Quote From Alberta's Greatest Writer

"Alberta is caught up in a kind of game--it plays hockey against the rest of the world. . . . It's in a competition--partly because of oil and gas--but we love the excitement of the game, we love to participate, and while we talk about being individuals in Alberta, we love being part of a crowd. We vote as a crowd.

"It's a competitive issue, too: we are really trying to win. And we'll do anything. Having to win is a dangerous compulsion. That's why we're willing to destroy landscapes and natural habitats, in the name of winning."

From interview by Aritha van Herk in December 2010 issue of Alberta Views.

Teaching Literature--Where's the Line?

         

           





           Contemporary high school English teachers are faced with a problematic choice: Harry Potter or William Shakespeare? Twilight or Gatsby? Do we teach quality literature that hits all curricular expectations, or do we choose popular literature that will engage—maybe even interest—our students?

            Problematic question. If you think back to your own school days, you might recall that not everyone was a reader. There were always a few kids that it was impossible to bring in, whether the piece was Les Miserables or a Rob Zombie screenplay. That’s an absolute fact, but we’re being bombarded with studies lately that suggest that literacy levels of all Canadians have been on a steady decline since the early 1990s. People are reading less, and fewer of those who are reading are reading what is considered literature, and still fewer are approaching what they read critically or analytically. They’re reading for entertainment.

            Now I could rant about “these days”, but in truth, our whole interest as a people has shifted. Teachers are competing with video games that demand hours and hours of attention for years—we’re just doing it more now. The Internet and social media gobble up reading time like Pac-Man on steroids, and again, the value in our pursuits seems to be entertainment.

            We are teaching in the world of Avatar, where the “greatest” film of the last decade or so was all spectacle and little substance, all flash and dash with no little concern for, y’know, meaning.

            “Writing? Oh, that’s the stuff we use to link explosion scenes.”

            It makes for a conundrum when teaching literature. At the foundation, all provincial curricula in Canada call for a teaching of quality literature that hits the bullets: character, narrative, theme, struggle, language, all of that. Listen, we know that pulling out Hamlet or To Kill a Mockingbird will get us eye rolls—we read them in high school, too—but it’s arduous to find suitable replacements. Many of us have tried out modern(ish) novels such as Life of Pi or Crow Lake, meeting with varying success. The thing about Harper Lee is she really is that accessible, there are tried and true resources abounding, and when attacking a diploma exam or a university course, it’s true that having a “known” text in your bank is advantageous.

            Some teachers bring in high-interest, plot-driven pieces like Harry Potter or Twilight, and as entertaining as they may be, as involving as they may be for kids, they’re hardly literary—and I say that as a huge Rowling fan. They don’t hit those bullets.

            Other teachers—myself included—have tried teaching film as a narrative text. I’m a reformed comic nerd, and so I know the difference between a graphic novel and a comic book, and I’ve toyed with teaching that genre as literature.

            All of these experiments speak to the problem of going down a level rather than attempting to bring our readers up. We begin questioning how many compromises we can make before we’re just teaching “books” instead of “literature”.

            Ah, but it begs the question, just what is literature? Isn’t it just the stuff that pretentious CBC-radio listeners say they read? Isn’t it just writing that is harder to read than fun? Well, no. It is writing that seeks to do something more than entertain you. If literature works, it makes you reassess life; it makes you consider how you think. A good piece of literature should haunt you. I’ve taught Life of Pi a couple of times and find it one of the better new novels to teach because of the discussion it brings. Without ruining the ending, I find that the question “Which story do you prefer?” can tell me more about a student than a three-hour interview.

            As literacy levels continue their gentle sag, as Avatar and Black Ops. continue to be credited as having “great stories” by the masses, need our expectations for our readers be lowered as well? If no, then it’s one of the only disciplines that we’re calling for a regression in. Imagine if we expected Apple to go back to its 1980s computers, or for doctors to start bloodletting again.

            Does it matter that we teach literature or that we teach what kids are interested in, no matter the quality?

Did Mary Poppins Make Me Who I Am?

            Just how much can one piece of cinema affect a young lad’s persona, nurturally speaking?

            I have long suspected that a childhood spent devouring Spider-Man comics had something to do with my love for being the little guy trying to do right, and for caring about the little old ladies in my life.

            A recent re-viewing of Mary Poppins (what? My mom had class)—a film I saw nearly as many times as The Neverending Story and Return of the Jedi—I asked myself just how much this little forty-six year old musical was responsible for the man I is.

            Ponder: the impat of the music is itself a lesson for another time, but the film’s message is staggering with how in sync it is with my own value system. Mr. Banks conversion to the “Fly a Kite” school of philosophy is still one of the more moving in the world of cinema, his loony spouting off random bits of verse to his employers as it overtakes him beauty defined.

            There is a moment where Banks’ son Michael wishes only to spend his precious tuppence on bird seed, but his father pressures him to invest it. When Michael lashes out against a greedy senior partner—my lifelong soft spot for Dick van Dyke starts here—pandemonium runs the day, as everyone within earshot of Michael’s “Give me my money!” cry attempts to withdraw their own savings. The bank closes at the fear of a crash and a polite Georgian riot follows.

            I recall thinking, “That’s wrong. A bank should be there to serve you, not to make money from you.”

            And, “What kind of sad existence is there in only seeking more money?”

            Childishness, perhaps, but not too far removed from what I hold dearest in my opinions over all things monetary decades later. Banks are a service industry exploiting the common man—have been for centuries, and I don’t like it. The pursuit of money, living and working for the making of it, always seeking the acquisition of more capital, stands to me as a living hell.
            I recently caught a clip of the reality show Dragon's Den. Please keep in mind that I abhor television and I abhor reality television most of all, so there was some bias to begin with. One of these "dragons" was cheing into a prospective entrepreneur saying, "Money doesn't care, money has no love. Money cries no tears." His deep-seeded love for money and his philosophy that it's soulessness is what matters most about it made me pity this man. Rich, yes. Big house, yes. Happy? He'd say he has money. I can't define happiness that way.

            Did it all start with Mary Poppins?

            Bert is the most attractive character in the whole film, morally speaking. Every day a different job, taking adversity with a wink and a cockney smirk, he will die happy—no matter how horribly his accent is delivered.

            When you grow up, you have to shake off some of the black and white idealism of youth. I can’t be Bert. I’m a husband and a father and my responsibilities matter to me. But I’ll sure never be the pre-Poppinsinizationed Mr. Banks!

            My hatred for money’s dominance, my contempt for capitalism, my ire for conformity; my love for a good musical, my interest in Victorian/Georgian London—could it all be tied to a childhood viewing of Mary Poppins?

            If I really was that impressionable, then thank God I didn’t read Ayn Rand as a child.

My Zombie Fab Five

            I’ve always been prone to recurring dreams, but my only recurring nightmare involves zombies. Oh, I can hear you sniggering, but I can’t really control what my subconscious chooses to boogedy me with, now can I? Well, I guess I could try not to continually exacerbate the issue by watching scary movies, but then we’d both be without this blog.

            The dream: I’m at home, I look out the window. Zombies! Slow, shuffling, moaning, coming to my house. They’re at the doors and windows, so with video game reflexes I’m assessing the defensibility of my residence (try it, it’s fun).

            Weapons? Curse my left-leaning pacifism! Alright, where’s my toolbox, then?!

            In a four-level spilt, upon which floor do you make your stand? Basement? No, we all know that plan always goes sour. Top floor? Can I make the jump from bedroom window to garage roof? Dammit! This nightmare was so much easier to manoeuvre when I had a top floor apartment.

            They’re coming in, they’re coming for me—then I wake up. It’s four a.m. I open the curtains and look out at the street until the first car or drunken teenager or Tim Horton’s early bird senior walks by to ensure me that civilization continues, such as it is.

            Cliché? Absolutely, but a guy can’t help what he dreams up.

            It makes me feel so mundane. I mean, they’re everywhere these days, those zombies. Have you been in a book or music store? Parodies, survival manuals, brain recipes. . . . The world’s gone nutty for zombies. It’s so bad that I think if the Zombie Apocalypse (they call it the “Zah” on Twitter) actually happened, it’d last about an hour because we’re so darn prepared for it. Pride and Prejudice, Marvel Comics, Alex Trebek—everything is a zombie these days.

            Why? Well, George Romero, the Granddaddy of the Ghoul, who brought us the modern zombie flick with 1968’s Night of the Living Dead—and has made so many of his own sequels to it that he’s currently working on Dead of the Dead—he’d tell you that he was satirising capitalism and television-viewing. We’re just getting worse, so all the more reason for more send-ups. And, for the idiots out there who are being mocked by these films, they get to make their own flicks that are just about dead people eating brains.

            Anyway, here’s a list of my top five favourite zombie . . . things—because one isn’t a film. Oh, I’m sure if you read this you’ll say that I missed some obscure Japanese cult film that nobody’s seen. Good for—and screw—you. It’s my list.

5. Resident Evil 2 (1998). Don’t know a thing about R.E. 1 or 3 or any of the others. Haven’t seen the films, either. Let me set the scene: it’s the winter term of my last year of university, I have to complete sixteen academic papers in four months, some of them in the 30+ page range. At the end of the day, the last thing I’m feeling like is more reading. I borrow a buddy’s PS1, this game, dim the lights and wrap a blanky around my shoulders. Was my nightly habit for about a month.

            I’m not much of a gamer, but I do know that this thing handled zombies perfectly; it’s the only time I’ve actually jumped from fear playing a video game. Every shot was a scene, and it was always unsettling when you entered a room and heard a moan and a shuffle step.

4. Dawn of the Dead (2004). Yes, the remake. Yes, Romero’s 1978 version is better because it’s simpler, and I’ll correct the error you might feel I’m making when I get to #2, but this film scared the beejezus outta me in a way nothing but #1 did—and in a whole new way. Romero’s social commentary was better, but this one freaks me out so badly because of the speed. The zombies sprint. Yikes! They move as fast as we do, and that makes for a whole new game. Now, officially I don’t approve of running zombies because I think it misses their symbolism (see:  http://vikingpaul.blogspot.com/2010/05/i-like-my-undead-evil-thanks.html ). However, on the scare scale, this sucker transcends Romero. That first ten minutes (right through the opening credits with Johnny Cash’s own genius remake of “The Man Comes Around” playing over society gobbling itself up) is enough on its own for a dozen sleepless nights. Plus, Sarah Polley is awesome as usual.

3. Shaun of the Dead (2004). This work of genius sends up every zombie standard going, often doing it better than many straight zombie flicks (especially better than the crap made in the Splatterin’ 80s). It’s also genuinely scary in its own right at times. When buddy gets pulled through the window and torn to blood puddin’ and kidney pie—damn! As with Rick Mercer and John Stewart, parody often does a better job than what is being up-sent. I could have also picked Zombieland, which is a damn fin yuk/yuck flick, but Shaun is just a bit wittier. Maybe it's the English accents versus the Texan ones that makes it seem smarter. Regardless, Simon Pegg is a gift the world doesn’t deserve.

2. Night of the Living Dead (1968). I need to ask your forgiveness. My zombie phobia began with the viewing of the 1990 remake of this gem. That was enough for nightmares. Years later, I went back to the source. Black and white, chocolate sauce and barbecued ham, budget of pocket change, unbelievably poor sound, and sketchy fight choreography all aside, this forty-two year old Romero masterpiece still gives me the friggin’ willies. I have no nostalgia bias, either. I’m never big on saying first is best if the re-do is better (Batman movies, Brannaugh’s Shakespeare films), so I don’t cotton to the commentary that this is good because of what it inspired. That’s like saying John Lennon’s mom is the reason the Beatles were the Beatles. This movie is just that effing terrifying.

1. 28 Days Later (2002). The purists will say I should have #2 as #1, as this is not technically a zombie flick. Eat brain, purists. Rules? This is horror fantasy. Half the zombie movies out there don’t even explain how the Z.A. started, they just skip to the frontal lobe nibblin’. It doesn’t matter that these are “humans with rage” rather than bonafide living dead. This sucker is bone chilling because, again, zombies that run cause different problems, but mostly because Danny Boyle is good at movies, where Romero is just good at horror movies, bless him. My viewing of this led to the worst few years of nightmares I’ve ever had. The sequel was iffy, though still disturbing at times (beaten to death with machine gun—shown from perspective of night vision scope on said gun). One of a kind, and just as good in the critical social commentary department because it shows just how bad we’ll get once the zombies are in control.

Brains! 

The Future of Elections? Here's Hoping

It’s a sad state of politics in this country that when Calgary and many of the municipalities in Alberta held elections last night, people celebrated huge turnouts at the polls, but those numbers revealed that only about half of eligible voters turned up.

About half. Hurrah for democracy at work.

In Calgary, and in some towns such as Okotoks, Airdrie and Strathmore, voter turnout was high because the races were tighter, ferocious, and highly publicized. People got angry, people got interested. People did something we’ve been seeing less and less of in this country of late: they exercised their democratic right.

In our last federal election, Stephen Harper’s Conservatives won a minority government with thirty percent of the vote of the just less than sixty percent of the country that voted. More people voted against this government than for it, but in a multi-party system, that’s life. Doesn’t it make you wonder what would’ve happened had the other forty-some percent of the country shown up at the polls. A Harper majority? A completely different government?

About a year ago I commented on my Facebook page about voter apathy, and some of the most disturbing replies to this came from intelligent people who have given up on our system. They don’t believe in our democracy at all. “It’s useless; they’re corrupt; they just fight and holler; they’re more concerned with keeping power than with governing.”

Disturbing, especially when I find myself inclined to agree with the last two statements.

Could it be that the childishness of our governing officials, the petty finger-pointing and playground “he did it first!” mentality has turned Canadians off of a system the rest of the world has so admired for decades?

Yeah. Duh.

It’s been bad for a while now. I can remember a time it wasn’t this bad, where every single statement in the House of Commons wasn’t met with caterwauling from the benches across the way, but maybe it’s because back then I was younger and ignorant. Or perhaps those were the days of crushing majorities so the Opposition just couldn’t voice its pettiness to the same levels of immaturity they can today.

Calgarians woke up this morning to a new mayor, a man whose Obama-like rise to glory overshadows the fact that he could be just as petty as the rest of them during this past election. I’m glad for Calgary, glad they elected an intelligent, educated man, a younger mayor whose status as a visible minority may do much to erase the taint of being “the Whitest City in the West.” However, when the mud was there to be slung, Mr. Nenshi was willing to come up with mitt-fulls to huck into the faces of opponents eventually defeated not so much for their policies as for their status as representing the old guard.

I am overjoyed at the new involvement, at the news of line-ups at polls and that the third place mayoral candidate would’ve won any election in the past with her number of votes. I am saddened that at the municipal level we are seeing the seeping of the slimy partisan politics that are making a mockery of Ottawa. We are seeing attack ads, character vilifications, and basically the same levels of Us and Them idiocy that has stained the Houses of Parliament for the last decade or so.

I hope that the new interest is a start, and that the numbers continue to climb. I hope that our new mayors, respectively, can live up to a few of their promises. I hope most of all that people are voting because it’s the right thing to do, not because of the spectacle that has been created.

I Guess I'm Old

This weekend, I spent a total of ten hours in my car with four people younger than me by at least seven years. It was illuminating. I have an eighteen-year-old sister-in-law whose text addiction borders on the pathetic. I say that with nothing but love. I have just been around her in the desperate wee hours of battery life when her world was pulling a true 2012.

Okay, the car ride. I spent the entirety of the last five hours listening--no matter how loud I turned my music--to the thappety thappety thappety of all four of these individuals texting. Constantly. Freely admitting that the conversations mostly involved "Haha" and LOL and "What are you . . ." Sad, sez he born in the 1970s.

One of them tried to defend it to me, to tell me it was cheaper than calling, and more convenient than calling, and easier when your friends live in different time zones. No sale. It was an alarming look at just how lame our communication has become.

But the most disturbed I was came when I hooked up my iPod and set it in the middle of the vehicle and said, "Have at 'er." When it was my turn, I put on an album. If we made it through eight songs, I was happy. When one of the kids took over, though, we'd hear a song or two by an artist, followed by another song or two by another. Not so bad. What drove me INSANE was the stopping of songs after less than two minutes for a new search.

That was my muffugging breaking point. Text away, lazy communicators. Facebook and Tweet to your heart's delight, you quintessential narcissists. Play only singles from the new Black Keys and I'm cool. But, DAMMIT, seriously. Let the whole song finish! It's a song, a lyrical rhythmic narrative. Am I such a dinosaur that getting on the other side of a guitar solo and bridge dates me? Chaysis!

Highway of Heroes

            Let me be clear: I am opposed to Canada’s participation in the war in Afghanistan. I disagree with adorning our vehicles with yellow ribbon magnets and I don’t think “support our troops” means support the war. Anyone who tells me that Canada had an obligation to topple the Taliban I ask: “Where was Canada during the Taliban’s rise to power amid fundamentalist oppression during the 1990s? Did we forget that the CIA trained Osama to fight the Soviets then left him and his starving nation cold?” In October 2001, we were nothing but toadies following Bush’s America—awash in 9/11 hysteria—into a war when everyone felt we needed to lash out against somebody. And, yes, I do realize it wasn’t a Conservative Canadian government that made that call.

            Yep, I oppose the war, I hate that we’re there—but careful for when reality makes conviction go poof.

            For me, four things—really three—came together to bring me the pause that inspired these words:

1)     A custodian.

2)     A song.

3)     A kid.

4)     A mother.

1)     Pam, the lady who cleans my classroom after school every day, is a sweetheart. She

tries to move desks in my room without making a noise and only speaks when spoken to, as if marking or planning are sacred affairs she dare not interrupt. For at least a year, I had no idea that this smiling, unassuming wonder of a woman drove the giant F350 that towered over our back parking lot, its endgate adorned with pro-Forces decals.

            Support Our Troops

            Enjoying your freedom? Thank a soldier!

            That truck had set my teeth on edge every time I saw until I learned it was Pam’s—then I convinced myself it was her husband’s, and in her shame she parked it in the back.

2)     One of my favourite Canadian groups is the Trews. I love their guitar-driven

grooves, their infectious melodies, their goll-danged Canadian-ness! The most political they’ve ever been is on the song “Gun Control.” They favour it, all you hot-buttoners.

            This last spring, they released a ballad called “Highway of Heroes” about the section of the 401 Highway soldiers’ bodies are driven down after landing at CFB Trenton—the song was inspired by the death of a female soldier from Ontario.

            I wasn’t sure I was into the fact they made this song—too open a declaration. May as well have called the song “Support Our Troops.”

3)     I happened upon the video on Youtube last month and did a double take when I saw

a former student  from my school playing a drum during the Celtic bridge. Cool, I thought, and passed the link on to my staff—all of them, custodians included.

4)     The next time I saw her, Pam thanked me for passing along the link. Her son, it

turned out, was readying to depart on his second tour in Afghanistan. She couldn’t give me many details and I’ll give you none, but I could tell she was struggling with his decision to return. She supported him because he was her son, but not because she wanted him there.

            “We’re proud,” she said. “Glad? No, but proud. Worried and proud.”

            Conviction can be a characteristic of the wilfully ignorant. Life is never simple enough for anything to be certain, ‘cept death and taxes, I suppose I’ll hear.

            I was disgusted with the Trews at first, then overjoyed at my discovery at a kid done good. The proceeds of the song are going to the Hero Fund.

            Heroes? Once I scoffed at calling a person who died in a stupid war a hero. Call me cold. I know a handful of people who’ve joined the Forces and a few of them have been social outcasts, sometimes with an angry streak. The type of person the Army can mould and brainwash into perfect obedience.

My conversation with Pam—who I know would happily leave me to my anti-war soapboxing—brought me pause, and I considered what this song was about. Put right in my face, it didn’t change my opinion, but it made me think about how we choose to deal with that which we cannot change. Pam has chosen pride; the Trews have decided to call a black hearse on Canada’s busiest stretch of highway a vehicle for a hero.

Conclusions?

I’m glad they wrote the song.

I hope Pam’s son comes back safe.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QrkgV5bl7kQ

Ridereligion

In Moose Jaw, there’s a thirty-five year old computer tech who has never caught or thrown a ball in his life. In Wynyard, there’s a sixty-three year old grandmother with a Danielle Steele collection laid out reverently in alphabetical order. In La Ronge there’s a thirty-four year old hippie who runs an organic farm that’s been without a television or phone in three years.           

The connection is that they’re all passionate Saskatchewan Roughrider fans.

That’s the Riders to those of us who bleed green.

To many of us, it’s not just about football, and to some it’s never been about the game at all. I would guess that nearly half the Rider nation can only name a half dozen players and sees maybe three games per year. Many consider the CFL a joke—it’s the league you leave when you get too good and come back to when you’re old. This doesn’t matter, because the snoozefest that is the NFL doesn’t come with a packaged sense of identity.

That gorgeous green t-shirt bearing the S that’s flanked by those subtle grey wheat drums is less a statement of squad support than it is a declaration of who we are. When someone purchases Rider swag, they’re not doing it just to back the team. Many of you shake your heads wondering why we’re as rabid to rally in losing seasons as winning. Rider merch is a proud assertion of who we are, as bold and recognizable as a kilt or a beret or Brazilian flip flops. It says everything without us having to say anything: “Go Riders,” yes, but more importantly, “I’m from Saskatchewan.”

There’s no ignoring that it’s our way of being David thumbing his nose at the Goliath of more populous cities and provinces; it’s our only professional sports team so many view it as quaint and a little pathetic how obsessive we get over it—but it’s blossomed into something so much greater than football. It unites all of us living there or away—much to the annoyance of our cousins when we converge on their homes in Calgary, Edmonton or Winnipeg, where cheering is respectable but hardly on the level of zealotry it is from the fans in green. It’s fun to attend a game in these cities and look at the frustrated locals who feel they’re at an away game.

Saskies are loud and proud and spread across this nation like some thick green peanut butter. Don’t like watermelon helmets, Pilsner flags and John Deere t-shirts? Well, just be thankful they never gave Newfoundland a team—can you imagine what those people would be like given a chance to fill McMahon Stadium with kissing cods and screech? We look pretty tame now.

On Horny Helmets and Blood Eagles

           To the layman, this isn’t a serious point, but to the informed Viking historian—or to the blogging wannabe—issues surrounding writing tales of those Norse raiders are several. Why? They are an obscure and less popular page in history, they were barbarians and pagans in the era of Byzantine grandeur; there are, in fact, more websites dedicated to a certain Minnesota football club than those pirating Norsemen. They were raiders, thieves and rapists, but they were also brilliant ship-makers, cunning sailors, they honoured their women—just no one else’s—and they were so obsessed with cleanliness that the Anglo-Saxons referred to them as dandies.

            In studying them much of my life, and synthesizing that knowledge into tale-making, I have encountered two historical speed bumps. One of these is easy to discuss, but hard to dispel—the second is madly enticing but probably mythical.

            The first: those silly horns on their helmets. Never happened.

No, not ever.

Okay, maybe some Swedish king had a couple of bullhorns affixed to his noggin to impress a visiting dignitary or—more likely—maybe some Wagnerian-obsessed recreationist society thought it up in Bismarck’s Germany—but the lads who piled into long ships and travelled and pillaged from North America to Sicily to Russia to Iraq did NOT wear helmets with horns on them.

            Yes, I understand it’s the first thing you think of when you think of Vikings. But it’s wrong.

            Think about the practicality: a helmet was worn to deflect sword blows away from your head. They were cone-shaped with eye and nose protection so that blows landed upon the thinker would slide off, hopefully missing the shoulder on the way down. Now, let’s say Raurik the Ale Sodden has himself a pair of fancy bullhorns riveted somehow and somewhy to his helmet. Forget the issue of turning your head and knocking your pals over mid-shield wall, or having trouble fitting through doorways, but if some Christian Frank who’s trying to defend his home, goats and daughters against your pillaging ways swings a sword at your fancy headdress, gets it caught in one of those stupid horns, and doesn’t give you whiplash, well, then he’s gonna turn your face to confetti trying to free his sword, right?

No, no, no!

          

Quite likely.

 

            No horns.

            Ah, now for the enticing myth: the blood eagle.

            Back this up a bit: there are two schools of thought when it comes to the Vikings, each with equal obstinacy. The larger group calls them barbarians—thugs who are best left as a footnote in the Middle Ages. The smaller group sees them as explorers, engineers, and pagans whose religion called for the slaughter because, as with the Greeks, glory was all. I’m in this second group, but with a slight hesitation to recognize that, yeah, they built ships that could ride the water rather than plough through it, thus making the first sea-faring vessels that could also travel up rivers and through swamps, much to the chagrin of the hapless English; they were the first Europeans in North America, and they were brilliant merchants—BUT, they also liked to hack people up on occasion. No denying it.

            The blood eagle was, supposedly, an especially nasty Viking execution in which the breastbone was first pierced with an axe, then the ribcage broken open, then the lungs pulled out to flap in the breeze calling to mind an eagle’s wings. I’m no butcher, so I don’t really know if this would even work. However, the Viking tale-teller (and former ten year old boy) in me stands up and declares: “COOL!”

Ow.

(Okay, so sue me, it was a cool movie)

            Problem is, most purists amongst the Viking historians say, excuse the pun, “Not bloody likely.” But it just sounds so darn fun to write about. I recently finished Edward Rutherfurd’s Sarum in which I read the depiction of a blood eagling and I must say, good show, old man.

            It’s a funny thing, writing history, because as a closet historian you want to be true to the source material, but as an artist, you also want to spin a good yarn. I mean, Braveheart was as historically accurate as The Flintstones but it was a butt-load of fun whereas Alexander . . . wait, did anybody even go to that?

           

My Lifehouse

            Earlier this month, I finally staged a version of Lifehouse, and though the venue didn’t allow me to create exactly the piece I wanted, at least I’ve scratched that particular itch. The obsession was getting a mite unhealthy.

            Lifehouse is one of the great white whales of the rock and roll world, a reference as wink-able as shouting “Freebird” at a gig and as complex in back-story as Crash Karma. It started as an aborted concept album by the Who—planned to be the follow-up to Tommy, the grand-daddy of all rock operas. It was to be released alongside a Universal film, filled with footage from the enigmatic “Lifehouse experience” series of weekly concerts at London’s Young Vic. The ambitious but ultimately misconceived project fell apart, but what was salvaged was sewn together as the band’s tightest and best album: Who’s Next. That was 1971.

            Pete Townshend, the band’s creative spring, kept pecking away at the thing over the years, adding songs, rewriting portions, reflecting on it through side projects, and at last—sort of—finishing it in 1999. This involved re-recording a double-album of all related songs and some new additions, packaged with a BBC3 radio play, all under the lofty designation: The Lifehouse Chronicles.

            Enter: me.

            Concept album, a pompous way of saying “a buncha songs strung together by story and theme.” But I love them in rock music. They combine narrative with musical composition—they’re what Wagner would’ve done with a six-string. From Tommy to American Idiot via 90% of the Pink Floyd catalogue, as long as the music is good—and many artists save their best work for these gruelling ventures—and the concept is cool, I’m into it.

            As for Who’s Next, “Baba O’Riley” is rock at its purest form, three chords at their best, and “Won’t Get Fooled Again” is simply my favourite song ever. The combined vocal powers of Roger Daltry, Townshend and John Entwhistle are far from impressive—even as far as rock goes—but any music can be made well if it’s made with passion.

            ‘Cept screamo.

            Anyway, I’ve always been intrigued by the story that “Baba” and “Won’t Get Fooled” were meant to bookend, and in my own tragically obsessive way, I’ve followed Townshend quite far down the rabbit hole. Unfortunately, Townshend is a rock star.

            The 1971 Lifehouse concept was beautiful and simple. Set in a dystopian near-future (yeah, one of those), people find interaction and stimuli coming from the Grid, a network tied into household spacesuits that most everyone lives in full time. In these experience suits, people experience nothing of reality. Then a pirate radio broadcaster begins calling the young to London, to the Lifehouse, a place where humans can interact, listen to a concert (guess Who’s?) and add their individual signatures to the overall effect.

Y’know, thanks to super-computers.  

Keep in mind it was 1971 and that most rocks stars don’t finish high school.

A Northern English farming family who don’t have these experience suits abandon their crops and get in their air-conditioned caravan in the hopes of tracking down their daughter Mary who is on her way to the Lifehouse. The family is racing the authorities—of course The Man has something against the Lifehouse—to the place just as all the young people inside are giving up their musical signatures (?), adding to the One Note (which, for the trivial of us, is an A major). Boots pound in doors of flagrant non-conformity, but just then the music reaches its crescendo, and the whole place explodes and those inside—and many watching from their experience suits at home—go poof.

Where? Open to interpretation: anywhere from being one with the music to joining God, as the One Note calls for religious comparison.

Again, 1971.

Lovely idea, though. Add Townshend to the long list of folks who supposedly invented the Internet.

I love it, there’s nothing more re-invigorating for a work of science fiction than to see its bleak predictions realized a few decades later. But it was never completed—how could it have been?—and so Townshend was constantly quizzed about it over the years. He’d add to the story, muddy it up—just to keep himself interesting. Worse, since he’s a self-absorbed rock star, every time he came at it, it reflected the sensibilities of his particular life stage more and more. 1993’s boringly autobiographical Pyschoderelict and the plodding Chronicles lose the entire concept but keep the music. The focus is now on an aging hippy and his lost dreams—Mary and the titular musicgasm are minor effects in the “Daddy didn’t love me enough” meandering scenes of the radio play. Worst of all, many of the re-recorded tunes for Chronicle are lighter, sometimes acoustic, losing all sense of the raw destructive energy that the Who bled in 1971. “Won’t Get Fooled Again” sounds like it’s been castrated. All that redeems Chronicles is a collection of synthesized “Baba O’Riley” movements that have never before been in one place.    

It’s our own fault it got this bad. We the public create this narcissism by treating artists—especially those from rock’s seminal years—like their opinions and ideas about everything matter and should be voiced. Townshend Lifehouse mess is the result of him hearing too much of his own hype for thirty years. There should come a point when a concept is public domain, because if you give any creator enough time with anything, they’ll rub the thing until it bleeds. I mean, did anybody else read the last three books of The Dark Tower?

But enough about Tonshend’s selfishness, let’s get back to ME. I’ve always wanted to stage Lifehouse—a musical drama of the original concept, plus the related Who songs before Townshend “reconceived” (read: ruined) them. This has been in my head for years.

Finally, last month I gave it a go at a performing arts summer school I teach. I had to use recorded Who music rather than a live band—possibly my own humble ensemble. Because of time constraints, I had to use the good bits—which are few—of the radio play. I had to cast a female as the pirate, losing the whole sexual dynamic between him and Mary. . . . And it was for teenagers.

Did it work?

I know I presented the other three teachers the idea of it possibly being the over-reaching theme for everything we performed and not a one of them picked up on the idea.

Yeah, but did it work?

Well, if you have to ask then you already know I’m not completely satisfied with the experience. I can, however, say that I at last staged Lifehouse. Kinda.

Maybe Lifehouse is to musical theatre what “The Scottish Play” is to conventional.

I love the music and the concept of this thing. It’s a sure sign that I’m too far gone that I am convinced I can do a better job of it than the man who originally conceived it. Copyright infringements aside, I still hope to see my dream realized, but it may be that Lifehouse’s curse is that it cannot be staged.   

Reality in Art

There are only a few great films. Very few movies are worth seeing for more than time-killing, and very few of those are worth seeing more than once. That’s why it’s inspiring to see a film that’s truly a work of art. On the big ya hoida ‘em scale, for my money it’s the Coen brothers, Ridley Scott, Christopher Nolan and about every third Tarantino film. Performances by Daniel Day Lewis, Judy Dench, Gary Oldman, Ed Norton, Emma Thompson.

A great film—say Tarantino’s Inglorious Basterds—can be watched in non-chronological segments. You can soak in the film without bothering with the narrative. Film is so much more than narrative. True, I’m too much a lover of the traditional and I have to watch things in single sittings—can’t count the number of times I’ve seen Barton Fink—but good to know that the option exists.

Great film rarely makes any attempt at imitating reality. It’s noteworthy when we see something that reminds us of our own world on film. Great film has to be unreal, that’s why it’s art—but it’s taken for granted as an art form; this is because it presents so much less for the viewer to have to fill in—as media like writing and painting require.

Does fiction suffer the same downfall? Can it never capture reality?

An interest of mine is writing dialogue in fiction. Consider: dialogue is a writer quoting supposed speakers. It’s a lie right off the bat. Is it possible to depict conversation—real conversation with us interrupting each other and talking at the same time and having ten minute conversations that say little and do nothing to advance the plot—without describing what’s happening, to just show it?  

Is fiction a different kind of art, allowing for more reality than film, painting or photography? There are supposed “real” forms of all of the above. Documentary films—and I’ve seen some brilliant ones—are still created, because they’re pieced together. Editing is a more important step in creation than the genesis of an idea. Portrait and landscape painting capture an image as the artist sees it. The photographer assumes the viewer will fill in what is around, behind, before and after an image—all created. So, what is “reality” at all? Is it just as much a loaded and useless a term as “normal”?

Does fiction transcend the rules? Is it more capable of presenting reality because it can leave more out? This calls for creativity on the part of the reader, but readers will—usually, I assume—fill in the bits they don’t know with what they know would exist in reality. Which is, again, a form of creativity.

Can art capture reality? Should it? Or is it meant just to reflect features of reality in a cohesive, creative form?

Life

Recently, I spoke at a high school graduation and tried to be uplifting. I think it’s a regrettable habit of the old to be a bit cynical when imposing our wisdom upon the young—we want to remind them that life doesn’t always turn out as you plan. This often strikes me as veiled excusing for a pathetic life.

Life doesn’t turn out as you plan. Accept it. Life is not the car, it’s the road. You aren’t in control, you can only navigate to the best of your ability.

I’ve been thinking about life a lot lately, because in the past dozen days I’ve experienced the birth of a son and the death of a friend. I have learned some things about this enigmatic existence, and most of them tell me that what I don’t know is often what’s best.

I have two sons. Every day I question how I’m measuring up as a father. My wife and I look at our boys and say, “Wow, we made those? Really? Hard to believe we’re capable of such wonder.”

The world moves faster as you age because it’s smaller. You want to find peace, excitement and grandeur in the world again? Study it with a child. Lying on your belly watching an ant carry a dandelion seed across a patio stone is nirvana.

When you have kids, you learn what in the rest of your life actually matters. Very little you do can justify taking time from your kids. I read a lot less, write only once a day, play with my band rarely, and I haven’t spent any quality time with my computer since 2008.

There is nothing more glorious than napping with a sleeping baby on your chest.

. . . Unless it’s a toddler saying, “Daddy, I yove you.”

I have heard that some men aren’t as attracted to their wives after seeing them give birth. Asinine. Nothing can make you fall deeper in love like watching your wife mother your children.

You can have all kinds of highfalutin philosophies about proper parenting before you have kids; ideas on soothers and nap-times and circumcision and Baby Einstein and discipline will be completely rethought once you’re on the job.

The littler the arms, the better the hug.

If you don’t care about making the world a better place once you’ve seen what it means to the innocent, you don’t have a soul. They say you should be the person your dog thinks you are. I propose we make the world the place our children think it is.

Kid + pen + paper = art. Always. It doesn’t matter whether it’s on your power bill or your wedding certificate or your final exams or your novel manuscript. Art.

We were convinced our second son was actually going to be a girl, we even sort of started planning her future. The moment your kid is born, you’re so in love with him that all preconceptions go poof and you can’t imagine anyone but this one.

I’m not telling experienced parents anything they don't know. I’m sharing my joy not my wisdom. I’ve had a couple of conflicting weeks, it’s a cliché to call it a roller coaster but it’s sure as hell felt that way.

Four days before Father’s Day I earned my right to celebrate that day a second time. I’m good at many things, but I was born to be a dad.

My life hasn’t turned out how I thought it would. Mostly, it’s been better. Yes, really. For I have learned that the greatest experiences are the unexpected ones.

Death

            I experienced a shocking tragedy recently, made worse by its familiarity. A man my age, a dear friend, someone involved in enough of my seminal moments that he’ll forever be a touchstone, is dead.

            The third peer I’ve had to mourn in my life. The third close friend. He was thirty-one, the other two hadn’t yet reached twenty-five. It’s a sad commonality for the old to learn, daily, of the deaths of their peers. But there’s never a time where the loss of the young gets to be routine. It always cries out against logic.

            When people this close to you die, several things occur. A piece of you goes forever—we’re selfish beings so we’ll always bring this back to ourselves. You examine your own mortality. You swear you’ve learned to take greater joy in life—at what cost? And you over-think everything.

            Consider that last point; every coincidence pops like a whack-a-mole game, and you convince yourself that you’ve dodged a bullet in a cosmic plan that's out to get you. Nonsense, but that’s where the guilt of relief comes from. Guilt at being the one still alive.

            In 2002, I was living in Taiwan. Two of my Norwegian friends, Magnus and Thor, came to see me. Magnus and I spent the summers of 2000-2002 together, on three different continents. Thor had become a friend of mine through Magnus. They left in August, and in December, still in Taiwan, I learned that one of my best friends, Mike, had been killed in a car accident back in Canada. In March of 2003, Magnus was the one to email me that Thor had been killed in a freak accident. Earlier this week I learned of Magnus’ death.

            Three friends, three deaths, all connected to me, all connected to Taiwan in my head. You over-think this stuff.

            It horrifies me that of the three of us—Magnus, Thor and myself—who went clubbing in Taipei and slept on the beaches of Kenting, I am the only one still alive, not yet thirty-three years old.

            I learned of each death through email, formatted exactly the same way. A loved one (Mike’s brother, Magnus, Magnus’ father) began the note with the abrupt “______ is dead.” Seems harsh, right? But then how do you start an email which serves the singular purpose of delivering a tragedy? You just want to be relieved of it, washed clean.

            You’ll go crazy dwelling on this stuff. You have to find a way to deal with it, to mourn.

            But nobody ever told me how to mourn three friends in one lifetime.

            I haven’t gone a day in seven and a half years without thinking about Mike. I can still hear his voice. Magnus’ death is so fresh that I don’t think I’ve even processed it yet. Some nights lately I wake up crying, and some days I can go for hours without thinking about it—guilty every time I laugh or enjoy any sensation.

            The hardest thing about it is this: I will continue to age. Mike will be twenty-four forever. He’ll never marry, as I have, become a father, or buy a house. Thor will never look back on those crazy summers from the comfort of the “rest of our lives.” And Magnus will never ever again hold his beer to me for a toast with a wry smile, cigarette dangling saying, in that thick Norse sing-song, “Cheers, Paul.”

            There is no sense to death. It’s always just there and sometimes it comes early, sometimes too often. Feeling persecuted by fate will just make you feel crazy. Sadness is natural, guilt is natural, joy of life is natural.

            Today I just want to say this: I am sad and I miss my friends.

The Gardener and the Fire-Starter

            Let me tell you about two kinds of people. Both are fabulously intelligent, but limited at the same time. Let’s call them the gardener and the fire-starter.

            The gardener is a genius. Just ask her. She has studied and studied and read and read and discussed and discussed with like-minded—but always less-informed—people until she has built up a beautiful body of rhetoric that destroys anyone’s counter-attacks. Discourse it ain’t. There’s no learning to be had, just the winning of arguments. The gardener is a sophist.

             The gardener won’t talk about topics she hasn’t studied more than you. She’ll roll her eyes and yawns, because the topics of your expertise are beneath her. She doesn’t function all that well in regular society. Y’see, the gardener doesn’t finish anything, for there are risks to be taken and to risk is to flirt with failure, or at least anything but complete success. She can’t handle that, her reputation can’t handle that. So she instead fortifies herself in the glory of past deeds, she buttresses this fortress with admiring sycophants who feel smarter just by speaking to her. She talks a mean game but in the end she tills her little patch of land uselessly.

            The fire-starter is more interesting, and he stresses me out. For him, purpose is everything. He is driven, revolutionary, brilliant, active. He is ever on the move, ever digesting information, drawing from it what he needs to fuel is never-ending attack on the norm. I respect the fire-starter much more than the gardener.

            His scepticism, though, is his greatest strength and his fatal flaw. He’s a cynic. Nothing is good enough, nothing is to be credited. Everything must be attacked. Anything you love or enjoy must be subverted. The fire-starter sucks a lot of the joy out of life.

            I’ve known many gardeners and fire-starters. They make us question ourselves because the gardener mocks you for risking and the fire-starter shames you for not risking enough.

            If you consider yourself an intelligent person, other intelligent people will have influence upon your thinking. This is right and fair. But, my oh my, what good is there in being influenced by cynics? You enter a spiral of second-guessing and measuring-up and you fail yourself because you’re not true to yourself.

            Purpose.

            Why do we create?

            When brainstorming this with other writers—those I work with or those I teach—we come up with lists. Entertainment, self-expression, to relieve stress, to make money, to describe the human condition, because I can’t paint, because it keeps me from killing all of you people . . . Lots of reasons, all sound, many clichéd.

            And that’s okay.

            But, as for purpose. In On Writing, Stephen King confessed that he’d spent a great deal of his early career feeling guilty about what he wrote, because it was popular horror fiction, it made him money, it wasn’t “literature.” I think there are a lot of writers who must feel the same way.

            Critics abound in this world. It’s much easier to criticize than to create. You just have to sound smart, sound like you’re an expert on a topic, sound like you have a right to say what you’re saying, and then rip somebody’s work to shreds. It’s much easier than hanging yourself out there and exposing a sliver of your soul, hoping that someone will look at it, interact with it, admire its beauty. Critics, in their jealousy, need to trash you because in doing that they can bring you down to their own level, the level at which one cannot create, only dissect.

            I admire Stephen King because there’s a writer who has made it in popular fiction. Do anything popular and people will find a way to vandalize your reputation, because appealing to the masses means sacrificing your integrity. But King has never compromised—he’s not writing for the lowest common denominator, he’s writing for himself.

            And the ability to ignore the gardener and the fire-starter is an admirable one indeed.