This happens:

I get caught in the wave that is, for now, writing papers for classes. During this time all function outside of writing the paper is essentially halted. Writing in the blog becomes a last priority for I have nothing left to write about that I feel is of any interst to anyone but me.

The invalidation of moving to a new place, still affects.

Muchos gracias to Gary Genosko for lending me his fantabular digital camera. Truthfully I much prefer the use of film, but alas, the budget does not allow for such expenditures. In the case of doing a gallery show I would be inclined to use a medium format or large format film camera to produce the galatinous effects desired.

But hey, a digital and some photoshop fun is what I got.

The image above is taken from down the street from our place. We live on a big hill, towards the water is where many of the houses have been built. In the distance lay some of the structures that make up Canada's second largest grain port. You can't really look at the lake, without looking at a massive walls of concrete. If it would ever stop raining maybee i could get down there and not ruin someone elses digital camera.

A

The sky has been grey for the last week, apparently the sun that shone for weeks when we arrived here, has been banished to another place. Another place where it may not be 10degrees in the morning and 3 degrees bymid-afternoon. This a strange place.

Rosemary Kennedy, apologies, we shall make it back to you.

The movie "Safe" completely slipped past my radar until now. See it. (ala, american psycho, edward scissor...,stephen shore's photography).

Peeing. The realization that you may be sitting in an area of the space and place you live, and notice that you can very distinctly hear: the sound of heavy male foot steps, the kind one might associate with a fire-fighter or any sort of heavy boot wearing professional. Hark, silence, the footsteps have come to a halt and for once your tea may sit idely on the table next to the computer. But wait, the story does not end here. The piercing shriek of unlubricated plastic components is next to make its mark on the canvas of sound being illuminated. The pierce is ended with a subtle knock, the plastic and porcelain have at once made contact. These noises like notes that of the first movement of symphony 'number one.' The creshendo. The finalle. ce tu. no. ...the audio component is something of a marvel. Acoustically engineered to ensure the enhancement of anyone's morning tea. The dual reverberation of liquid in motion, In Stereo. From your cup to you lips. From.... to the cieling so perfectly above your head.
What are you listening to these days?

Since, construction and deconstruction of
language is of paramount importance here. I was delighted to find the devil’s
dictionary while trying to find a meaning for incompossible.
http://dd.pangyre.org/i/incompossible.html


A

Families and Frontal Lobotomies

In our class our instructor referred to a story relating to the near royalty American Family, the Kennedy’s and sister to JFK, Rosemary. Needless to say I was compelled to find out more and assemble my findings and thoughts here. Welcome.

The article I found, providing me with, yes I admit, 1 view Gerald O’Brien.“Rosemary Kennedy: The Importance of A Historical Footnote.”Journal of Family History, Vol 29 No 3, July 2004. 225-236. http://jfh.sagepub.com/

“Rosemary was the third of the Kennedy children and the oldest girl. Preceded by Joe Jr. and John... Rose, her mother, realized within a few years of Rosemary’s birth (Sept 13, 1918) that her daughter took longer to reach developmental milestone than did the two boys... She and her husband engaged in a spree of doctor shopping as they desperately sought accurate diagnostic and treatment information related to their daughter.” ”While Rosemary’s father, Joseph Sr., had an especially difficult time acknowledging that he had sired a retarded child, Rose attempted to treat her daughter as much as possible like the other children... While sexual conquest, for example, was an expected trait among the males in their household, the daughters were taught that an important element of their religious faith was abstinence until marriage.”

“Rose, a strong Catholic, later rationalized that her daughter had been sent to them for a special purpose, “to do work he cannot do through any other child.” “Rosemary’s sexual awakening... Rosemary being widely regarded as one of the most attractive of the Kennedy girls, Joe and Rose were extremely worried about the possibility that she would become sexually abused or pregnant... Because of concerns about her [s]exuality, Joe Sr., decided, without consultation or informing his wife, to have a prefrontal lobotomy performed on Rosemary.” “Rosemary’s surgery was performed very soon after the introduction of the technique to this country. Fewer than one hundred such operations had been completed at this time, and the procedure was very much experimental. The operation was recommended for hopeless’ patients who had little to lose and everything to gain. This description hardly fit Rosemary Kennedy.” “Rosemary’s operation was a complete disaster, taking away many of the skills that she had developed through years of her mothers perseverance. Rosemary was later placed in St. Coletta’s, a Wisconsin facility for persons with mental retardation, where she remains to this day.” “Once she was institutionalized, Rosemary was treated as if she were no longer part of the family. In the family letters that Rose wrote after 1942, Rosemary’s name was not included along with those of her siblings, and she only received as few visits from family members over the next several decades.”
To Be Continued:

A

Sorry, for the tardyness.

I have no excuse. Well actually, I've been waivering on what exactly the focus of this blog should or needs to be.

Any suggestions, please post.

I'm sure that these items... the industrial archaological possibilities.

Check this:


http://www.portauthority.thunder-bay.on.ca/article/
widely-held--great-capacity-121.asp

A real post soon.

Is the wearing of glasses considered an impairment?

Is having to wear glasses considered a disability?

Is the wearing of clothing an impairment?

Is having to eat to sustain life an impairment?

Is having to excrete bodily waste an impairment?

A

The disabling effects of being watched:

Anxiety that comes from being watched.

Usually procured by a person in a role of superiority. Quite often this sense of disabling happens when a person is attempting to do something that they may not be entirely comfortable with or new-to. I’ve experience this is a classroom setting, playing music, snowboarding, capturing images; and most recently while learning ballroom dancing- the east coast swing to be exact.



http://assets.families.com/Encyclopedias/sjpc_04_img1225.jpg

This Monday night marked Miss Amy and I’s second class. Taking a dance class being something we have wanted to do for quite some time, now just seemed to be the right time. That and the fact that we are feeling lost like empty bottles at sea in our new surroundings of Thunder Bay. Before we came here we knew it would be different, we knew it would be a shift and we knew that we would be challenged and motivated to join into more community activities than we had in Edmonton.

One of my goals, to take piano lessons has still not come to fruition although I have joined the Alpine Club of Canada to gain experience in the world of rock climbing.

Back to anxiety: Last week only Carmella was present to teach us our first ‘basic’ steps. The resemblance of Carmella to Maya at Padmanadi is uncanny, it’s as though C is the older sister. This week Carmella’s partner, Arman, was also present. Last week Amy and I glided through the first sets of steps, the basic, the butterfly hands, the side turn and so on. This week under the watchful gaze of Arman I had bursts of immobility.

I felt like a child learning to hammer a nail into a board, Okay the child is me, and still to this day I can’t really do anything as well if my father is present and watching me do it… anything really.

Hmm, so this all goes back to my father. And I thought I had nothing interesting to write today. The psyche is divulging secrets of my past as I write.

This is the polish hall, in which we dance…

Since these experiences I have described of the past few days, dancing and the film festival, I thought that including images of places and spaces would be helpful to contextualize the experiences of the ‘polish hall’ and the film festival at the ‘big fin hall’ on our temporal bodies.

Polish Hall - 818 Spring Street
















http://www.thunderbay.ca/index.cfm?fuse=html&pg=2956


Finnish Labour Temple Historic photo


http://www.hoito.ca/article/page-title-4-6.asp

Both of these buildings are of considerable age, in some form of disrepair and have played inportant roles in the building of and maintaining community throughout Thunder Bay's history. Although I don't know anything more than that which I observe.

A

Choice Films from this past weekend:

Revolution
(Kenen joukoissa seisot)

http://www.ses.fi/en/film.asp?id=687




Synopsis:


Revolution is a documentary musical about the 70’s generation’s fight for a better world. Socialism seemed like a real alternative. The movement offered a whole unified world where it would be easy to be on the right side – against anything old and reactionary. Songs played a central role in this revolution. Hundreds of song groups sprung up. The songs told stories of battles, solidarity, socialism, Vietnam, Chile. Now middle-aged former revolutionaries return to their combat songs, singing in the environments revealing their present status and work places. Music creates some distance and in many ways, depicts the experiences and spirit of the era. The music also symbolizes the pomposity and rhetoric often so blatantly and comically at odds with reality and everyday life. What has happened to the idealism of youth?

LOUISIANA FENCELINE God's Hand in Cancer Alley

www.guelphgreens.ca/downloads/cancer_valley_promo.pdf

Cuba Capetown:

Joe Davidow from Finland. His film, Cuba Capetown, is about different views on HIV programs and it will be shown on Friday night.
''Basically, the journey of this HIV coordinator, in Cuba, searching for answers, from the Cuban program which would fit in South Africa''

* This post is simply a small excerpt from a comment paper I wrote for class:

(A paraphrased excerpt from a conversation with Sharon-dale Stone)

“Well, how many Universities do you know of that offer courses on Disability studies”? Asked Sharon-dale Stone. Stupefied I sat in the chair across from her without a hint of an answer, though I figured the number must be quite low. “Courses on Queer studies are becoming more common, it is all because of an increasing number of faculty and tenured professors that may have identified themselves at some point as, queer or as lesbians or as gay or as ‘disabled’ that these courses are coming into existence. These professors have fought long and hard battles to gain the right to teach these perspectives.” In that comment I felt sincerely grateful for the efforts that have been made before me. For the point of entry at which I have embarked upon due to the efforts of others, in that I feel challenged to add to a critical body of knowledge.


One of the last films at this years Bay Street Film Festival, Revolutions, was about music and communist revolutions in Sweden in the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s through political music. A line from that film stood out to me in regards to possible intended effects that critical writing in disability studies may hope to achieve, “you can’t change people, you can only hope to change the environment in which people are exposed to and interact with.” This quote fits quite nicely with the overarching or underbelly of the progressive theme of what I can so far understand as disability studies, “Nobody can predict the amount of tragedy of happiness a person will experience in life and yet people feel confident to make such predictions about disabled people” (Swain & French 2001. P.742).

The Bay Street Film Festival.

Amy and I spent a good part of the day at the FF. When we weren't necesarily volunteering, we were there watching films.

2 moments that are crystalized memories for me at the moment:

The first happened in the early evening while I stood outside chatting with a woman of considerable age. She told me of her Finnish background, and told pointed up to a window of what used to be 'the little fin hall' as opposed to the 'big fin hall' of which we stood in its entryway. She told me that the small one used to be called the 'communist hall.' She went on to tell me in a sly and underbreath-toned manner, as though she were about to devulge some big secret to me, that we, in Canada, are still under the control of the communists. The fact of the matter is, she told me, that..."it's just so well hidden, that we don't even notice it anymore."

As she spoke I wondered to myself, if she was meaning 'capitalism'?

I'm still not sure what she meant, but she smiled at me and gave me a wink, as though she just let me in on some coveted knowledge. I'm in now. Maybe I will see her again and ask for clarification. Or maybe this is simply a sign.

The second moment of chrysalis was in the final film of the evening. The hall was nearly full to capacity, the film "Brocket 99." Even as Amy was selling tickets she had patrons, described as young male caucasian, intoxicated, folk - buying tockets in this manner, "One ticket and a whiskey" accompanied by, or delivered in a manner echoing the Brocket tapes in question in the film.

About 75% of the way through the film, an interview was being conducted by a young man, asking questions of his elders. One of the men was asked about the Brocket tapes and whether he felt that they were offensive, his response was (I'm now paraphrasing) "It's just life, if you can't enjoy life, go get an education."

Hmm. I wonder.

Anyways
http://www.shebafilms.com/baystreetfilmfestival/index.html

A

My professor sat at the front of the class. She told us that, yes, she did have an impairment. Sometimes she needs to use a cane to make walking easier.

She told us that there have been times that she has needed to use a wheeled chair to help her get around as well.

She told us that in the setting of our class room, she did not feel the need to claim 'disability.'

Although she was comfortable enough to tell us of the impairments of her body.

She told us that, teaching a class and leading discussions did not necesarily have to be done from a standing position, or from a walkimg around the room position. On the contrary, many professors who claim no impairments feel the need to remain in one spot for a whole lesson.

Our professor told us that, in the class room she did not feel that the title, the descripor, disability would be necessary or useful.

She continued by saying that, if it is the students expectation that a professor be standing and walking for an entire lesson or for parts of a lesson, then it was the expectation of the student that would disable or be instrumental is labeling the professor with a disability.

Expectations.

What are the expectations, what are they presupposed on?

How does our culture work, within the public and the private spheres to disable the individual? Consider the forces of power at work in any given situations.

To play on the title used so effectively by Naomi Klien: How is modernity entrenched with fences and windows designed to keep people out, away, on the other side, out of sight of those in power.

A local question. How is anybody who wants to get into the Bay Street Film Festival in the Old Finlandia Hall who can't manouver up some steep stairs going to get in.

Does offering assistance mean that upon accepting, the person is still left with thier dignity.

A

This is (some of) what I learned today:


Disability is ubiquitous, meaning that it is everywhere, at all times and all places).

Many feel that we as citizens under governmental rule should remain confident in the belief that medical advancement will eradicate the category of disabled/ disability.

Although from a critical disability perspective, that which I am currently studying, one would argue that: the percentage of those born with a disability is very small –

• meaning that even though some feel that genetic screening is the answer to the eradication of disability
• most disabilities are born out of impairments that occur and are acquired through the course of ones life.
• i.e. a person may fall off a ladder and injure their spine, the damage caused to their own person may mean that they are impaired, the time frame may be short or indefinite.
• also, to ensure that one does not focus solely on physical disabilities, a person who may ‘suffer’ a stroke may be affected permanently, mentally in some way that may cause their cognitive functions to function in a manner that may be somehow different than pre-stroke cognitive function.
• Disability and age, although cultural stigma may prophesize that disability affects old people only, or that with old age comes disability, this understanding may also be challenged by more recent statistics that demographically deduce that there are higher ‘rates’ of disability between the ages of 18-65, then there are in the greater than 65 range. Granted, in Canada right now there is an aging population, though one may argue that the shear volume of individuals in the first group greatly outweigh the population totals in the later group.

Another interesting point, 1981, my birth year, became known as
The International Year of Disabled Persons 1981
as declared by the U.N. http://www.un.org/esa/socdev/enable/disiydp.htm





Apparently this was also the year when, the now famous stick figure in a wheel chair became internationally disseminated. The effects have been very wide spanning. Obviously the original goal was to raise awareness, promote equality and any number of positive public projections. Another view has been that, the image has become quite ingrained into our respective cultures, meaning that disability is often only seen as or only qualified by, someone in a wheelchair- leading into disability is only physical- and also in this direction a plethora of other effects have caused a ripple effect. A major point is that due to our highly visual culture that we as subjects traverse; disability has been negatively stigmatized and has echoed through subsequent visual fields. Meaning that in the vernacular, disability is thought of firstly as a negative visual stigma, i.e. a stick figure in a wheelchair. Something to be avoided like the plague, for fear that one may ‘catch’ this horrible affliction if they are exposed to it for any period of time.

Tomorrow I shall write about what I have discovered about impairments and their fluidity within disability.

(The Canadian alpine association here in TB, the bluffs in town, that’s where I had an opportunity to force my mind to focus on a task at hand. )

Images from:http://www.safetysign.com/browser.asp?Subcategory=B3Disabled+Parking&Start=0&EDI=0-8-63-17-168-252-225-90-103-80

Like skiff and slips. I often find myself in the feather light step in the frame of the flaneur, or possibly it is simply my disillusion with reality and the possibility of a real world or an entirely un real… world.

Note, on Tuesday I happened upon the Chair of the philosophy dept at Lakehead who entertained a conversation with me about, the subject. I asked him about the possibility of any sort of connection to film and video and media in the school or Thunder Bay itself that I could plug into, to help me with the image work of my project.

What I’m really looking for is a good digital camera that I can borrow or use for some short periods. The UofA kindly afforded such opportunities thanks to the intermedia research center in the Tory building. Nicely stocked with multiple cameras of digital and non-digital format for shooting either still or video. They also had multiple computers to work on any kind of imaging or web design or video work. But alas I must stop living vicariously through my memories and face the fact that I am working in an environment that is designed to accommodate about 1/8 of the student population.

Anyways from the Philosophy dept I was routed with good cause over to the History dept. In this dept I was to meet a man, highly involved with film and media in town. So much so, that the local “Bay street film festival” is taking place this weekend, and as always with these sorts of things, volunteers are the bread and butter.

7pm this evening my lovely partner in kryme made our way down the hall to the old Finlandia hall on Bay Street (the socialist hall, apparently the communist hall next door has been closed for a few years). Inside we, volunteers, met the fantastic staff of volunteers who organize the festival. One, the university professor and another, a prominent film maker in the thunder bay area who has a film in the festival and also a cameo in another.

That was it, the deal was sealed, as soon as the red t-shirts were handed out, we were as good a committed, contract signed, no chance for escape.

What really caught my attention was the fact that, during the short information shpeel, it was mentioned that there is “No access for ‘handi-capped’ people,” we have stairs only that lead up to (about 8 steep stairs) the hall door. We need “able bodied, young people who can assist people into the hall.” It was mentioned that the able bodied needed to be ‘quick on their feet to assist ‘them.’’

Now, since the subject of my thesis is planned as having much to do with architecture and access points, this previous selection of phrases peaked my interest so much so that I immediately took out a pen and paper to document the lingua franca the parlance in which these words told so many stories.

In my understanding it was to be clear that, those who physically are not capable of ascending the stairs, need to rely on the help of other ‘able’ bodies, in which, firstly the person must first be faced with the rejection by the structure of the building for not being designed with said person in mind or in foresight. And secondly the person must succumb to the fact that those doing the ‘able bodied’ work of assisting, may feel that by performing these acts of ‘goodness’ they now reaffirm their position as able and the ‘disabled’ or ‘handicapped’ person is once again caught in the cultural suppositions of negative stigma and marginality.

In reference to this talk of ‘dis-ability I just read an article titled, “Reassigning Meaning,” Simi Linton. Claiming Disability: Knowledge and Identity (NY: New York University Press, 1998)

In which the language of disability studies takes on a position that echoes familiarity with certain feminist theories I have been previously exposed to. Names to me are irrelevant when my mind is ‘logging off’ for the evening.

Do you remember where and what you were doing on 9-11.

I remember coming upstairs from the basement of my parents house.
My mother had the Tv on, the look on her face was one of omniscient silence.
Today was also the day I was leaving on a greyhound to travel to Summerland BC to pick apples with my good friend. I stood watching the live footage thinking to myself "how is this going to affect me?"

The second plane crashed into the second building as the two of us sat, shocked by what we saw. The morning continued with an awkward feeling, uncertainty was the err of time. A friend picked me up to take me out for breakfast to the University of Alberta (the powerplant to be exact), for a carbohydratic meal of pancakes and hashbrowns (I'm vegan you see).

The two of us sat in the car, wondering, what does this mean. The sense of vertigo felt as though New York was the base of a mountain that we all live on. The powerplant provided us with a massive tableu of pixilated airplanes on a plane white screen. The costly irridescent bulb of the projector whincing as it shon images of people diving from 80th story structual cavities caused by the momentum of flying debris.

The entire day felt hot and muggy as though forest fires raged on in the north, as they often do in the summer months in Edmonton.

The greyhound ticket was actually a gift from my father, he didn't much like the fact that his own son had vehemently decided to hitchike to BC, rather he decided to pay my fair. I'll never forget the moments while we sat in the transient bus depot, filled with chrome detail and well worn 70's designed wait room chairs, my father stood up, walked to the convenience store at the end of the station, and returned with a special "afternoon edition" of the Edmonton Journal.

The edition was filled with images likely electronically sent across the glode in those precious few hours before all media became rigidly monitored and censored by the American Goverment. In total I believe there were only a few pages, entirely filled with photos, weighing in with similar magnitude as... well... what?

Dad shed tears whan he hugged his son and bid him farewell and a safe journey in that late afternoon light. He hugged me tighter than ever before and his tears made me think of him as infantile for I had scarecly seen him cry in my whole life.

Once on the bus I found myself a seat near the back, as I tend to do, and wrote in my journal, and looked out the window and cried. I missed home, I missed my family. I wondered when I would see tham again. I wondered how the events that took place in NYC had affected my day.

.

The invalidation of moving to a new place: Thunder Bay

Until recently: I shared a space in a small house off 109th street, Edmonton.
My partner and I traversed lines made familiar by function and repetition. Our
movements had become predictable and premeditated: school, family, friends,
work, work, work, work, home. Everyday life (Lefebvre) became, everyday
life.

In my mind I would often be caught in a moment, riding my bicycle, or walking into a
familiar building, thinking "I know these places, these walls, these lines, this light, these shadows, I want to see more." I imagined that if I were in another city in another space, I would have the contextual ability to see more, to absorb more than that which I have already seen. This does not mean that I am expressing displeasure with comforts of a familiar place. Rather I am expressing an adopted motive of Geographical fixation.

Enter 2, I shall refrain from using names to allow signs and signifiers to be minorly tampered with. 2 came to Edmonton 4 years ago with the express intrest of being there for only one year. Needless to say I and 2 found that they rather enjoyed the company that the other provided them and have continued to fuel each others interests.

The move:
We left Edmonton and drove to my parents to eat a delightful departure breakfast. Two of our small plants had to be left behind for fear that they may not make the journey in the hot car. Seven hours later we arrived in southern Saskatchewan to visit with 2's parents. This stop provided us with a soothing break, away from driving, and the chaos that is packing up possesions and dealing with thier outcomes. Satellite Tv provided us with a much needed brain vacation, V for Vendetta and Spike Lees When the Levees Broke were the standouts amongst a marathon of brain sedation.

Onward to Winnipeg where an old friend nursed a violent hangover. Our accomodations had now moved into the realm of architecture reminiscent of Eastern European cities like Budapest. For this building was completed by the architect in the early 20th century and was also the sight of the architects suicide into an enclosed space on the premesis (imagine a hollow four walled tower with no windows or doors on the ground level, that is where the architect took his own life, presumably from the roof level six flights up).

Three sections of driving, each roughly eight hours a piece later, we arrived in Thunder Bay. A place that 2 had never visited before, only I had been subject to previous experience with this North Western Ontario town. Althouth my previous visits had been under the guise of 'touring with a band.'

This is where the influx of invalidation begins: The fact that I was, am, are a member of a musical collective called Fractal Pattern (www.fractalpattern.com), seems to be entirely usurped by the fact that I have taken on the ambiguos role of a graduate student at Lakehead University.

The identity I claimed when living in Edmonton, has been all but erased now that I have taken up space in a new location. The same goes for 2, she has also undergone this unceremonious loss of a former identity.

Thus my motivation for writing a blog. The possibility that we may attach meanings and symbols to that which we are currently working to produce and that which we have worked on in the past to some net of nominal certainty.

(There comes a point when one can no longer focus under the watchful gaze of the computer monitor, I apologize for this lengthy intro, subsequent posts will be kept more concise).