A Documentary on Bas Jan Ader

An artist who disappeared at sea.

A Poem by Henri Michaux

The Jetty (translated by Richard Ellmann)

During the month that I was living at Honfleur I had not yet seen the sea, for the doctor made me stay in my room.  

But last night, tired of being so isolated, I built, taking advantage of the fog, a jetty as far as the sea. Then, right at the end of it, letting my legs hang down, I looked at the sea, below me , which was breathing deeply. 

A murmur came from my right. It was a man sitting like me with legs swinging and looking at the sea. "Now that I am old" he said "I am going to pull up everything I have put there during the years."  He began to draw things up by means of pulleys. 

And he brought up riches in abundance. He brought up captains from other ages in dress uniforms, chests studded with all sorts of precious things, and women dressed lavishly but as they no longer dress. And as he brought each being or thing to the surface, he looked at it carefully with high hopes, then without saying a word, while his face fell, he pushed it behind him. So we filled up the entire pier. I don't remember exactly what there was, for I have no memory, but obviously it was not satisfactory, in everything something had been lost which he hoped to recover and which had faded away. 

Then he began to throw everything back into the sea. Like a long ribbon it fell and, when it wet you, froze you. A last piece of junk which he was pushing off dragged him in too. As for me, shivering with fever, I wonder how I was ever able to get back to my bed.  

A small room inside a bay window. A single bed, a table and chair, and a sink. I could manage something larger, with more conveniences, but I could never match the view.

In today's mail, two poems by Henri Michaux, translated by a friend into English. One is about a flower, if anything. The other moves similarly.

Time to remove the flowers on the table. Time to replace the vase and the water inside it. Time to replace the table, make it smaller, allow for more room between it and the closet door.

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St. John's

In 1989 CBC television debuted two half-hour comedy shows: the Kids in the Hall, comprised of young men from Alberta and Ontario, and CODCO, a mix of slightly older men and women from Newfoundland. Both ensembles were seasoned "live" performers who mixed sketch comedy and improvisation. Both included homosexual scenarios delivered by homosexual actors.

While Kids in the Hall succeeded in pushing boundaries -- both identifying and mocking an ever-atomizing mainstream culture for an ever-widening popular audience -- it was the more-regional CODCO that took the bigger chances, dug the deeper wells, activating within this viewer the kind of complexities that make life what it is (and isn't).

I am not sure if the above sketch was included in the original CBC broadcasts. Looking at it now, it seems tame, but back then it would have been outrageous, too close to home, particularly in light of then-recent events.

That said, looking at the sketch at the level of language, it does not include words banned by the CRTC, only situations that could be perceived as suggestive. Indeed, where Kids in the Hall was over-the-top, CODCO was so far under-the-bottom, so far up our asses, it might as well have been radio.

Red Indian Lake

Rebecca Belmore's contemporary take on an incident that took place on March 5, 1819, at Red Indian Lake, Newfoundland. The work, entitled March 5, 1819 (2008),  received its premiere as part of Belmore's current exhibition at Carleton University Gallery, where it runs until September 1, 2013.

Fogo Island

Six hours northwest of Cape Spear (by car and ferry) is Fogo Island, the ancestral home of Zita Cobb, who left the island with her family in the late 1970s, only to make her fortune in information technologies and return to it a philanthropist.

Among the many programs Cobb has put in place through the Shorefast Foundation (co-founded with her brother) is an artist residency administered by the Fogo Island Arts Corporation. According to Lisa Moore, who wrote a 2011 article on Fogo for Canadian Art, the goal of the Foundation is "to preserve the culture and way of life of Fogo Island," with the artist residency program one of its preservatives.

Last week a group of artists and curators met on Fogo under the auspices of the Fogo Island Dialogues. What was said during these dialogues has not yet been made public, but as one would expect, questions of preservation and culture were likely in the air.

For my part I am putting together an application for Fogo, one that proposes a Pride Day, with an annual parade and related activities. Whether my proposal fits with the preservation mandate is questionable, but I will make a case for it nonetheless.