Ever since reading about radical abolitionist John Brown in high school, I have found him to be a fascinating figure. Clearly (more than) a bit crazy, he was also 'right'; the abominable institution of slavery would not end without a fight. His capture and execution at Harper's Ferry after raiding a federal armoury probably did more for his cause than anything else he ever attempted because it shone the spotlight of national attention on a national ill.
In high school history class, he was not much more than an anecdote, but since then, whenever I come across something about him, I usually devour it. The first novel I found about him was Cloudsplitter by Russell Banks. This was a very serious telling of Brown's story from the point of view of his son, Owen. It captured his religious fervour, his love for his family, and his embarkation down the failed path to overthrow slavery by force. It was beautiful and compelling. I liked it so much that I hiked up Brown Mountain, Owen Brown's final home, in the San Gabriel Mountains near Los Angeles to leave the book for some lucky hiker.
When a dear friend gave me Good Lord Bird by James McBride I was thrilled but a bit confused. How do you tell the story of John Brown and make it funny? McBride, however, pulls it off through his incredible narrator and central character, Onion/Henry Shackleford. McBride, who also wrote the amazing The Color of Water, shows us how a crazy man can somehow possess enough charisma that people will follow him to an assuredly bad end. It's tragic in its futility, but it's somehow funny to watch a man who is wilfully blind to what lies right in front of him
The great power of the book, however, comes from the way he subtly shows the effects of slavery and racism. Brown, who has the deepest concern for the liberation of enslaved African Americans, assumes he knows what is best and that they will come running to join him. He just has to strike the match that will set off the firestorm of their liberation. At the same time, McBride shows us (subtly again) why oppressed people do not always fight for freedom the way we (those of us who are not in their situation) might think they should or would. Among his characters are people who are willing to toss everything aside to change their circumstances, but there are others who want to survive or for their families to survive. Destroying the entire system in which you are oppressed may sound appealing, but it is fraught with unknown risk. Burning down the prison that cages you while you are still inside it is a scary proposition.
Perhaps the thing that shocked me the most about Good Lord Bird, however, was McBride's humorous look at Frederick Douglass. I have never seen anything about Douglass that didn't hold him in anything but the highest esteem. McBride pokes fun at him as something of a pompous man more prone to speeches than action (though McBride's John Brown loves him).
Between the story of Onion and Brown and the look at oppression's side effects, this was a great novel. My love affair with John Brown books continues.
Wednesday, December 30, 2015
Monday, December 21, 2015
The Giver: Jonas as Christ Figure (The José Post)
When you have been teaching for a long time, sometimes you get the feeling that you have seen/heard it all, especially if your curriculum has you teaching the same things for a long time. I don't mean that in an 'I'm bored and jaded' kind of way. I just mean that you get to the point where you hear a lot of the same ideas from students. It's still exciting to see students reach conclusions that you might have heard before because you see the intellectual steps they have had to climb to reach that point, but again, if you have been teaching the same content you often hear similar ideas.
Thus it went with The Giver by Lois Lowry. It's a book that was part of our curriculum for a long time but with very good reason. The book is really one of the first utopian/dystopian novels written for a young audience. This may seem insignificant today since we are virtually drowning in the genre today, but Lowry was a pioneer. She explored the concept of what a 'perfect' society is, what choices we make to create one, and what it means to be truly human. What's more (and a reason that it's one of my favourite of the genre) is that these questions don't play out in some violent struggle between factions but rather in the conflicted mind of an intelligent adolescent boy.
When they read the book on their own, many students like it but don't love it, but when we do it as a class, they tend to get really into it. Or at the very least, they love the arguments and discussions that go with it. There is nothing like hearing twelve year olds furiously debating:
Thus it went with The Giver by Lois Lowry. It's a book that was part of our curriculum for a long time but with very good reason. The book is really one of the first utopian/dystopian novels written for a young audience. This may seem insignificant today since we are virtually drowning in the genre today, but Lowry was a pioneer. She explored the concept of what a 'perfect' society is, what choices we make to create one, and what it means to be truly human. What's more (and a reason that it's one of my favourite of the genre) is that these questions don't play out in some violent struggle between factions but rather in the conflicted mind of an intelligent adolescent boy.
When they read the book on their own, many students like it but don't love it, but when we do it as a class, they tend to get really into it. Or at the very least, they love the arguments and discussions that go with it. There is nothing like hearing twelve year olds furiously debating:
- What murder is
- What it means to be human
- Whether the individual matters more than the group
- Whether sacrificing personal freedom is worth it to ensure health and safety for all
- Whether it is possible to be happy in a world without suffering
To be honest, it is profoundly moving. If you've never had the chance, you're missing out.
This past year [I've had this post on my list of things to write for a while.], however, something new happened. I was reading some student writing about the book and came to a sudden, stunned halt. José, an unusually thoughtful, insightful student, likened the main character, Jonas, to Jesus Christ. He saw in Jonas's burden of memories a similar burden to that carried by Jesus when he died for the sins of other people. I was speechless to read one of the most original thoughts about the book I had seen in years. Actually, let's be frank- it was the most original thought I had seen about the book. EVER.
José went on to explain his thinking in his usual way - beautiful phrasing and eloquent connections to his examples - but the thing that stood out was the level at which he was thinking. I'm not religious, and in general religion did not come into the class discussion about the book, so when José reached that conclusion, it was totally independently. It also reminded me that there is nothing like teaching. There is nothing like seeing ideas emerge from the churning minds of young people - people who are often dismissed as obsessed with themselves or obsessed with thing or obsessed with technology.
Give them the right opportunities and they are capable of the profound. Thanks for that reminder, Joselito.
Thursday, December 17, 2015
Return to the Snow (theBside)
Today I rode the gondola up to Grouse Mountain in North Vancouver for the very first time. And what a first time it was.
Alternating between light rain and snow flurries at the bottom, by the time we got to the top it was winter wonderland time. We went as a little Christmas gift/Christmas experience for ourselves (because going up Grouse is expensive) and to try out our new snow shoes.
About half way through our hike, I had that winter feeling that I haven't had for oh so many years - that feeling you get when you have exerted yourself just enough that you're not hot, but you are just absolutely comfortable in the winter air. For those moments it's the perfect temperature and you could just flop down in the snow and lie there. You don't pine for tropical breezes or beaches because it's exactly right where you are.
It's that feeling that comes that lets you just stop and listen to the snow fall. It falls in little whispers, making little bristly noises as it melts against your jacket or settles on your eyelashes. It's warm enough, or you're warm enough, that you can stop and listen for the thud of clumps of snow falling from cedar branches twenty and thirty metres up. Or if you turn your head you hear the drip of water as the icicles send little drops down the rock face.
Yes, today was a perfect winter day.
Alternating between light rain and snow flurries at the bottom, by the time we got to the top it was winter wonderland time. We went as a little Christmas gift/Christmas experience for ourselves (because going up Grouse is expensive) and to try out our new snow shoes.
About half way through our hike, I had that winter feeling that I haven't had for oh so many years - that feeling you get when you have exerted yourself just enough that you're not hot, but you are just absolutely comfortable in the winter air. For those moments it's the perfect temperature and you could just flop down in the snow and lie there. You don't pine for tropical breezes or beaches because it's exactly right where you are.
It's that feeling that comes that lets you just stop and listen to the snow fall. It falls in little whispers, making little bristly noises as it melts against your jacket or settles on your eyelashes. It's warm enough, or you're warm enough, that you can stop and listen for the thud of clumps of snow falling from cedar branches twenty and thirty metres up. Or if you turn your head you hear the drip of water as the icicles send little drops down the rock face.
Yes, today was a perfect winter day.
Sunday, December 6, 2015
Jessica Jones (the show) - A giant leap forward
I just finished binge-watching Jessica Jones, the latest Marvel show from Netflix. As soon as they announced the show, I was excited to see it. This was due in large part to the character's relatively minor role in the Marvel universe. For the last while, she has been pretty resolutely retired and focusing on being a mother (and is also married to Luke Cage). The beauty of a more minor character as the protagonist for a series like this is that you can do more with her (or him). There isn't so much lore weighing the character down that the creators would feel compelled to repeat history.
And Jessica Jones is one of the most refreshing female characters on television. She is almost resolutely crabby, smiling perhaps twice in the whole series. She is almost drab in her attire throughout the show - jeans, t-shirt, boots, and a jacket. No spandex hugging her hips, cropped shirt showing off her abdomen, or thigh high boots for this Jessica Jones. There is a funny reference to the possibility of wearing a costume (a nod to when she did wear (a bad) one in the comic books), but she deflected the idea with a terrific reference to giant camel toes. Well done, JJ. To be honest, Daredevil was more of a physical object that Jessica Jones through most of the show.
But most important is that this show has offered us one of the best women on tv. If the Bechdel Test were graded, Jessica Jones would have aced it. She has a love interest (Luke Cage) and a nemesis (Kilgrave the Purple Man), but she has friends and relatively real relationships. Those friends are themselves powerful, independent women. Trish (who might become Hellcat?) is haunted by her own demons, but she fights through them and refuses to be a victim again. They talk about their relationship, their lives, and their problems.
A little side note about the show's most interesting (and weird) female character - Robin, the neighbour with a twin. Whoever created her character and wrote her lines, good for you. She is a nut who stole every scene she was in. I kept wondering what future plans there are for her character because her set-up was just too funny.
Anyway, back to Jessica Jones. I did, of course, hate the Kilgrave conflict. If it didn't have roots in the comic books themselves, I would have said they should have made Kilgrave an archenemy for a male lead instead. The whole mind control thing in a sexual relationship essentially creates the dynamic of a perpetual state of sex slavery, but it was symbolically of great value that Jessica triumphs over that power.
It was also a pretty courageous choice on the part of the show's creators to have another of his victims choose to have an abortion (and go through with it) rather than have the child conceived while she was forced to be with him. When was the last time a character on television actually went through with an abortion, anyway. The only one I remember is Maude, and that was in 1972.
1972!!!!!
Jessica Jones isn't brilliant television, but it was not a binge that I feel guilty about. To the creators, congratulations on doing some great things. You did way more as artists and explored way more of the social issues of our times than any of those stupid Marvel movies did. They had all the money in the world and they had absolutely nothing to say. You said a lot, and my viewing partner and I really appreciated it.
And Jessica Jones is one of the most refreshing female characters on television. She is almost resolutely crabby, smiling perhaps twice in the whole series. She is almost drab in her attire throughout the show - jeans, t-shirt, boots, and a jacket. No spandex hugging her hips, cropped shirt showing off her abdomen, or thigh high boots for this Jessica Jones. There is a funny reference to the possibility of wearing a costume (a nod to when she did wear (a bad) one in the comic books), but she deflected the idea with a terrific reference to giant camel toes. Well done, JJ. To be honest, Daredevil was more of a physical object that Jessica Jones through most of the show.
But most important is that this show has offered us one of the best women on tv. If the Bechdel Test were graded, Jessica Jones would have aced it. She has a love interest (Luke Cage) and a nemesis (Kilgrave the Purple Man), but she has friends and relatively real relationships. Those friends are themselves powerful, independent women. Trish (who might become Hellcat?) is haunted by her own demons, but she fights through them and refuses to be a victim again. They talk about their relationship, their lives, and their problems.
A little side note about the show's most interesting (and weird) female character - Robin, the neighbour with a twin. Whoever created her character and wrote her lines, good for you. She is a nut who stole every scene she was in. I kept wondering what future plans there are for her character because her set-up was just too funny.
Anyway, back to Jessica Jones. I did, of course, hate the Kilgrave conflict. If it didn't have roots in the comic books themselves, I would have said they should have made Kilgrave an archenemy for a male lead instead. The whole mind control thing in a sexual relationship essentially creates the dynamic of a perpetual state of sex slavery, but it was symbolically of great value that Jessica triumphs over that power.
It was also a pretty courageous choice on the part of the show's creators to have another of his victims choose to have an abortion (and go through with it) rather than have the child conceived while she was forced to be with him. When was the last time a character on television actually went through with an abortion, anyway. The only one I remember is Maude, and that was in 1972.
1972!!!!!
Jessica Jones isn't brilliant television, but it was not a binge that I feel guilty about. To the creators, congratulations on doing some great things. You did way more as artists and explored way more of the social issues of our times than any of those stupid Marvel movies did. They had all the money in the world and they had absolutely nothing to say. You said a lot, and my viewing partner and I really appreciated it.
Saturday, December 5, 2015
Yule Duel - A big deal
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| Yule Duel 2015 |
It's still the home of many of the city's poorest residents with SRO hotels, shelters, and soup kitchens. At the Carnegie Centre, you'll qualify as a senior citizen at the ripe old age of 45 because of the greatly reduced life expectancy of so many of their regular clients. At the same time, it's where people come to buy furniture that costs as much as a used car, to browse through arm and a leg clothing boutiques, and to eat in some of the city's best, most expensive restaurants.
Gastown is a crossroads. And that's one of the things I love about it.
Thursday's Yule Duel, a public event open to any and everyone who happened to be out, was another one of those things that have made me fall in love with my new home city. Taking over the neighbourhood for music and throwing it open to everyone brought every element of Gastown and the East Side into the streets. It showed off the beauty of the neighbourhood but excluded no one. We need more events like this in the East Side.
To the organizers, thanks. I look forward to next year.
The Swinging Bridge - Interesting exploration of Trinidadian culture
The Swinging Bridge by Ramabai Espinet is an interesting book, but it wasn't a great one. It's interesting because it explores a part of Trinidadian (and Canadian) culture that is overlooked, misunderstood, or perhaps even deliberately 'simplified' out of the mainstream narrative of the Caribbean.
The plot of the novel revolves around an Indian Trinidadian family and their experiences both in Trinidad and later in Canada. Other than wondering occasionally how roti became a staple of many Caribbean (and Toronto) diets, I never really considered the Indo Trinidadian experience. I had noticed that a fair number of roti shops in Toronto seemed to be owned by people of South Asian descent who also seemed to have come to Canada from the Caribbean. That's where it kind of stopped (shame on me, I suppose).
It was this setting that prompted me to read The Swinging Bridge. In it, Espinet's central character, Mona, feels disconnected from a lot of things, calling herself a 'nowarian'. She doesn't feel rooted in her Canadian life in Montreal, but she also understands why her family left Trinidad (during a period in which Indo-Trinidadians were marginalized). The strength of the book lies in its exploration of the experience of Indo Trinidadians (and women in particular), first as indentured labourers then as Trinidadians who don't quite fit the newly independent (in 1962) nation's vision of itself that is most interesting. At least that is the way Mona, the main character, describes it.
The weakness in the book is twofold. First, the disjointed nature of the storytelling makes it hard to really engage with the book. Second, Espinet's main character isn't particularly likeable. She isn't 'nice' to anyone and seems wrapped up entirely in her own experience. Even the death of her brother seems to remind her most about the difficulties in her own life.
In short, the best part of the book is the questions about the experience of Indo-Trinidadians that the book raised. In fact, if it weren't for those, I would have likely stopped reading (something I rarely do). But you have to give credit to a book that makes you want to go out and learn more. For that, I am thankful.
The plot of the novel revolves around an Indian Trinidadian family and their experiences both in Trinidad and later in Canada. Other than wondering occasionally how roti became a staple of many Caribbean (and Toronto) diets, I never really considered the Indo Trinidadian experience. I had noticed that a fair number of roti shops in Toronto seemed to be owned by people of South Asian descent who also seemed to have come to Canada from the Caribbean. That's where it kind of stopped (shame on me, I suppose).
It was this setting that prompted me to read The Swinging Bridge. In it, Espinet's central character, Mona, feels disconnected from a lot of things, calling herself a 'nowarian'. She doesn't feel rooted in her Canadian life in Montreal, but she also understands why her family left Trinidad (during a period in which Indo-Trinidadians were marginalized). The strength of the book lies in its exploration of the experience of Indo Trinidadians (and women in particular), first as indentured labourers then as Trinidadians who don't quite fit the newly independent (in 1962) nation's vision of itself that is most interesting. At least that is the way Mona, the main character, describes it.
The weakness in the book is twofold. First, the disjointed nature of the storytelling makes it hard to really engage with the book. Second, Espinet's main character isn't particularly likeable. She isn't 'nice' to anyone and seems wrapped up entirely in her own experience. Even the death of her brother seems to remind her most about the difficulties in her own life.
In short, the best part of the book is the questions about the experience of Indo-Trinidadians that the book raised. In fact, if it weren't for those, I would have likely stopped reading (something I rarely do). But you have to give credit to a book that makes you want to go out and learn more. For that, I am thankful.
Thursday, December 3, 2015
Bestie - Even without the cider you were awesome
Tonight I went out for German food. NO, that's not a mistake. I went to a little German restaurant - billed as "Chinatown's Finest Currywurst" - over on Pender. The fact that there is a German restaurant anywhere outside of Germany always surprises me because, well, it not like people usually crave German food, right? I mean, it's eas to see why Italian/Chinese/Thai/etc. food spread around the planet. And it's equally easy to imagine why there aren't tons of German restaurants. You know...sausages, potatoes, sauerkraut, they aren't the types of things people pine for.
But Bestie was absolutely fantastic. I actually went for the cider but found out on arrival that it wasn't ready yet. I considered leaving and coming back when the cider was ready but instead decided to give Bestie a whirl before heading over to the Yule Duel. I'm certainly glad I did.
Everything from the mustard to wurst, the fries to the pickles was delicious. A lot of restaurants are good, but they don't surprise you. Bestie was great and completely surprised me. In fact, I can't wait to go back. I can actually imagine, for the first time in my life thinking, "Hmmm, I could go for some German food right about now."
Oh, and the service was great too.
But Bestie was absolutely fantastic. I actually went for the cider but found out on arrival that it wasn't ready yet. I considered leaving and coming back when the cider was ready but instead decided to give Bestie a whirl before heading over to the Yule Duel. I'm certainly glad I did.
Everything from the mustard to wurst, the fries to the pickles was delicious. A lot of restaurants are good, but they don't surprise you. Bestie was great and completely surprised me. In fact, I can't wait to go back. I can actually imagine, for the first time in my life thinking, "Hmmm, I could go for some German food right about now."
Oh, and the service was great too.
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