Wow. Today somebody out there found my blog by searching for it by title. This is a first in the animal’s blogging career. It makes me feel that there is now some pressure on me to start writing properly and expressing real opinions rather than reiterating what other intelligent internet entities have said. That’s part of what blogging is about, I guess, but since I have a brain which functions fairly well, I should probably use it from time to time. No promises, because I tend to break those, but I would love to start writing more about birth and pregnancy and sexual health, and how we think about women’s bodies in all of these contexts – for that matter, how we think about men and their bodies in these contexts, because they are often overlooked. I would love to give myself some leeway to write frivolous things about fiddling (as in, playing the violin, you dirty bastards) and books and cats and my little prairie life. It’s a pretty great life with some pretty great people in it. So try not to mind if I occasionally remove the stick from my ass to talk about the things that make me happy to be in the world, rather than all the things I wish were different.
Thanks for making my morning, Google user.
Listening to Neko Case can be dangerous for me; her lyrics seem so intense sometimes, and there’s something about the twang that makes it extra emotive. Good old alt-country. I can sing my lungs out along with her, and break down crying in the middle of a song. “Wet shoes drag you off to school, shoes that never dry…”
Also very evocative is a poem called “The Onion” by John Thompson which I came across this afternoon in The Oxford Book of Canadian Verse in English. Strange that a poem about a vegetable should yank the heartstrings so. I’ll include a few lines, at the risk of defying copyright law (it can be found here if you have access to Jstor):
…
I cup the onion I watched grow all summer:
cutting perfectly through its heart
it speaks a white core, pale
green underskin, the perfections
I have broken, that curing grace
my knife releases;
and then you are by me, unfolded
to a white stillness, remade warmth on warmth.
So we turn from our darkness,
our brokenness,
share this discovered root,
this one quiet bread
quick with light, thyme, that deep
speech of your hands which always
defeats me, calling me through strange earths
to this place suddenly yours.
Sorry for the big line breaks, I’m not sure how to change that. Being technologically inept is definitely not all it’s cracked up to be.
Anyway. Those are the last few stanzas; I love where he places his line breaks and lines like “that deep/ speech of your hands which always/ defeats me.” I think poetry and I may be getting back together, so to speak. Writing well, and also reading well (please see Zadie Smith for discussion), take time and effort. I still have a lot to learn about poetry and writing in general, but I love the feeling of turning out a line that seems right. I want to work at being a poet along with all of the other things I’ve become while my writing life was on hiatus.
It sounds supremely pretentious to talk about my “writing life.” Who the fuck do I think I am? Two publications in a university journal do not a poet make. But I’ll work on it.
Last night we went to a show at the Walker/Burton Cummings theatre (the name changed a few years ago in order that we may better venerate one of our hometown superstars, of the Guess Who. I like the Guess Who and all, but…). I was interested originally because of these guys:
That’s Apostle of Hustle playing at our Folk Festival, which happens every July and is FANTASTIC. I’m in the crowd somewhere at that show; that was the first time I saw them. The video quality is kind of crappy, but I like the song, which is from Folkloric Feel.
So, I went because of the great opening band. I stomped and clapped for an encore because of this:
That video’s a bit wacky too, but it’s a good illustration of the energy these guys have onstage. They went like that for the entire set, nonstop, one song leading straight into the next. We were on the second balcony in this beautiful old building, and there were kids jumping and banging into each other and just about toppling out of the narrow rows. Lots of fun. I wish I’d seen these guys in my pseudo-punk-kid days, because I would have exhausted myself dancing!
I guess I only have one gripe. The group is super diverse, with performers of visibly different races and backgrounds; they use more than just English and the style is inspired by many different traditions. The only kind of diversity they seem to be leaving out is gender. There are two women who perform with them – if you search for more videos on YouTube you’ll find them somewhere – but their role is to be the eye candy. They are almost identical to one another – thin, petite, dark-haired. They wear the same thing onstage (which is invariably pretty revealing) and dance around the male performers, occasionally singing backup. They’re props, in a sense. They put on a good show, and they look like they’re having a hell of a time, but they’re illustrative of the role usually reserved for women in the music industry. The men make the big noises here, and the women are what you watch while they do the grunt work. I don’t think it’s even necessary, since the band is entertaining enough on its own. And this doesn’t hold true for all musical genres, but think of the well-known female artists you know. How many of them are singer-songwriters, or pop musicians, or r&b/hip hop performers; and how many of them do punk rock or grunge or metal? The only two women/female groups I can think of who I really love and who fit into one of those latter categories are bif naked and Hole. And look at how the media treats Courtney Love. Not saying she’s a model citizen (what the fuck would that be, anyway?). But, being a fan of Led Zeppelin’s music, I think she looks pretty tame and law-abiding when you compare her antics to theirs. And they get nowhere near the same amount of criticism. I think the general sentiment about the Led Zeppelin way of life (drugs, using female fans for sexual release and also objects of ridicule, excess, disregard for ‘family values’) is that they’re just boys being boys. Cheating on your wife? You’re fucking Jimmy Page (double entendre, hey-o!), who gives a shit? Using your fame to get away with sexually assaulting and humiliating women? Wutevs! Meanwhile, Courtney Love gets shit from Perez Hilton for not wearing a bra in public, obviously a disgusting and ignorant act of violence on our finer sensibilities. That’s the most vapid example of vilification I could find, just to show how harshly women are policed and what the standards are like. Male performers can do things that are genuinely harmful and, I think, disgusting and degrading, without drawing much negative attention. Women, on the other hand, can’t even go braless without being pegged as disgusting.
I’ve kind of gone off on a tangent here… But hey, it’s my effing blog! I can be as tangential as I please, and you can’t say a goddamned thing about it. Neener neener neener! The point is, I liked the show, and those two chicks looked like they were having fun (I think my cousin L would have a blast in that role, btw, she can be very campy and she’s an excellent performer), but they are exemplary of something I think is problematic in music. Stuff that’s on my blogging agenda for the week: Salman Rushdie and the women in Midnight’s Children; a comment made to me over the phone by someone calling the clinic earlier this week which made me sad; why I think anti-choice protesters are ridiculous and WHAT WE PLAN TO DO ABOUT THEM AND THEIR LACK OF LOGIC (you’ll like the plan, I promise, it’s brilliant); Estrella Morente; and, in honour of my friend/fiancee D, some pictures of dogs. Cute ones.
