I got to see an advanced view of My Winnipeg, last year’s biopic by the inimitable Guy Maddin, among friends this evening. It was a sad joy to watch.
Alternately claustrophobic and wide open, Winnipeg, the central character of the film, does a fancy dance with Maddin, its anti-hero. The film, constructed out of black and white, old and new, and real and unreal imagery, tells the comi-tragic life of the city as seen from a particularly wary set of eyes. The cold predominates throughout, snowflakes littering every scene and people (a.k.a. “sleepwalkers”) scuttle through the streets amidst piles of snow and ice, litter, and bright lighting from above. In almost every scene, a person inhabits the landscape, which is remote, flat, relatively ugly, and luscious at the same time.
Maddin describes my now almost-three-year experience here perfectly. It’s a pleasure to get out. Escape is nearly impossible but when it happens, a kind of weary joy sets in that is inexplicable. Yet, despite the grim complexity of leaving the city, it’s always a delight to come back to Winnipeg. Maddin implies that there is a double, magical set of tributaries beneath the main rivers, the Red and the Assiniboine, that cross near our home. The muddy rivers rock back and forth during spring, sometimes high and other times (like today) low, but they offer up a magic that’s hard to describe; perhaps Winnipeg’s being “Paris of the Plains” originates, in part, from the Seine-ish energy traversing the heart of the city.
And the city does have a heart or a few of them and I think Maddin showed this clearly. His city, and my adopted one, doesn’t wish to be anything other than what it is. It’s this lack of pretense, which can be found in other cities like Toronto or Los Angeles, that helps define Winnipeg for its inhabitants. Beyond friendly, Winnipeg lives as a place located, as Maddin indicates, in the center of the center. And like, Albany, where I lived many years ago, it’s close to everywhere but near nothing.
The movie, like all of Maddin’s movies, is romantically endowed and generous to those it critiques. The film goes so far as to criticize the city’s leaders and then wishes upon it a savior of sorts, a love for the world of which Winnipeg is a very small, cold part.
Oh, and the film is very funny, making light of the hard winters and the frozen landscape but also the odd, particular history of the city’s growth from places like Garbage Hill. It’s a loving tribute to a place that is easy to hate, easier to love, and humble to a fault.
All posts by Andrew Boardman
Bush Not Golfing.
President Bush really is the Chance Gardiner of the 21st century. He spoke recently to Mike Allen, a writer for Politico, and, incredibly, it seems that the President has made golf a primary personal sacrifice during his war in Iraq.
For the first time, Bush revealed a personal way in which he has tried to acknowledge the sacrifice of soldiers and their families.
“I don’t want some mom whose son may have recently died to see the commander in chief playing golf,” he said. “I feel I owe it to the families to be in solidarity as best as I can with them. And I think playing golf during a war just sends the wrong signal.”
Bush said he made that decision after the August 2003 bombing of the United Nations headquarters in Baghdad, which killed Sergio Vieira de Mello, the top U.N. official in Iraq and the organization’s high commissioner for human rights.
“I remember when de Mello, who was at the U.N., got killed in Baghdad as a result of these murderers taking this good man’s life,” he said. “I was playing golf — I think I was in central Texas — and they pulled me off the golf course and I said, ‘It’s just not worth it anymore to do.’”
It occurred to me the other day that, with the war in Iraq now six years old, it’s lasted almost longer than the Second World War, during which over 70 million people were killed between 1939 and 1945. President Bush can kindly argue that at least that many people didn’t die on his watch because of this war.
Winehouse.
I’m slowly but surely catching up on work lately. That does not mean that I’m at all caught up.
I attribute all of this to the dulcet-harsh tones of Amy Winehouse, who has just the most amazing pipes. Her “no, no, no” that greets me every time I start up Back to Black is reliably a “yes.”
Die Off.
Oil reached an all-time high today, at $122 per barrel, which is twice what it was one year ago.
A friend of mine introduced me to the unhappy world of Peak Oil and the suppositions that, soon, without oil, civilization will falter and fail. It’s a very unpretty picture that folks are painting but it’s not without its supporters (in government primarily) and those who believe it but can’t speak its name.
Anyway, if you’re at all curious, the one site that’s super gloomy but powerful is DieOff. I’m going to tread slowly on this territory but it’s interesting, to me, in particular because the signs of the related Olduvai theory are apparent. The bubble of reality that we all live in seems never so thin.
Postcript: I’m particularly curious about White’s Law, which Wikipedia argues:
For White “the primary function of culture” and the one that determines its level of advancement is its ability to “harness and control energy.” White’s law states that the measure by which to judge the relative degree of evolvedness of culture was the amount of energy it could capture (energy consumption). White differentiates between five stages of human development. In the first, people use energy of their own muscles. In the second, they use energy of domesticated animals. In the third, they use the energy of plants (so White refers to agricultural revolution here). In the fourth, they learn to use the energy of natural resources: coal, oil, gas. In the fifth, they harness the nuclear energy.
Flex.
I’m exceedingly boring these days. That’s why I haven’t posted very much on Deckchairs. And that’s why the stuff that I have posted (e.g. videos, fonts, etc.) is of little relevance to almost anybody but me and three other people. My boringnesss stems, at this time, from three factors: I am completely swamped with (great) design work for (great) clients, Passover was here, and the weather has been mildly better (except for today when we got, yes, about 1 inch of snow).
Just to keep this boring ball rolling a little longer, I saw this new car/SUV thing called the Flex today by Ford and it’s just lovely. It’s the car that I would want immediately if the following things weren’t simultaneously extant:
- The thing probably gets 14 mpg and gas is soon going to $5.00 and then probably $6.00 per gallon
- I have a family of three, not seven
- The car will probably cost $40,000 in Canada
What’s so cool about this vehicle? It looks like what we, as kids in the 70s, would have wanted all of our parents to have back then. Lots of space, wood paneling, long sidelines, round dials up front, a big sunroof, a long wheel base, and seating for seven. Check it out in black.
It almost makes me nostalgic for the days when gas was cheap, life was easier, wood was available, the sun wasn’t bad for you, and travel was fun. Oops, that’s what they wanted me to say.
Soho.
Happy Passover. It looks like typographer Sebastian Lester came out with Soho Gothic, a beautiful complement to his incredible Soho. Oooh, I need some money to buy these. About $1,500.00 is all.
Yelkrab Slrang.
It turns out that Gnalrs Barkley is giving away its whole album free, backwards and in one continuous track. You can download it from their crazy mini-site. It’s not bad.
Gnarls Barkley.
Everything looks better with Gnarls Barkley’s “Run (I’m a Natural Disaster)” – this was almost impossible to find as, seemingly, NBC has taken crazy steps to keep it off the Net.
This song and everything about it is brilliant.
[dailymotion id=x522re]
I’d be surprised if this is video is still around tomorrow.
Inky.
My cat of sixteen years passed away about four hours ago. It’s been nothing but difficult these past few hours. I’m filled with longing and hurt, and sadness, mostly. I loved Inky tremendously. He was with me through thick and thin, big and small – the birth of my daughter, the death of family members, the deliberations of relationships, and the demise of jobs. I feel like I was punched in the stomach right now, ready to throw up my memories and not willing to let them, or him, go.
He was born around October 31, 1992. He came to me through the window of my apartment in Albany, New York, where I was going to graduate school. In fact, he had already made a name for himself. The landlord upstairs told me about a cat and I expressed little interest. When he came around once and then twice, I took him in and kept him. And I’ve had him ever since, with the exception being when my then girlfriend took great care of him while I was studying in Poland.
He was a gorgeous friend. I spent the day with him, lying with him, holding him, petting him, trying to imagine what life would be like without him and I couldn’t. Now I can’t imagine what life was like with him. It’s as if the swinging doors of existence only swing one way. I find it so strange, so appalling, and so grotesque that I don’t know what to do with myself.
He had cancer for the past 10 months so, mostly in his paw. It led to a very circuitous track of looking for a vet that would help him and diagnose him correctly and act like they cared. In the end, I found that vet, and he administered the dose of drugs that gave him the lethal push into the ether.
I was with Inky all day, as a I said. He slightly resisted going into his cage before we left the house and, in the car, I looked back a few times to see his bright, green, lovely eyes looking at me. I think he knew what was happening, kind of. The cancer had gotten to his lungs and chest and he was wheezing and breathing heavily the past four days. Yesterday, he came downstairs to my office and let out two sounds I hadn’t heard before; they were something like a cry of pain and a call for help. I believe he was having trouble breathing coming down the stairs to see me. He plopped himself down and I attended to him. In the end, he was a supremely smart cat, often understanding what you said. He would wag his tail at me in approval today and he got up the energy to purr with me when I lied on his side with him.
But I have questions. Lots of questions. Did I put him down at the right time? Could it have been tomorrow? Was he really in pain and how much? Could it have two or three days from now? Why so soon? And why couldn’t we just hold on to him for a while?
More generally, why does all the literature say that feline euthanasia is painless (which I’m sure it was today) yet we don’t administer it to ourselves? Inky’s last tiny little meal was a bit of tuna from a Fancy Feast can. Did that animal who died to feed him suffer?
Even more generally, where is Inky right now? Is he in the stars as I imagine or in the nowhere that scares us all? What happened during his transition from here to there? Could I have done something, earlier in his life, to have prevented this from happening? What kind of world do we live in that this is what moves me?
I recognize that I’m grasping at many different straws here. This post is mostly an attempt at publicly acknowledging my grief, which is shared by my wife and child and others that knew and loved Inky. He was adorable. Sweet. Smart. Truly wonderful to behold, hug, and love.
Postscript: I found these two quotes to be helpful:
As to “ending his suffering” – one may and should do so as soon as the animal has no chance of recovery and is only suffering – (source: “Code of Jewish Law” E.H. 5:14).
Once an animal is dead, burial or cremation is permitted – (source: Exodus 22:30).
Help wanted.
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So, I posted this position today for a CSS developer at Authentic Jobs. If you know of anyone who might be applicable and who might want to apply, please send forward this to them? Thanks.
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Postscript: Help wanted was gained at The Royal Mint. Check out these beautiful, beautiful designs for the new coins by 26-year old Matthew Dent.