silence | music

“Silence is our real nature. What we are fundamentally is only silence. Silence is free from beginning and end. It was before the beginning of all things. It is causeless. Its greatness lies in the fact that it simple is. In silence all objects have their home ground. It is the light that gives objects their shape and form. All movement, all activity is harmonized by silence.

Silence has no opposite in noise. It is beyond positive and negative. Silence dissolves all objects. It is not related to any counterpart which belongs to the mind. Silence has nothing to do with mind. It cannot be defined but it can be felt directly because it is our nearness. Silence is freedom without restriction or centre. It is our wholeness, neither inside nor outside the body. Silence is joyful, not pleasurable. It is not psychological. It is feeling without a feeler. Silence needs no intermediary. Silence is holy. It is healing. There is no fear in silence. Silence is autonomous like love and beauty. It is untouched by time. Silence is meditation, free from any intention, free from anyone who meditates. Silence is the absence of oneself. Or rather, silence is the absence of absence. Sound which comes from silence is music. All activity is creative when it comes from silence. It is constantly a new beginning. Silence precedes speech and poetry and music and all art. Silence is the home ground of all creative activity. What is truly creative is the word, is Truth. Silence is the word. Silence is Truth.

The one established in silence lives in constant offering, in prayer without asking, in thankfulness, in continual love.”


Jean Klein

To hear silence, and sound - please visit - http://www.myspace.com/frommonumenttomasses
and listen to deafening.

Sociology 101

I stumbled across two articles on The Onion which I found hilarious.


Sociology 101 Assignment Stretched To Incorporate '70s Punk Rock
Sociology 101 paper on the theories of 19th-century French sociologist Émile Durkheim was stretched to incorporate the 1970s British punk-rock scene, sources close to the paper's author, University of Missouri freshman Justin Hoyer, reported Monday.


T.A Spotted at Bar
Drew Phelan, 26, a Penn State University graduate student and teaching assistant for History 107: Introduction To Western Civilization, was spotted at the Bulldog Brew Pub last weekend, Section Four sources revealed shortly before class Monday.

H

I got into an argument with an individual yesterday regarding the proposed federal mini-budget. The fight wasn't so much over the budget, but over an article which appeared in the Toronto Star (I regretfully do not have a link) which criticized the government for not addressing poverty. This individual claimed that it was precisely our high taxes and high national debt which were contributing to poverty, and thus, that the 1% decrease in the gst is in fact an anti poverty measure. I strongly disagree.

From my point of view high taxes and the national debt load have little, if anything to do with individuals living in poverty in our country.

Our high poverty (and especially troubling Aboriginal poverty rate (individuals who do not even PAY one of our taxes) are due to in affordable housing, insufficient minimum wage and social assistance rates (which I realize are a provincial jurisdiction)

This tax cut and tax break are going to do little to combat poverty. Who do you think is going ot benefit most from this gst cut? the guy who buys his couch from the Salvation Army or the guy who buys a yacht? Tax cuts and tax credits mean very little for those without money.

We've got record surpluses, yet there is nothing in the proposed budget which will substantially help those with the greatest need.

In opposition to the notion that higher taxes are bankrupting our citizens, I point to a comparison between highly-taxed (Nordic, for example) countries, compared to our low taxed country. Countries that have higher tax regimes happen to have stronger performances. A study by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives found that countries with higher taxes, such as Finland, Sweden, Norway (ect) have significantly lower rates of poverty across almost all social groups. Not only that, income is distributed significantly more equally. (Brooks, Hwong (2006) The Social Benefits and Economic Costs of Taxation. Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives)

So, I ask you this question: what are your opinions on the mini-budget? What would you have liked to have seen the government do with our record surpluses? Are you going to buy a yacht? You'll save yourself a shitload.

Perfection...

Ani Difranco on...

"That whole culture of perfection, I have no patience for that. Making music is so immediate, and the fact that there’s no audience in the studio is a hurdle for me to begin with. I just can’t sit around and try and make the perfect vocal and the perfect guitar track. I lose artistic inspiration for that kind of obsessiveness. So what I’ve learned to do these days, starting with the Up Up Up record, is to record a bunch of different times, because the song as you play it on any given day is just that day’s interpretation."

http://www.acousticguitar.com/issues/ag93/coverstory.shtml

a reflection of kitsch

From a work published in 1991 as ‘The Transparency of Kitsch: A Conversation between Jean Baudrillard and Enrico Baj:

JB: Conventional art has to look clean. There’s such a demand from museums and from the public at large for sanctifying anything and everything. And it’s precisely this cultural demand that’s kitsch (145).

JB: I’d say that the masses are the supreme kitsch product. At the same time the masses are a mirror of power that has itself become kitsch (146).

JB: People consume art, they devour it. But we will never know whether they really needed it or whether they really wanted it (151).

In a recent outing to the ‘mass cinema’ I was struck as I noted the three above quotes reflected so keenly while attempting to ‘turn off’ and ‘take in’ a movie. I was struck by the way that readings from days previous had permeated deep enough to expose themselves in an everyday life situation when I wasn’t even trying to get some writing/thinking done. Instead, like the poets say, carry a notebook wherever you may go for the best ideas are always caught floating in the wind. And thus like an unorganized grad student who thinks that they are quite organized I scribbled and jotted with a black felt pen found in my bag – a note book, not quite but rather the in-flight magazine served the purpose of papyrus. I say in-flight because it seems that the purposes of both flight mags and cinema belching advertisement coupled with ‘an inside look’ at the ‘new movies’ are equally consumed as are the products on the page.

Thus we come to Baudrillard and the cinema, that is, the large scale VIEWING/ CONSUMING room located in the middle, between two formerly independent towns. The SILVER CITY looms and casts a shadow not unlike the massive grain towers that occupy the waterfront of this northwestern Ontario hub. And like the grain towers, the cimenaplex is tall enough and large enough to draw the attention of a large area. I shudder to imagine or rather admit that Mount McKay which stands guard on the south side of town, the largest land mass in the near area, has been relegated for a long time now, as simply background – i.e., a First Nations population backgrounded’ like an artists underpainting. It is with machinic precision that we have refocused the gaze of the populous away from a previous primacy of the mountain and erected in it’s stead, a cinema house bearing the sameness that poisons much of North America.

In this sense, the cinema is not a reflective place of art, rather it is evidence of the distillation and synthesis of refined cleanliness and modernist calculation. A place which hosts an impossibly burdensome cleanliness, managed by teams of employable youth, welcomes with dull passivity the masses of movie goers in a voracious production of consumption. But it is the mirror, the one that reflects kitsch, that is hardly seen. The reflection may only be caught when there is a divergence from the status quo featuring passively sedated movie goers.

It was precisely at such a moment, at a break from patronage and societal norms that a lone voice reacting to a display of for lack of a better word, cinematic performance art in the form of nude painted bodies crashing into a pool of water below only to resurface as elated faces and masks – that the audience sat still, the discomfort was thick as the light reflected onscreen caused a moment of discontent that spread like a rabid infection over the faces aghast. A tri-syllabic utterance of the most monotone expression, lips barely pursed (to be sure) spouted “what the fuck’? and with that a silenced audience was once again free, free from any sense of captive space that the film had managed to create. My immediate instinct was a shattering, a broken spirit, like a cell phone ring at a funeral. I felt cheated and angry that a singe voice had managed to create a fracture and dissonance that would for the rest of the film render the voices in the crowd louder than the screens.

It was this point, the moment that ‘wtf’ was uttered that I felt a chill run down my back as I realized that within the ever clean space of the cinema there is no possibility for anything but kitsch. For the space which hosts the sanctification of display must equally champion condemnation as well as painful ignorance. The question of whether ‘they needed it or not’ had been haplessly answered in a moment of ‘truth.’

And now for the film:

A romanticized romp through an elated 1960’s fantasy tinged with anti-war sentiments and bohemian artists caught in the ‘helter skelter’ of Vietnam era contestation. Dr. Roberts guides the bus as a transcendence of the bullshit is made coupled with the groans of stereophonic mindfuck artillery. At times the film reflects the ebb and flow of great seas reflecting calm and storm in constant flux. The spectacle touches on and anchors itself amidst a caucus of recently released ‘musical’ films such as ‘walk the line,’ ‘ray’ and ‘a prairie home companion’ – however the cleanliness of these films is outdone by the psychedelia of this musical voyage through some 40 Beatles songs. At times, it’s a ‘flying circus’ at others it’s reminiscent of ‘clockwork’ and occasionally the starch just needs to be drained from the screen. Fluxes of engagement and disengagement might be a proper use of words to describe the film. The power comes from the ability to actively propel scenes forward through the clever use of names, dates and places in the Beatles songs. This is no review, this was dialogue, conversation, or perhaps literary masturbation.

http://www.acrosstheuniverse.com/

a facial apparatus

Holding out: a way out of facebook?

The words below are clips from a longer article that attempts to analyze online social/antisocial networks like facebook and myspace in the context of cultural capital.

I for one, have held out of facebook, but feel the increasing pressure to join...
I found this article while skulking around like a gangly gollum looking for a way out,
is there a productive way to be engage whilst disengaging/ holding out/ not participating in the unpaid work being done by 'users'?

http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue11_12/bigge/index.html

From: The Cost of (anti-)social networks; Identity, agency and neo-luddites.
Author: Ryan Bigge.


"Related to front-end formatting decisions, Galloway describes how intelligent networks “produce an apparatus to hide the apparatus.” [8]

Is Theodora Stites’s information calisthenics work or play? Andrejevic (2004), concludes that:

“Instead of promoting power sharing, the contemporary deployment of interactivity exploits participation as a form of labor. Consumers generate marketable commodities by submitting to comprehensive monitoring. They are not so much participating, in the progressive sense of collective self-determination, as they are working by submitting to interactive monitoring.”

Hughes describes a false choice, a sociotechnical scenario devoid of agency. In his article, Cassidy (2006) underscores this narrative of inevitability: “‘It was viewed as an addictive guilty pleasure — lots of students using language like ‘resisting’ and ‘holding out’ when describing their hesitation to join,’ recalled a Harvard graduate who joined Facebook as a senior, in February, 2004.”

Is there any difference between those excluded from creating a robust social network and those who chose not to participate? How would a neo-Luddite (that is, a conscientious MySpace objector) differ from someone with social network failure? Or, to put it another way, is it possible to communicate intent through a lack of participation?"

Empire of Persians - 1

Empire of Persians – Document #1

Thunder Bay’s paradoxical doughnut without a hole, the Persian, is inspiration for this series of artistic interpretations (Documents). Vehicle of civic pride and regional culinary identity, the venerable, yet ephemeral, Persian carries the weight of an unlikely history. Like the Hungarian Bismarck – a favorite of Manitobans – with its solid German lineage, and the coffee and doughnut-bearing Sallies of the Salvation Army delivering messages of material comfort to the troops during WWI, the Persian is linked, however tenuously, with American four-star General John Joseph Pershing. Pershing or Persian? The exploits of the General during WWI have been likened to an exercise in empire building – perhaps an empire of Persians. There have been naval sloops named Persian since the 19th century. They have been notable for sinking. And at least one Canadian doughnut chain insists it fuels Canadian troops overseas. Alas, the Pershing-Persian connection is not likely apocryphal, if we are to believe the critics, but no less compelling for that reason. Like it or not, the Persian of northwestern Ontario has a military bearing. The Persian’s military history mixes uneasily with regionalism and commercial history. All of this seems too much for a doughnut to bear. It is one thing for a great work of art, a noble deed, or a stunning accomplishment to attract and sustain artistic and historical scrutiny. Usually, delightful confections do not engage the critical imaginations. But the Persian has a rich cultural significance that will be evident in the Documents created by local artists for this project. Betty Carpick’s Persian Bra evokes the signature colors of cinnamon and pink, capturing in fabric the delicate waves of icing applied by hand; yet, in the manner of Madonna and the slip dress, she turns under into outerwear. The Bra is part of Carpick’s line of garments created under the label of Miss Persian of Thunder Bay.

What Ontario Parties are Saying about Poverty

With the upcoming election, parties poverty reducation strategies are at the obvious front of questions being posed by anti-poverty advocates.

The Income Secuirty and Advocacy Centre has created an information sheet laying out each parties stance regarding poverty.

Here's a brief, non-detailed overview. A more detailed response can be found here.

Liberals:

The Liberals will build a comprehensive Poverty Reduction Strategy around the Ontario Child Benefit, and will work with partners to develop indicators and targets to mesure and address child poverty. Firm targets will be introduced within one year.

Progressive Conservatives:

The PCs have not made a commitment to a Poverty Reduction Strategy. But, an all-party debate on poverty and disability in Toronto on Sept. 18, the PC representative cmomitted her party to institution a poverty reduction strategy.

NDP:

The NDP has not made a committment to a Poverty Reduction Strategy. But the federal NDP - via Social Policy critic Tony Martin - has called on the federal government to enact a national Poverty Reduction Strategy.

Green Party:

The Green Party has said that it believes Ontario needs a Poverty Reduction Strategy. But it has not explicitly committed to instituting one.

Elect to End Poverty

Elect to End Poverty!

You are invited to attend a press conference organized by the Thunder Bay Economic Justice Committee. (It will also be the offical media release of a report writen by your's truly)

October 4th, 10 am, Kinna Aweya Legal Clinic (86 S. Cumberland St.)

Poverty continues to be a serious and central concern for many people in Thunder Bay. At the press conference, we will present the newest edition of our Thunder Bay Poverty Report: Rich Conversations with the Poor. We will also present our summary of the TBEJC survey of provincial political candidates, outlining their positions on issues for low income people in Thunder Bay. This election, the TBEJC is focusing on three areas:

Energy Poverty:
People with low income are spending a disproportionate amount of their income on housing and utilities, especially in colder areas like Northwestern Ontario. This is due to the rising cost of energy and the low efficiency of many rent-geared-to-income units. This trend is negating any social benefit from geared to income housing, and causing people to literally be unable to afford to live in subsidized units.

Adequate Welfare and Minimum Wage Rates:
The cuts in social assistance rates in 1995 have not been restored by the McGuinty government. The last increase of 3% and the 2% increase in November are nowhere near the amounts required to bring rates to their pre-1995 amounts, not to mention the proposed $15,000.00 minimum annual income suggested by MISWAA. Additionally, the proposed increase to the minimum wage will not be fully implemented until 2010. By that time the cost of living will have increased substantially, thereby reversing any gains a moderate wage increase would provide.
A comprehensive government strategy to address poverty and welfare reform:
The current income security system for adults in Ontario is inadequate. Every aspect of the labour market has changed dramatically in the last 40 years. Yet, there has been no corresponding reforms or modernization of our income security system to keep pace. A proposal for reform, Time for a Fair Deal: Modernizing Income Security for Working Age Adults, has been endorsed by many municipalities including the Thunder Bay District Social Service Board. In addition to proposing an increase to welfare rates and the minimum wage, MISWAA recommends uploading social assistance benefits costs for Ontario Works and Ontario Disability Support Programs, from municipalities to the province. Meaningful reforms must involve real experts: low income people and advocates. Substantive change requires government to appoint an expert panel and develop a clear strategy.

For more information, contact George Drazenovich at 345-0091.

Al Gore's Travelin' Global Warming Show

Mus'ak

It's not everyday that a film arrests your very being by uplifting your heart from the quiet mundane plodding of everyday life. It is only within the fissures of unexpected occurrences, those entrances that we keep a constant watch over, but seldom have the capacity to block out entirely, that the contagions of true art infest our very being and ignite a symbiosis of exultant passion.

Once is such a film. Capable of bowling over and winning even the most reluctant of hearts. The melancholy verses and infectious choruses of Once seem to steep the audience in a bath of saccharine delights. Music fuels the narrative and is at once seamlessly blended to evoke a dynamic and layered exegesis of music's purity.

I thank my musical compatriots in Edmonton for taking note and highly recommending this film. Now I wish to extend my own praise and gratitude towards the film by passing on the 'a' stamp of approval.























As I watched Once in awe and elation I was immediately reminded of the film 'Latcho Drom.'

Latcho Drom is equally unconventional, vernacular and well-pointed. A story of the Romany people, musicians and dancers, throughout parts of Europe.

Although this film is harder to find on video store shelves and a western DVD release is still pending, copies of the VHS can be found if one is willing to make the effort. Those who do make the effort will likely not be disappointed.

On second thought, for a taste of the film please see the video below. Taraf De Haïdouks
play out a section of the film and have long been a favorite of mine.

Here's a few to get us started. Remember anyone can post a comment and if you would like to become a contributor simply email technoculturelab@lakeheadu.ca.


Buena Vista Social Club
Quadrophenia
The filth and the fury
The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle
D.O.A.
End of the Century

empty

After I handed Dr. Gary Genosko a copy of my thesis titled 'Failure in the frostbelt: the city in winter,' FULL/empty ended up on my desk. Gary thought I may like to take a look at it. In all honesty my intent was to turn in a thesis that had a heavy bent towards visual studies and would bear many images. My textual result is a document that spans some 130 pages and contains a paltry 7 images, 8 including the cover. At this point in time I am also pondering heavily my next steps, academic and other. Phd applications will need to be completed soon. I think of the UofA, Waterloo and Concordia as places in Canada that I would like to spend some time. The conundrum at the moment: how to literally, with words, convey a conceptual project to committees of admittance folks, when I am unsure as to 'what project I want to do next.' In a sense I am feeling FULL/empty as the title suggests, my mind is awash with numbness from months of writing, light from accomplishing a goal, and clouded as to what to focus on next.

I digress, this post is really dedicated and motivated by the following:

In 1999 Gary Genosko, my current academic supervisor, developed a concept of FULL/empty while spending a one month writers residency at the Winnipeg Art Gallery.

The purpose of the residency was to follow suit with the WAG's commitment to "engaging and meaningful interpretations to our collections" (3).

FULL/empty
Superficial Abundance and Profound Loss
June 16 to September 24, 2000

Since this curated collection of images was mounted in frames bearing 'glass,' the show has never traveled outside of Winnipeg and has likely found its way to the bottom of the basement among countless other 'treasures' and 'archival' artifacts. In this post and the following I attempt to cast a light into the dark recesses of hollowed out corners to illuminate a conceptually captivating essay.

This following image is by David McMillan
Rehabilitation pool, children's hospital, October 1998
Although this image is not in the WAG collection, it may contain traces of similacrum reminiscent of the described images.





















"empty is a photographic invitation to sadness. emptiness is not a thing but an emotional texture into which viewers are enticed through complicity; a shared complicity in which there is a desire to explore a profound emptiness as long as it is bearable" (26).

"empty is really deeply empty, but never vacant" (27).

"unintended desolation... we are in need of a new word, a variation on nowhere: perhaps 'newhere' will suffice... 'Newhere' is diametrically opposed to real estate because it contradicts the law of location. It is where you end up in the course of being rendered redundant by change, the result of which is that you can no longer find your way around. Tuck yourself into an interminable holding pattern. Out here, there is simply nowhere to go: and such newness is an aggravation some people apparently enjoy" (31).

09/11/07

Just as the new semester has brought this University to life in the past few days, so to has the sleeping giant of winters wind arisen from a summer of sedation. As I pedaled my bicycle to the office on this brisk morning I was reminded of the threat of winter as an actual force to be reckoned with. Winter as actual rather than the virtual theories of cultured objects that I have been pouring over for the past six months. It seemed fine to poke fun of winter from behind the tepid veil of a Northern Ontario summer, but now, now winter will have its revenge.

In the last few paragraphs of my draft thesis text I wrote of how the heat and light of summer granted me a boon, one that buoyed my writings of winter and ensured that I would never be far from the next sun-rise or warm sunny day. In earnest, I thanked summer for allowing me to complete an otherwise dark and cold subject from sinking under the snow.

Thus in a timely manner I am more than glad that I have at least managed to assemble the major portion of the written work, before this wind carrying a cold rain off Lake Superior decides that its time for the snow to fall.

Awesome Stuff

Jean-Paul De Roover - Fellow grad student and musical genius.

Completely Inspired me. A one man musical revolution if I do say so myself. His syncopated rhythms set to complex time signatures and dance happy vocal arrangements made his Thursday set sing with the grace and ease of dolphins at sea.









Mark Berube: Singer Songwriter from Vancouver who played defsup last friday night.

Completely Inspired me.

I got to the defsup art gallery a little late for the opening of the new show at 7 pm, I was diligently working on my thesis, so I arrived just as Mark Berube had begun his third song. Moments into his first seconds of say it aint so' I was hooked and I was kicking myself for being late. A true master played in a room that deserved a live recording. Nuff Said.
All that I ask is for you to visit his Myspace, click the above link and listen to Say it Aint so. go on have a cry, have a laugh and the post your comments.

The last thing.

The third thing.

I have in my hands, well next to me. A printed copy of my Thesis.

New Title "The Urban Winter"

I will receive comments over the next few weeks, edit it and then get it out to my committee.

It's been at least 10 months in the making but I finally have something to show for all my interpersonal negligence.

Here goes...

a

IS THERE MORE TO LIFE THAN THIS

This is a christian add.

But... it does do a fine job in a manner akin to Charlie Chaplin's Modern Times.

a

Jimmy / Radiohead

The Last Day of August

So here I sit in at my desk, typing these words on a keyboard looking at a screen that has met my stare for the past 3 months.

My goal at the outset was to complete a good draft copy of my thesis by today. I must admit that at present I think that I am about 3 or 4 days off the mark.

The goal was not too enormous and should I have been more capable of focusing steadily in the first month I probably would have been done a few weeks ago.

Alas here I sit, still staring, thinking, typing these words, making connections, editing out misnomers. It seems that my period of greatest progress has been the last month. Something about deadlines that motivates one towards an end.

So with the new school year looming on the horizon I move to strike and finish this beast. A preliminary copy at least, before I really take the knife to it and whittle down a quality piece of writing.

Many best wishes to all who embark down this road.

a

the bourne sur·veil·lance

http://www.thebourneultimatum.com/

Wow, okay so I'm a sucker, at present for shit, opaque, media forms like modern cinema in the blandest of senses. Since I've been living in Thunder Bay I have upped my intake of MOVIES to what may be considered unhealthy levels, but which may still fall far behind that of many Canadians. MOVIES are what you go and see at the Famous Players theater in Thunder Bay, since there is only one major player, they only bring in that which is a definite hit - meaning nothing subversive or genuinely interesting can possibly sneak past and get played on one of the 12 screens. That being said I went this Tuesday night for the price of $4.20X2 to see the new Bourne MOVIE.

I'm no surveillance expert, but this 1hr and 50min is perhaps the most seamlessly blended surveillance effort in movie history. Although since we've all seen the gags before, and know that the protagonist will always be one step ahead of the pursuer we know that means that in essence the surveillance has some obvious holes in it.

Since this is not an expose of surveillance and should be read more as a review of the movie, I urge you, if you happen upon it, to watch for the scene with the guns and video cameras in the same hands. Meaning that the "bad" guy has a gun and a video camera with a live feed to the CIA folks who are watching the scene from their armchairs in new york. Indeed the armed cameraman has a telecommunication line directly on his person as well, meaning that the video is transmitted back to New York and visual decisions can be made to tell the op what to do next.

I imagine that the cost of technology and the need to surveil will soon become so demanded by the public that Benthams Panoptic model will take on a much mutated form, a digital form, and as text is now scanned by computers in investigations and as a combing procedure over the entire net, so too will infinite real time up to the second digitally encoded and stored video be virtually scanned and flagged if need be.

I have no conclusion, these are my ramblings. This has all been said before.

The Simulated Engagement

Please go here to view the image that I find appropriate for this post.

http://www.mondolithic.com/gallery/index.php?module=media&pId=102&id=106&category=gallery/SciTech&start=0


It's been a few days since it happened to me and in the mean time I've been thinking of sharing this story. So here goes.

Last Friday night I rambled down to Ft William, or Thunder Bay South depending on where your from, to see some friends. Friends who play in touring bands like Misery Signals and Shai Hulud. The show was at the classic venue of club 201, a place with old show posters mostly dating back to the early 90's, bands that I had seen some of my first shows with.

Seeing these guys out on the road and still 'livin the dream' was great, reminding me of the days that I used to spend in the Van and on tour with my last band Fractal Pattern. When hanging out with bands on tour, the conversations usually start and end with tour, and all the stories that go along with it. Living in the van, stinking to no end, and most importantly the undying generosity of so many people across North America who all share the stories and make tour as much fun as it is.

Well since I haven't been on the road this year at all, while being in school, I have used the opportunity to host bands. Basically a place for bands I know to come and sleep, and shower and basically hang out. While being on tour the best thing is always making friends on tour, and hopefully with luck, seeing them again in a few months or next summer or whenever. It's a sad fact that while being on tour connections to home may become stressed and thinned out and the people you meet on tour begin to form a kind of collective family. People you trust and who care about your well being.

Usually after a show if as a band you don't know anyone, you make friends with some kind soul, who will take you over to their house and let you sleep on their couches and floors and let you cook some pasta and use the shitter. Really thats all that matters, and then you get up and do it all over again.

With all these fond memories of tour implanted in my brain, I was in for a shock when I hosted Shai Hulud from New York last Friday night. Now Shai Hulud is a band that I have long been a fan of, being essential pioneers in the hardcore scene, I still can't believe this band made it to Canada, much less Thunder Bay.

So, before we left the venue after the show, all the guys in the band were super stoked that they would have a place to go and chill out and have a shower. The next question, or perhaps obsession was, "do you have wireless," to which I answered, "Yes."

And that was it, that was the last time I really talked to them. Sure they came over to my place and I was honored indeed, but as soon as I showed them the shower and the clean towels I had laid out for them and gave them the internet password and such - they were gone - 5 guys in a room, all pulled out different versions of Mac laptops and started clicking away. Their bodies in that recognizable hunch that people using a lap top actually on their laps acquire. No matter how I attempted to strike up the conversation and bring it back to the days of fun and hanging out and telling stories, I could not. For the allure of the screen seemed to suck them inside and remove their spirit from the room.

I was so disenchanted I wanted to cry, so instead I went and got my laptop and started to work on the photos I had taken at the show.

As each successive shower was taken it would leave one vacant seat in the parlor room and one laptop off. The bodies who were gone had headed out to the van, for the drive to timmins was to begin as soon as the bathing was over.

Needless to say, i felt like I had been ripped off, been jipped. Unable to communicate on the proper level, the digital level. Perhaps we should have all been using MSN messenger to carry on a dialogue, that way our attention could have been given, even if it was fractionally.

And thus I end with the beginning - the story of the simulated engagement - and a dejection that has not lifted with the passing of these last days.

Saturday night with the computer

It brought us Swedish meatballs, Billy bookshelves and endless queues on the London North Circular on Saturday afternoons. Now Ikea is going one step further and opening the Ikea Hostel, where customers can stay overnight if they haven't finished their shopping.

Later this month, Ikea Norway will let shoppers sleep overnight in one of its two Oslo warehouses, an operation that will last a week. "It will be like an alternative hostel," said company spokesman Frode Ullebust.

Thats the news if you haven't already heard it.

Muchos Gracias to both Becky and KBro for the posts. Hopefully we can use this place, the vitrual sauna, to help each other to generate ideas and discussion about the projects we are working on, or the thoughts we may be thinking.

Comments are always welcome and encouraged. Please spread the word about the virtual sauna to your friends and family, in that way we can hopefully generate a buzz and let out the academia like blood from a stone. Too often the interesting things that we find out go unheard of, simply because it gets channeled back into our writings, most of which stay relatively internal. Lets get external. Lets get interesting. Lets share.

Lately I have been pushing hard to smooth out my existing chapters and get primed to hammer out the final one on the festival.

I must say that working for Dr. Genosko this summer has been the best job I have ever had. It beats painting, running a kids park, cutting grass, apartment maintenance... Yeah, it's swell. Research is a good way to spend time, as well, since I got to schedule my own time, I made sure that when It was hot I was sitting in the sun, probable increasing my chances of getting cancer - awesome.

peas

Sorry for the letdown ...

Hey Andriko and everyone else ... I must apologize for letting you down and not fulfilling my attempt to show you how my thesis is going. However, I am not sure I can add anymore until I do a bit more thinking and researching about my new ideas. Maybe I'll post again in the middle of August to let you know how the next stage of my research is going!!

Andriko asked about my practicum and wanted more information. Again ... I was just teasing you with the tip of a carrot so I'll give you a bit more information on my practicum because it's a huge issue in society today and one that is often hidden.

As of 2009 all provincially funded institutions that currently house people with developmental disabilities (often people with multiple disabilities) will be closed. A few have been closed but three are still open and slowly placing people in other locations. There are approximately 1000 people that need to be relocated. The Ministry of Health and Long-term Care and the Ministry of Social and Community Services have joined forces (which sometimes run opposite of each other) to provide a protocol of how to place people being relocated from the large institutions. The primary goal is to place the residents in a group home. Society has now changed opinions and believes that the best care is provided in the community and not being stored away in a large institution. The three women that I focus my attention on come from Huronia Regional Centre. The closures are both widely accepted and greatly feared. I will include a few websites that you can look at if you want more information. I did a project for a class that involved assessing the protocol used to place individuals and found it to be very flawed. I believe the governments are aware of these flaws as it is being redeveloped right now!! The problem (or a benefit depending on how you look at it) for the women is that they have all lived in an institution for most of their adult life and as they are in their 80s (a new phenomenon since most people with developmental impairments were not expected to live past 40) the best location for them was a long-term care home. Basically these women were replacing one institution for another. On the other hand, there is a man placed at the same long-term care home who is in his 40s. His family made the decision for him to be placed at this home because it was close to them and seemed like a nice place (it is a nice place ... one of the few nice nursing homes I have seen). This man is not adjusting well and his family is regretting this placement (or so I have heard). It is difficult to adjust to an environment where everyone around you is twice your age. There is also a concern that the current residents (who do not have developmental impairments) are not very accepting of the new residents - many of whom are non-verbal.

The purpose of my research will be to determine what makes a successful transition from one institution to the next. So far the women have adapted quite well. I have heard stories about people who visited the provincially funded institutions and would call them horror stories. The places were often filled with half naked people who just walked around like zombies. There are stories about little children playing in a room with only tiny windows near the tall ceiling and only have one ball for a roomful of children. One woman told me that she has a strong stomach but she almost vomited when she saw some of the images in these institutions (I am not sure which one she was in). I also heard that many of the adults lived in a large room with small cots and one bathroom to be shared. This would not even be acceptable as a dorm at a university.
The three women now have 1-1 care basically ALL day (whenever they are awake). They get taken on extra outings and have all their needs met by people working for a developmental services agency. They are warming up to the women who provide care to them and often hug and kiss them. Apparently affection was not something found in their previous home.
I am working on incorporating the long-term care home's policies with the developmental services agency's policies so that workers only have to look at one book (more daunting than it seems and not very enjoyable but someone has to do it I guess!!)
Here are a few links:
http://www.mcss.gov.on.ca/mcss/english/pillars/developmental/what/closing_facilities.htm

http://www.torontosun.com/News/Columnists/Mandel_Michele/2005/09/18/1221836.html

http://www.oadd.org/publications/journal/issues/vol11no2/editorial.htm

I hope this gives you some insight into the issues that are facing people aging with developmental impairments. It's a scary world out there ... especially when you are unable to make your own decisions and voice your concerns. I believe that the closures are a good thing but society as a whole is not ready for this transition and I think it could be a difficult and bumpy road for the people being relocated.

I hope everyone is having a good summer and I'll quit boring you now with my summer events :) I want to hear what everyone else is doing!!
Cheers, Becks

Getting to know myself, through the experiences of my participants

Hello Everyone ... I hope you are all enjoying your summer and staying cool. Andriko convinced me to send a 'blog' about my thesis experiences.
After several months of reliving my interviews and contemplating the best way to document the lives of 8 very unique individuals, I finally had a brainwave. It was only after sending my supervisor various revised versions of themes that I finally found one that she would accept. Finally her words of wisdom hit and I came up with a brilliant concept for my thesis. I will get to this in a moment because there were several events that led up to me finally seeing the 'light'

Have you ever noticed that when you are trying to get something done it is very challenging to meet the objectives? That it is only when the task is done that it all seems so much easier? What I am trying to say is that ... last summer I couldn't find enough participants for my research ... I was getting stressed that I would not find enough people. However, this summer ... when I have interviewed all the people I want to interview ... lots of people want to talk to me about their experiences of aging with a physical impairment. It was through these conversations that I finally realized how I NEEDED to present my data. Ever since my first interview I realized that this thesis is no longer about me ... it's about the special people who trusted me with their stories. I do not want to let them down, I do not want to present them in a way that would embarrass them or make them hate confiding to me. Although, this is a huge task to take on ... I think it has been empowering and I would not change this experience.

To show you how this has impacted my thoughts, I'll tell you how my thoughts have developed. At first, before I made any personal connections with people with physical impairments I thought I could look at the topic in sections that I would call 'Inequalities'. This seemed like a logical way and fit nicely with my literature review. However, after my first few interviews I realized that the word inequality should not be included in my thesis in such a BOLD manner. My themes then changed slightly by using different words that are comparable to inequality and still highlight that there was something wrong with life with an impairment and that my participants were living tragic lives. This was not how any of them talked about their life.

Okay ... so now this is the new direction - the purpose of my thesis will be to show that people aging with a long-term physical impairment are no different than anyone else but they have to learn to do things differently or normalize their actions and are constantly adapting. Now ... instead of using inequalities I am using coping mechanisms as a way to structure my data so it makes more sense.

I am now in the process of recoding my data (all done as of last night) and working on a strong thesis statement. I hope to continue writing this week. I finished my methods section and am waiting for it to be reviewed.

I am also trying to fit in my practicum. This practicum involves researching how 3 elderly women (over 80) with developmental impairments have adjusted to a life in a long-term care home. These women previously lived in a large, provincially funded institution that is being closed. The stories I hear about these institutions are enough to make me want to throw up. I cannot imagine how they survived for so long. They are adapting quite well to their new surroundings but I guess it is not much different than their previous "home" (which I use VERY lightly!!).

In the midst of all this school work ... I am also working a bit and playing soccer. My team is doing better than last year and we have a chance of making it to the semi-finals (I don't expect more than that!!). The summer is going too fast. I will be at home still in September trying to finish my thesis and look at applying for a PhD. I think I'll return to TBay for a short visit once most of my work is done.

This update is quite long and probably not too interesting. I hope everyone else is doing well and that your thesis or paper is coming along. Make sure you take time to enjoy the summer!!

Cheers, Becky

All is Full of Love

Every day, as these interviews progress I am more and more in awe with the individuals I encounter. I find myself complaining of the heat, of how I'd really really like to be able to fly to Toronto after I fly to Vancouver but I just don't have the money. boo hoo.

Then I hear people say things like this:

Maria (not her real name) is in a wheelchair. She is going blind and deaf. She has MS. She is having difficulting securing income from the Ontario Disability Support Program (welfare for people with disabilies who cannot work) because for a brief period she worked at Ontario Hyrdo, because, as she puts it, "I don't like being paid for breathing". The ODSP office said she obvioulsy could work, she'd done it in the past. She reminded them that she had done this work before she had gone blind and nearly deaf. She really needed this income from ODSP because she didn't have enough money to purchase batteries for her hearing aid - because she is going blind she cannot read lips like she usually does. She sometimes has to choose between hearing or eating. HEARING OR EATING! You make the choice.

Why did she agree to participate in the TBEJC study? Because:

"I'm used to losing the fight, and this is one fight I'm going to win" - I'll remember that next time I'm distraught that my hair is flipping out at the sides.

Pony's

The Amazing thing is that even though its been pretty well 35degrees out for the past few days - I've been getting some great work done on my Victoriaville Mall chapter.

As the last few weeks have unfolded and I have been wrestling with this chapter it has felt like quite the uphill struggle, trying to fill in the parts that needed filling while trying not to write too too much.

In a sense the Victoriaville piece has come to stand, in my mind like a companion piece or an updated work of an existing thesis sitting in the Lu Library by a former student named Joe Facca. Facca's piece is a number of years old, and I felt that It could use an updating. Well, that wasn't the original intention but it did seem like a necessary by-product of writing about the Mall. An updated version, a more complete story, a new meditation.

As I said before, the Thunder Bay archives became a primary source of Materials on this subject, and without them I would not have the details of WWWWW&H the Mall came to be what it is now.

I have been regaling my partner Amy with a litany of all things Victoriaville, often comparing my own written work to food references/ descriptions of cooking and baking processes, I.e., today my paper is like a cookie thats baked to perfection, but instead of chocolate chips, there's chunks of cement - obviously I need to re-evaluate the recipe.

Today though, that cookie is tasting better and the chunks of cement are gone, but I think it's a bit over baked and needs to be reworked a bit, cook it a little less, take out that pinch of salt and add some baking powder. Mmmm - So good I can almost taste it. 1 more day that I think It will be time to switch gears. And almost on time too. As for looking at a rough draft completion date of August 31 - I better pony up.

Yee Haw.

the three way

This weeks obsessions =

"Limitless distractions give no pause to distort a
Precious delusion" - Bad Religion


"Things and products that are measured, that is to say reduced to the common measure of money, do not speak the truth about themselves. On the contrary, it is in their nature as things and products to conceal that truth. Not that they do not speak at all: they use their own language, the language of things and products. - Henri Lefebvre

"During a channeling once, the Christ said that the term the "chosen ones" is a misinterpretation. It should be "the ones who chose," because this group consists of beings who chose long ago to give their service to Earth and her people by incarnating, forgetting who they were until certain points in their evolution, and then becoming enlightened and Christed. This set the pattern of spiritual evolution for others to follow." Amorah Quan Yin

andriko

From: No Caption Needed

Animated Music Video Photo Cartooning
Posted by Hariman in No Caption Needed

Nick Anderson, editorial cartoonist at the Houston Chronicle, has created a remarkable example of next generation political cartooning. The cartoon, entitled Feel Good, Inc. combines animated figures for Bush, Rove, and Cheney, who rap and sing in front of a dense montage of news photographs and the occasional smiley button. The animation is deft and the songs are clever, but it’s the photos that provide the critical edge and disturbing emotional tone, while the pop culture icon of the smiley button really drives the point home: These people are playing with our lives and don’t give a damn about the harm they cause. Comments at the paper’s online site, Chron.com, are here.

Henry Rollins - Drawing Conclusions -

I love Henry Rollins, and perhaps you do too.

Project Brainstorm

http://www.projectbrainstorm.ca/about-project-brainstorm


My sister sent me to this website, after she had been researching her own brain tumor. there are over 120 different types of brain tumors

only 31 percent of males and 30 percent of females survive 5 years after the diagnosis


Doesn't this mad you sad, angry, scared, anything? I have grown to become quite afraid of the apathy I see around me. And I'm not talking political apathy, I'm talking apathy-apathy. I sometimes wonder If we've retreated so far within ourselves, and indulging in the "me,me,me culture" that we are incapable of empathy. Oh all things I like to ponder; but not now, because I have to go update my myspace.

Constructing the Future

Monocle News Report - Zurich

Swiss firm Keller AG and the DFAB lab in Zürich are exploring the potential of robot bricklayers.

Soda

"At that time, the uncles and cousins were starting the first chain of drugstores in the history of the country, and they were especially proud of the soda fountains in these stores, and had spent a lot of money to guarantee that the ice cream served at those fountains was the equal of any ice cream in the world." (Kurt Vonnegut. Deadeye Dick. p19)

"The birth of the soda fountain began with the drug revolution of the 1850's. People would go to the local drugstore and procure a fountain drink to cure or aid some physical malady. Many of the fountain drinks were concoctions or extracts of various drugs that were flavored and effervesced to make them palatable. Drugs like cocaine and caffeine are maybe the most famous but bromides and various plant extracts were also commonly dispensed."
(http://www.drugstoremuseum.com/sections/level_info2.php?level_id=47)

New Post - On the Yolk

Ode to the yolk...

Plus heres a Gem I posted on the yolk back in 2006.

Ft William...

The mall and the street

It's Friday the 13th and thats for sure. The above image is a link, follow it to see what kind of Art and media is being mingled with on the streets of SanFran.

At our house we have a few patches of garden, some carrots, peas, beets... The birds seem to keep coming and eating the lettuce. They also seem to keep plucking the peas out of the ground before they can get a glimpse of sun. It is mostly a hobby garden, but any humane suggestions?

I've done all the procrastinating there is to be done today, read, cleaned random things like the freezer, and put enough pressure on myself to keep me in bed for most of the week. It seems to me that in order to get the writing words flowing like blood turning fresh snow pink I have to apply the pressure, be it a deadline, or some other form of narrowed compression.

Muchos gracias to those of you who have signed up as contributors, it warms the heart.

At present I'm working on fattening up my chapter about the Victoriaville Mall. I visited the city archives a few weeks ago, fantastic staff, excellent resources, primary sources to be found in abundance. I highly recommend a trip to the archives if the need be present.

The mall. Okay I'm off.

a

I define me!

A new begining

Hi.

It's me, Andriko.

I was thinking that it would be a good idea if 'we,' the Lakehead sociology graduate students started our own salon.

A place for us to wax philosophic on any topic we choose.

Hopefully this will become a venue that will evolve along with the new crop of grad students entering the program, as well as be a place for those of us already entrenched in the system at LU to foster communication and generate new ideas.

Personally I hope that we as a body of students can get to know each other better, who we are as people and what the heck we are all writing about, or trying to write about, or thinking about trying to write about, or all together ignoring.

My inspiration for this blog space came from a blog that is currently kept active by a group of students from the University of Alberta. http://www.yolksoc.blogspot.com/
Have a look, get a feel, come back and contribute to this blog. It's an open blog that allows all of the members to hold equal power to contribute and to moderate, meaning that you can edit any previous posts with ease. In this way, by equally sharing the responsibility we can avoid any kind of on-line tyranny.

The intent here is to foster a student collective that is fun and easy to use.

Here's how to join.

Step 1: If you are reading this you may have already been sent an invitation to join this blog.

Step 2: Follow the prompts, you will sign in with your lakehead email address and password. Since LU email is operated by gmail/google/blogger... you already have an account that gives you access to blogger, isn't that nice. Now if there was only a way to Fwd all of the junk mail in my Lu inbox to the person who sold our names off to make a buck.

Step 3: You will be taken to a page called Dashboard and from there you will be able to enter The Virtual Sauna

Step 4: If you have not been sent an invitation simply send me or anyone else who is already a member an email requesting an invitation. alozowy@lakeheadu.ca




..............................................................................


Ten Things from the past few weeks.

1. the funny look that people in cars give people on bikes, as if the people in cars want to say "wow that looks like fun."

2. the sleeping giant, climbing to the top and being enveloped in 360' of blue skies and water.

3. the use of the words 'digital jedi' in the new die hard film.

4. the way that tbay tel offers a special rate of $20/ month internet service for 8 months to new students.

5. the way that tbay tel will only allow a customer to have 1 promotion package i.e., the $20/month, unless they leave tbay tel for 3 months.

6. the way that shaw will give you a $20/month deal for 6 months.

7. the way that you can switch providers every 6 or eight months and neither company will vie for loyalty.

8. the way that the university is pretty much a ghost town at this time of year.

9. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5blbv4WFriM

10. Zeitgeist the movie - there are 3 parts to the film, these links below only get you the first section of each. Google video has the film in 3 parts rather than 13 if you prefer.

Religion

World Trade Center

The Federal Reserve