Will You Still Feed Me

Always invited guest: Great Blue Heron at the Carrying Place Golf Course

Ensconced -- some would say trapped -- as I am in my urban environment, I lose sense of how much time most people spend in their cars.

I was reminded this past week.

For the first of the season's two weddings, we drove an hour and a half in each direction to partake of the happy couple's special day. For the second, we have travelled across the country, and been driven two hours up the fabled Sea to Sky highway.

In between these treks, we visited on Vancouver Island -- the best example in the world of aggressive urban sprawl -- and were on the Island Highway for most of the visit. We were travelling to vineyards and to visit my niece in hospital, so these were necessary trips. It was just hard not to notice how extremely far apart everything was. 

Speaking of lengthy journeys, I turned 64 this past week, something I've never done before. Once I hit 65, I'm going to start counting birthdays by fives, so I'll be 65 until I'm 70, 70 until I'm 75 and so on. I already forget how old I am, so this will make things easier.

We are in the Pemberton valley for wedding number two, where vast natural beauty bears mute witness to the clashing forces of the bride's plans, the groom's family and COVID restrictions. It'll be a hoot.

Vineyard roses: Averill Creek Winery

Autumn vines: Blue Grouse Winery

Thanks for reading!

Have great week!

Karen

Oh, right: the bride and groom

Busy Busy Busy - Pandemic Edition

Barosaurus, Royal Ontario Museum

After months uncluttered by things to do other than sleep, eat and consume streamed media, I'm now up to my neck in busy-ness.

I've got a client who specializes in engaging me at the last minute, multiple things happening on my condo board, birthdays to think about (almost everyone I know was born between July 1 and September 30), and, after multiple cancellations, young relations who are going to get married this time, dammit - one this weekend and another the next.

All of which is to say I've got lots on my mind, but none of it is fun to share. 

So here's a poem by Philip Larkin. Bruce recited most of it while we were out with a friend last week. He's full of surprises that one.

***

This Be The Verse

BY PHILIP LARKIN

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.   

    They may not mean to, but they do.   

They fill you with the faults they had

    And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn

    By fools in old-style hats and coats,   

Who half the time were soppy-stern

    And half at one another’s throats.

Man hands on misery to man.

    It deepens like a coastal shelf.

Get out as early as you can,

    And don’t have any kids yourself.

Philip Larkin, "This Be the Verse" from Collected Poems. Copyright © Estate of Philip Larkin.  Reprinted by permission of Faber and Faber, Ltd.

***

Thanks for reading!

Have a great week!

Karen

Haven't seen one of these in a while:
sightseeing bus by Dundas Square.

After I took this photo one morning while I was waiting for 

the Eaton Centre to open, a young woman standing nearby asked me if I was a tourist. I said "no." She explained that she thought I was because of my camera and what I'd just taken a picture of. I had nothing to add to that. And, as soon as she learned I was a local, I ceased to interest her.

There Will Always Be An England

Snapdragons

America needs to get over 9/11.

Now that I've said that, the lack of death threats in the comments section tells you that only a small number of people (who rarely comment) read this blog.

Twenty years after the only successful large-scale extra-national terrorist attack on US soil, America is sadder and more divided than ever, and large parts of the world are less stable, at least in part because of how America reacted to the attacks. 

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan entrenched hatred of America and killed tens of thousands of civilians in the Middle East, not to mention all the US soldiers and contractors, the Afghan military and police, members of the Taliban, aid workers and journalists - more than 170,000 people died. Because they were financed with debt, the wars will cost America more than $6 trillion by 2050.

And, on May 2, 2011, more than ten years ago, US forces murdered Osama Bin Laden.

But the revenge killing, the money and the carnage have proven not to be enough. On every anniversary, America feels the wound just as freshly, because not only the people in the buildings and the planes died that day.

Let me explain what I mean.

On the 5th of June 1940, gunned up on methamphetamines and pushing forward in the largest tank assault in history, the Germans began their campaign against France. On June 14, Hitler stood in Paris, triumphant. 

About France's stunning defeat, Frederic Beigbeder said in 2015, "Perhaps France died in 1940: their defeat against the Germans came after only eleven days, the country has never recovered from that humiliation."

Nations are just ideas. They are fragile. 

The tragic human deaths on 9/11 are not the point. Way more Americans have died lots of other violent and regrettable ways – killed by cars, guns, spouses, factory emissions. And America’s wars have killed orders of magnitude more people.

But there’s no satisfaction for the loss of the idea that once was America.

The only way over the humiliation is to move on. When nations remember the world wars, they don't use the moment to rekindle fury against the enemy. So honour the fallen, and build a better world. Stop trying to burn it down.

Thanks for reading.

Karen

Warhol Diary

For the first time in about ten months, we went to the AGO this week. 

They had an Andy Warhol show on, so, technically, it wasn't art, but we went anyway.

Warhol's wig.

Warhol's images on flat surfaces - his prints, his photos, his sketches - are not his greatest work. Actually, few of his works are great at all - not in terms of artistic skill or vision. He's no Mark Rothko. 

Warhol was a wannabe great artist whose ambitions were frustrated by the fact that he had no talent. But, like Syndrome in The Incredibles, he had the skills to mimic some of the superpowers of real artists, such as garnering fame. 

And like Syndrome, Warhol emulated those he admired so he could wreck it for everyone else. 

Bruce, unimpressed with the Warhol show.

Which he did.

The case for censorship: The Whitney Museum of American Art, 2017

Another case for censorship: The Whitney Museum of American Art, 2017

Thanks for reading!

Happy Labour Day long weekend!

Karen