springing

The appropriation controversy rages on. Everyone is weighing in, some with helpful calm perspective and some most decidedly not. On a friend's FB page, someone replied to a comment with this, which is helpful.
You can write anything you want, though you might be criticized if you take ownership of someone else's culture in a way that is shallow and opportunistic. Cultural appropriation is not the same as imagination or intercultural dialogue or any other nuanced idea. Cultural appropriation refers to a kind of exploitation of others with less power.

That helps me see the issue in a new way. And that's my last word on this issue. The whole world is disintegrating, climate change and the weather are destroying the planet plus there's a fascist lunatic with his finger on the nuclear button, no, two fascist lunatics, no, more, THREE, North Korea, Russia, and the U.S. Plus Turkey and the Philippines. Imagine, a worldwide gang of fascist lunatics which includes the United States. So it's the bigger picture that preoccupies me now.

To the point that I almost want to stop clicking here, stop reading the newspaper. The relentless explosion of news, yet another absurdity, another atrocity, another reason to tear out your hair. More importantly - another good friend is battling cancer. Brucie is still recovering in hospital in Italy. It seems perhaps he had a stroke; his sister is on the case. We are fragile, we older human beings. That's enough to deal with, without the horror of all the rest.

And yet despite all this, for the first time in a long time - I feel great. Because I'm home? It's spring? All that. I'm home, and it's spring, and I have some energy. Today, my friend Grace came to help me with technology - we upgraded the Mac to the latest operating system which so far has only caused two giant headaches - and she helped me take the plants that wintered in my study outside. It really must be spring.

Now I'm going to go watch a repeat episode of "The Handmaid's Tale" on Bravo. A dose of Margaret Atwood dystopia, just in case I'm feeling a little too perky.

And here, for your delight, is my beloved Macca, a bit hairier than usual ...

Writers' Union of Canada @#$storm

Beautiful days - colder than usual but sunny, green shoots and flowers everywhere. Spring is here, it's just being shy.

Okay, I just KNOW you want me to wade into controversy. Perhaps you've been hiding under the bed and have not heard about the hurricane at the Writers' Union of Canada, which was on the front page of the Star today. Except for Alice's Nobel Prize, no one has ever paid so much attention to writers in this country. Unfortunately, it takes a tempest in a teapot to make people realize that yes, there are writers here, lots of them, to the point that they have a UNION. Which has a house mag called Write, which just put out an attractive issue featuring the work of indigenous writers. And which made the huge mistake of printing an opinion piece by the editor.

The editor, Hal Hiedzviecki, wrote a truly ill-advised piece stating his personal belief that there is no such thing as cultural appropriation, that writers should be free to write about whatever they want. "Relentlessly explore the lives of people who aren't like you..." he wrote. So far so good; I completely agree. "Cultural appropriation" is a huge flashpoint, stating that non-indigenous people, for example, should not create indigenous characters or imagine the indigenous experience. To my mind, if you keep going that way, Tolstoy the male should not write the voice of Anna Karenina, and Sherman Alexie, an indigenous writer, should not write about white people. However, the concern, I gather, is largely that marginalized people should not be ripped off by being represented by artists from the dominant culture who might in any way profit from their marginalization.

But Niedzviecki, a hard-working writer and socially conscious man, then moved into murkier, more dangerous territory, suggesting an "appropriation prize" and writing with a touch of condescension about the experience of indigenous writers. Clumsy and poorly thought out, but from someone obviously well-meaning who, let us not forget, created this issue of the magazine with its 100% indigenous content. However, the shitstorm was instantaneous, with not only indigenous writers, but many more-sensitive-than-thou writers jumping in about how mortally offended and hurt they were. A white colleague of mine wrote on FB that she hoped her indigenous colleagues would please forgive her and how could she help make the Writers Union a safe, unthreatening place for them once more? Another, My hope coming out of this is that I, and others in the settler culture, can begin to more deeply understand how manipulated we are by our own privilege and internal programming and do the necessary work we must do to step more meaningfully closer to reconciliation. And another wrote that we should feel for marginalized writers timidly approaching "the citadel" of literature and being brutally turned away by the likes of Hal and his editorial.

Oh sheesh. The citadel. If she thinks I'm in a citadel of literature because I'm white and middle-class, let me tell you, I'd like to find out where it is so I can take up residence. We are all doing our best out here in the wilderness, trying to write our truth. Anyway, Hal resigned or was fired and the magazine printed an abject apology.

Of course immediately, heart pumping, I jumped in, writing a letter to the Union and then posting it on FB:
I cannot tell you how strongly I object to the firing or forced resignation of Hal Niedzviecki for writing a thoughtful if controversial opinion piece. Are we children, that we can’t evaluate different opinions than our own? In fact, this hoo-ha is exactly what he’s writing about - the politics of grievance. Our feelings must not be hurt. 

I am an adult, able to figure out what I agree with and what I don’t, and I despise a culture that denies me that right. Have you ever watched Bill Maher? This is what he goes on about, the absurd extremes of namby-pamby’ism on the left, one of the reasons Trump is President. 

I support Mr. Niedzviecki and the magazine 100%. Please bring him back. Please forward this to him. Please let’s grow up together.

I then wrote to apologize for the intensity of my tone, that I was carried away, that I don't despise anything but Trump but I do dislike opinion being silenced. Instead of firing the editor, shouldn't someone write a rebuttal? Aren't we writers? I asked. Isn't this what we do? I received a reply online from another colleague, that it's all very well for a privileged person like me to react this way, but that we need to be more respectful and inclusive, not less. 

With which I completely agree, though not, I guess, in the same way.

He wrote, Let's talk about how we can release under-represented voices, not how white folks can appropriate them. But that's not what Hal was proposing.

And at that, I decided to let it go. There are two vital issues here: one, silencing opinion - not vile racist or sexist or fascist opinion, just controversial and contrarian - when we dislike or disagree with it. And two, "cultural appropriation", being told by the cultural police, the office of political correctness, what we can or cannot write about. But getting involved is asking for nothing but trouble; just writing this blog post may be a bad idea. The level of hysteria is frightening. The haters are out in force, the twitter hyenas, and who am I but a dinosaur, a privileged old-fashioned cisgender white woman safely ensconced in the citadel. Where, incidentally, yet another essay of mine was just turned down by a literary magazine for not being literary enough.

Poor Writers' Union in a hornet's nest. Poor Mr. Niedzviecki. Very unwise but utterly undeserving, IMHO, of what is raining down up them. 

Otherwise, all is well. And for those of you who've asked, Bruce is better. Thank you. Over and out.

My heroes! Tonight!

I'll be staying up late for once. Can't wait.

Brucie

Suddenly everything is relative. I was awakened this morning - in my own bed, not in my friend Bruce's bed in Vancouver where I've been sleeping for two weeks while he's in Italy - by Lani, who asked if I'd heard about Bruce. I shot up. Last night, she told me, he had a cerebral hemorrhage.

Many emails today. His sister Jane is leaving for Italy Thursday with her husband Charles and Marsha from the Arts Club Theatre, where Bruce worked. Jane wrote that her ticket is open-ended, she'll stay as long as is needed to get Bruce home. The miracle is that he was with an Italian friend, Giuliano. Usually, during his very long sojourns in Italy, he's alone, staying in some airbnb flat in a small town in the middle of nowhere, off every morning to visit another Renaissance masterpiece or two. But this week, he was staying with Giuliano who heard noise, found him, and got him to the hospital. Blessings. Giuliano sent Jane a photo - our Bruce in hospital, tubes everywhere, but smiling. Prayers.

We were together in Nice last month. I now feel guilty because I was so anxious to get to London, I cut our time together short. But nothing to be done now. Here we are on the Promenade des Anglais:

Two loners, recently we've been to Barcelona and Madrid, to the Amalfi Coast and Naples, Florence, Rome, and Cinque Terre together - wonderful times. All thoughts with you, beloved friend. All that matters is health, dear ones. Take care of yourselves.

Re my homecoming journey, all is well, more than well. I got to the Vancouver airport so early that with a bit of money, I was able to change my flight to an earlier one. I watched two fantastic movies I'd wanted very much to see, "I am not your negro," James Baldwin dealing with race in America, slow-moving but extremely powerful, and the new Ken Loach film "I, Daniel Blake," about one decent man caught in the humiliating, infuriating, Kafka-esque British social services, an unforgettable film I hope you all see. It's a bit heavy-handed but beautifully done. Bravo to both magnificent films.

I was glad to be watching them because I was in the centre row of 3 seats next to an embattled mother with two young children. She was well-organized, hard-working, doing her best. Her children were horrendously out of control, perhaps clinically so - could they both have had ADD or autism or worse? Both relentless, noisy, screaming, demanding; the boy of about 3 sitting next to me hit me several times until I made clear that was to stop, the little girl, maybe 18 months, writhing, shrieking - it was painful. How I felt for that woman. So the films were a blessing.

Home. My house bed garden. The city in bloom, though it's not warm yet, at least at night. But green green green. U of T started this afternoon, a fabulous class, tomorrow Ryerson, Thursday my home group. Settling back into routine. Only one problem - the overhanging shadow of my friend in Italy and his recovery. May he soon be in his OWN bed, which I made up for him before I left. Come home, Brucie. We miss you. We love you.

Macron, rhodos, Ancora: a triumphant day

Skyped with Lynn today in Provence, mid-afternoon her time - she said after the debate between Le Pen and Macron, it was sure who would win. She said Le Pen had managed to convince people she was just an ordinary right-wing politician, but in the debate she spewed hatred and misinformation, and she was ill prepared; it was a debacle for the hideous Front National. They have not gone away, but they were defeated today. Bravo for France. Smarter than the Americans. No surprise there.

It's the end of a sunny day - the beaches of the West End are packed with people, young and old, having picnics, playing in the sand - a group of young people brought a portable dance floor and were cha cha cha'ing on the grass. I am looking at the water as the sun goes down behind the mountains - two people paddleboarding, skimming across the water, the little boats chugging back in. On a day like today, it's pure paradise here.

It was the Vancouver Marathon this morning, which goes right by Bruce's front door - both the half and the full marathon, fronted by the Africans, the human cheetahs who pound by as if just running for the bus instead of finishing many kilometres. And then, behind, the great normal runners, and then the ordinary folk, thousands of them lumbering along. I went down to applaud, and for the rest of the day, the city was full of people wearing marathon medals around their necks. Well deserved medals.

Crazy people. 

Chris and I went for a walk in Stanley Park to see the rhododendrons and azaleas. I have to say that besides the mountains and the ocean, what Vancouver has going for it are those two flower bushes, which we do not get in Ontario. Stunning. And for some reason, there was a big fake moose.

We took a break, I went home to clean and pack, and we met again early evening by the water - Chris brought a half bottle of champagne and glasses, I brought some hummus and crackers, and we had our aperitif sitting on a picnic bench watching the boats in the sunshine. And then we went to Chris's favourite restaurant - Ancora, again right on the water, serving food that's a mix of Peruvian and Japanese. Yes. Mostly fish, and sublime. 

Our waitress was so beautiful and kind, I asked her if she wanted to come to Toronto to meet my handsome son. She thought I was joking.

So my friend and I have said goodbye. I came here largely to be with him, one of the most interesting, creative people I have ever known. Going through a tough time right now, but getting better. He sure knows how to have a good time. I will miss him a lot. 

But despite this glorious city and my beloved friend, I will be very glad to be home.