The Scene and Herd

It moves quickly, stretching across the countryside and engulfing trees, fences and homes. It reaches up hydro poles and across transmission wires, eventually collapsing them under its weight.

-Globe and Mail, September 26th

I imagine the kudzu as a giant green snake, stretched across our nation with houses digesting in its belly. I imagine us slowly migrating up north, towards Nunavut and the ocean where it’s too cold for the kudzu to survive, or learning to live with the kudzu, on top of it perhaps, destitute except for plenty of tea.

At times, the invasive plant’s arrival in Canada sounds more like an environmental science fiction film than an agricultural reality. Experts use words like “endemic” and “catastrophic” to describe the finding of a small patch of it by Lake Erie and in the US, the kudzu costs the agricultural industry hundreds of millions of dollars a year to control. It sounds like if we left it alone, the whole country would get covered up with kudzu and part of me wishes to see that, a truly historic occurrence.

The Baron in The Trees by Italo Calvino is about an Italian boy named Cosimo who climbs up into the trees to protest his parents’ treatment of him (they were making him eat his dinner) and never comes down again his whole life. He grows old up there and finishes his education up there and takes part in revolutions up there in the trees, because he manages to travel long distances without touching a toe to the ground. He even falls in love up there and remains in love with the same girl for the rest of his life, because he can’t follow her when she gallops away on a horse.

The kudzu catastrophe reminds me of The Baron in The Trees, not only because it’s growing a bizarre and far reaching infastructure of plants, but because it’s somehow lovely and somehow devastating. At times, the kudzu vine’s arrival in Canada sounds more like a romantic work of literature than an agricultural reality.

Six years ago I visited Cluj, Romania with a group of friends. Our first evening there we were shown around the city by a student that we met at the seminary where we were to spend the night. His name was Lauri. He was a skinny kid who wore a cell phone around his neck like jewelry, shy, friendly and well spoken. While we were wandering around Unirii Square in the centre of the city, an older gentleman recognized us as foreigners and came over to make conversation, introduced himself as Otto. He was a big, dignified man, Romanian by birth but smuggled out of the country while still a child and raised in Toronto. In middle age, he’d reacquainted himself with the motherland and visited frequently. Otto initially paid Lauri no heed, but at some point in the conversation, turned to him. “Young man,” he said, “you look as though you come from a poor country.” Lauri appeared humiliated off the bat, but his face changed quickly into an expression of annoyance. “I do,” he said, and the two of them stared at each other, tensely.

I think often of Otto and Lauri, although I can still only speculate as to why I’ve always considered their exchange so significant. I recall Unirii Square whenever I read about the state of Canada’s immigration and refugee system, like this new study that concludes (somewhat obviously) that the economic well being of newcomers continues to deteriorate. When I read about Abdelrazik, Suaad Hagi Mohamud, and the Mexican visa debacle among others, I can still hear Otto’s voice in my head. “You look like you are from a poor country.” And I can still see our friend Lauri, pissed off in his cell phone necklace.

“This photo of my granddaughter Beatrice and I was taken in July. My wife Olivia Chow and I had come to visit with Beatrice and celebrate my 59th birthday with the newest member of our family. Beatrice was 4½ weeks old.”

I used to vote NDP, but then Jack Layton really started to bug me. I agreed with a lot of his ideas but his presence was irksome, and it wasn’t the mustache (which I don’t really like, but also don’t feel the need to insult). I turned Liberal and never really thought about it again, until last week when Macleans put together a collection of photos depicting famous Canadians on summer vacation. Stephen Harper and Jack Layton were right in there with the bunch and the stark comparison of these two political leaders, both of whom are vying for my vote, really shed some light on my feelings about Layton.

Stephen Harper’s photo endeared me to him (he’s always going and doing that in spite of me) because he’s with his daughter (who looks relaxed in his presence) and he’s wearing wire rims, which look great!

Jack Layton’s photo is okay. There’s a sweet little baby in it and I don’t doubt that Jack Layton likes the baby (although I do doubt he really wanted to kiss it like that). The real problem comes in the description that Layton cooked up to go along with the photo in which he refers to the birthday he spent with his new granddaughter and his wife, Olivia Chow… No, I mean he refers to his wife as Olivia Chow. He calls her by her full name. That’s weird. Am I right, or am I right. And now that I think about it, he’s always done that.

It’s interesting that people are always saying Stephen Harper needs to lighten up when frankly; his summer photo put me quite at ease. Jack’s photo freaked me out as usual and now I know why: Jack Layton irks me because he’s irksome. I always thought there was some weirdo sub-conscious reason that I couldn’t trust him or that my perception was off or picking up on something minute, when in actuality I was picking up on something gigantic and clearly off. Call your spouse by their full name all the time and you’re just asking for folks to distrust you.

I’m just thrilled that President Obama called Kanye West a jackass.

Not because it’s true (although it is, it is) and not because I think it’ll knock some sense into that jackass (not possible at this point – out of control) but because it’s really funny. That Obama, he’s a blessing. Remember when he brushed that dirt off his shoulder? Ha!
However historic his leadership is, we sure are lucky to have a political figure that pulls stunts like that and I fear we often forget it, take him for granted. Luckily, he gets chances every day to remind us of how awesome he is.

In honour of Obama calling Kanye West a jackass, I’d like to remind everybody about an incident that happened just over a month ago involving a tourist couple and an extraordinary squirrel that, unlike Obama, only had one chance to tell us how awesome he is.

We take the photo for granted and I don’t want this little guy to be forgotten just because we live in a culture that forgets everything great that has ever happened within fifteen seconds of it happening. The crasher squirrel practically reaffirmed my faith because he didn’t have to show up but he did. And just like Obama’s remark, I smile every time I think about him.

Take a good look. Remember. Laugh. This little squirrel is more miraculous than a brand new baby. And if you can’t see that?
Well, then you’re just a jackass.

Running around my old haunts last night, I saw a sign up outside Boo Radley’s that said “Welcome Back All!” Since it’s just after Labour Day, I figured they were talking to all the students moving back to the city and starting things up again. But there are no colleges or universities around Boo Radley’s and it’s definitely not a student hang out, not by a long shot (undesirable area, completely out of the way). Still, I think they thought they should say something about school starting, because the city changes in September. You feel different, optimistic and such. It’s a remnant of twenty years of Septembers when you were beginning something new.

I haven’t been able to begin much lately. I’ve kind of a writer’s block, I guess, and my days feel unproductive. I know what the problem is: I’m stuck on a style that’s starting to bore me. This has happened before. I know I have to wait for a new approach to strike, and then I can write like crazy. But until then, I’m going to feel sluggish. Yesterday I spent hours at the library and couldn’t write a thing. I walked home with Johnnie around dinnertime and the elementary kids were all coming home from school, tired and sweaty in new clothes, looking like they wake up with purpose each day, the little ragamuffins. I was jealous of them, sort of wishing that September meant something new for me too.

Perhaps Jack Layton shares my nostalgia. I noticed he chose to use a back-to-school metaphor to describe the likelihood of an election. “Mr. Harper has already decided that he’s gung-ho about going out into the schoolyard and having a rumble with Mr. Ignatieff,” he said, perhaps trying to illustrate the immaturity of the two men. I think that those guys over at parliament are suffering from a block (and a bloc? I’m sorry, but I couldn’t…) of their own. They’re stuck on this election business as a means of persuasion, communication. It’s become their default style and you can tell they’re bored stiff of the business (not to mention their readers), but a new approach just hasn’t struck.

Layton might be aiming to make Harper and Ignatieff look childish with his metaphor, but at least those kids rumbling in the schoolyard go back to their desks when the bell rings. We’d be so lucky if the government would sit quietly for a few hours every day, do some math or something. I’m willing to bet Harper and Ignatieff are as jealous as I am of the students around here, the ones getting up in the morning to get things done, the little ragamuffins.

I didn’t actually see Stephen Colbert douse himself with sugar the other night (nor is it available for online viewing in Canada yet), but I can imagine what it would look like: glorious – a fountain of sweet little crystals (one of the pillars of civilization) drenching the face of one of my favourite comedians. Oh my, what’s not to like about that? Aside from whatever political statement and/or easy comedy Colbert was trying to pull, “bathing in sugar” has connotations of luxury that I surely stand by.

Last year I was speaking with a lady from Zimbabwe who was trying to communicate to me the perils of life under Mugabe. What she chose to stress was the lack of affordable sugar in her country. She tried to explain the more sinister aspects, of course, but I suppose those things are difficult to communicate to a foreigner from a free country. “You can’t get sugar, coffee…” Indeed, expensive sugar struck me as outrageous. It struck me as unbearably unfair.

I’m reminded of wartime food rations and how my grandfather’s generation tends to have a soft (sweet) spot for sugar cubes. Sugar is a right, not a privilege. Colbert knows the truth. Aside from whatever political statements and/or easy comedy we’re trying to pull, we should all be bathing in sugar.

What about Bob is a really great movie.

The Blockbuster across the street doesn’t carry it (which is probably why Blockbuster is going out of business) so I haven’t seen it all that recently, but I’ve always remembered when Richard Dreyfuss tells Bill Murray to take a vacation from his problems. Every vacation should be, in essence, a vacation from your problems, right? And yet, to have it put that way is somehow appealing because it makes a vacation seem so accessible, a personal decision that no one can interfere with. All you have to do is declare that you are taking a vacation from your problems and then you’re on vacation.

I love vacations. I know everyone loves vacations but I love them more. I think about vacations fifty percent of the time and I don’t even have a job. When I was a kid I would get hella depressed to the point of tears on the last night of Christmas vacation. After two weeks of family togetherness I didn’t want to splinter back into the real world and go back to school. I wanted to stay home with my brothers. During summer vacation, before I was even in kindergarten, I would ask my parents every single day if my brother, Adam, had to go back to school tomorrow or the day after or the day after. Whenever it was that his summer vacation was going to end, I was going to need a lot of notice to prepare accordingly.

Now, a strike is a tricky business. A strike allows participants to avoid going to work, and it is certainly a change from the everyday, so it is kind of like a vacation. But it leads to disorder. A strike is a vacation of problems, which is why this summer’s municipal workers’ strike has got me all messed up in the head.

Last Wednesday night, Dupont Street dutifully lugged six weeks worth of trash, recycling and compost to the curbside. It sat there, expectantly, for two days before the garbage truck chugged along overnight and collected everything but the recycling, which is still sitting out there three days later. It appears the whole street has collectively decided to not risk pulling the recycling back in off the curb, just in case the truck makes an unscheduled return. Furthermore, everything smells bad because the compost leaked onto the sidewalks and the streets.

In the past six weeks, I haven’t been taking the recycling out that often because there’s no space outside. Since the bottles are piling up in the kitchen, I stopped doing the dishes unless I really have to. We have a fruit fly problem. The compost is full so my fridge is a disaster because I’d rather old food pile up in a cold refrigerator than sit in the sun beside the porch. I also stopped cleaning my room, going for a morning run and writing any blog entries. These last three have nothing to do with trash collection, but when the city is a mess and the kitchen is a mess, I really can’t feel responsible for anything. In short, I’ve neglected all my regular duties because I’m on a vacation of problems. The whole city is on a vacation of problems and it feels very familial. I’ve a real solidarity with my neighbours in these chaotic last days of this grimy situation. It’s almost enough to make me wish the strike would go on just a little while longer. I don’t want us to go back to school tomorrow, you know?

Working for BlogTo has been tons of fun. I get to go out to eat cake at least once a week. Plus, I get to take Alyssa with me. We have a good time. There’s just this one problem with the whole BlogTo experience – the comment section. People can be so mean. It’s demoralizing. Rather, it used to be demoralizing. I’ve become desensitized to stupid comments and this is of concern, because it makes it difficult for me to discern which comments are legitimate. Some of them are completely worth my while to read. In short, a few shifty comments are making it difficult for real comments to be heard.

Word on the street is Jason Kenney has the same problem with Canada’s refugee system. Apparently there are so few restrictions on who can claim refugee status, that a number of Mexicans have been taking advantage of it and making illegitimate claims. Then they get to hang out in Canada while their case is sorted out. The system is so overwhelmed by the fake refugees that the real refugees can’t get their case heard in a timely manner.

So Kenney has decided to slap Visa restrictions on Mexico and the Czech Republic. I disagree with this move, to say the least. It’s already hard enough for those guys to get out of Mexico alive. But the system is broken and Kenney is trying to fix it. Aside from making the system more of a priority (i.e. hire more people), I can’t offer any solid ideas.

Thankfully, most news reports have wide-open comment sections, where regular people can offer their own solutions to the refugee problem. “Let’s expand the visa requirement to anyone seeking refugee or immigrant status and refuse entry to anyone with improper documents,” suggests one lofty individual, who obviously doesn’t even really understand what a refugee is. Someone else proposes we put them “on the next plane home if they don’t pass even basic muster.”

I appreciate this last guy’s optimism. I have no idea who he is is, but I’m going to give him the benefit of the doubt and call his idea well thought out. In fact, I think we should apply his solution to all comment sections. Before someone may leave a comment, they have thirty seconds to explain why they deserve to leave a comment. If they have too much to say or get nervous or can’t articulate or have just had a really bad day and can’t think straight then tough luck. They don’t get to make a comment. They get to bring their cursor to the upper left hand corner of their browser window and click “back” to the page they came from.

Lady Gaga is interesting, evidently.

Sometimes she walks around with no pants on. She wears funny make-up and dies her hair and says raunchy things. And Marilyn Manson has a crush on her, which proves that she’s interesting. So why am I so bored by her all the time? When she was obsessed with that purple teacup and carrying it around all the time, I thought to myself, “fascinating,” but my mind forgot that it was interesting two seconds later.

I got bored in spite of myself.

I purchased The Velvet Underground and Nico one short year ago and really listened to it for the first time. I was overwhelmed by a feeling of peace and gratitude, like going back in time to the motherland to thank your ancestors for some solid culture building. But there was nothing interesting about the album. The Velvet Underground is too pervasive to be interesting, practically in our blood. I was born in 1982 and this glorious artistic movement is inherently known. Praise God. That’s cool, right?

The best part about being born after the 1960s is getting to be born after the 1960s.

Lady Gaga doesn’t get that, which is why she bores me. “Warhol said art should be meaningful in the most shallow way,” she told Maxim. “He was able to make commercial art that was taken seriously as fine art… [and] that’s what I’m doing too.” She let the cat out of the bag.

Lady Gaga’s antics are boring because they were interesting. She is contemporary but her art is not. Don’t worry if she does not immediately compute. She’s confusing, right? And don’t worry if you get bored in spite of yourself.

From the first paragraph of The Globe’s obituary this morning:

Robert S. McNamara, the cerebral former U.S. secretary of defence who was vilified for carrying out the Vietnam War, then devoted himself to helping the world’s poorest nations, died today.

Mercy, that’s heavy. I wonder when McNamara made peace with the idea that his obituary would hold more references to Vietnam than his penitent work with poor countries. Speaking as someone who has zero connection to Vietnam, I admire McNamara for trying to pull it together at the end there. He knew his reputation (soul?) was permanently tarnished, but still tried to make good. Most powerful people with guilt on their heads maintain a fake innocence with gusto, and a bad attitude ‘till the bloody end. 

Which brings me to the Chris Brown fiasco. It’s been on my mind. 

Chris Brown could not understand why he was not allowed to perform during the Michael Jackson tribute at the BET awards, and I think that’s weird. His confusion is confusing. He beat up his girlfriend. Why hasn’t somebody (Chris Brown’s lawyer/agent/mom, I’m looking at you) told him that people don’t like that sort of thing? Assuming his participation was nixed by Jay-Z, Brown twittered, “Jay-Z is mad childish. Never keep a person from paying there respects.”

Aside from the fact that he wrote “there,” (always troubling when an angry person does that) is it not totally bizarre that the Rihanna incident seems to have slipped his mind? It only happened a couple of months ago. McNamara had Vietnam on his mind for forty years. I expect Chris Brown to mull things over at least until his community service is finished. I think that’s fair, if not exactly proportionate.

I expect this from Brown for the simple reason that I think everyone should at least have as much class as Robert McNamara, and hopefully a bit more.