The Point

Friday, October 26, 2007

That Thing


Hee hee. I saw a magician last week.

If you`ve never had a chance to sit and be enchanted by Final Fantasy, I`d say it`s time you begun. Owen Pallett`s Polaris Prize-winning one-man act can only be described as pure and simple wizardry. The man is capable of spinning the most elaborate, heartbreaking, absurd, funny music out of thin air, right before your very eyes. He stands there with a violin, some equipment to loop his playing and his voice, and a piano. Behind him, his friend Steph makes wondrous pictures dance on a screen projector, of all things. And it works.

But the magic is that it`s all happening right in front of you. You can see all the elements before they`re struck. A bow, some strings. A microphone. And somehow he pulls out his golden needles and weaves it so densely, so delicately, you don`t even realise it before you`re wrapped up in a dirty little technicolour quilt. Oh yes, these are songs about massive genitals. And mistakes. And death by burning, and hope.

I thought about that evening a lot this weekend with the whole J K Rowling kerfluffle about announcing she`d always conceived of Dumbledore as a gay character. I read it, and I do not say a word of a lie, I just said `bullshit` for the next sixty seconds, over and over and over. And then I said it again. Did you say this? Tell me you said this.

It made me cringe to hear Wayson Choy gush in the Globe and Mail about how brave it was for her to 'out' him, about how wonderfully encouraging it would be for every child who ever picked up the books to see the world really is made of a wonderful rainbow of many colours. Bullshit. I read the seventh book. I got my hands on it in Yunnan, and in a city that probably has fewer English speakers than that book has pages. I read it cover to cover in a day, doing my best to shut out noisy intrusions like corn porridge, lychee vendors, and ancient Buddhist temples. There is not a whiff of homosexuality in Dumbledore's story there, fan fiction be damned. Of course fan fiction predicted this. It's a question of infinite, horny monkeys.

Rowling's coy, somewhat self-congratulating announcement of this little tidbit, months after the release of the last book, is completely disingenuous. If she really wanted to show kids that it doesn't matter if you're hetero, homo, poly, bi or house elf to be a great person, she should have put it in the bloody book. Subtext is great for a novel about disappointment, and growing up in Winnipeg and settling for an acceptable husband. Dim, obscure references to a young wizard's possible almost unspoken love do not, however, fall into the category of empowering literature for young readers. If the bloody thing was so important to understanding him, why not put it in the books? If it was better left out and interpreted on our own, then don't announce it three months later at Carnegie Hall. Honestly.

I'm reminded of Final Fantasy when I think of all this because of how casually and comfortably Owen Pallett talks about his own sexuality in his music. A love for boys doesn't automatically mean he has to wear purple disco pants and put pink flags all over everything. Sometimes it's okay just to talk about how all boys you've loved have been digital.

Real bravery this month? Alvaro Orozco. Dedicated The Point reader centavo mentioned him in an earlier post about a woman in a similar situation, Pegah Emambakhsh. Like Embakhsh, Orozco is facing deportation back to a country where he will face certain discrimination, fear, and the threat of violence for his sexuality. Unlike Emambakhsh, the country rejecting his application for refugee status isn't the UK government, it's our own.

The Canadian Immigration and Refugee Board has refused to grant him asylum on the grounds that it cannot be proved he will face discrimination if he is deported to his home country of Nicaragua, because... wait for it... they don't believe he's provided sufficient evidence that he's gay. Among their top beefs? A mysterious lack of sexual promiscuity whilst fleeing across the continent to seek asylum in Canada. Jesus. If you've got to have sex to define your sexuality now, where will that leave our dear Dumbledore?

He's not the only one recently rejected by the Immigration and Refugee Board, as gay rag Xtra reports surprisingly authoritatively here. I think the whole nature/nurture issue of being gay is a moot point. You don't have to be born a Christian to have the inherent human right to freedom from religious persecution. And you don't have to stick your tongue in every orifice that presents itself to have the right to freedom from persecution on the basis of your sexuality.

Typically, I'm going to link you to a petition to allow Orozco to stay in Canada. His deferred deportation date was supposed to be October 4th, but like Emambakhsh, he's currently in immigration limbo. Help him out, friends.

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posted by Christopher at 4:05 a.m. | link | 1 comments

Sunday, October 07, 2007

Losing my F.E.M.E. cherry

So I'm pretty excited. As you probably know, I'm a bit of an informed cynic about politics in general; enough faith in the systems to know what will be useful when we abandon them for something a lot better, but probably a political junkie the way other people like to watch famous people going to jail. Or train wrecks. Or something. Someone once told me Americans are benevolently uninformed about Canada, and Canadians are malevolently well-informed about the US. Along those lines.

But I kind of like being the nerd who goes to all-candidates forums and gives every one a fair, critical listen. It gives me some quiet pleasure to know I've actually taken the time to sit through 5 or 10 politicians talking out of their ass for an hour or two and will be making a reasoned, well-thought out decision never ever to vote for them. And this year, my friends, is my First Ever Municipal Election.

What does it feel like to lose my F.E.M.E. cherry? Well, for the first time ever I've put up a sign in my window for a candidate. Since they don't come in any partisan shades of orange or red or blue that say 'Here lives a socialist' or 'Here lives a fiscal conservative', I felt genuinely and 100% confident about taking out some scotch tape and fidgeting with my (not very hard-earned) down-cyclable sign for Mr Lewis Cardinal, Ward 4. Ain't Edmonton great? Lewis is smart, passionate, talks about social justice and sustainability that makes it easy to see he gets his talking points from his convictions, not the other way around, and to make it even juicier, his brother is Lorne Cardinal, the guy from Corner Gas. How awesome is that?

But we get two votes for City Council round these parts, and right now it looks like my other vote is leaning toward either Hana Razga or Ben Henderson. Initially, I was willing to discount Ben altogether because his signs were out so suspiciously early and conspicuously, but he had some very reasonable, intelligent things to say at the forum last Thursday. Unfortunately, he should have been roundly beaten by Hana, who has many ideas along the same track in a more well-thought out way. Some that are even pretty ambitious. I like that.

She didn't win that forum, though. Not by a long shot. Despite a number of ideas I could get behind, she's not a very compelling speaker (or, at least, not in that kind of environment). It's possible to chalk this up to the extremely, humiliatingly poor attendance of about 30 in the Myer Horowitz. Issues about our sham mislabelling of ourselves as an informed electorate aside though, she just doesn't have the buzz to get a seat right now.

So. With a week and and a bit to go til the polls on October 15th, I ponder... should I get involved in a campaign? For a candidate I believe in? In a system I don't believe in? I'm tempted by the opportunity to do so without having to hear people's minds shut down once they hear the words 'conservative,' or 'liberal,' or 'separatist gunshot-toting baby-hating plague-bearers.' But should I really get mixed up in who wins Monopoly when I'd rather we look ahead to Twister and Jenga?

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posted by Christopher at 6:28 a.m. | link | 0 comments

Wednesday, October 03, 2007

Slim

For those of you still dropping by on this little blog about books and freedoms looking for more information about Ross Moroz's death last week, hello. I would add that I wish we could have met under better circumstances, but perhaps no other circumstances would have brought us together.

The funeral was apt. His sister spoke very eloquently about what kind of man he was, and wanted us to be. A few notes rang untrue, to my ears, in other parts of the ceremony, but then I guess none of us really knew the whole Ross. If you haven't heard, his alleged underground campaign to make Four Strong Winds Alberta's provincial anthem goes on strong.

[Edit: Aiya. This isn't a tabloid, thanks for the reminder, Misha. To clarify for readers: yes, he did fall. No, I do not know how or why.] I just never really imagined using a venue for my rantings on novels and photo contests and climate change to talk about the stuff that I can't hide behind witty banter to avoid being too intimate about. I'm not shy to admit pageviews to this thing have gone up about 1000% in the last few days. But there are other places he'll be written about. Places where you'll have a better chance to hear Teenage Wasteland again.

Probably the last you'll hear about our friend on here, then. For those of you who missed the service, it was a full room. Standing room only, yes. But filled with many other things too.

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posted by Christopher at 3:48 a.m. | link | 7 comments

Monday, October 01, 2007

Closer

For those of you who ever met Ross Moroz, it is with difficulty and a good deal of sadness that I would like to let those of you who haven't heard know that he died suddenly and inconceivably last Wednesday. If you haven't heard about him before, you've probably read me writing obliquely about him in this blog before. For the year or so I've been doing freelance work for Vue, he's been my editor, but he was many things to me, and most of all one of the most surprising good friends I know, knew... I'm no good with tenses, forgive me.

Last year we were at Remedy talking about writing, and I asked if he would mind helping me put together a few samples of my stuff to send to See, since they'd been looking for writers (specifically, they had put out an ad [which I may still have] that said 'Yeah, you've got a blog. But we've got an audience.') He said 'Fuck that. Write something for us.'

Ross had a way of encouraging with a sharp kick in the ass that I needed. I cannot really comprehend yet that he's gone. I wish I could tell you more, but I can't.

His obituary is online here, and in his picture he's wearing the tie he wore the very first day we met. It was a hard day to forget, like every day with Ross. A funeral, a 'celebration,' as it's being called is being held for him this Tuesday, October 2nd at Devon Community Center, 20 Haven Ave, (East of IGA) in Devon at 4:00 pm. [Edit: If you were wondering, yes, all are welcome.] His family's asked that in lieu of flowers, donations can be made to Kidsport Alberta - 403.217.3761.

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posted by Christopher at 12:51 a.m. | link | 6 comments
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