Twins

When I saw this picture of twins taken in Vancouver's Strathcona neighbourhood in 1930 my first thought was of the twins in Stanley Kubrick's The Shining (1980).

But when I looked at a picture of The Shining's twins today I thought they looked more like the Strathcona twins than the twins in Kubrick's film.

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.

Atop the books beside my bed is Benjamin Moser's Why This World: A Biography of Clarice Lispector (2009), the story of a writer born in post-World War I Ukraine of Jewish parents who, as a child, left with her family for northeastern Brazil.

I wonder if Lispector would be happy with that narrative. Of course there is more -- and less. More because Lispector's life was only just beginning; more because there is more to Lispector's "inflexible individuality," as Moser describes it, than what those two words connote.

I am interested in "inflexible individuality," as I see a lot of it these days, from those in the business of ambiguity (artists) to those whose stock and trade is market certainty (Donald Trump). Conversely, I am equally aware of an emergent subject position based on the relational, the intersectional, or indeed the positional, particularly in the writings of indigenous artists and scholars.

Elizabeth Bishop befriended Lispector in Brazil in the early 1960s. This friendship is recorded in Bishop's correspondence with Robert Lowell, where she tells Lowell of her translations of Lispector's stories, how Lispector is "the most non-literary writer I've ever known, and never cracks a book as we used to say. She's never read anything that I can discover -- I think she's a self-taught writer, like a primitive painter."

This too is a common contemporary condition, and in reading it I am reminded of what Boris Groys often says about a world -- and a time -- when everyone is a writer, but nobody reads. Below is paragraph from his 2012 e-flux essay:

"This is where theory demonstrates its solidarity with the general mood of our times. In earlier times, recreation meant passive contemplation. In their free time, people went to theatres, cinemas, museums, or stayed home to read books or watch TV. Guy Debord described this as the society of spectacle—a society in which freedom took the form of free time associated with passivity and escape. But today’s society is unlike that spectacular society. In their free time, people work—they travel, play sports, and exercise. They don’t read books, but write for Facebook, Twitter, and other social media. They do not look at art but take photos, make videos, and send them to their relatives and friends. People have become very active indeed. They design their free time by doing many kinds of work. And while this activation of humans correlates with the major forms of media of the era dominated by moving images (whether film or video), one cannot represent the movement of thought or the state of contemplation through these media. One cannot represent this movement even through the traditional arts; Rodin’s famous statue of the Thinker actually presents a guy resting after working out at a gym. The movement of thought is invisible. Thus, it cannot be represented by a contemporary culture oriented to visually transmittable information. So one can say that theory’s unknowable call to action fits very well within the contemporary media environment."

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If I Can't Dance, Can I Count On the Revolution to Teach Me How?

Subcultural Heritage

This Thursday I will be participating on a panel entitled Subcultural Heritage: Emergence of Social Diversity and the Creation of Heritage. This is "Conversation #3" in a series of Shaping Vancouver panels hosted by Heritage Vancouver in partnership with SFU's Vancity Office of Community Engagement.

The photo above is of the SBC Restaurant, an indoor skateboarding park/restaurant and the former site of the Smilin' Buddha Cabaret. (Source: Vancouver As It Was.) The photo below was taken in the 1960s by a Province newspaper photographer.

Below is 575 Beatty Street as it was in the late-1960s, when it was home to Intermedia:

There is no 575 Beatty Street today, only attempts at reminding us what stood there:

Swarm 18, Part 2

The flow at VIVO Thursday night was steady but gentle. Soft conversations with Jordan Strom, Jamie Hilder and Steven Tong, who invited me to his wedding in October. Last night's openings at the Or and Artspeak were a little busier, a little louder.

Behind the bar at the Or were Steffanie Ling and Kate Noble. Both Steffanie and Kate were in a special topics course I initiated at ECUAD a few years back. Steffanie's recent book of fiction, Nascar (2016), feels like equal parts Charles Baudelaire (Paris Spleen, 1855), Nathalie Sarraute (Tropisms, 1939) and Roland Barthes (Mythologies, 1957). I recommend it. You can find copies at Pulp Fiction. Kate is the Acting Associate Director of the Or.

The Or's new Director/Curator Denise Ryner was there, so I introduced myself and congratulated her on her appointment. Guest curator Kathleen Ritter was there, too. I had not seen Kathleen in ages, so we had a quick catch up. Kathleen is teaching at Parsons Paris. Click here and you will see a picture of Kathleen and her colleagues. Everyone looks so striking! Maybe it's the black-and-white photography. Ghosts from Bande à part (1964). That scene, or this one.

Sky Goodden was visiting from Toronto, and we spoke. I congratulated her on three years of Momus, and she appreciated that. I will throw a party for Sky when she returns in April.

"Barb," I called out to a woman passing by. She turned around. "I'm not Barb." But like Barb would say, "Who's Barb?" and I told her.

This went on for some time, with lots of laughter, before "Barb" reached for her notebook to write down "Barb Choit". "My name's Michelle -- Michelle Weinstein," she said, and we talked about her Old Powerhouse project in Portland, Oregon, and I said I would look it up tomorrow.

Tiziana La Melia was there. So was Julian Hou. Lauren Marsden and her partner arrived with their pram and their tiny two month old daughter inside.

I returned my glass to Kate and headed down Hamilton to Artspeak.

The Shapes of Things

With Irma fast approaching, Astronomy's "path of totality" is about to be eclipsed by Meteorology's "cone of uncertainly."