands
only circles
circles the movement
the flying machine imitates
those on the ground
the makers of circles we are
I look down and see the tiny ant has
found something bigger than itself to carry
the prize to bring back to the tribe
I look out I look in and there I see
I'll be in Kensington on Sunday
with the rest of the hippies

--Kathleen Reichelt

GRAVEYARD SHIFT


octopus eyes sits in dark booth
shut-in behind furry screens
(the midwife’s fingers exceed this surround)
his gaze watery as the earth
someone has drilled into his slat optic nerve

the edifice a magazine with sequined corridors
harvest of golf carts and strollers
clocks thrust empty samples of occasion
of perfume, amniotic ointment
powder October’s macular fuse


DAWN SONG


ah! here comes the foul sun
flees and prospectors
to interrupt our
estuaries
that gush with night’s fitness

--Shannon Maguire

we took some poetry out to the streets, with stickies. I hope people are intrigued with the random lines from the poems that spoke to me the most fiercely.
Thank you to all those whose creativity is so abundant. I like the connections you are making between the major events taking place now!

--Kara

WHAT’S GOING ON/ COOL PROJECTS ON RELEVANT TOPICS

Speaking of Sustainable local actions:

This Ain't The Rosedale Library (one of my very favourite bookstores) could really use OUR support. Charlie and Jessie Huisken, independant booksellers and promoters of writers, artists and musicians of all kinds are in danger of losing their business. Known for thier generosity, exellent curatorial skills and event planning, it would be a shame to lose this cultural outlet. Please see here for furthur details about how to help and join the facebook group!! http://thisaintblog.wordpress.com/

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Kristen Prevallet’s GULF STREAM MOURNING ACTION

Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Time:
6:30pm - 8:00pm
Location:
anywhere that touches the Gulf Stream

Description

Every Tuesday at 6:30pm we will be going to water connected via stream to the poisoned waters of the Gulf. We will stand in mourning for anywhere between 30 minutes and 2 hours, wearing veils and holding black prayer flags, for the countless lives -- fish, animal and human -- that have been destroyed by bp's act of environmental genocide. This is a public expression


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livewords June: Rampike Magazine “Cultural Mischief” Launch Party

Date:
Thursday, June 24, 2010
Time:
7:30pm - 10:30pm
Location:
Black Swan
Street:
154 Danforth Avenue
City/Town:
Toronto, ON
View Map

Description

Join us as we celebrate the launch of the“Cultural Mischief” issue of Rampike Magazine, with Gary Barwin Greg Betts Clara Blackwood Margaret ChristakosFrank DaveyAdam Dickinson John Donlan Claudio GaudioKarl JirgensJim Johnstone Babar Khanrob mclennanDesi di NardoEdward Nixon Concetta Principe Jenny Sampirisi,Lara SolnickiLindsay TippingMyna Wallin+Richard UnderhillYES THAT IS MORE:A short musical set starting at 10:30 pm featuring: Richard Underhill(Shuffle-Demon founder) & members of the “Free Spirit” ensemble with:Richard Underhill – SaxophoneAlex Goodman – GuitarWes Neal – Basshttp://www.richardunderhill.com/promo_shots.phphttp://www.richardunderhill.com/bio.phpBring your friends to this friendly

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MOVEMENT COMMA MOVEMENT


Come to 253469 this Saturday between 8 and 11PM to see new performance and video work by Canadian and International artists participating in "Movement comma movement; collective dream 26", an imaginative, collective, conceptual, abstract and immediate response to whats happening and what moves us.

Artists include:
Istvan Kantor
Ulysses Castellanos
Nicole Torok
Angela Eileen De Crescenzo
Christina Kozak
Daeve Fellows
Karol Orzechowski
Robert Morpheal
Lucy McKenna
Kathleen Reichelt
Wesley Rickert

Free admission and everyone is welcome! There will also be free stuff available to take home.
253469 is an interdisciplinary art space that is not ruled by commerce, academia, politics or common sense.
253469 is currently located at 1267 Bloor Street West (just east of Lansdowne) and is generally mismanaged by 253 & 469.
http://253469.blogspot.com/