winter, she be here

 

20 minutes

Geneviève Bergeron, Hélène Colgan, Nathalie Croteau, Barbara Daigneault, Anne-Marie Edward, Maud Haviernick, Barbara Klucznik-Widajewicz, Maryse Laganière, Maryse Leclair, Anne-Marie Lemay, Sonia Pelletier, Michèle Richard, Annie St-Arneault, Annie Turcotte.

Killed in a 20-minute war on ‘feminists.’

Lest we forget.

 

exploding light

canada day fireworks, edmonton river valley, july 1, 2009

 

inside the drawer from hell

unable as i am to throw anything away,
i came across in the junk drawer the other day:

bits of string
expired pizza coupons
chinese takeaway menus
three hundred and sixteen twist ties
seven golf tees
recipes for chicken wings (i’ve been vegetarian
for twelve years)
screws of various lengths
fridge magnets
yellowed dilbert comics clipped from the newspaper
dental floss
the joker from a pack of playing cards
seed packets for wildflowers
a dead chapstick
a guitar pick
nine ketchup packets
dad’s swiss army knife
an eaton’s charge card
five dead batteries
shoelaces
folk fest wristbands from three different summers
several brittle elastics
two broken pencils
nine dried-out felt pens
thirteen business cards
joe’s wedding invitation
lorne’s funeral notice
a radio shack tape recorder
four “special” beer caps
a postcard from new york city
a plastic skull ring
ribbon
a bic lighter
eyepiece caps from a pair of binoculars
visa receipts from 2002
warranty cards for kettle and microwave (both of which
are long gone to kitchen appliance heaven)
film negatives clipped to photo reprint orders
popsicle sticks
a piece of petrified double bubble 
a black and white photo of dad playing the harmonica
with jamie on his knee
a red crayon
fourteen ETS bus schedules, twelve of them out of date
a mix tape of songs from 1986
half of a very linty chocolate bar
an oilers key chain
picture hanging wire
three pairs of one-armed sunglasses
nineteen paper clips
candle ends
a kazoo

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

below the line:

and this is just the stuff that i KEPT …

 

when private people go public

many of you are aware that i walked away from a 30-year career in journalism last summer in order to concentrate full-time on my own writing and painting. the latest step in this ongoing creative process is the construction — finally — of lauriemacfayden.com — a website devoted to my visual art.

it’s been a weird evolution for me. ask anyone in my family and they’ll tell you i was a painfully shy girl growing up. shy, and intensely private. i used to hide in my room when company — even relatives — came to our door because i didn’t want to have to talk to anybody. school assignments that involved public speaking almost paralyzed me. piano recitals (ugh) would have me sweating buckets weeks in advance.

it took the better part of three decades, but somewhere along the line i seem to have gotten over most of that. i now feel totally comfortable reading at open-mic stages and poetry festivals, and have almost gotten used to seeing my paintings on view in public spaces (although, oddly, hanging my art up on display, in relative anonymity, has proven to be much more gut-wrenchingly stressful than reading to a room full of strangers potentially armed with insults, tomatoes or, worse, indifference).

almost a year ago i started this blog, a step i felt would help me become more comfortable with the idea of exposing my writing and arty bits to a wider audience. the catch-22 there is that the wider audience (which all artists/writers desire, right?) leaves the artist more vulnerable. by inviting more people to pay attention to your work, you are opening the door to more criticism of your work. you may believe you can handle it, only to discover that criticism can be unwelcome, unpleasant, unfair, scary, destructive, demoralizing, and all of the above. obviously the more public you go, the thicker your skin needs to be. that’s a given; otherwise your tender artist’s psyche may collapse under the strain … forcing you to retreat back to the comfort of anonymity (not to mention poverty. thank you, stephen harper.)

i wasn’t sure whether i would stay with the blog after the honeymoon euphoria of the first few posts wore off. but i started getting a few regular readers, a few comments … and now i have had more than 5300 views on this little spatherdab entity. i realize that’s not a lot — there are celebrity bloggers out there who get thousands of hits per day. but for me, a little goes a long way. it is very satisfying to receive a comment from someone i don’t know and will probably never meet, from, say, texas or glasgow, telling me they love a poem they found on my blog, or that they really like a certain painting i’ve shown online. but it can also be disconcerting to get e-responses from people claiming to be fans of poetry who have clearly missed the point and really just want to argue with you; or overly enthusiastic strangers wanting to get a little too chummy; or unsavory entrepreneurs whose ulterior motive is to link your page to their international house of spam.

vulnerability factor aside, i think i’m going to enjoy having my very own dotcom page (thank you very much to the fine folks at MG creative).
do check it out if you have time. feedback is always welcome.
as long as you aren’t trying to sell me auto insurance.

 

red, white and blue all over

i’m back in e-town after a week in nashville.
i love to travel, so generally any road trip is a good trip … but i’m still trying to sort out my conflicting gut impressions of music city.

some of the high notes:

• getting to hear john irving (the world according to garp, hotel new hampshire, cider house rules, a prayer for owen meany, etc.) deliver a free lecture to an almost-packed house at the ryman auditorium. irving spoke at length about the state of publishing in america, and the importance of libraries (“there you can still find the classics; most of the books in a bookstore today are crap”).
  he talked about censorship and book-banning in the u.s.a. (“americans love to ban things. there’s no law that says you have to read a book before you can ban it.”) and how that spills over into issues like same-sex marriage and abortion rights: “the instinct to suppress is always there. suppression is very american: if you don’t like something, don’t let ANYONE have it. my own attitude is, if you don’t like abortion, don’t have one. and why should it matter to straight couples if gay couples get married? how insecure can they be? all over the world, i am asked: ‘what is the problem you americans have with gays, with abortion, with sex, with drinking?’ ah, yes, drinking. remember how well prohibition worked.”
  his advice to young aspiring writers: “read every book you can get your hands on, see every play that you can. if you’re fortunate enough to become a (successful) writer, there’ll come a time when you’ll want to write more than you read. and then you won’t read anymore. the time to read everything … is when you’re young. being a widely-read person is the only defence there is from crap, from the junk. you’ve just gotta read as much as you can. read, read, read.”
• the frist, the rymer gallery, cheekwood museum: there’s a whole lot more to tennessee than country music, jack daniel’s, football and barbecue. there’s a thriving arts scene, for example. but it can be hard to find when the titans are 9-0, and the CMA awards are coming to you live from 5th and broadway, and elvis paraphernalia assaults you from every souvenir shop window.
• the honky tonks: thumbs up to the concept of rotating bands at live music venues all through the day and long into the night. no cover? even better. nothing but budweiser and pabst on tap? pity.
• the country music hall of fame/museum: awesome! as you’ve probably guessed, i’m not a huge country fan but it was hard not to be dazzled by this outstanding multi-layered attraction which includes an amazing array of musical instruments, rhinestone jackets, satin shirts, belts, and of course cowboy hats and boots. elvis’s gold piano and cadillac, webb pierce’s “silver dollar” car, and johnny cash’s black shirts are just a few of the gems preserved in Sing Me Back Home, the museum’s permanent exhibit which includes artifacts, photographs, original recordings, archival video, and interactive displays that glorify the history and sounds of country music. . . (did you know there was a song called “dern ya” recorded in feminist response to roger miller’s hit “dang me”?). there are walls and walls of gold & platinum records (anne murray’s on there at least twice), bill monroe’s gibson F5 (“the most famous mandolin in American music history”), and a gift shop that stocks thousands of CD titles, not to mention googoo clusters — a confection item involving chocolate, peanuts and marshmallow that’s apparently been an american tradition since 1912 and is manufactured right there in nashville.
• the grand ole opry: yes, indeedy, i attended the opry at the ryman. saw vince gill and randy owen and mel tillis (pam’s dad) and diamond rio and marty stuart, and a parade of geezers from the glory days of the ’50s and’ 60s. i had fun … still, couldn’t help but notice that there wasn’t a single person of colour in the entire audience. (the ryman is located two blocks from a boulevard named in honour of rosa l. parks. if you’re missing the connecting thread … google rosa parks.)

  … and some sour notes:

• kevin costner and modern west. kevin, give it up. you are not a singer. you are barely an actor. put an end to this charade right now and let us remember you for bull durham and dances with wolves … not for your feeble attempts at becoming a country crooner.

• the veterans day parade. in canada, regardless of how you feel about war, november 11 tends to be a day of solemn remembrance, of showing respect for victims of war; a day for honouring those who gave their lives in battle. it’s two minutes of silence at 11 a.m. on the 11th day of the 11th month. for many it’s a day of sadness; of sombre reflection and gratitude.
  in the states, if nashville is any indication, november 11 is a day to flex your military muscle by rolling your tanks and jeeps down main street while marching bands play peppy tunes, shriners in garish fake arab costumes (oh, the irony) ride around in ridiculous little miniature cars, and soldiers atop armored tanks spin their turrets at clowns mugging for cheap laughs. (excuse me, i seem to have forgotten… somebody please remind me again what’s funny about war?)
  perhaps most pathetic was the sight of white-haired veterans in their 80s and 90s crowded onto wagons and flatbeds pulled by tractors, smiling and waving feebly at people on the sidewalks. these were clearly soldiers from wars prior to vietnam and desert storm, before iraq and afghanistan. knowing how the current administration treats, er, ignores the broken veterans of its more recent military actions … well, let’s just say it was harder to stomach than the googoo clusters.

 

don’t try to find me …

i’m on the road again.

this afternoon my BTC* and i will jet to music city, yup, nashville, tennessee, for a week of R&R and a little library business. even have a date with the grand ole opry on friday night. oh yeah, we know what to do with this wild and precious life.

as for finding vegetarian fare in the heart of tennessee … we may have to settle for deep-fried mars bars. but what the hell. the diet always starts next monday, right?

and of course we are overjoyed with the results of the u.s. election. we may have to contain our enthusiasm as we are heading to a “red state,” but we are unabashedly hopeful. giddy, even.

we are also in search of tacky post-election souvenirs.
no. 1 on my list: a barrack obama snow globe. No. 2 on my list: an obama button for mary (don’t come back without it or i’ll sic sarah palin on you) pinkoski.

see y’all on the 13th … saaaaaaa-lut!

*BTC = beloved travel companion

 

dear mister harper

When power leads man toward arrogance, poetry reminds him of his limitations.
When power narrows the areas of man’s concern, poetry reminds him of the richness and diversity of his existence.
When power corrupts, poetry cleanses, for art establishes the basic human truths
which must serve as the touchstone of our judgment.

Yours sincerely,
John Fitzgerald Kennedy

Amherst College,
Oct. 26, 1963

 

bartlet for america

so when exactly was it determined that we want ordinary people in the white house?

it was dad-gum embarrassing to hear clips of sarah palin’s “goshdarnit this” and “doggonit that” during the american veep debate last week. do her handlers truly think america wants/needs elly-may clampett a heartbeat away from the oval office? the whole point of electing leaders is that they have demonstrated AN ABILITY TO LEAD. i do not want a “regular” “average” “ordinary” “joe sixpack” or “joe lunchbucket” anywhere near the white house, or as PM of canada for that matter.

forgive me, but i want important political decisions that are going to affect my future — and the future of this seriously troubled planet — to be made by intelligent, articulate, well-educated people with an understanding of foreign affairs, economics, climate change and social issues; people who get that freedom of religion includes freedom FROM religion. i would be really impressed if the candidates knew MORE about all of these issues than i do. yet, strangely, intelligence in a candidate has somewhere along the way become a negative thing. intellectual = elitist = too hoity-toity for The Average Voter to understand or appreciate. in canada, some people seem to think that wearing a sweater makes you look more like a warm-and-fuzzy “ordinary” citizen and therefore deserving of a majority government. i have nothing against sweaters, in fact i own quite a few of them, but if i ever run for office i sincerely hope that people don’t vote for me merely because i shop at eddie bauer.

i recently heard somebody theorizing that american voters liked george w. bush because they felt he was someone they could sit down and have a beer with. that “ordinary joe” thing. i don’t know how true that is — but it did seem to work for ralph klein here in severely normal alberta. up in good ol’ snow white alaska, just this side of russia, ms. palin — she of all those doggone main-street yankee values like moose-hunting, book-banning and revenge-firing — seems to genuinely believe that she’s qualified for the vice-presidency of the united states of america because, gee whiz, she is able to find a soccer field with an SUV! and there are people who applaud her for this.

sorry, but i don’t think being a soccer mom or a hockey dad demonstrates that you are qualified for anything except maybe capable doing a lot of laundry and treating a dozen rug rats to an occasional post-tournament pizza.

and should you really cast your vote for someone on the basis of how much of a “regular joe” they are; regular as in they are fun to have a drink with because they drink coors and not cab sav? i know a lot of people who are really fun to drink with, but i wouldn’t want any of them near the red phone when the planet is invaded by aliens; or having the power to decide whether i should be allowed to have an abortion or marry a same-sex partner. why? because they’re ordinary. and being the leader of a nation and making those kinds of decisions is not ordinary work. it takes brains, and integrity, and a sense of fairness, and justice, and tolerance, and enthusiasm and a special kind of energy and vision and passion and compassion … and that is why most of us are not qualified to do it. most of us, thankfully, recognize this, and that is why we are so glad and grateful when that rare someone comes along who IS qualified to do it.

one of the recurring side themes on the now-defunct West Wing television show involved the fear that u.s. president jed bartlet was “too smart,” and the concern (from within his own party) that his intelligence might be held against him on election day — people don’t want a smarty-pants in the white house, after all.

frankly, i’ll take a smarty-pants over an “ordinary joe” any day.

it is not unreasonable to expect some measure of the extraordinary, of the exceptional, from the people who want to lead your country into the future. from the people who are asking for your vote.

your plain, old, ordinary vote.

remember this on october 14.
spare us the ordinary.
vote smart.

 

stone angel

it’s late september
the air is crisp
cool hand luke is dead
and somewhere out there
the stone angel shivers