How quickly we forget -- Steve Fonyo

Today's investiture of 43 persons into the Order of Canada reminded me of something I thought about during the recent Olympics -- the absence of Steve Fonyo as a participant in any of the ceremonies. Once upon a time, just like Terry Fox or Rick Hansen, he was good enough to be one of our heroes. But that was back when he was running across Canada on one leg and raising $13 million for cancer.

Only then, something happened. He screwed up. And more than once. But it seems to me he screwed up in some pretty human ways.

He fell for the lure of celebrity, got into bad drugs and too much booze, and got himself arrested more than once. He even did a bit of time. But, despite the superhuman feat he'd accomplished (running 7,924 km/4,924 miles across the country), his crimes were enough to have him divested of his Order of Canada.

As far as I can tell, only two other people have been stripped of this honour -- David Ahenakew and Alan Eagleson. Ahenekew lost his for making harshly anti-Semitic remarks, an action we've come to call hate crime. And anyone who watches hockey knows what Eagleson did to (and in the name of) the NHL.

The motto of the Order of Canada is 'They desire a better country.' As far as I can tell, Steve Fonyo hasn't done anything to indicate he doesn't still 'desire a better country.' He didn't try to get rich by stealing any of the millions he raised for cancer. He hasn’t insulted anyone for who they are. Fonyo hasn’t so much let his country down as Canada has let him down – by denying the value of what he did and reneging on the award he earned.

Freelancer Claude Adams has created an insightful radio documentary about Fonyo. Called "Journey to Normal", it was broadcast on CBC's 'The Current' on March 31st. If you click on this link, you can hear the whole show or just listen to the sections on Fonyo (part two and at the show's end).

Fonyo's story isn't a pretty one. But really -- if Terry Fox hadn't died of cancer, who's to say whether his life might not have had a few bumps too?

Playing around with Easter

It must be because a friend and I have started a game of Scrabble -- but whatever the cause, when I looked at the word 'Easter' I started seeing other words. Not all of them made sense, but I liked them anyway.

Breaking them apart helped, as with set era which made more sense than setera.

Anyway, just fooling around, I wrote a silly piece. And really, what else could I call it but "Easter Teaser".

Teresa
reset a
seat re
a steer (who, steady)
as tree
ate res (taurant)
re-eats.

A terse
ear set
rat, see
re teas
for the stumbling bunnies
fumbling amongst the eggs.

As you can see, it fell apart. But it was fun fiddling with anagrams. I even found some good ones for my name. My faves? Oh, Ice Ridge or Icier God, Eh. But best of all the almost haiku-like, He Go, I Cried.

Silly fun on a lazy day. What does your name anagram into?

A better-than-Good Friday

Sleeping in always makes the day easier. A holiday, and best of all, one with no expectations. Although maybe the 'no expectations' part isn't quite true.

This is a day on which I long-ago agreed to always meet a friend for a rendez-vous in a certain park. Good Friday, an easy enough day to remember. Between 12 and 3, a safe enough window of time. And yet again yesterday, he bugged me (okay, reminded me) that I've never once made it there.

Still, this is a day of few expectations. It's a holiday when nobody expects a present or a big fancy dinner. A day for doing nothing more than enjoying life and maybe colouring a few eggs.

After looking at our pile of farm-fresh free-range eggs, I worry about the chicken who laid that gigantic one. I can only think there must be one hen hopping about the yard, clucking ouch, ouch, ouch.

Poetry, in triple time

Even though it isn’t quite Poetry Month, it’s been a week filled with plenty of poems. So, quick, a bit of a recap before it’s time to shut down the power in observance of Earth Hour.

Wednesday saw me presenting poems and ideas to a welcoming group of women who are participating in a Third Age Learning Program. They were responsive and warm, full of questions that helped guide the direction of my reading. They even bought into a writing prompt I gave, creating three cooperatively-written poems.

On Thursday the spotlight moved onto Carmine Starnino, a fine poet whose most recent book, This Way Out, was a finalist for the 2009 Governor General’s Award for Poetry. Besides reading in the reading series sponsored by our local Arts Council, he also did a presentation for Aislinn Hunter’s creative writing class at Kwantlen.

I’m still getting feedback today on the way Carmine’s poems affected people – as witnessed by this, part of an email from a local writer, Vaughan: "Just wanted to say that both Joan and I, it seems, resonated all day with last night's reading. Thank you ... and if you have a chance, please let Carmine know that the reading went deep for at least two people in the audience."

Then today I was able to come full circle, this time attending a workshop presentation by singer/songwriter/composer Veda Hille. We were looking at lyrics, considering different ways to approach creating them.

One of the exercises she led us through had us using found phrases as a start-up to our writing. When asked whether rhyme needs to be a component in song lyrics, Veda replied by playing one of my favourite songs ever, “Frank Mills”, from the musical, Hair. I took that as a resounding No.

The video below is a snippet of Veda performing a powerfully discordant (dis-chord-ant?) piece based on the journals of painter, Emily Carr. In it, Hille was trying to capture Carr’s anger and frustration borne out in the line, “for fifteen years I did not paint!” And yes, it seemed appropriate this performance should have happened in an art gallery.

To your health!

Today is World Water Day. Designated by the U.N., this is a day to consider and celebrate the miracle of something most of us take for granted, fresh drinking water.

I'm lucky enough to live in a region that boasts maybe the best tap water anywhere. It's for this reason that Vancouver encourages visitors to use tap water. Some hotels are distributing reusable water bottles so it's easy for patrons to simply refill. If you scroll down on the previous link, you'll find a number of facts about bottled water -- for example, that it takes three litres of water to produce one litre of bottled water. Like really, where's the sense in that? If you want to know more about the debate between bottled and tap water, click here.

People who live in the Surrey area have a chance to see Irina Salina's documentary on water, Flow. It'll be shown at Kwantlen's Grassroots Caf on Saturday, March 27th at 1:30 in the afternoon. This film is just part of an ongoing series of documentary films shown in White Rock's Social Justice Film Series.

To mark or not to mark

The other night a friend posed an interesting question: Do you write in the books you’re reading? She didn’t present it as an accusation – more as a philosophical query. She seemed to really be asking not only, Do you write in books, but should you?

A colleague I never see any more always wrote in books, including ones he’d borrowed from the library. He’d sometimes come running up to me, open book in hand. I came to know this meant he’d found comments someone else had left in the margin of a book, as if to justify his own messy habit. I believe he’d usually jot something next to the remark, adding his comment to the ones he discovered left by some stranger. Kind of like being an early blogger, long before blogs existed.

As a person who often writes about books, I need to make some sorts of marks for myself when I’m reviewing. I usually rely on Post-It Notes, but have been known to dog-ear corners and even write on the sacred page, though I try to avoid this. I'll admit it, sometimes the urge to write on the page wins. This happens most often when I'm not enjoying a book, as in the poetry collection above with the note of frustration: me, me, me.

Yet even when I’m not reviewing, I often make note of pages I appreciate, and later transfer the passages to a notebook. Mostly, I restrict this to an inspiring line or phrase. But Philip Pullman’s Golden Compass series saw me scribing vast tracts.

I wonder, do other people do this sort of thing? And if you do write in books, do you boldly use pen (as I apparently used to) or pencil?

Springy

That's the word for yesterday. Not only because of the weather (cool and fresh), but because the forest floor, still holding its autumn mulch but with all that new life, felt positively springy. Boing!

The plan had been to take a stroll and find some mushrooms for our supper. And even though we found quite a few, the morels (the goal of our quest) weren't yet showing their heads. The only volunteers were ones we wouldn't want to eat.

Instead, diehard foragers that we are, we settled for picking (c a r e f u l l y) some tender-fresh nettles. Steamed, they lose their prickliness and are full of nutritious goodness. Best of all, they're positively yummy.

Bleak days for the arts -- and everybody else?

As more details emerge about all that was cached in last week's B.C. budget, it's apparent that there are bleak days ahead.

The arts have been cut even further than last year. Funding to environmental groups has disappeared completely. And even though the government claimed these cuts were necessary so funding to children's programs wouldn't suffer, there've also been cuts to monies for daycares and playgrounds.

Did the government think with all the warm fuzziness floating around from the Olympics that no one would notice these cuts?

It will be interesting to see just how many artists are involved in tomorrow's opening ceremonies for the Paralympics. Just as the government now seems to understand that funding athletes pays off in accomplishments, they don't seem able yet to apply that lesson to fostering the development of artists.

About the only good bit of arts news in the past 24 hours has been the announcement of finalists for the B.C. Book Prizes.

The image above is one I took on the Sunday morning I was leaving Denman Island. Despite its black-and-white appearance, it's actually a colour shot. Later that morning the fog burned off and the day blossomed into one that was lovely. Just as the arts now seem clouded into a black-and-white funk, I can only hope that enough of us will speak out and remind this government of just how important it is for them to restore funding. If we don't succeed, we might be stuck with a future that's confined to shades of grey.

The Oscars, home-style

As delighted as I am that Kathryn Bigelow managed to topple the gender barrier for directors at yesterday's Academy Awards (and yes, today is International Women's Day, which seems nicely appropriate), I remain unconvinced that Hurt Locker was the year's best film. I have a couple of gripes with it, one of which is major.

I found Ang Lee's Taking Woodstock (not even in the running) much more interesting filmically -- more treasures embedded in it -- truer to what the medium is supposed to do: reveal through a combination of visual images and dialogue.

And yes, I watched the Academy Awards show in its entirety. A little group of us get together every year to watch the Oscars. The only time I've missed for a while was in 2002 when G and I were living in Australia.

We do ballots (I always lose five bucks), wear chunky jewellery, the works, but the food is one of the best parts. This year's feast was bookended by Up in the Air snack dishes (and much better than the usual salty bits we get when we're 'up in the air' and tiny perfect hearts (in honour of Crazy Heart, of course). Best course of the evening? A Single Man-icotti. Yum!

Olympic Pride of a Different Sort

I’m part of a group that likes to observe Freedom to Read Week. Each year, we gather at some public venue and read from works that have been banned

This year saw several of us take our cue from the Olympics. One of the writers whose work was read was Brad Cran, Vancouver’s Poet Laureate. Cran decided not to take part in the games’ official cultural events because he didn’t agree with the conditions VANOC imposed on artists. Some of their restrictions meant that artists couldn’t be critical of the Olympics, nor of any of the corporate sponsors. That certainly sounds like censorship to me.

Cran did write two poems to coincide with the Vancouver Games, one a tribute to the women ski-jumpers (the ones who weren’t allowed to compete, even when they based their challenge on Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms – apparently the IOC is a power higher than our country’s strongest guarantor of rights). The poem read at our event was his “2010 Handbook for Entering Canada”.

I took a more roundabout route in making my selections. I decided that because these Olympics were the first with a Pride House, the first games to recognize gay participants, it was important to read from books that had been challenged in the past for their gay content. Jane Rule’s The Young in One Another’s Arms was one of many books detained at the Canadian border for its lesbian content. Like so many of those ‘detained’ titles, it was destined for Little Sisters Bookstore. And that ‘detainment’ was just one of many instances that led that bravest of bookstores to challenge Canada Customs and its practices.

My other selection was Elspeth Cameron’s memoir, No Previous Experience.

Both books are wonderfully written and in no way prurient or lurid. It’s difficult to understand what the fuss might have been about.

But then, I remind myself that when Mark Tewksbury won a gold medal in Barcelona in 1992, he still had to be ‘in the closet’ about his sexuality. I’m grateful that this time out, U.S. skater Johnny Weir can not only be open, but can speak out against the commentators who made homophobic remarks about him.

And I’m glad as well that Tewksbury is still continuing to speak out. Lately he’s commented on the Conservative government’s decision to censor the newly-written guidelines for immigrants to Canada. Steve and the gang don’t want information about same-sex rights included in the guide. Considering that some countries still punish (and even execute) gays, you’d think the government might realize our freedoms are something to be proud about. Something maybe even to celebrate.

Time for Gratitude

Today is a day for remembering. Today is a day for being grateful.

I'm grateful that the Olympics, despite all my gripes about the money they've burnt, turned out to be a time of getting along. Maybe those peace prayers during the Torch Run helped.

It's also a day for remembering my dad, who died 20 years ago today. Tonight's fireworks display, documented by Jevon, is something my dad would have loved. Do you suppose he knew we'd be observing a 20th anniversary tonight and picked the day he went to spirit? And a night with a full moon in the sky for an even longer-enduring light show?

Busy days, Lower Mainland style

It's been yet another very rich week -- busy in all the best senses of the word. Tuesday saw me making my way into Vancouver (via transit, of course) for an unconventional, not particularly Olympic adventure.

One of my first stops was Granville Island, where I wandered down one of my favourite streets there, Railspur Alley. The gentleman above seemed to greet me with just the right amount of absurdity. He greets passersby outside the Peter Kiss Gallery. Even his title is a delight: "John Had Hoped His Spirit Animal Might Have Been More Impressive".

After a good ramble through the laneways and the market, I hopped one of those little rainbow-coloured boats -- the ones that ferry people across False Creek. I felt a bit like a dignitary, as I was the only passenger on board. Playing tourist in my own city, what a lark!

On the city side, I started the trek up Hornby Street, where I happened into the Appleton Gallery. Their collection of Inuit and Aboriginal Art is remarkable. And as my luck so often seems to do, the gallery operator invited me into the back of the store where Inuit artist Palaya Qiatsuq was working on a carving. Visiting from Cape Dorset in Nunavut, he was kind enough to tell me about what he was working on (a small carving of a seal).

Wednesday must have been a day for laundry and catching up after Denman. Amazingly, I didn't take any photos that day. But Thursday was dedicated to poet Ray Hsu. I picked him at the bus stop and dropped him at one of the local high schools where he presented workshops to students in Grades 10-12.

And as if that wouldn't have constituted a full day for most people, that evening he gave a reading/presentation to an audience at White Rock's Pelican Rouge Coffee House. All of this was part of the Community Arts Council's cultural offerings.

Friday saw a couple of us off to Simon Fraser University's Surrey campus, where we took in a display of the winning entries in an urban design competition called Townshift. Since the two of us had been part of a team that had prepared an entry, we wanted to see first-hand what had beaten us. While our entry was nowhere near as professional (heck, we're not architects), it was good to see so many of the ideas we'd hit on included in many of the entries.

Rounding out the week was a visit to the dentist. No details necessary, but when I googled dentistry, it surprised to find so many dentist games. I'm not sure who plays these, but really, who'd have thought it?

It's been a full week

And I mean that in the sense of fullness -- as in the previous posting with that glass full of ocean and sky.

It felt like an honour to be part of the first annual Winter Writer's Retreat on Denman Island. Although really, the weather felt much more like spring than winter.

I was with a group of writers who wanted to learn more about shaping their work into publishable manuscripts.

Their works-in-progress ranged from history to historical novel, from taut political intrigue to a manual that will help communities become energy self-sufficient. One of the projects will be a coffee-table book that combines photos and writings on a very specific area of Vancouver Island. There will even be a book on achieving spiritual enlightenment; its message is tempered with wonderfully clear-eyed humour.

I just hope that all the participants will maintain the kind of energy they put into the workshop's activities. For now, the house where we worked holds some good energy, and I'm sure it will lend itself to many other creative ventures.

The glass is half full

...of mountains and sea.

I'm lucky to be part of Denman Island's Winter Writer's Retreat, and even luckier with where I've been assigned for accommodation. That photo is the view from the room where I'm staying.

Life is certainly good here. The loudest noise is the raucous lullaby of barking sea lions on the rocks (their evening cries, ork, ork, ork!). The quietest sound is the silence of all those extra night-sky stars. So many, so bright!

What's up?

Even though I live in the middle of suburbia, I’m near enough Vancouver to get there in less than an hour by car. The trip’s about the same by transit, a combination of bus and train. All of this is, of course, dependent on traffic.

Considering this, it’s impossible not to get caught up in all that’s going on with the Olympics.

The event started on the worst possible note, with Nodar Kumaritashvili, the luger from Georgia, being killed during Friday’s practice.

While BC Place was filling with those who could afford (or were well-enough connected) to attend the opening ceremonies, protesters moved through the downtown streets.

In the tradition of those protesters in the early ’60s who first stood up against segregation by sitting down at lunch counters, when Vancouver's protesters were confronted by a line of police, they sat down in the street.

By Friday night, their numbers had grown to over 2,000.

Jevon was in the midst of the crowd outside BC Place. Like the Legal Observers, he was there to watch and witness and learn. He took this photo of a woman whose message is clear. Like me and so many others, it isn’t that she’s necessarily against the Olympics, but against the fact that 90% of arts funding has been cut from the provincial budget, apparently to facilitate these games. What we’re against is the way the event has been mounted on the backs of our schools, our health care system, and our programs for the poor.

But as I’ve said before, here in BC we have a government that’s by the rich and for the rich.

It sounds as though the police must have been getting messages on their headsets, clearly from someone somewhere else, not there on the streets. And yes, this sounds a lot like the way the military’s decision-makers too often command their troops from too far away from the reality of a situation. Even though Jev was on the sidewalk and not even in the street with the bulk of the protesters, he was shoved by a police officer. Not good, not necessary.

And then on Saturday, things got even uglier. I don’t like that store windows were smashed or that vehicles were spray-painted or otherwise vandalized.

I remember a T-shirt that read ‘Perfect Paranoia is Perfect Awareness.’ So I can’t help wonder just who it was that threw those newspaper bins into the windows of the official Olympic department store, the Bay. Since the people who did this were apparently wearing masks, it’s anybody’s guess who it might have been.

Where the police had so much of their original ‘security wish list’ cancelled, who’s to say the rowdies weren’t placed there by those who wanted to discredit the protesters? What a wonderful excuse to get out the big guns. Which, by the way, is exactly what they did.

When I hear that the police are armed with batons and riot shields, I am saddened. When I hear they’re pounding their sticks against those shields and shouting in unison at the crowd, I am ashamed. But when I learn that some of them are packing assault rifles, I wonder whose country I am in.

And almost lost in all the hooplah was the news that Joshua Caleb Baker became the 140th Canadian soldier killed in Afghanistan. It was a training accident, but one that probably wouldn’t have happened if he hadn’t been in Afghanistan. And even though it wasn’t an IED that killed him, he’s just as dead.

When I hear those helicopters – especially in the middle of the night – it’s hard for me to feel particularly safe. I wonder what they’re doing. And I wonder just how secure all these new measures are making us.

Too many things going wrong

Last night, I woke in the middle of the night. The numbers on the clock flashed just about one. So, what was it woke me? The Dear Man snoring? Nope. Helicopters buzzing the sky.

Olympic flame of a different sort

I was down at the beach yesterday morning, just about the same time the Olympic torch passed by through White Rock. Pink streaks of light filled the morning sky, a sliver of moon still hung above the sea.

The crowds who’d come down to witness the torch were already trudging up the hill, heading for their cars, the busy-ness that would be their day.

Alone against this tide of people, I wandered along the railway tracks, snapping too many photos of sky, sea, trees, and birds.

Walking past the band shell in the park, I noticed a small group of people who looked as if they were waiting for something.

Approaching them, I asked, “Where’s Gordon Campbell?” After all, our premier’s been popping up almost anyplace where there might be a photo op. They point to each other and laugh, as if one of them might be Campbell in disguise. Then one claims instead to be Stephen Harper. “Oh yes, of course, he’s on holiday. He should be out here any day now.”

As it turns out, they’re going to have a prayer of peace for the Olympics. When they invite me to join them, I do.

Organized by a local group, called the Awakening Heart, the people here represent various faiths and belief systems. Among us, there is an imam, a few Jainists, several Buddhist monks and a nun. The representative from the Unitarian church is charming. She makes the claim that her church has ‘borrowed’ from everyone else. Many, like me, are of no particular affiliation, yet all of us clearly respect one another.

The prayers are multilingual – in Arabic, Sanskrit, and, luckily for me, English.

My place in the circle is beside a man from Sydney, Australia. I can tell by his headpiece that he is likely Muslim. When we are asked to join hands, I have the sense to hesitate, realizing that he and I are probably not permitted to touch. He smiles and indicates for me to hold on near the cuff of his sleeve. This makes the link. We are respectfully joined to the rest of the circle.

At one point the sound of helicopters is too loud for any of us to hear what the other might be saying. We stop, and though I realize this is the noise of the omnipresent Olympic security forces, I think of the many places in the world where this might be the sound of an attack.

When we resume, the angle of the sun reaches into the band shell, shining on us even though we are standing beneath the structure’s overhang.

As the circle of prayers nears its conclusion, a chorus of birds revs up with a glorious morning song. And then a dog jumps up on the platform, sniffing us in turn. It’s as if the animals understand what we are asking, and try to say that they want peace too.

As I leave, I carry a flame in my heart, one that burns stronger than the Olympic torch possibly could.

Superb Owl rises yet again

It's that day again. And sure as the moon will shine in tonight's sky (even if it's hidden behind clouds, it'll be there), Superb Owl will also be there.

He's no ordinary owl (not that there's anything ordinary about owls), but he is -- well, his name says it all -- superb. If you're uncertain about the origins of Superb Owl, click here for a bit of background info.

And while Superb Owl spreads his wings and flies above us all tonight, make some good wishes, for they're sure to come true.

A very nice break

It seems I’ve spent most of the last month sorting papers and books. Considering my packrat ways, this is probably a good thing. Still, it isn’t a whole lot of fun.

But today provided an opportunity for a wonderful break. I was invited to Alexandra Neighbourhood House to do a mini-workshop with a group of young writers. They were welcoming, and best of all, willing to try new things and share the results. And some of their results were pretty amazing. When it came to thinking outside the box and applying imagination, they were pros.

Their goal is to create a small book for publication. So, besides leading them in some writing exercises, I passed around a sampling of some of the chapbooks I own. I think this infusion of new design ideas might find fruition when they make their own booklet.

After such a productive-feeling time, I was left with a head full of good thoughts. So I decided to nourish those with a walk on the nearby beach. What a great start to a weekend!

The world is on its way

With only ten days to go until the Olympics begin, it's becoming clear that Vancouver is putting on the finishing touches and doing its best to look good. Granville Street is filled with lanterns that make the evenings look magical.

The other day, when I was picking up family from the airport, it was easy to spot international visitors, including this one, who it turns out is one of the clothing providers for the Russian team.

But even though there's lots that looks great, some elements aren't quite in place. One thing I'm concerned about is the lack of public toilets in the city. Australia had no such qualms about hiding such facilities. Every little town had prominent signs pointing the way to the nearest loo.

And despite Vancouver's claim for being so green, I was unable to find recycling facilities for the plastic cups we were served from at an event at the Orpheum Theatre. Thanks to a Christmas gift, we were able to attend a concert that's part of the Cultural Olympiad. Oddly, when the emcee announced thanks, she credited Heritage Canada and the Government of Nova Scotia. Hmm. Go figure where B.C.'s arts money has gone, if not to these showy events. But nope, no recycling available at these, the greenest Olympics in the 'greenest city' around.

I've since heard that there won't be any garbage containers available -- all part of our Big Brother Security Show. I'm not sure who'll be looking after the streets, but this sight on Granville (admittedly from over a week ago) doesn't seem very welcoming.