Stefan Captures New York

On Enlightenment

We all have our rituals, those things that we do to better ourselves, our practices of spirituality, devotion, or what have you. I know that I try to do yoga every morning while others may pray before bed every night. But what for? Where are we getting? Am I hoping for something? Am I hoping to gain some sort of enlightenment?

I've been reading Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism and it has uncovered some wonderful ideas for me that I would like to share. While I seek enlightenment or happiness or success or strength or what have you, it is when I don't want it, when I don't search for it, that it comes to me. It is when I allow and when I let go that things happen.

I, like many, have searched for the perfect yoga routine, or the best schools in hopes that it will lead down the perfect road. I seek scaffolding and structure that will set up the path to happiness, to God, to ... But this easy path, this written scripture, this holy way, doesn't exist.

Really, there is no path to seek. I am already on my own path, the path that I should be taking. No teachings, as they are written, will give me the answers. I will have to deal with myself, accepting my strengths and weaknesses, accepting my triumphs and my struggles. I need to experience and live teachings for myself - allow for my own rhythm and my own interpretation. Like baking bread, following the recipe will only get me so far; I've got to tweak it for my environment, for my tastes, for my oven, for my ingredients...

And is it about searching and effort and struggle? No, it isn't. As the adage goes, it is only when you are not looking that you will find it. Love plops in my lap when I'm preoccupied with other things. Friends pop up when I'm not waiting for them. Water boils when I'm not watching. It's when I give up the struggle and the search and embrace things as they are - good, bad, mediocre, whatever - that life delivers its blessings.

I'll find what I'm looking for when I stop searching...

That New York Feeling

Around Lincoln Center, Broadway and Columbus cross and two streets create three, but somehow traffic flows and it works. Driving with my dad to load up the car, turning onto Broadway from 65th, he seemed to sum up why New York works best: you just do it.


In my last day in New York, I had felt that confidence, that unthinking, that living in the moment. In stores, I'd chitchat with the salespeople. In restaurant, I did not hesitate to ask for things when I normally would. For a reason I couldn't immediately place, I felt more confident in New York City. It seemed that in the populated and complex metropolis I could live up to my motto of the moment nothing to lose.

The city's size, and seemingly endless population, along with its energy and everchanging nature makes a person root into themselves. I can do my own thing, meet up with friends, go to a few art galleries. There is no need to do everything, there is no need to feel overwhelmed. In motion - on a bus, on a subway, walking - is when I work best, words bubble to mind, I feel like I am mirroring my life's motion. And it was in the constant motion of the city that I found confidence.

Writing In The Dark

Writing words in the pitch black, letting free an idea shaped in those moments when the mind quiets onto your pillow, they have no shape. The words have no line, formless, joining the blackness. From your hands motion, they are released. All you have is the point of your pencil, all you have is the grasp of your hand, all you have is the words fresh in your mind, gasping. What would it mean to not write words in the dark, but to instead draw out feelings?

The Urgency of the Weekend

Every time the week comes to a close and Friday night looms along with the freedom and promise of Saturday, I've got this sense of anxiety, urgency, anticipation that bubbles up. Every time.

I'm not really sure what it is, this feeling. There's this inner expectation that I need to go out, I need to party, I need to meet wild new people. It's a bit silly when I sit down to write about it. After all, Friday and Saturday are just other days, just other nights, and all those people who are out and about are just normal people. So why the expectation?

Perhaps it stems from this need for fun, this need for something exterior... I keep coming back to the realization that celebrating the moment, the people you are with, the moments you have is just the best thing to do.

So when the anxiety and urgency bubbles up, I just have to breathe, decide what would make me happy, plan the things I can, and enjoy the rest...

Mois de la Photo in Montreal

Check out my coverage of Mois de la Photo at the Art Blog. Below is the image of Jeff Guess, for which I featured a picture of the lighting in yesterday's post ... (keep scrolling) ...



Eleven days remaining of free exhibitions across the city as part of this event. Also of interest is a visit with Pascal Convert of his exhibit at the Galerie de l'UQAM and a Colloquium on the topic of Mois de la Photo at the Canadian Centre for Architecture on Friday.

ART ART ART!

Spiralling Out

I've been masticating some ideas lately, but have also been truly really busy. So for now, another image. This time it is of the lights used to illuminate a circular work of photography by Jeff Guess. The work is a huge circular band of paper on which are printed a number of images; the viewer needs to duck into the work and the viewer becomes the center of the circle, viewing the images.

It reminds me of the band of paper inside a zoetrope, a half-cylindrical device with slits on the side and illustrations on its bottom inner edge. When spun life animates. Zoetrope comes from the Greek zoe for life and trope for turn. Life just keeps on spinning....

mid night

I'm not really sure what's happening at this house around the corner from mine, but I was captivated by the image, the house transparent and glowing...

The Value of Time

As I approached the park, the sidewalk was full of Hassidic Jewish women and their children. Most of the women wore white head scarves and the children were all dressed up, celebrating Rosh Hashanah. Getting closer to the park, I saw that the women and children were all headed towards the fountain. And there, at the fountain, the women were gathered, facing the water, holding their prayer books and praying. It seemed as if they flocked there as the sun set, the path was full and populated, the children played, the women prayed. It was a moving sight, cinematic, and stunning.

This was quite a beautiful moment. Unexpected. Touching. It is often the unexpected moments that strike us most deeply.

Today, waking up to an empty house with my parents away in New York, I thought, it might be nice to invite my friend Jessica over for dinner. And in an impromptu way, I gave her a call and we decided that she would come over that evening. I cooked my reliable recipe: Sesame Ginger Lime Soba Noodles with Shiitake Mushrooms and Snowpeas (substituting with Udon for a change). It is such a pleasure cooking and bringing things together (I've even offered to cook for friends, but no one has taken me up on my offer yet).

Jessica arrived and we talked and shared and cooked a bit more and ate and conversed and laughed... Before we knew it we were doing the dishes and Jessica was getting ready to head back home and tackle more schoolwork. While it had felt like we had spent so much time together. Surely a few hours had passed. But no. In fact, only a bit over an hour had passed. But such quality time.

Therein lies the difference between the amount of time and the value of that time. Really it doesn't take too much to have a conversation, to connect, to share. One needs to invest a bit of effort. One needs to take a moment to recognize the value of that time. And just like my evening with Jess, the benefits that are subsequently reaped are so very beneficial, and so very simple too. All you have to do is allow those moments to bloom, and units of measure fall away to something more.

Art & Design Montreal

For complete article go to: the Art Blog. A&D Montreal launches again tonight at the W Hotel.

Part art exhibit, part cocktail hour, part full-on party – that was the recipe for Art & Design Montreal. The event, organized by a group of young design-world connoisseurs, aimed to promote creative Montrealers working in design who also create artistically compelling work. This inaugural one-night-only event for Art & Design Montreal attracted a young, funky and aesthetic crowd, commensurate with the polished, spunky and vibrant work on display.

Last Friday’s event succeeded in promoting Montreal’s distinction as being a UNESCO City of Design (a recognition it earned in 2006 along with Berlin and Melbourne). The showcase of 13 artists ranged in medium from evocative photography to slick graphic design to quirky illustration. Reading the exquisitely produced and highly professional catalogue, I have to say I was impressed: each of the artists on display has garnered national and international attention and distinction. An introductory essay further revealed other Montrealers working behind the design scenes in Paris, Las Vegas, Singapore, Copenhagen and Stockholm. Montreal design talent is definitely much stronger than I gave it credit.

But let’s get to the art (and for all the art-curious in Montreal who missed Friday’s event, the works go up at the W Hotel starting with another bash September 18 and will be up until December). Not knowing of the award-padded resumes of some of the artists, I surveyed the spread of work at Art & Design with confusion. While some of the young creative aesthetes showed undeniable strength, others missed the mark completely. In bringing work done for corporate and commercial clients onto the exhibition wall and out of its natural context, the work’s strength can be lost.

For example, the work of fashion photographer Richard Bernardin, who has been featured in Brazilian Vogue, seemed to be gratuitous. Apparently he is an extremely sought after talent. And he very well may be, yet outside of his commercial setting, do his images of saucy naked girls really stand as art? Similarly photographer Roger Proulx, while lauded with awards on the national scene, presented a rather insipid reality-TV-like collection of drinking shots. When I see art, I want to think, I want to dream, I want to react. The “art” on the wall from these two left me wanting something else. So I looked at their websites to see learn more of their story. I saw very clearly that these creative minds do indeed have strong talent to share – it’s a shame that their publicly presented work did not do them justice.

Two artists whose work did very effectively stimulate the mind were Christophe Collette and Jason Cantoro. Even though Christophe Collette only showed two images, they were immediately mesmerizing. His photography is so richly textured and imaginative. An image of a woman leaning up against the wall, as if listening, draws its viewer in, we examine, we wonder, we are transported. In the same vein, Jason Cantoro sends his viewers to another dimension with his playful silkscreens of imaginatively mixed images.

Art& Design Montreal also featured the cinematographic photography of Jimmi Francoeur, the crisp graphics of 123 Klan, the imaginative and evocative images of Varial, the strength and pop of Julien de Repentigny, the witty and fun objects of Studio Rita, the truly artistic book creations of Transistor Design, the illustrations of Francis Léveillée and Mélanie Baillairgé and the colourful work of Seripop (actually on display in Philadelphia at Space 1026). The celebration of design was sweetly rounded out by a live art creation station and a collaborative project where each artist decorated a pair of Creative Recreation high tops.

All in all, Art & Design Montreal presented a polished successful event and put design as art out there. While the larger question remains as to the value of design as art, I applaud this event for posing the question. They brought talent into the spotlight and found a way to get people curious, talking and excited about design in their city.

Ode to the Boot

Today, with a chill in the air, I decided it was time. It was time to wear my boots.

Back in March, I went out to California for the first time and for a good long while I had had riding boots on my mind. i had even placed a bet on an old pair of English Police Boots on eBay (only to be outbid at the last millisecond). After a wondrous (and wondrously filling) culinary tour of L.A.'s Farmer's Market and its surroundings, my best friend Angela and I strolled through the nearby outdoor mall, called The Grove, and popped into Barney's Coop. I was looking for the latest from Canadian fashion twin brothers, the Burkman Brothers. Not only did I find a few items of theirs (which I merely looked at), I saw them. Beautiful brown leather boots. On sale.


And today I wore them - strolling confidently down the street to the resonant clomp of my own boots. There sure is something to be said for the acoustics of footwear. The clomp (not the arrogant stomp) of a boot is only second to the click/clatter of a well made dress shoe. man, is it ever empowering. And sexy too.


After a day in the boots, I just had to write a little piece - nothing like the pre-winter autumnal brown leather boot.

The Applauding Fountain

By chance, Jessica and I happened to walk onto the Place des Festivals at 9:30pm on Friday night. Montreal's newest open square, built to accommodate the many festivals that happen around the Place des Arts and part of the city's greater plan to redevelop this area into a cohesive and hip Quartier des Spectacles, fills me with glee. Just like the communal Bixi program, here is another new initiative that is a roaring success. Immediately, this square has become a gathering spot.



Walking onto the square, Jess and I witnessed the fountains bubbling quietly, lit in red and white. But as the clock struck 9:30, the show began. Jets shot up and the fountain became a feast of lights and sounds. At moments the fountain sounds like the uneven fracas of applause. Once again I got giddy and happy at a Montreal spectacle, a new quirk of the metropolis's burgeoning personality as a place of culture and leisure. Enjoy the show!

Screenshot

At this moment in the film adaptation of Anne Michaels's Fugitive Pieces, I had a moment of my own. There was a beautiful symmetry, a longing that echoed, went beyond the gesture of the little boy, gestures mirrored, a constellation begun. My mind extrapolated into emotion.

The Art of Gnocchi

We were doomed from the beginning. You think it would be easy. Gnocchi = Potatoes + Flour. How could you possibly screw up two ingredients? Well. As I started to read the recipe and Mom simultaneously started peeling the potatoes, I yelled out. See, when I follow a recipe, I ABIDE by the recipe to the julienne. I can improvise on some measurements but for the most part, I consider cooking a science - a wonderfully enriching and delicious science. Mom doesn't follow recipes to a T, how hard could it be?

So halfway through peeling the potatoes, I stopped her. The recipe says to peel after cooking (it's easier that way), probably to preserve the starch. You do only have two ingredients to work with after all.

So I added the flour and mixed it up and thought, well, this doesn't really look like a dough. Sorta like mashed potatoes. But the recipe says not to add too much flour or to knead the dough too much. Whenever a recipe tells me this, I freak out. I mean, how do I really know when too much is too much? (Refer to the incident where Stefan had no idea how stiff the stiff peaks of whipped cream were supposed to be. When it started turning to butter, he knew he had gone too far).

The test is to pinch off a bit and throw it into a pot of boiling water (throw is perhaps the wrong verb, dangerous burning splash not recommended) and see if the piece holds its shape. It did. A very strange shape, but it held its shape nonetheless.

So we tried to roll out the dough, but it was like mashed potatoes. Maybe it was soaking up the flour. We added more and more flour, all the while thinking we were headed to rubberland, afraid of the "not too much" indications of the recipe.

The other tough part was shaping the gnocchi. You're supposed to press it into the twines of a fork, give it its characteristic shape. There was nothing characteristic about the shapes we were making. Glutinous blobs. Numerous times I called out for help, my fingers covered in potato-flour goo, unable to manipulate flour from its tub.


Defeated, laughing, and christening our pasta Disaster Gnocchi, we made it through the ordeal of shaping the pasta. And with a final fateful plop we put our gnocchi into water and waited for them to float up, ready.


Seasoned with a delicate butter-sage sauce, the gnocchi looked surprisingly good on the other end. And were REMARKABLY delicious. Light, tasty, good fun. Gobbled up by the family.

A lovely surprise, a riotous time. I know we scored poorly on appearance (or at least form), we'll work on it...

Pants with a Message

I enjoy the fact that my pants have so much personality that they have a message on the inside of the zipper... Lucky You! and Conosci Te Stesso [Know Yourself].

Montreal: A City in Renaissance

At the moment I feel as if Montreal is definitely a city in renaissance, in revival, in bloom -- and it's not because of the student population freshly injected into the city's urban campuses (les etudiants qui fourmillent, no verb like that in English). Montreal is undergoing urban renewal which is brightening up parts of the city through renovation and redevelopment and truly injecting new life into the veins of its streets through improved infrastructure. Montreal, je t'aime!


Montreal in the summer is festival central, Jazz, Francofolies, beer, Just for Laughs, International Film and innumerable others that I couldn't possibly name in their entirety. At the heart of these festivals is the heart of the city centred around Place Des Arts. The city is just about to put the finishing touches (for now) on the refurbishments for this area, called the Place des Festivals within the larger Quartier des Spectacles. Monday September 7th, the Place des Festivals opens to the public with a big bash called LE GRAND BAISER (the big kiss) complete with parade, musical performances and concluding with a screening of Imagine: John Lennon. Click here for more info.


Montreal is not only revitalizing parts of the city but has also ushered in a new era for public transportation. Since the blue subway cars hit the rails with their rubber tires shortly before the unveiling of Expo 67, the Societe de Transport de Montreal hasn't really buffed up its image. Until this year. On the wave of environmental responsibility and making the city more efficient, the STM got cute and clean and all spruced up thanks to rebranding care of Sid Lee.
Check out their website to see what I mean. They also have plans to bring in sleek new metro cars. While the idea seems great (just check out the video here), I'd be heartbroken and nostalgic to see those iconic (charming? vintage? awesome?) subway cars go. [Montreal also seems to be planning a tram line...]


The one recent change that fills my heart with joy is the communal bike system called Bixi. Following in the footsteps of Paris's Velib', Montreal's system allows for anyone to come up to its solar powered stations and take out a bike to transit across the city (and its oodles of bike paths another major change in the city). Somehow it makes me happy to now end to see the unique Bixi bikes in use with their pedal-powered front and rear lights. I've pedaled home late one night after going out and the feeling was wonderful, exhilarating. Sigh. Not only has the system been embraced by citizens and tourists alike, Bixi is slated for test runs in New York, London and Boston. It has also won an International Design Excellence Award (another point for Montreal, a UNESCO design capital of the world)!


So Montreal is definitely on the rise. A beautiful city bursting with culture, it boasts being the second largest French-speaking city outside of Paris. Rich with design, popping with fashion, a centre for music, festivals galore, food from all over and people from all over who mix harmoniously together, what is not to love? Montreal has even taken measures to revolutionize tourism by getting locals to blog about the goings on in the city, providing an insider's edge. There have been two videos showcasing Montreal (from Tourism Montreal and Sid Lee) that capture the city in a nutshell (watch em!). A vibrant metropolis, fun, funky, artsy, eco and fabulous.

While Montreal is taking major strides, perhaps an interesting sidenote is that all this optimism may be the sunny terrasse weather and the pleasures of light clothing. Neither of the tourism videos show Montreal in the wintertime. Harumph. When it gets cold and the snow piles up, Montreal can tend to be a little more difficult (although it is beautiful! and there is an *eyeroll* underground city). But hey, with all these great things going for us, from summer festivals to bicycle beautifulness, how can you fault such a lovely metropolis? As for winter, we'll work on it...

Passion Peanut Sauce Soba Noodles and an Asian-flavored Slaw

Passion Peanut Sauce from Eat, Drink and Be Vegan (aka the best cookbook ever)


Cilantro garnish


Asian flavored slaw (grated cabbage, carrot, ginger, onion with honey, rice wine vinegar, apple cider vinegar, toasted sesame oil and vegetable oil)


Soba noodles cook into a wonderful wreath shape...


Noodles meet sauce and garnish = delicious.

The Abstracted Reality of Thomas Nozkowski at the National Gallery of Canada

The article below is a reprint of my column from The Art Blog.

There is something about Thomas Nozkowski’s work. Over sixty small-scale works seem to pose different questions and engage the viewer in different ways in the extensive show at Ottawa’s National Gallery (the first show curated by Marc Mayer, its new director). The paintings are mysterious; all are untitled, coded only with numbers. They deny the viewer information, but, consequently, unleash the imagination. Each of Nozkowski’s paintings is remarkably distinct; no two are alike.



Regardless of the superficial inscrutability of his work, the New Jersey-based painter presents strong, sensuous and compelling pieces. Nozkowski’s paintings are poetic, colorful, dynamic. There is a meditative quality to the canvases, a fascination that grows from his imperfect geometry. Each work an undeniable whole.



Considering Nozkowski’s work, I can’t say too much. It is more of an experience. I feel like the sensitivity and thought apparent in the washes and unconventional patterns of the paintings breathe a life of their own. The National Gallery must have also felt the same sort of reverence since, apart from an introductory text, the curator lets the work speak for itself with only a few quotes from the artist himself punctuating the otherwise blank white walls.

Aside from having being featured in over 300 exhibitions worldwide and garnering numerous accolades over his 30-year artistic career, Nozkowski has most recently won The Academy of Arts and Letters Merit Medal for Painting (2006) and been featured in Robert Storr’s exhibition at the Italian Pavilion at the 2007 Venice Biennale called Think with the Senses, Feel with the Mind – Art in the Present Tense.



Nozkowski’s work is indeed both sensuous and thought-provoking, as the Biennale title suggests. The work is also humble. The artist states that he wants his paintings “to be in service of life” documenting moments and ideas that he has lived. He has expressed his mission as followed: “My project has been to make paintings that come from things in the real world. I mean “things” to be taken in the broadest way – objects, ideas, moments – and I mean “real world” to be taken as broadly, including both physical and speculative realities.” His painterly language, at once natural, at once scientific, expresses moments, observations, explorations. He has truly abstracted his reality to create works that most suitably express ideas.



Nozkowski has the admirable ability to reinvent himself with each new canvas and also distance himself from any other style of abstraction. Watching the two YouTube videos (1 and 2) made by his son, Casimir Nozkowski, a viewer can enter Nozkowski’s world. The artist truly observes and engages the world around him, finding awe-inspiring geometric details in a scrap yard and poetically exploring painterly possibilities expressed in live interactions. Thinking back on his work, I now see his oeuvre as a personal collection of memories and observations explored. His art is cerebral, emotive, perceptive, exploratory, instinctive. He truly does capture moments. And just as no two moments can ever be the same, no two of his canvases are alike.

For more insight into the artist, read this interview.

Thomas Nozkowski runs at the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa, ON until 20 September 2009.

**For image credits, please consult ArtBlog article, linked at the beginning of this entry

What If...

What if this search for meaning,
this search for a path
is actually meaningless?

What if there isn't actually anything
worth searching for?

What if the meaning of life is, in fact,
just to live?

The Dignity of Being Loyal to the Power of Art

At the conclusion of the movie The Soloist, Steve Lopez shares a final reflection in an interior monologue. He ponders the impact of his relationship in trying to help Nathaniel Ayers, a homeless and troubled yet brilliant musician. And says:

"I can tell you that by witnessing Mr. Ayers's courage, his humility, his faith in the power of his art, I've learned the dignity of being loyal to something you believe in. Of holding onto it above all else. Of believing, without question, that it will carry you home."

His faith in the power of his art.It moved me. The dignity of being loyal to something you believe in. My mind enraptures in the beauty of these statements.

I know that I have experienced, on multiple occasions, that power, that divinity, that truth, that honesty of art, in all its fragility and strength. There is a sanctity to that moment when you witness, when you realize, when you connect to the expression of art. It goes beyond. A sweeping breeze of chills spreads, and I always need to pause. To breathe it in and give it the silence it requires for its resonance to finish its final echo.

On Work and Happiness

It seems almost weekly that I find myself mired in doubt at work, wondering Am I really happy? Am I doing what I am meant to do? While some may say being faced with this constant doubt is not at all positive, I'd say that a certain measure of doubt and personal evolution keeps you evaluating and re-evaluating life, pushing your circumstances to where you want them to be. When you can make a change, you'll have done the reflection to really push the decision. And sometimes you are signed up for a contract and just have to have a little faith to motor through its duration.

Lately, I've had the urge to wander. With the very valuable learning experience/debacle of Harvard Career Discovery this past summer, I am more in control of who I am and what I need to thrive. At the moment my job is really great, interesting people, some cool assignments, great work environment, nice perks. It really is astonishing that it is my first job out of college. One would think that I would suffer a little more, work some awful jobs for menial pay, and really figure out what I want. But I am quite blessed in a way. I'm in a great place right out of college, what's wrong with that?

Ghandi once said Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is important that you do it. From day one, this isn't really the attitude we are taught. We are taught to have dreams and goals, to have an end result of what we want to be when we grow up. We seem to need dreams in order to fulfill them. But this goal-setting and dreaming only sets us up for defeat as we put our lives on hold in the hopes of living a fantasy. And in the end, if we never get there, we regret never having achieved that dream. All the while, we've lived lives, unpresent, waiting.

Certainly goals and evolution are worthwhile but it should never be done at the expense of living, really living. You should be able to achieve your dreams every day in small measure, sacrifice shouldn't be necessary, although sometimes temporarily it is.

I don't really believe in wanting or needing to do things. I feel the urge to change, change cities, change jobs. Part of me feels this need to wander, work as a barista, write, read, really plunge into things...

When it comes to jobs and careers we are so often told to follow our passion. I've grown to hate the word. It seems so one-minded. You won't always be loving and passionate of your work. There are days where you will struggle, days where you will hate it, days you will be unhappy. Isn't that just the natural progression of things? You should instead, invest in a career, live it, find that process that enriches you with its ups and downs. Accept all it has to offer and live the journey, live the everyday.

While there is part that feels wanderlust, part of me is just happy, happy with where I am here and now, knowing that somewhere in the future I will outgrow my present situation and then, only then, will the natural end and natural new beginning of things bloom.


Thanks for reading, I feel like its basically a ramble of the thoughts inside my mind at the moment...

Letting threads waver in the wind...

there are a few quotes from Anne Michaels's Fugitive Pieces that I wanted to revisit, so I though I would let them all sorta hang together...

...and he gave me his cherished copy of a pocket-sized hardcover selection of Greek poetry, planting rows of words in me that would grow for the rest of my life.

In the still house, the visitation of moonlight.

I long for memory to be spirit, but fear it is only skin.

I saw what I can only call a soul, for it was not yet a self, caught in that almost transparent body. I have never before been so close to such palpable evidence of the spirit, so close to the almost invisible musselman whose eyes in the photos show the faint stain of a soul. Without breath, the evidence would vanish entirely. Thomas in his clear plastic womb, barely bigger than a hand.

Truth grows gradually in us, like a musician who plays a piece again and again until suddenly he hears it for the first time.

In a forgotten cup on the terrace, now filled with rain.

Dance of Two Spirits - Kent Monkman at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts

I am now an official reviewer at The ArtBlog! Check it out here. Text re-posted here for your viewing :)

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Kent Monkman’s video installation Dance to the Berdashe begins in darkness. Four projection screens decorated with tassels and shaped like bear hides surround a central screen. A gloved hand appears drawing simple icons of different natives on the surrounding screens. The larger-than-life drawings become animated dancers and then come to life by overlay of human figures, bringing the viewer into a live filmed ritual.



As the natives dance to traditional aboriginal music, they morph into gentleman/native hybrids, sporting umbrellas and top hats. Bowing down to the central blank screen, the dancers grow weak and blurry, while Monkman appears as the central figure of the Berdashe, a man dressed as a woman. As the music becomes trance-like and contemporary towards the end of the 12-minute dance, the men dance in synch with the Berdashe, spinning to a final electrified moment of power and divinity.

As a viewer, I was left in awe, curious about this central figure and his/her power.




The piece by the Toronto-based Cree-artist Monkman, on display at the Montreal Museum of Fine Art (MMFA), was created in response to artist George Catlin’s reaction to the male/female figure he encountered in his travels documenting Native Americans in the early 1800s. Witnessing the dance, Catlin called it “unaccountable and disgusting” and even went so far as to “wish that it might be extinguished before it be more fully recorded.” (1) While his statement very strongly dismisses the custom, Catlin’s painting Dance to the Berdashe seems innocuous. This painting shows native men dancing around a male/female figure. One dancer appears shocked but otherwise the others seem celebratory. While seemingly innocuous, it is what is not painted that illuminates the impact of the European point-of-view on the conception of Native peoples.




What image comes to mind when you hear the term Native American? A stereotypical image à la Pocahontas? A stoic, strong, painted and feathered hunter? Where do these images come from? The Western eye and consequently Western art has arguably oversimplified and misrepresented Native people. Monkman, in his oeuvre as painter, performance artist and filmmaker, tries to revisit and complicate this history by offering another point of view.



In a painting, on display in an adjacent room at the MMFA, Monkman has masterfully recreated Albert Bierstadt’s Among the Sierra Nevada, California (1868). Or so it seems. Upon closer inspection, the majestic scene is actually populated along its lower edge by buff half-naked settlers, well-coiffed gentlemen, casual natives, a cross-dressed man posed as a Botticellian Venus, as well as Westerners pretending to be Natives for a photographer. The work, entitled Trappers of Men (2006), wittily, humorously and masterfully pokes fun at history/colonialism/gender/sexuality/representation. A plaque below the painting attributes it not to Monkman but to his alter ego Miss Chief Eagle Testicle.



Monkman challenges his viewer to rethink the history they think they know. Dance to the Berdashe reveals a simple, pure ritual, yet it does not mine the questions of reinterpretation of history fully. Berdashe, as I later discovered is actually an extremely derogatory denotation, deriving from the old French word bardache, meaning gay male prostitute or passive sodomite. Monkman fails to really educate his viewers and tell them this definition. He does not mention the now politically correct term two-spirit or the privileged role of these male/female figures in Native communities.

While his video installation and accompanying text create a dissonance, they fail to really educate the viewer. The act of posing the question What is our History? is indeed important in stimulating dialogue and paving the way to greater intercultural understanding. However, I wish that, beyond the questions, Monkman had provided some answers so that the process of education he very aptly catalyzed could have gone further.

(1) George Catlin, Letters and Notes on the Manners, Customs, and Conditions of North American Indians, London: 1844.

Further Reading...
Article by Monkman and his alter-ego here; a great article on hybridity history and sexuality here; and more about Two-Spirit (or duo-gender Native Americans) here and here.

Stefan Asks: From Where Do You Draw Your Inspiration?

Inspired by Katie's Birthday Wish asking the question What Kind of Person Do You Want To Be?, I turn to you, readers, friends, somebody, nobody, and pose the question -- the most important act is asking: From Where Do You Draw Your Inspiration?

I'm curious. I'll get us started. I know that I draw energy from other people's creativity: people who dare to dress up wildly when they go out, dancers who pour out their soul in movement, writers who twist a phrase just so and stop my heart, other people's journeys and just the sheer power of possibility.

Known Coordinates, Unknown Location

Over Bilboquet ice cream last night, Annemarie proposed an idea. Spurred by people wearing t-shirts saying "Not all who wander are lost," she proposed that perhaps those people who proclaim being lost are actually not. Those who are lost, and know it, know where they are. They aren't actually lost. You feel me? Those people who don't even acknowledge the fact that they are, are, in fact, lost.

It sorta boggles and ravishes my mind.

Words by Amelia : Leave Room For God

Amelia is one of those few yoga teachers who really just gets me grooving on my mat, accepting, opening, stretching on out. I'm really honoured to count her as one of my friends and to know such a wise calm and nurturing spirit radiating in the world. I am doubly honoured and touched by the words she recently penned... [words and image shared with permission from Amelia]

so i was watching this maxwell video that comes with the iTunes download, and he's talking about his personal and therefore musical evolution over the course of the past years that he's been out of the public eye. he was discussing the live show he's developed with his band, communicating the understanding that it doesn't have to be perfect, it doesn't have to be precious, it can be a little dirty, it shoudn't be learned too well, and to "leave room for god."

i stopped the video. the concept hit me like the needles of a big fresh beach wave.

i've heard the term before. i've used it on strangers who have sidled up too close to me in public places, like the ruler the nuns would wedge between seventh graders at the catholic school dance, as if god was only twelve inches wide. but woah.

i don't believe in god-with-a-big-white-beard-in-the-sky, so you can substitute whatever word you like, you can take the "o" out of the middle, you can capitalize it, you can add -dess at the end, you do you.

but wow. leave room for god.

leave room for god in music so that the notes play you instead. so that god moves in the spaces between the lines of the melody and breathes literal inspiration into the musician as divine medium. oracle.

leave room for god in yoga so that you have space to breathe and move and stay.

leave room for god in your relationships, don't hold so tight that you squeeze the god out of the other person. god will float between you, strong complete individuals.

leave room for the god between you and your child, so that which created can continue to connect and nourish while stretching sometimes miles and miles. leave room for the god in your child that she or he may find it and radiate it.

leave room for god in your life's calling so that you can be --- do --- have [as they say] in that order.

leave room for the god on the bus, under your feet, in the rain, in the most mundane places and at the taj mahal.

leave room for god as you witness those loosening their hold on this life and know that they have to go alone but they'll never be alone.

leave room for god and you can only be safe.

Rift

Isn't it beautiful?, she pointed from the car. Yes,
I replied. Too bad a highway runs through it.
The Lake of Two Mountains*, perhaps two sunken
peaks filled in with water, on either side of this road.

Hiking through the woods, we could always hear
the uneven banter of the thoroughfare, the I-93.
The Fells**. Perhaps named after they were bisected,
past tense and plural. The Fallen.



*Lac des Deux-Montagnes, Quebec
**The Middlesex Fells, Massachussetts

Defusing the H-Bomb: Harvard + Fashion

Harvard. It’s as easy as that. Just say the word and already you conjure up in your listener a whole set of images, stereotypes, and pre-conceived notions. Associate Harvard with something else and you unleash a whole new flurry of ideas.

Harvard signed a 10-year licensing deal with clothing manufacturer Wearwolf Group to give its name to their line of apparel called Harvard Yard. The name references the famous central quadrangle surrounded by freshman dorms and over which the statue of John Harvard presides. Now, however, the name has been rather thoughtlessly adopted for a preppy/collegiate apparel line. News broke in an article in WWD and has since been picked up by incredulous authors at NY Mag and Perez Hilton, among others. I find it hard to bill the clothes as anything remotely close to fashion or style.



From what I see of the line so far, I’m not impressed. Is this preppy? Is this collegiate? To me it just looks cheap (or at least the styling is seriously distasteful… ugh, my eyes!). Although, actually it isn’t cheap at all: pants are priced around $165 and sports coast sell for $495. I find it hard to believe that the manufacturers drew inspiration from Harvard in the 1960s (so they claim). Rather, I feel like they drew from a very cliché fount of inspiration, their completely timeless conception of Harvard. Since preppy/collegiate seems to be en vogue at the moment, what other name would instantly attract consumers but Harvard’s? It is rather unfortunate that the prepped out clothes that Harvard’s name graces are so bland. Preppy can be classy and respectable and pretty affordable, just look at J. Crew and its reinterpretation of prep and subsequent wide appeal.

But that to me is beside the point; Harvard apparently does this often. Upon speaking with Office of News and Public Affairs at Harvard, I was informed that the University signs licensing deals with apparel lines often (they have dozens of deals worldwide and hundreds domestically). The Harvard name is but common currency. While the proceeds do go towards funding some of Undergraduate Financial Aid, something to me is amiss.

I look at these photos and think, Harvard is so much more than this. Probably some straight white guy in loafers with a private school education. Here I am guilty of slapping on stereotypes but if Harvard has agreed to put its name on this line (albeit only on the inside label and putting its trademark crimson in buttonholes and zipper pulls), it has agreed to be represented by this image. What of Harvard’s diversity, economic, racial, interpersonal and sartorial? It’s not to say that there aren’t students who are loafered and privy to Nantucket reds, but there are plenty of us (I speak as a recent alum) who represent so much more. The Harvard community represents a rich cross-section of individuals from all walks of life with their special brand of intelligence and enthusiasm. It seems trite to just slap on a rather boring and reductive label to the Harvard name. But that’s just it isn’t it? You say Harvard and a whole rush of notions bubble up. As simple as that. Harvard should be more cautious in signing away its name. Because while dropping the H-bomb must be used with caution, selling the Harvard name comes with an even greater amount of responsibility.

What kind of person do you want to be?

My dear friend Katie turns 23 today and as a birthday wish, she wanted friends to answer the question What kind of person do you want to be? Perhaps its more appropriate to ask What kind of person do you strive to be? or some other formulation of the question that acknowledges more fully that I AM the person I want to be, since I am continually striving to evolve and be the person I want to be. You feel me? Let us not negate what already is in asking what we want later.

Feel free to respond yourselves in response to this post (and any of the questions above). Here is my best go at...

What kind of person do I want to be?

loving, silly, playful, engaged, thoughtful, kind, creative, inspirational, centered, giving ... i want to be the type of person who cooks (literally and metaphorically) for others and just smiles, asking nothing in return ... adventurous, fearless, sometimes carefree, dedicated, honest, true, in-my-own-way confident, quietly myself, connected (internet not included), invested, responsible, sharing, reflecting

A Montreal Moment

He crossed the street, a galloping, goofy Indiana Jones, squinting at the soon-to-be oncoming traffic, shooting with his middle/index finger pistols and providing his own sound effects.

Anne Michaels, continued...

I am thick into Anne Michaels' Fugitive Pieces, a book I couldn't appreciate as a 14 year-old when I read it. I expect random bits to float up into the blog.

For now, a sentence [about Antarctic explorers]:

At night, rigid in their sleeping bags, they discussed chocolate. (33)