Archive for October, 2008
“HOLY FUCK!”
Wednesday, October 29th, 2008 | Words | No Comments
"Havana Street, Cuba #2" by Stewart Jones
The Canadian artistic community reacts to a Conservative plan to slash $45-million from the arts
by Scott Blacklock
Prime Minister Stephen Harper is no stranger to controversy. He’s been known to ruffle a few feathers here and there. But with the introduction of his latest economic brainstorm – a $45-million dollar cut to arts and cultural funding in Canada, he may have awoken a sleeping giant.
News of the funding cut came back in August, and has been one of the key points on which critics and Mr. Harper’s opponents alike have focused their attacks. Mr. Harper has been on the defense, claiming that the arts and culture budget has actually gone up since his Conservatives have been in power. The Prime Minister has stuck to his assertion that the $45-million dollars isn’t simply disappearing, but that it’s being “reallocated.”
The lucky recipients? “Programs that work more effectively,” says Mr. Harper. He cited the CBC, the Canada Council for the Arts, festivals and museums as his examples of effective programs. But according to the people who live and work in these artistic communities across Canada, the evidence speaks to the contrary.
“He’s actually cut the museum’s assistance grant by about $3-million,” says Sara Knelman, Curator of Contemporary Arts at the Art Gallery of Hamilton. “And I know that he’s completely shut down the ETS.”
Knelman is referring to the Exhibition Transportation Service, a federal government program that provided shipping services to public art galleries and museums in Canada. The ETS provided climate-controlled trucks and drivers who were trained to handle art properly at pick-up and delivery points.
“This was something that was relied upon, especially by museums with smaller operating costs,” continues Knelman. Indeed, the ETS was responsible for 54% of all art transportation in Canada. But in April of 2008, the Department of Canadian Heritage discontinued the program completely.
In 2003-4, the government of Canada poured $7.7-billion dollars into arts and culture program. And the results were undeniable: 600,000 Canadians employed and $40-billion dollars generated for the economy. A 500% return on investment. And these numbers have actually increased in 2007.
So, what’s with the cuts, Mr. Harper?
“Harper’s got a hidden agenda. He’s trying to purify [the Canadian arts and culture scene],” says Stewart Jones, a Toronto-based visual artist.
“I’ll put it [this way]: I’m friends with the guys in Holy Fuck, and I know they were used as a scapegoat.”
Jones is referring to experimental electronic artists, Holy Fuck, who, in August 2008, became a national symbol of the Conservatives’ funding cuts to the arts. In that month, the Ottawa Citizen reported that the Tories had issued a memo regarding the cancellation of the PromArt program, which provides funding for international promotional tours by Canadian musicians. The memo attempted to justify the cancellation by noting that recipients included, among others, “a rock band that uses an expletive as part of its name.” It quickly became evident that that band was Holy Fuck. Artists and fans alike were fuming.
“Those guys have put so much into touring,” continues Jones. “They owe thousands and thousands on their credit cards. [Bands] need so much – getting visas, getting hotels, air flight. The government is using things out of context to put blame on people like Holy Fuck, so that the ordinary person who sees the Toronto Sun sees this and says, ‘We don’t want this. We don’t want a band with the f-word.’”
And across Canada, the entire artistic community seems to be sharing the same sentiment.
“It’s very sad. It throws us back. It’s embarrassing, to be honest,” says Ian Jarvis, Community Programming Director for Hamilton Artists Inc., an artist-run program dedicated to the support of contemporary visual arts practice in Canada.
“One of the reasons people come to Canada [is to] see something different than [they] know. Visitors want to know about the people through their art and through their culture. We need to preserve these institutions and their heritage. Otherwise, what makes Canada any different from the United States?”
Looking forward, no one really expects the Conservatives to budge on this position. But how long can they ignore the evidence? Jarvis cites downtown Hamilton Ontario as an example of how arts and culture can practically and positively affect Canadian communities:
“If you look at James Street in Hamilton, it’s becoming an arts district. It plays a role in how Hamilton is revitalizing itself. It’s becoming a more attractive place to live. More people are coming down and spending money in the shops. It increases property value around it. It becomes an ‘in’ neighbourhood.”
The one thing that most, if not all Canadian artists can agree on is that Stephen Harper does not fully understand the depth and importance of the arts in this country. One cannot underestimate the intrinsic value that creative expression has, in this country and globally. It is how we define ourselves, how we differentiate ourselves from others around the world, and how we remain bonded as a nation.
Ian Jarvis sums it up: “If you look at the civilizations that came before us, what remains at the end of the day is their art. It’s how we later understand ourselves. “
Talking point: “There is no such thing as a pure follower of a given religion.”
Tuesday, October 28th, 2008 | Words | No Comments
Alright, so I was thinking of establishing “Talking Points” on this blog. Just random thoughts about random things that I’ll post here and leave open for future discussion and thought. Disagree, agree, extrapolate, expand, counter — whatever you like.
Thesis: “There is no such thing as a pure follower of a given religion. Every ‘religious’ person creates their own religion by deviating, however much or little, from the establish doctrines.”
Example: A devout Christian who is also a closeted homosexual. Though this man may follow every rule of Christianity to a T, he has one tiny little deviation from it: the homosexuality. Therefore, he creates his own, only slightly different version of Christianity and that is his religion.
An innocent man jailed for life
Sunday, October 26th, 2008 | Sounds | No Comments
Click here for “The Thin Blue Line” by Philip Glass
…
Watch this documentary. “The Thin Blue Line” by Errol Morris. Sorry I couldn’t find the whole video online; alls I found is bits and pieces. The song above is the introductory song for the film.
It’s about a dude who is imprisoned for life for the murder of a police officer that he claims he never committed. And there’s this other dude, a little scrappy delinquent motherfucker, who PROBABLY did it, but they jail the first dude anyway.
So it’s a classic documentary. Maybe even legendary. Errol Morris, the filmmaker, has a lot of techniques and styles that set him apart: heavy, blatant symbolism; dark, dynamic reenactments; a style of interviewing his subjects that makes it seem like they’re having a conversation with you.
And the ending… mannn, maybe I was just sleepy, but it really threw me for a loop. I had to do some Wikipedia’ing to reassure myself of what had happened.
Why love is like a door and marriage is like a padlock
Wednesday, October 22nd, 2008 | Words | No Comments
You meet a girl. Or a guy. And you fall in love. So, your love is like a door.
And, as your parents have told you time and time again, the key to a long lasting, healthy relationship is to keep the door closed.
You see, if you peer through the keyhole, you see all the things on the other side of the door. You’ve got your regrets, your unfulfilled goals; you’ve got his or her nagging, his or her insecurities; you’ve got your run-of-the-mill adultery and lying.
So, as your parents have said, you gotta keep that damn door closed.
And you know what? It’s not that hard. It’s just a door. It’s already closed. Just don’t jiggle the handle or anything. Keep the door closed.
Then again, maybe you want to open the door. Nothing wrong with that either. You sneak a peek through the keyhole and some of those things make a lot of sense to you:
“She does have a lot of annoying habits”
“I do think I’d like to date a model”
“Fuck this bitch, she’s bonkers!”
So you open that door and walk through to the other side. And so does she. Or he.
But let’s say you wanna keep that door closed forever. You’ve peered through the keyhole, you’ve stared temptation in the eye, and you still just can’t shake the feeling that you want to be with her (or him) forever. True love! Fuckin’ eh!
Again, your parents remind you: “Just keep that goddamned door closed.”
But then you go and do something stupid. You both do.
You agree to put a lock on the door. A big, fat, silver padlock.
You get engaged.
Your friends and family come together to celebrate the attaching of the lock to the door.
You get married.
What’s the difference? Well, turns out your parents were right: to keep your love alive and intact, all you really have to do is keep the door closed. Don’t open the door and you’ll be alright.
Marriage, therefore, is a fallacy. It argues that putting a lock on a door keeps it more closed. Wait, that doesn’t make any sense, does it? Door’s already closed. Can’t get much more closed than that. Well, I guess it’s just a lock. What harm can it do, huh?
- The lock symbolizes commitment to keeping the door closed, but it also symbolizes mistrust that your partner may open it down the road.
- The lock is also symbolic of “what can be broken,” not “what will remain intact.” If you want to leave a relationship, all you have to do is open the door. If you want out of a marriage, that lock, for which there is no quick and easy key, has got to be shattered.
- And finally, marriage has no positive potential; only negative. Marriage is like a brick wall built in a field of grass — practically, it offers no benefits like keeping stuff out or keeping stuff in; it’s only significant of being… well, a brick wall. It has no positive potential to grow, to develop, to add something to its surroundings, or to progress in any way, but it has all the negative potential in the world to give in to circumstances, to have its facade eroded away and to crumble under the pressure of nature’s torrents.
So in conclusion, do I despise marriage? Nah, I just adore LOVE so much that I think the most significant thing you can do for your partner is to keep a door closed forever without locking it. If something is true and real, then it doesn’t need any invented support to stay alive; it simply maintains itself.
