Tonight fireworks lit up the sky over English Bay. For an incredible half hour pyrotechnics of the utmost calibre wowed an audience of thousands on the shores. Tonight the artists took us back to a childhood favourite, and one many know for obvious other reasons, the Wizard of Oz. Oz put to music that was high ptiched and heavy on the munchins. The fireworks were perfectly set to the music, on point with the tone, and spectacular.
Apparently it took three days to set it up. Which makes sense since the next one is Saturday. It makes you think good and hard about what you can blow up in 30 minutes. Thanks to corparate sponsorship, anything is possible. Alls fair in love and business. It was beautiful, but what else is even more beautiful is when no one is laying homeless on the street on the way home. While one exists, so will the other. Capitalism isn't working for thay guy on the street corner. Let there be no more casualties of business. Yet, the fireworks will still happen. Should I not go?
I support businesses that are local, buy organic when I can, buy misuc from artists, attend local shows, my neighbourhood. This summer has been one of comfort and trial, made me feel alive, engaged, and with purpose, peace and balance I have acheived good things. So, should I not go?
I think that I will join the masses that flock for this moment of artistic expression, as costly and wasteful as it is. I will always be the one in the crowd gazing intently, reacting, enjoying the beauty of them for what they are.
Cheers Vancouver, fora unique experience as always.
Thursday, July 23, 2009
Monday, July 13, 2009
I'm in for the fight
Vancouver is a battleground. Here lives are won and lost based on government policy decisions, and as long as you've got money, yours won't be one of them. Socio-economic status dictates if you get to live. I live 20 minutes from a gentrocide backed by Canadian and British Columbian governments in the name of democracy and safe streets. It is backed by an International community regarding Canada as a leader in human rights and on Olympic Committee choosing it as a site of the 2010 Winter Games. It is backed by a complacent Canadian population, 90% of whom stated in a recent poll by CTV that Canada is the best country in the world.
The city is a constant site of battle. Recently Oppenhiemer Park was barred with iron gates. In the heart of the downtown eastside it was home to many, refuge to more and a communal space where people were always gathered. What gets ignored in all of this is who lives there and why we are okay as a society with letting this happen.
My perpective as a feminist, activist, law student having just applied for future jobs in a profession where morals sometimes get checked at the door, I feel good about my selections and their potential to shift some of this. It is work that needs to be done, and about which I am passionate. But I am weary when people stop listening. When my passion falls on deaf ears. Where it doesn't matter to the leaders of our world that there are people of their country whose needs are not being met who need action now.
We are reaching a dangerous point in this country where people don't see the hard stuff- Canadians are great at patting themselves on the back. When we dig deeply, when we pay attention, we see that the people evicted from Oppenheimer Park were largely aboriginal, likely homeless, some probably were involved in the sex trade, though men tend to be more visible on the streets, and all were likely addicted to drugs. These are the people who are the subject of my advocacy this summer. These are the women and men who live the consequences of the criminalization of the sex trade, residential schools, the welfare cut-off rates, and the definition of disability in the legislation. This stuff matters.
There is hope in the downtown eastside. Those who don't get a voice of their own very often are beginning to speak. Today I went to a potluck barbeque in the park for Pivot, the Community Legal Society for the downtown eastside. I played botche ball with Emma and her grandmother, and chatted with other supporters and people who worked there. It was a great community buidling afternoon with delicious snacks. An anarchist-festival-disguised-as children's-festival Alice in Wonderland costume party was happening just beyond the bushes a little ways down.
But tonight, as I've sat on my balcony downtown, I'm reminded of where I live. I've heard fights in different languages, vomitting in a language everyone can understand and countless sirens. We live in a battleground, and I'm in for the fight.
Rach,
from an "everynight" kind of Vancouver night
The city is a constant site of battle. Recently Oppenhiemer Park was barred with iron gates. In the heart of the downtown eastside it was home to many, refuge to more and a communal space where people were always gathered. What gets ignored in all of this is who lives there and why we are okay as a society with letting this happen.
My perpective as a feminist, activist, law student having just applied for future jobs in a profession where morals sometimes get checked at the door, I feel good about my selections and their potential to shift some of this. It is work that needs to be done, and about which I am passionate. But I am weary when people stop listening. When my passion falls on deaf ears. Where it doesn't matter to the leaders of our world that there are people of their country whose needs are not being met who need action now.
We are reaching a dangerous point in this country where people don't see the hard stuff- Canadians are great at patting themselves on the back. When we dig deeply, when we pay attention, we see that the people evicted from Oppenheimer Park were largely aboriginal, likely homeless, some probably were involved in the sex trade, though men tend to be more visible on the streets, and all were likely addicted to drugs. These are the people who are the subject of my advocacy this summer. These are the women and men who live the consequences of the criminalization of the sex trade, residential schools, the welfare cut-off rates, and the definition of disability in the legislation. This stuff matters.
There is hope in the downtown eastside. Those who don't get a voice of their own very often are beginning to speak. Today I went to a potluck barbeque in the park for Pivot, the Community Legal Society for the downtown eastside. I played botche ball with Emma and her grandmother, and chatted with other supporters and people who worked there. It was a great community buidling afternoon with delicious snacks. An anarchist-festival-disguised-as children's-festival Alice in Wonderland costume party was happening just beyond the bushes a little ways down.
But tonight, as I've sat on my balcony downtown, I'm reminded of where I live. I've heard fights in different languages, vomitting in a language everyone can understand and countless sirens. We live in a battleground, and I'm in for the fight.
Rach,
from an "everynight" kind of Vancouver night
Saturday, May 2, 2009
Farewell Cowichan
Tonight marks the end of an era. My last night on Cowichan street; my last victorian night before at the only locale from which "Victorian Nights" has been written.
My bags are packed, the only things from the whole appartment that are out are my toothbrush and those very last couple of boxes that haven't quite made it to the storage space across the hall. It seems amzing that every pen and elastic band are accounted for, every piece of paper and dead battery (saved for recycling of course). My fridge contains merely my green provisions, and my countertops only the coffee grinder. Cowichan appartment is a shell of its former self.
This appartment holds the lived experience of two years of law school. I have only been here for law school. I come and go only when law school is on. It is my victorian association of law school. It feels good to get away from it, while at the same time a hint of nostalgia rings clear. Among the many painful hours learning the tests, cases, and policy, this has been a place of productive thought. My law school essays have all been written in this space, to some degree. Even the one that was written in Ontario was researched here. I pulled MANY all nighters within this appartment finishing a paper, take home exam, assignment or studying for an exam. I have returned to this appartment nearly every night for 16 months of my life, and that's a lot. Nowhere other than my optimist park drive home can make that same claim. Not even Jeff's couch.
This appartment has seen an abundance of some things it has likely not seen before, and less presence than perhaps it formerly knew. It has been refuge in stormy times, my first dive into adulthood, and has served my well enough. I look forward to a place with big windows in the future, not a basement appartment. I look forward to having a roomate. I look forward to living in Vancouver this summer. On the West Coast, free from my law school chains, I can explore, travel, and live it up. It's going to be great.
The weather was stormy tonight- some pathetic fallacy at play. As I had my final evening outside on the steps, I felt a twinge of sadness to realize the finality of it. The sky dark, the moon just a cresecent but bright as ever, and the tall beautiful trees that surround the house, which have been my skyscape for a long while, all felt to comfortable, and like home. So, farewell Cowichan Street- its been quite the ride. And to Victoria, for now.
Rach
from a final dark stormy cool Victorian night
My bags are packed, the only things from the whole appartment that are out are my toothbrush and those very last couple of boxes that haven't quite made it to the storage space across the hall. It seems amzing that every pen and elastic band are accounted for, every piece of paper and dead battery (saved for recycling of course). My fridge contains merely my green provisions, and my countertops only the coffee grinder. Cowichan appartment is a shell of its former self.
This appartment holds the lived experience of two years of law school. I have only been here for law school. I come and go only when law school is on. It is my victorian association of law school. It feels good to get away from it, while at the same time a hint of nostalgia rings clear. Among the many painful hours learning the tests, cases, and policy, this has been a place of productive thought. My law school essays have all been written in this space, to some degree. Even the one that was written in Ontario was researched here. I pulled MANY all nighters within this appartment finishing a paper, take home exam, assignment or studying for an exam. I have returned to this appartment nearly every night for 16 months of my life, and that's a lot. Nowhere other than my optimist park drive home can make that same claim. Not even Jeff's couch.
This appartment has seen an abundance of some things it has likely not seen before, and less presence than perhaps it formerly knew. It has been refuge in stormy times, my first dive into adulthood, and has served my well enough. I look forward to a place with big windows in the future, not a basement appartment. I look forward to having a roomate. I look forward to living in Vancouver this summer. On the West Coast, free from my law school chains, I can explore, travel, and live it up. It's going to be great.
The weather was stormy tonight- some pathetic fallacy at play. As I had my final evening outside on the steps, I felt a twinge of sadness to realize the finality of it. The sky dark, the moon just a cresecent but bright as ever, and the tall beautiful trees that surround the house, which have been my skyscape for a long while, all felt to comfortable, and like home. So, farewell Cowichan Street- its been quite the ride. And to Victoria, for now.
Rach
from a final dark stormy cool Victorian night
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Rad people and law documents.
Fast Fact of tonight,
Georgina Beyer is the world's transgendered Mayor, and now Member of Parliament for Wairarapa, New Zealand. I think she's pretty rad.
She will be speaking at OutGames in Copenhagen this year. It was in Montreal in 2006 for its first year (I remember reading about it in a newpaper in Trois Pistoles en francias bien sur), and at the end released a LGBT Document of Human Rights and Freedoms. It was also rad. I was proud to say that Canada could theoretically check off all but one of the areas of law in which the law should be change-it was in the family law section. It was a reminder of the very long way we have come, here, and of the places we have to go.
Happy Earth hour!
Rach
Georgina Beyer is the world's transgendered Mayor, and now Member of Parliament for Wairarapa, New Zealand. I think she's pretty rad.
She will be speaking at OutGames in Copenhagen this year. It was in Montreal in 2006 for its first year (I remember reading about it in a newpaper in Trois Pistoles en francias bien sur), and at the end released a LGBT Document of Human Rights and Freedoms. It was also rad. I was proud to say that Canada could theoretically check off all but one of the areas of law in which the law should be change-it was in the family law section. It was a reminder of the very long way we have come, here, and of the places we have to go.
Happy Earth hour!
Rach
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Tears Happen
Tonight's thought:
Sometime I cry in public. I realise it might make me seem vulnerable or unstabble or something. I reject both of those sentiments. I cry when I am feeling shitty about something, and since I go to law school, it happens. It doesn't make me uncomfortable that it makes other people uncomfortable. I don't generally aim to make people feel comfortable for comforts sake. I feel things deeply, and I think its acutally important to maintain that at law school. The law is about people, and if we loose sight of that, what on earth are we doing?
Sometime I cry in public. I realise it might make me seem vulnerable or unstabble or something. I reject both of those sentiments. I cry when I am feeling shitty about something, and since I go to law school, it happens. It doesn't make me uncomfortable that it makes other people uncomfortable. I don't generally aim to make people feel comfortable for comforts sake. I feel things deeply, and I think its acutally important to maintain that at law school. The law is about people, and if we loose sight of that, what on earth are we doing?
Friday, March 27, 2009
Creating
Tomorrow I get to create. Its my favourtie part. I've done so much reading lately, and I forget how about how much I do enjoy the process of writing. It becomes such a product of investment. When I am spending so much of my time working through these new ideas and articles and putting things together in new mays. Its a beautiful process. I am indeed looking forward to starting tomorrow. Maybe before lunch with a friend/colleaugue, or after yoga in the Fernwood village. I wondered last week if going for a vegan cupcake would negate my yoga practice, but reached the conclusion that they could only complement each other because of how much I enjoy them each. I had a vegan coconut lime cupcake and it was simply incredible. So moist, with such amazing frosting. So. Good.
Fernwood has been treating me well lately. Last Friday after yoga I went to the coffee shop in Fernwood to consume the vegan cupcake with a good friend. The coffee shop is right across the street from the Belfry where we saw Bash'd. We drank our coffee at the wooden benches, while a father and daughter shared an afternoon with books on the couch beside us, and an artist came to draw in her notebook beside me. The cafe had character; people are just living their lives there- talking to each other across the room. There are some pretty rad places in Victoria.
I spent Saturday in the Cook St. Village, at Mocha House, and Serious Coffee. Becuase I have been reading about citizenship discourse lately, I feel like the good citizen is a consumer. We go for coffee and dinners- that is our form of socializing. I do a lot of consuming. On food and property in the form of rent. And alcohol I suppose. Last Saturday night I went for drinks with another friend at the Reef, and then we went next door where another friend was performing spoken word at a fundraiser for a Jamaican orphanage. This week, I went rockclimbing, for a vegetarian dinner with many of the people with whom I planned Ab Camp, created a banner with paint (you know the bricks and a really wet paint brush) circa grade 6, and had a really long nap tonight. So life has been alright in Victoria these days. Very busy, but good. And I really do need to create.
On a side note- Eva Longoria is on some show in television with a scotish guy, and just called the latin music awards as the gay nascar of designers. I can't even begin to say in how many ways that statement is an anomaly in my mind.
So, I am to create this weekend, and shift gears. The Cherry blossoms are blooming, and Victoria is ready to play host to my creative process this weekend. I hope you are well where you are.
Much love,
Rachael
from another cool dark Victorian Night
Fernwood has been treating me well lately. Last Friday after yoga I went to the coffee shop in Fernwood to consume the vegan cupcake with a good friend. The coffee shop is right across the street from the Belfry where we saw Bash'd. We drank our coffee at the wooden benches, while a father and daughter shared an afternoon with books on the couch beside us, and an artist came to draw in her notebook beside me. The cafe had character; people are just living their lives there- talking to each other across the room. There are some pretty rad places in Victoria.
I spent Saturday in the Cook St. Village, at Mocha House, and Serious Coffee. Becuase I have been reading about citizenship discourse lately, I feel like the good citizen is a consumer. We go for coffee and dinners- that is our form of socializing. I do a lot of consuming. On food and property in the form of rent. And alcohol I suppose. Last Saturday night I went for drinks with another friend at the Reef, and then we went next door where another friend was performing spoken word at a fundraiser for a Jamaican orphanage. This week, I went rockclimbing, for a vegetarian dinner with many of the people with whom I planned Ab Camp, created a banner with paint (you know the bricks and a really wet paint brush) circa grade 6, and had a really long nap tonight. So life has been alright in Victoria these days. Very busy, but good. And I really do need to create.
On a side note- Eva Longoria is on some show in television with a scotish guy, and just called the latin music awards as the gay nascar of designers. I can't even begin to say in how many ways that statement is an anomaly in my mind.
So, I am to create this weekend, and shift gears. The Cherry blossoms are blooming, and Victoria is ready to play host to my creative process this weekend. I hope you are well where you are.
Much love,
Rachael
from another cool dark Victorian Night
Friday, March 13, 2009
Bash'd
Tonight my writing comes with weighty words. I went to see Bash'd tonight. It is a gay rap opera telling the story of fictional star-crossed lovers married in Alberta after gays and lesbians gained the right to marry in 2005. Jack is lives in the city, raised by gay dads, and likes to frequent the bar scene. Dillon is from a small town, moves to the big city after coming out to his parents, and meets Jack at his first visit to the gay bar. They fall in love, move in together and marry.
As the two characters state in the play, I wish the story stopped there. But it doesn't. Upon leaving the bar one night, Jack is gay bashed. He survives. After struggling with how to cope, Dillon storms out of their home one night and in his anger, bashes three straight men. Jack finds him as the police arrive, and while in a loving embrace, Dillon raises the gun and they are both shot and killed by the officers.
What's impressive about the show perhaps isn't its story as much as its telling. T-Bag and Feminem rap for an hour, reclaiming words (namely faggot and cock-sucker), identities (on the whole spectrum of gay) and an entire genre of music in the process. Rap began as a social justice movement, requiring only a good beat, clever rhymes and an empassioned artist speaking out about racism. In our era, it has become a site of intense homophobia and violence- against women, gay men and people who identify as trans.
I haven't fully digested it all just yet, but the sadness of it resonated. At the end I was sobbing, which I'm fairly used to doing in public by now. I was not okay. Maybe what resonated most was the unnecesary cycle of violence begun by Jack's gay bashing and continued by Dillon going out to straight bash. Maybe it was recognizing the failure of various institutions at so many points along the way- Dillon's Dad's hatred, the homophobia of the gay bashers, the failure of the couple's supprt group to address and support the couple, the failure of the medical system to adequately provide for Jack in the aftermath of his traumatic beating and, most profoundly for me, of the criminal justice system to fail to find Jack's bashers while responding with such immediacy and bluntness to Dillon's act with their own extreme acts of state-sponsored violence- shooting the two men in what is easily read as self-defense. And maybe it was the realization that the world would hold Dillon out as a criminal, when what is actually criminal is the injustice and inequalities of the lived experience of gays, lesbians, bisexuals, trans-identified people and their allies across the world.
What brought me to tears and kept me there was the recitation of the R.I.P.s at the end of the show. It was a reminder that my queer brothers and sisters (and gender-identities in between and outside of that binary) are being beaten and killed ALL THE TIME. There is NO excuse, justification or explanation. When one person experiences violence, we all do. An attack on one is an attack on us all. When we do not speak out, we are as guilty as those who perpetuate the violence. The failure of anyone in the passing cars driving by to stop the bashing from occuring, and actually doing the bashing, all lead to the same result - a man is left bleeding on the sidewalk.
Inaction is action. Its a choice too. There is no neutral in this world. As we move forward, it is important to not take away the voice of those who are discriminated against, but to stand as allies supporting in the fight. There are limits to my whiteness, your heterosexuality, and our ableness, but if we can all recognize that our liberty is bound up in each other's collective lived experience, maybe we can begin a new page in our collective history.
I will leave you with my new favourite quote:
"If you have come here to help me then you are wasting your time, but if you have come because your liberation is bound together with mine, then let us begin." -Lila Watson (Australian Aboriginal Activist)
As the two characters state in the play, I wish the story stopped there. But it doesn't. Upon leaving the bar one night, Jack is gay bashed. He survives. After struggling with how to cope, Dillon storms out of their home one night and in his anger, bashes three straight men. Jack finds him as the police arrive, and while in a loving embrace, Dillon raises the gun and they are both shot and killed by the officers.
What's impressive about the show perhaps isn't its story as much as its telling. T-Bag and Feminem rap for an hour, reclaiming words (namely faggot and cock-sucker), identities (on the whole spectrum of gay) and an entire genre of music in the process. Rap began as a social justice movement, requiring only a good beat, clever rhymes and an empassioned artist speaking out about racism. In our era, it has become a site of intense homophobia and violence- against women, gay men and people who identify as trans.
I haven't fully digested it all just yet, but the sadness of it resonated. At the end I was sobbing, which I'm fairly used to doing in public by now. I was not okay. Maybe what resonated most was the unnecesary cycle of violence begun by Jack's gay bashing and continued by Dillon going out to straight bash. Maybe it was recognizing the failure of various institutions at so many points along the way- Dillon's Dad's hatred, the homophobia of the gay bashers, the failure of the couple's supprt group to address and support the couple, the failure of the medical system to adequately provide for Jack in the aftermath of his traumatic beating and, most profoundly for me, of the criminal justice system to fail to find Jack's bashers while responding with such immediacy and bluntness to Dillon's act with their own extreme acts of state-sponsored violence- shooting the two men in what is easily read as self-defense. And maybe it was the realization that the world would hold Dillon out as a criminal, when what is actually criminal is the injustice and inequalities of the lived experience of gays, lesbians, bisexuals, trans-identified people and their allies across the world.
What brought me to tears and kept me there was the recitation of the R.I.P.s at the end of the show. It was a reminder that my queer brothers and sisters (and gender-identities in between and outside of that binary) are being beaten and killed ALL THE TIME. There is NO excuse, justification or explanation. When one person experiences violence, we all do. An attack on one is an attack on us all. When we do not speak out, we are as guilty as those who perpetuate the violence. The failure of anyone in the passing cars driving by to stop the bashing from occuring, and actually doing the bashing, all lead to the same result - a man is left bleeding on the sidewalk.
Inaction is action. Its a choice too. There is no neutral in this world. As we move forward, it is important to not take away the voice of those who are discriminated against, but to stand as allies supporting in the fight. There are limits to my whiteness, your heterosexuality, and our ableness, but if we can all recognize that our liberty is bound up in each other's collective lived experience, maybe we can begin a new page in our collective history.
I will leave you with my new favourite quote:
"If you have come here to help me then you are wasting your time, but if you have come because your liberation is bound together with mine, then let us begin." -Lila Watson (Australian Aboriginal Activist)
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