Against Santa

Santa

While I was at the Santa Claus parade, I had this strange image in my head. As the floats passed the throng of screaming kids, a small group of determined left-wing protestors gathered near the corner. They are wearing army surplus coats and holding these placards:

SANTA = LIES
SANTA IS MEDIA CONSPIRACY
KIDS: YOUR PARENTS LIE!
CHRISTMAS = CORPORATE CONSPIRACY
ELVES = EXPLOITED
SANTA IS A SACK OF LIES
STOP OUTSOURCING TO THE N. POLE
FREE THE RAINDEER

They are chanting:

Hey hey ho ho, Santa has got to go!

Rain, Winter, Etc.

Outside grey. Winter is here. Last week it was cold and the snow fell. It stayed on the ground. Today it is warm and raining. Slush. Sand. Ice. I took the bus home and could not see out through the dried grime. The bus driver was cranky. Everyone was honking their horns. My shoes are wet and cold. Shoulders are stiff and sore. Too much Christmas music everywhere.

Retreat!

Locked

Bush leaving his press conference: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4454738.stm

Too funny. Watch the video.

Santa and Friends

Ah, a bright sunny Sunday day in Toronto. A great day for a walk. I choose Bloor Street, and walked west. Couples out shopping, dangling bags in their figers. Mothers outfitting their daughters in fur. Christmas music pumped onto the street. Chirstmas trees in the window.

As I walked, the crowd began to thicken with children. Children everywhere. Parents with strollers. Hot dog vendors. Noise. Cheering. Everywhere! And then i found myself in the middle of the Santa Claus Parade. The sidewalk was choked with onlookers, some standing on mail boxes, others on their own step ladders.

Packs of drummers, bands, clowns, elfs, strangely corporate sponsored floats. "When's santa coming mommy?!"

Everyone was there. Even the Scientologists. My Scientologist roomate was there. He approached people and was handing out flyers for a free Dianetics movie!

Ah, free gifts for Chistmas. How festive.

this busy monster

ee cummings is one of my favourite poets.
This poem I first heard almost ten years ago.
It rings in my head when I watch too much
TV and political coverage on CNN, particularly
the "plays with the bigness of his littleness" part.
Don't worry, this aint grade 9 English.
Enjoy.

-------------

pity this busy monster, manunkind,

not. Progress is a comfortable disease:
your victim (death and life safely beyond)

plays with the bigness of his littleness
--- electrons deify one razorblade
into a mountainrange; lenses extend
unwish through curving wherewhen till unwish
returns on its unself.

                          A world of made
is not a world of born --- pity poor flesh

and trees, poor stars and stones, but never this
fine specimen of hypermagical

ultraomnipotence. We doctors know

a hopeless case if --- listen: there's a hell
of a good universe next door; let's go

Bench: Lawrence Park

Familiar Sounding

The moving men came today.

They packed up the fragile things like china, glassware and clocks into small brown boxes and stacked them into the burgundy truck stuffed in the drive way. Each trip down the steps, they slowly emptied each room one by one. By the afternoon, the house was empty and bare. I had not seen it like this since I moved in 19 years ago. To see a room, like my old bedroom, with none of my possessions is like seeing someone naked. No signifiers to say this was my space.

But some things can't be moved out in boxes.

I was taking a final look around the house when I bumped into the closet door in the hallway. It banged shut. However, it banged shut in a strangely familiar way. With all the furniture and carpets gone, every sound was amplified and unmuffled. I turned the door knob and opened it again. I realized it made a sound that I would remember forever... Like other parts of the house:

The third step that creaks. The click of the light switch on the second floor. The sound of the water pouring from the shower head into the tub. The kitchen cupboard slamming. The scuffing sound as the guest room window opens. The sound of the car pulling into the gravel driveway. The squeaking hinges of the broom closet. The rain falling on the roof. A knife dropping into the sink, the furnace hissing to life with gas and then bursting into flame....

In fifty years I swill still be able to recognize them all.

I thought: All these sounds could only be made by these particular things in this very place and no where else. You need that knife and that sink to make that sound. Every place we inhabit has is own intimate sound, its own timbre and tone. Without noticing, they make homes and places familiar to us -- sometimes without ever knowing why. Together, these sounds make up the music of our memories.

Overachiever

I had lunch with an old friend who is a classic overachiever. In typical fashion, he was in town for the day to attend a lifetime achievement award ceremony in honour of his mother, a prominent doctor. A few hours later, he would board an airplane and return to Boston where he is completing his masters at Harvard. Even his sister was in town, pulled from he duties as lawyer. The father, also a doctor, would be in attendance. It is a family of achievement packaged with the accoutrements of high-society status: a 5-story Rosedale home (for two people), two German sports cars, a pool (that no one swam in), a massive living room (that you were not allowed to sit in), a grand piano (that no one played), and a basketball net (that no one used).

This friend is a good man. No criticisms are necessary. Mere observations, these.

When I said good bye - I felt like an underachiever. No one should measure themselves against others. But I certainly do. I walked down Yonge Street feeling small and blue. What could I brag about?

As my state of despair grew, I took an emergency stop at a place that has always provided me with comfort in troubled times: Canadian Tire. Pass through the automatic doors and I am greeted by the Canadian Tire smell - a mixture of rubber, chemical products and scent of craftiness. Of possibility. Above the high pressure sodium lights bathe me in glorious, biblical light. I did not need to buy anything, but I walked through every section looking at everything and anything that I might need -- noting the prices, just in case. I started with the window blinds section and hungrily eyed the space heaters, air purifiers, air filters, air fresheners, 5-piece cooking sets, forks, a blender, a toaster, tool belts, trampolines, tires, tulip bulbs, welcome mats, garbage bins, garbage bags, garage door opener, air compressor, halogen lights, hockey gloves, gas lawnmower, ice salt, Santa statues, step ladders, and laundry hamper. I needed and wanted everything. With all these things I would have the greatest house in Canada.

I could overachieve at anything.

The Ice Storm

If you are interested in the Lawrence Park Chonicles, I suggust reading The Ice Storm by Rick Moody. It's a great novel, detailed and nuanced. Funny but sad. It became a movie produced by Ang Lee. I just finished it. But this is a novel that must be read in long spaces of time, not in brief 5-minutes-before-bed spans. You have to enter into its world.

If you're interested, you can read a great interview with Rick Moody with the NY Times here.

What is all this crap?

Led Zeppelin III cassette
Amsterdam fridge magnets
A copper bracelet
A beer coaster
A nail cutter
two calculators
push pins, scattered (multiple colours)
dust, everywhere

The act of packing up and moving out of a long-term residence brings to light the amount of crap that we, especially I, hang on to in life. When we have to acutally pack it up into boxes-- to quantify it, really-- it becomes a question of your personalty. I ask: what is all this crap? What does it all mean.

You are what you own. You are what you throw out. And you are what you do not have.

There are people who have much: MTV opens up the doors to the homes of the stars -- the garages with 7-series BMWs, the bean shaped pools, the faux antique vases, fine art. These people love to have and accumulate stuff. If it is not ostentatious consumption, than the act of accumulating crap is referred to as an "investment." ("We can't throw that out, honey, it will be worth something someday")

There are people who throw out much: In the Margaret Lawrence book, The Diviners, a lowly old garbage collector says to his young daughter, "by their garbage shall ye know them." These people throw out of fashion boots, coats and hats -- even if they are still perfectly wearable. These people eat take out food, throw things out when they can't decide where to store them.

There are the people who go without much: Gandhi, for instance had 4 material objects that he owned. Monks in Thailand go with a robe, a bowl, and not much else. This category is tricky. Some people admire those who go without, who live the simple life. But some just call these people poor.

As I pack, I am going through all these stages. I hate the crap I own. I want to junk it all. I like the idea of being free of my possessions. There is levity to this thought. Yet this though is underpinned by the dread of having to buy it back again someday (no matter how remote the possibility).

That Zeppelin tape might be worth something someday.

Lawrence Park Chronicles, Part 4

(my old home)

Please read Part 1 & Part 2 & Part 3 before continuing...

Up until now, the man on the bench had donned the same outfit for weeks: the grey hooded sweatshirt, jeans, and boots. With no change in position or clothing, time had stopped around him. The only part of him that moved was the head, up looking at traffic, or down looking at his toes.

And then one day, something changed. The nights had been cold. And, like the frost that silently and mysteriously covered the grass with frost, someone had covered the man in a blanket. He draped it over his head like a Sufi mystic. At night he pulled it over his face like Burqua.
It seemed that instead of shooing the man away, the people of Lawrence Park took him in (well, took him in but left him out). People scouted their closets and basements and pulled out articles of clothing that were going to be put into recycling or garbage.

The day after, there was bag of food bundled up beside him. And the list of new furnishings and frills increased: a down sleeping bag, an extra pair of shoes, boxes of KFC, gloves, bags of cookies, paper coffee cups, bottles of water. Someone brought two green garbage bags for him to place his wrappers and toilet paper. One rainy day, he popped open a large blue golf umbrella over his head to keep dry.

His presence had opened a floodgate of compassion. Or was it compassion?

Perhaps guilt.

But he did make it more difficult to walk past a man without a home. Downtown, it was easy to say ‘no’ to someone asking for change. They were just part of the scenery, a billboard that can be seen but ignored. Now closer to home, a place he clearly did not ‘belong' he was a fixture in the community. Everyone had to pass him on the way to work, to the grocery store, to the subway, to the jogging club, or to the library. In this way, he had slipped into the lives of everyone.

With only a week left before I moved away from Lawrence Park, I decided that I would try to learn more about this man. Not just drop off food, but drop in for a conversation. Instead of writing about him, I should talk to him. Action. Maybe he was just lost, after all.

The next day, something had changed: he was lying down. For the first time he looked comfortable. I did not want to disturb him. I’d wait until tomorrow.

But the following morning he was gone. The man and his blankets, his food, his garbage had all vanished. The bench and garbage had all been cleared away. He never returned.

By then I had finished packing my boxes – blankets, shoes and books, stereo, mixing bowls, and Ikea chair—the stuff of daily life. Everything was packed up and ready to go.

I, too, was leaving without a trace.

(The End)

Larence Park in the fall.

Lawrence Park Chonicles, Part 3

Lawrence Park

You should read Part 1 & Part 2 before continuing...

After observing the man on the bench day after day, I felt compelled to do something. He sat in the same position for days; his belly was likely empty. Each time I passed with a bag laden with groceries, I felt the imbalance of our living situations weigh down my conscience like Campbell’s Soup cans. My plan?

I decided to buy him a coffee and doughnut.

I went to Coffee Time directly across the street and settled on a chocolate glazed with a coffee with cream and sugar. With paper bag in hand, I crossed the street and approached his bench. Suddenly, I wondered if my proximity would startle him, causing a fit of mad rage. Perhaps he’d throw the coffee in my face. The surge in sugar would cause his to collapse into a seizure.

Or scream.

I walked slowly up to the bench; his head was slumped and concealed inside a dirty grey hooded sweatshirt. I took a deep breath.

“Hello,” I said. “Would you like a coffee?”

His head snapped up, his eyes opened wide. He scanned me with his dark brown eyes. He lurched forward with two dirty hands and took the bag and coffee and cradled them on his lap. What did he do?

“Thank you,” he whispered. He had an accent that I could not place.

I walked away. Looking over my shoulder, I saw him reach into the bag and take a bite of the doughnut.

By then, fall had repainted the trees in Lawrence Park from dark green into shades of yellow, orange and brown. The days were warm, but the nights were growing colder and colder. The joggers wore headbands; the men in dark suits now wore beige coats and gloves. And my date for moving away from the neighbourhood also soon approached.

The man on the bench was still there. In the early morning he would be shivering, his hands stuffed into his pockets. I would buy him coffees to keep him warm. I wondered if the cold would drive him into a shelter.

He stayed.

I also wondered if his presence would set off a chain of letters to the city councillor or the police to have this man cleared away—back downtown where the homeless are concentrated. Surely, someone felt threatened by his... his… well, by his not doing anything. Or, at the very least, from his poo that appeared in piles beside the library, and the squares of newspaper/toilet paper that scattered into the park when the wind blew.

Finally, one day, the citizens of Lawrence Park acted up and decided to deal with their not-so-new neighbour.

It started with an anonymous act and grew into a full-fledged movement.

(more to come)

Brooklyn Bridge

Was in NewYork City all weekend.
Walked accross the B'klyn bridge,
Into Manhattan.
Almost run over by a highspeed rollerblader
In a full body Spandex suit.