Working alone (fiction)

He steps back and cleans the knife on his left pant leg. Fishes in the left pocket of his heavy cotton weave coveralls for the whetstone. Spits on it, and slowly hones the blade. Finishing with the knifeblade, he looks at the hide now more than halfway peeled back, smiles, and stretches his back. It’s midmorning and he’s confident now that he can finish the work on his own.

Before dawn, the cool autumn air biting, he’d walked out with trepidation. It had been on his mind for more than a month, that this day, a date he’d set on his own as the target, the day he’d set aside for this job, was coming, and he dreaded it. Knowing there was no way around it really, but as rose from their bed, passed the open door of the boy’s room, he made coffee in the dark quiet of the still sleeping house. Then he stepped into the dark of the morning, and set himself to the work.

Relentless in his method he began and carried through each of the steps he’d laid out in his mind day after day for thirty days before. It was going to work. He believed it. Had gotten the tools and gear together: hooks, chains, ropes, saws, and of course, the knives. Especially the knives. In fact he’d spent a day with old man Heinrichs down the road a few miles learning how best to sharpen a knife. And how often to hone it, to keep the edge, and what was sharp, but not too sharp, which could do more damage sometimes. A misstep with a too-sharp blade could cause irrevocable damage, damage that, were he not working alone, could be managed. But he was going to do this solo. Was going to prove he could, to himself, to his family, to the neighbours.

And right now, at midmorning, the sun still climbing in the wan blue southeastern sky, with the body hanging half-skinned from the loader for anyone driving by to see, he turns and bends to wash his hands in the warm pink water of the wash bucket, adjusts his toque, takes up the once again sharp knife, smiles to himself and anyone else who might be watching, and sets to work again carefully working his way around the body, peeling back the hide reveal the cream-coloured fat and membranes, and beneath this the ruddy, still-warm muscle.

The work absorbs him again, so much that he fails to notice the boy come up and stand behind him to watch. So much that, when bent over, a fly lands on his neck, he doesn’t think to look, he just swipes at it with his right hand, still holding the knife. So intent, and the knife so sharp, that he hardly notices the resistance as the blade meets living flesh. The flesh of his flesh.

A side of beef anyone?

Well I learned something today, and here's what (actually I watched it, and helped with some of it, which doesn't mean I learned it, it means I know more about how this happens than I did before, and I actually have some idea of how to do a few of the steps in the process): how to kill a steer, bleed it, skin it, gut it, quarter it, and hang it to season.

1 - Killing
You shoot it in the head, preferably with a .22 cal. bullet right behind the ear. The animal needs to be tame/docile  for you to be able to do this, because you will need to have it eating and head down. Then you can just walk up to it, since it knows you and is okay with having you walk up to it, and very specifically aim and fire the rifle. If all goes well the animal will drop senseless as the bullet causes a massive malfunction in its brain, but the heart will continue to beat. Then you move to the next step: bleeding. If the animal is not tame, as was the case with the ones I watched and worked on today, then you may need a high-powered rifle (we used a .270 cal) because you will be at more of a distance and you will have to introduce the slug to the steer's brain from a less than ideal angle. (The steers we killed today were virtually wild. They had, apparently, been that way since they were delivered. By wild I mean that, although they were in a fenced in pasture, they would not eat feed out of a human's hand, in fact if most humans would come near them, they would run away. This is not so bad except that, at about 1200 pounds, and with little discretion over what one runs into, or how hard one runs into (or over) it, at slaughtering time the animal becomes dangerous.)

2 - Bleeding
Once the steer is down you need, with a sharp knife, to slit its throat to have it bleed out. You have to do this immediately so that the still beating heart will pump the blood out. Amazingly, it does. For a 1200 pound steer this will take a few minutes. In the cool autumn air the animal steams out of its mouth, throat, and anus as this happens. It looks like it's smoking. It looks like its life is leaving - vapourizing right there before you.

3 - Skinning
To do this you first skin the rear legs beginning below the "knee" about a foot up from the hoof. You cut into the skin, get your knife blade under it, and make a slit, Then you girdle the leg and begin to separate the hide from the carcass. Once you have the two hind legs done, you'll need a tractor with a front end loader, or some other means to lift the carcass. You'll take steel grappling hooks, and hook the carcass through the cartilage and tendons on the legs that you've skinned, and then you'll lift the entire body by the hind legs, so that it is off of the ground, suspended. You'll need a ladder to continue the skinning, because you now you will work down from the hind legs, toward the anus (which are now considerably higher because they have been lifted by the tractor's front end loader), at which point, although the skinning process continues on down the carcass, the gutting process begins.

4 - Gutting    
Beginning at the anus you separate the digestive tract from the outside and inside of the carcass. This requires knowledge of how a body is "built" and a some care, as you don't want to puncture any of the gut. It'll smell, and that acidy stomach sh** can taint the meat. So you cut out the anus (which will whisper sweet nothings to you) and begin to free the guts. You tie off the urethra to keep it from leaking. You'll need a saw (a large, coarse-bladed hacksaw works best) to cut through the pelvis so that you can separate the hind quarters and work your way down. You'll be doing this while standing on a ladder. Once you've freed the guts from the hindquarters, you'll move down to the neck where, once the hide is free you'll cut off the head. The most challenging part here is finding the spot at which to sever the vertabrae. It's not that difficult actually. Once the head is off, you'll clean out the tissue around the esophagus and trachea and then make a cut into the (already skinned) carcass along the breastbone (sternum). Once you have a cut from the bottom of the sternum right through the neck, you'll need the saw again, to cut the sternum and separate the front quarters (do this carefully as you, again, will want to keep from puncturing the guts, which are now down in the chest and throat of the carcass). When the breastbone is cut, you'll be able to pull apart the front quarters and continue to separate (using a knife) the guts from the ribcage. When the guts have been completely freed, they will just tumble out. There will be a lot of "material" - a lot!

5 - Quartering
Now you lift the carcass, still hooked (quite literally) to the tractor's front-end loader, and drive it near the place (garage, or some other building equipped to hand meat indoors - to keep the coyotes, etc. away from it) in which you will season and store it. In our case, this was a garage on the yard next door. Once the tractor and the carcass are near the "hanging" spot, you cut the carcass lengthwise, from the back, using a saw of some kind (we used a long blade on a reciprocating saw), sawing it down its backbone until it is in two sides. Then you cut those two sides into quarters at the gap between the second and third rib (from the hind end).

6 - Hanging
When you cut the bottom quarter free you must have two-ish ready and able people already holding it (embracing it really) and prepared to carry the weight of it (roughly 200 pounds) and walk it into the storage site wherein, via ropes or hooks, you hang the meat. We used ropes, which means that we punctured the quarter well below the cutting line and fed a rope through the hole, which was used, together with a hook, to hang the piece. The two carriers take the quarter into the building and someone on a ladder takes the rope and hook and attaches it to a hook/hanging system in the roof of the building.

Thus the quarter will hang for a time (at least 10 days) to season. After this amount of time the interested parties will reconvene cut (butcher) the carcasses and package the meat for freezing, and eventually for the barbeque or oven. A more detailed description of this process will come on November 11.

So, about tomorrow ...

I did what I could.
I tried to stay decent.
What more do you ask?
What more can I give?














The ride in:        Temp 1'C Wind NW 20 ks
The ride home:  Temp 5'C Wind NW 15 ks

Owning it.

"A Wind of Change"
oil on wood
by chris buzelli

It's been windy these last few days. Really windy. On our summer canoe trip we, with our travelling companions, talked about the ancients and their understanding that everyone was more connected to, or identified with, one of the four elements: Earth, Wind, Water, Fire. They began to identify themselves based on which of the four they found, literally, most attractive. Sandi was water, because she loves to swim. Margruite was fire, because she's loves to build them, and is good at it. Ron was earth, because he's a gardener. Which left me with wind (or air), because I'm full of it!? Sigh.

Today I didn't ride. The wind was howling at 50 to 70 ks from the North, and three miles with that kind of a side wind, on wet pavement, is just not reasonable. So I shirked, and drove in with Bekah, and then caught a ride home with Marion.

Here's the thing (love that phrase): if I'm wind (air), why do I hate it so? Am I that wildly, and constantly, conflicted and at war with myself? Every morning I listen to the weather and hope for a reasonable wind report. By this I mean not only a report of windspeed, but of direction. You would not believe how many times a city-based reporter will assume that reporting wind direction is unnecessary. At least that's what I'm concluding from their haphazard attitude to it. I guess the currents created by the buildings of a city make the direction of the wind unnecessary. Even so, wind direction is an indicater of the weather to come. Generally a West wind will be a drying wind, and in winter this means that weather will likely stabilize, even warm up. An East wind however, usually indicates coming precipitation, and some sort of weather event. Similarly, a South wind, especially if it's a SouthEast wind, will likely bring some sort of change in the weather with it. And a North wind cools things.

When I'm riding my bane is the wind. A big head or side wind can stretch a 20 minute ride into 35 or 40 minutes, and have the near opposite effect if it's a tail wind. I've really worked, these last few years, at seeing the winds as my "mountains". Since there aren't many hills around here to exert yourself climbing, you can see a strong wind as a big hill, and as an opportunity to strengthen your legs. So, especially on my rides to and from work, where the length of the ride is quite short, I'll work as hard as I can for those miles into a stiff wind. I'm trying to embrace my "windness" I guess. I'm trying to own it, to use it. Maybe that's what this blog is about too.

The beginning of winter weather ...

Mash-up #38
Gouache on Panel 
Image 14.5" x 16"
2007 
jjasonstewart

... requires some excellent amusement.

Please check out these mashups. Stayin' Alive in The Wall and Thunder Busters!

The ride in:           Temp 6'C Wind N 30 ks (rain)
The drive home:     Temp 10'C Wind N up to 50 ks (rain) - I took a ride home with Bekah.

Altered to CMA

I've altered this post in order to CMA. Sorry for the inconvenience.

The ride in:         Temp 8'C Wind SE 15 ks
The ride home:    Temp 9'C Wind SE 15 ks with rain

Lenin's Embalmers & Please Give

People die. In both of these shows. That's one thing they have in common. People expect more than they get. In both of these shows. That's another thing they have in common. On Saturday we went to the Winnipeg Jewish Theatre to watch Lenin's Embalmers, a play written by Vern Thiessen, based on a novel of the same name, which has had a reasonable run off-Broadway in New York. And it seems to be having a decent run in Winnipeg too. Tonight we watched Please Give a movie written and directed by Nicole Holofcener. That's another thing they have in common; we watched them on consecutive nights.

Please Give, set in New York, is the story of Kate and Alex, high end used furniture sellers who, together with, Abby, their daughter, are waiting for the old woman living in the next door apartment to die, because they've bought the place and intend to expand their own space into it. Mary and Rebecca, granddaughters of the old woman, Andra, care for her and, over time develop a relationship with the Kate and Alex and Abby. By the time Andra dies, there's been a dinner party, an affair, and several facials (Mary works at Skintology). Lenin's Embalmers retells the true story of the embalming of Lenin, on the orders of Stalin. The two reluctant embalmers, Jews, gain fame and comfortable positions, but ultimately they are undone, as the paranoic Stalin can't abide anyone who might know too much.

Both shows involve waiting for the dead. They both involve waiting for purpose too. The characters in these pieces, all of them except Stalin and the dying grandmother (who are both nuts), don't really know what they want and, to take it a step further, they don't seem to know why they want something. But they do. Whatever it is they're doing with their lives, it isn't enough. They can't just "go with it". In some cases this desire for something more facilitates good decisions - Kate gives away money to street people and tries volunteering at various places in order fill the gap. In most cases though, this desire to answer the nagging doubt, leads toward self-destruction.   Whether the characters are able to avert this or not, is not the point I'm interested in. What seems to be in evidence in these shows is that pursuit of purpose and meaning on a grand sort of scale is rife with troubles. However, when one can allow the close, intimate moments to be sustaining, in themselves, there seems to be the possibility of redemption of the time spent.

Can we rise above the big questions by ignoring them? By willfully moving from one day to the next, from one moment to the next, making the best of each one, of each relationship, or each interaction? Can we do this without some sense of trajectory? And if we need trajectory, how can we look long and follow it without tripping on the things right in front of us? The answers in these pieces seems to be that, however it works, the satisfaction comes in the short, immediate, moments, not in grand prizes or in long-term plans or hopes.

Luddites don't know what they're talking about

There's an article by Will Braun in the latest Canadian Mennonite in which he worries about what online social groupings might do to churches. He raises the spectre of the Luddites as a part of his discussion. In general Will is an alarm-ringer, so I like his style (I like to ring them bells now and again myself), but I have to admit that my ears are becoming tired of some loud noises.

I'd like to be a Luddite. I really would. I like their story. I'd like to foresee the future and realize that I have to smash the looms in order to save my job for the work of my hands. But the thing about Luddites is that they don't know. Sure they know about what they have, and what they do, now. What they don't know, what they deliberately don't experience, is the thing they condemn. And that's problematic.

Tonight I had a Skype conversation with one of my kids. For more than 20 minutes I could watch her as we talked (I have yet to get a webcam, but she has one built-in to her machine), and I could help her solve a computer difficulty on her laptop because Skype offers a feature that lets you share screens. I could actually see the thing as she was seeing it. And further, you know, we could talk like we were in the same room. I could lean back in my chair, she could move the camera around her dorm room and show it to me, we could laugh, we could be with each other.

I have had my concerns about the mediated nature of these sorts of interactions - that we're always in some way masked off from one another. But what that worry overlooks is the ability, indeed the likelihood, of the human soul to transcend the maskedness of a Windows- or Mac-screened environment. I'm saying that I felt like I was with Sara. As far as I can tell, I was with her. It was a real experience. In the last days of a now-deceased friend, she and her family used Skype to stay in touch with close friends who were thousands of miles away. I'm sure this is happening often. While Sara and I were having our conversation, over thirteen million other people were doing the same thing on Skype. And there are many other similar applications over which people are connecting through the "web". Is this a bad thing? If these people are, generally, having positive and enriching experiences with one another, isn't that on the whole wonderful?

If the soul is spirit, can it not transform these devices into something other than the sum of their parts? Isn't this the trap the Luddites misread? They still thought of themselves in economic terms. They valued the work of their hands more than the work of the machines because their concern was that they might be replaced. But one cannot replace human beings, one is more likely (for this argument at least) to confine or free them. In a sense the looms were freeing them. Of course we need to, and can, guard against a matrixesque sort of freedom, but who can say that, say, the technology of the telephone (pre-cellphones) was detrimental? Who wants to go back to the telegraph? Who knows morse code?

The reality of human experience and consciousness is that it moves and shifts and builds apparatus to help it along. That's what we do. That's also what we are. That's our ongoing adaptation. Our evolution. And as such I think we're going to have to go with it.

Ride in:          Temp 7'C Wind NW 15 ks
Ride home:    Temp 10'C Wind WNW 15 ks

Altered to CMA

Photo by Thomas Young

I've altered this post in order to CMA. Sorry for the inconvenience.

I did leave this picture of the Apollo Deelite in order to prompt your memory (if the original was in any way memorable).

Friday, Saturday, Sunday

I've fallen behind. Here's the update:

Rolling my own while
waiting to beat the kids.
(photo: Dave Sawatzky)
 

Sunday (Oct 17) was Southern Cross day. It was grand. It was fun. It was hard. It was frustrating. I'd like to do it again.

It started out with the competition being a little, well, little. They let me be the pace car for the kids. Some called it a good warm-up, some thought it was my underhanded attempt at getting onto the podium. Suffice it to say, that as far as results were concerned, it was the best part of the day. And my chain didn't come off once. Even though earlier in the day, on a practice run, it did come off, and I bent it (yes, I bent the chain) beyond repair. So I ran over to Back Alley (Bruce keeping it conveniently open on the Lord's day) and we put on a new chain, but we put it on a little loose. It seemed fine at the time, but would prove otherwise later.

Labouring after a climb.
(photo: Dave Sawatzky)

In fact, the chain was at least three links too long. So, while I felt great riding, and really liked the course, the chain came off about six times over the course of the 30 minute, plus one lap, race (4 laps total, the course was pretty long). To be fair, I was a little too aggressive in an attempted pass on a downhill, on the first lap (trying to work my way up through the pack) and ended up flipping my ass into the air and then landing sideways across the track. I got out of the way as quickly as I could, put the chain back on, and then tried to catch up. Which I think I could have done, except for my chain. I'll spare you the details. It smacks a little of blame shifting. I should have seen that it was too loose from the beginning. I should have done another practice lap, during which it would have come off, which would have cued me in to the problem. I should have stopped in the pits to shorten the chain. I did none of those things. I soldiered on and cursed wildly every time it came off (most often on the bumpy descents). So it goes indeed. I learned a lot about dismounting technique and carrying the bike and finished in the middle of the pack, again.

The day after, despite the road rash (from the crash - I banged up the left knee, which was the knee I broke a few years ago) I feel like I want to race again! But I also feel like it would be good to upgrade equipment. All in all it was a great time.

Saturday (Oct 16) I spent the day recovering from a great night catching up with Sean Braun. By late morning I was good to go, so I fired up the chainsaw and set about taking down a maple that had half blown over in a storm. Once I'd sawed through it almost completely, I couldn't push it over. So pulled it down with the truck. What would we do without the truck?!

We went into the city for a Polish supper and photographic extravaganza at Ron and Sandi's. Poland it a stunning part of the world! Green rolling hills and great architecture.

Friday (Oct 15) evening Sean Braun came down and we celebrated his success in securing a couple of grants to work on his Masters in English. It was a good late night around the fire!

A re-image

Is this a new phrase? Does it make sense? How? What does it mean? Today my computer was "re-imaged." It took twenty minutes. After that, all things were new. Well, redone. The machine was still ostensibly unchanged in appearance. Sure there were fewer icons on the desktop (Let's not start talking about "icons" or "desktops" - anyone who says computers aren't symbolic ... well that may be, but humans seem only able to describe these things in symbolical "point of reference" sorts of ways. Which is just fine, if we could only learn to see the whole computer "environment" as symbolic (We call it virtual, but I don't think we think symbolically enough about it.)), but otherwise it was the same black plastic machine, with a blue screen background.

But it had been re-imaged. Literally, I suppose, this means that somewhere in the ones and zeroes packaged on the school server, there was a collection of sequences that, when applied to my machine, or any computer machine in reasonable shape, would wipe it clean, and then reset it, like the pins on a bowling lane? Ready for another frame. The words are failing. I feel like I've done something concrete and irreparable, but the frames of reference are so malleable, so ethereal.

And yet there's evidence, for me, that is immediately obvious. Things work faster. It feels leaner, smarter. There is room. There is no data. There are fewer (much fewer) programs. So I set about re-stocking the shelves: my music file, my school files, my personal files. Then I refurbish the workings of the machine: Office software, anti-virus program, Design software, utility software, web browsers.

If I would try to reference this change - this re-working, this new "image" - to myself ten or so years ago, it would be some kind of challenge. The words we use to discuss the everyday goings on about our workspace machines and our recreation accoutrement have shifted and morphed right under our fingers. Can an icon be an icon anymore? What else can I re-image, if I can re-image my laptop?
    

You get better sometimes

I'm anticipating a computer meltdown. Well, I'm hoping to cool it off before it gets that extreme, but even as I write I'm backing up the files I value onto our external harddrive, because I know that in a day or so someone's going to suggest, if it isn't me, that my computer needs a rebuild. Bad vibes emanate from computers just like they do from people, you just have to learn to read them. Right now I'm getting bad vibes from my "little man" (how else shall I refer to it, "she"?) that he's tired, sick, maybe infected. I've run some tests, but the doc may say that he needs surgery.

I'm not going to get into it - maybe it was a bad website, a stray USB drive, an errant email opened. Call me calloused, call me jaded, but you just have to resign yourself to these things. As a non-mac, non-apple kind of guy (I also don't eat at MacDonalds, or shop at Wal-Mart either, and yes I do put Apple computers and their lurid come-on that they'll "do it all for you ... right out of the box" to get you lusting after and addicted to a product that simply requires that you subject yourself to its whims and directions, and then all will be well, even as you get dumber and dumber and fatter and fatter and fill your house with mounds of plastic crapola that you'll end up dropping off in the back alley of the MCC store, driving away feeling self-righteous in a guilt-ridden sort of way) I value these moments as reminders that technologies, the things we make to help us, will fail, and that I have the power and control, if I understand the signs and symptoms, to manage that process and start again. (Not that I really admire Microsoft, but you have to choose your devil, and these days I'm a lot more impressed with Bill Gates and his generosity than I am with Steve Jobs and his "if you've got a problem with one of our machines you didn't have to buy it" stiffness.)

Ultimately I am the one who is responsible for how this all works out. Sure the machine may fail, but all machines do. And it may be the most dangerous ones that take the longest to fail, because they'll take over. (Not as in The Matrix take over, but as in the "wow, the machine was doing that for so long that I totally forgot how to do that and now, when I want to do it, I can't, because the machine was doing it for me ..." kind of taking over.)

Over the last couple of days two articles have been circulating where I work. One is about how a school stupidly got itself into an ethical mess when a student used a webcam inappropriately, and the other tells of a school in which an English teacher convinced a couple of his classes to fast from technology for four days. These articles appear to present polarized views about what to do with all the gear we're currently using - fear it, for it will harm us, or run from it, and return to the past - but they really end up in the same place: the technology takes the blame. The technology takes the apple.

I'm trying to understand this tension between the stunning advantages technology offers, and the soul-sucking morass we could eddy into. The way I'm getting better at it is to make sure that the technology I use isn't too good. That it needs me. That I need to understand it. Listen to it. Help it along sometimes. I want to resist the lazy impulse to let it do it for me, even when it does it better. There's no art in that. No tension. No resistance. I need to feel the resistance. It helps me feel like I'm working. It helps me get better.

I'm sure he won't mind

Exit Through the Gift Shop is ridiculous. You should watch it. Just don't ask me how.

One funny thing

I'm trying to write down one funny thing that happened today for which to be thankful. Well, okay, I'm trying to recall something funny enough to tell, that you'll waste your time reading it. This is pretty tough work, but here goes.

We're in Donwood Manor in Winnipeg. That's where my Dad and Margaret (my stepmom) live. He's 90. She's 92. Talk of Alzheimers is in the air, especially from them! We've just had our visit, and they're off to the dining room for their supper. We head out to the car and Margruite says that she forgot her bag inside their apartment. So I head back in to the dining room, get the key from Dad, head up to the apartment, find the bag, relock the apartment, and take the key back to Dad in the dining room. All's fine. Then I head out down a windowed hallway, the windows line an inner courtyard, and a woman wearing blue polyester slacks and a white ribbed mock turtleneck short-sleeved sweater is ahead of me, and she's stopped at one of the windows waving at someone. Her hair is nearly completely white. She looks like she's in her middle late 70s. As I pass her I note that there's no one on the other side of the windows. She sees me slow up, so she turns to me and says "Is that my husband out there? Cause if it is I should know about it." To which I reply, "I don't know, I don't recognize him. But I think that's fair. You probably should." And she smiles and keeps walking. I'm ahead of her now, but conscious of the doorways I'm opening and closing and a little concerned about whether or not she's going to follow me out, and whether or not that would be a good thing to have happen. But I reassure myself that if she's an escape risk she'll have one of those electronic units on her that will cause an alarm at the door to go off, and one or both of us will not be able to open the door until someone on staff shows up. I keep going, through one set of doors (I push the "Push to Open" button to hopefully activate any alarm that should go off) and there's no warning. I arrive at the next set of doors just ahead of another lady who looks like she's been visiting and it about to go, so I feel a little less than totally responsible for what happens next, so I push the next "Push to Open" button and head through. She (the visitor) follows me. And so does the woman who sees her husband (she thinks) when there's no one there. Well okay, I think to myself; no alarm, no concern from the other woman (who, to be fair, has not seen the lady wave at nothing, and ask about her husband), I'm in the clear. Right?

I don't know. You know what? I left the building. I said to myself that that woman perhaps needs a little fresh air. Maybe a little walk will do her good. So I walk through the parking lot to our car. I look back to the entrance I've just walked out of, and I don't see her anywhere. I tell myself that she didn't come out after all. I tell myself that if I was old and had Alzheimers, or dementia, I'd just want to do what I'd want to do. Is that fair? I don't know.

endings ... hmmm

We watched A Single Man tonight. It's a poignant love story, and a meditation on life, and what makes it worth living. Whether you end up drawing the same conclusions as the film is beside the point. The insights offered stand regardless of the heavy-handed work at the end of this one.

Colin Firth plays George Falconer, an English English professor living in Los Angeles since WW2. He's forlorn over the death of his lover of sixteen years. We catch him at the beginning of, as he puts it, "a very big day." He intends to commit suicide. As we observe his meticulous preparations (he sets out his funeral suit, with the instruction to tie the tie in a full Windsor knot) we also see that his life is rich with people and possibilities that he seems unwilling to recognize. He lives in this wonderful house, he has great style, and his students, at least one of them, seem to care about him.

In fact, when that one student takes the initiative, it breaks him out of his woe and self-pity. He looks out at the orange moon, coloured by the smog of the city, and is reminded, visually, of an earlier character's comment that even ugly circumstances can bring about beautiful results. So he sees the possibilities again, puts away the gun, burns the notes, and gets ready to continue his life.

Why then (Spoiler alert! (This is for you, Lois!) I feel I can't complete this comment on the film without referring to the ending ) must we still kill him off with a heart attack? It's an old, sentimentalist, and hacked device intended to approach "tragedy" but I find it weak and cheap. In fact it's a kind (the worst kind) of Christian ending: He's had his Damascus Road experience, he can see clearly now, so it's time to take him home to his maker, or in this case, to his dead lover (who appears in order to provide the bookend to the opening scene). In this situation, the more brave, less sentimental way to confront this is to allow the man to keep on struggling. We know that the clarity of his revelation will be tested. We know that he'll run out of gas again and lay out the suit, with the notes. We know that just because you stave off that mortal impulse, that it will return.

Everything in this film is well-set, until the ending yanks the table-cloth. To provide this escape hatch via a massive, unforeseen heart attack constitutes a shirking of the challenge of any work of serious fiction to examine and imagine anew the truth of what it is to live and love and yet to know that the brightness of the present moment will fade into the ugliness and smog of the next.

A good chaser/companion to this film would be the Coen brothers A Serious Man. And then of course, The Big Lebowski, if not just to reset the lane.

Another early ride home

These shots are taken between 12 and 12:30 AM after a night of ABESing. It was a gorgeous night. Around 10'C and no wind really.

Leaving town (12 ish AM)

Getting passed on Hwy 30 

On 421 approaching the lights of home

Approaching home

Getting closer

David got the best and the worst of the ride tonight. Check out the ABES blog for details. There's nothing like a header in the dark of night to get a grown man to moan "yes yes" to the question, "Should we call 911?"

Identity as game, as play

I've got a theory. Of course I do. So here goes. 

If you're over forty, your sense of how information technology and the media work is, let's say, "old school conventional." That is, you believe that one's identity is singular. When you send a letter, start a bank account, make a phone call, send an email, update your facebook, tweet on twitter, comment on someone's blog post, or respond to a telemarketer, you are you. In your world your identity is, in theory, if not in practice, indivisible - seamless from one platform to another.   

If you're under thirty, your sense of the same is, let's say, "fluid." That is, you see identity as multi-faceted. You may start a bank account with your "conventional" SIN identity, but you'll create multiple web presences using a range of aliases. You'll frequently change your picture avatar on facebook, and on any other social sites you frequent. You will do this not so much because you wish to deceive, but because you see yourself as a player in a game, as though changing from the thimble monopoly piece to the horsey one is no big deal, because it isn't. In your world your identity is, in practice, mutable and "in play." It's a part of the game called "Let's be ... whatever!" These changes are like roles you take on, like an actor on a stage. You determine your identity based on the social platform (the game) you are on. This is, in a way, also how you manage your privacy. Some people will know you as x on facebook, others as y on DeviantArt, still others as z on Tumblr, and so on. While there may be some co-mingling between platforms, only those you truly trust will have access to enough information about your roles (identities) to know you as a "multiple-presence." 

When the over-40 set, the "old-school conventionals" (OSC), observe the "fluid" nature of the younger set, they seem to get upset about it. This is, I think, because conventional identity is still the reigning paradigm of their work world. For example, when you create an account on LinkedIn they say they will help you "control your professional identity online." The idea is that you are representing that singular OSC ID "out there." Indeed, occasionally a member of the "fluid" younger set makes a grievous error in judgement (a la Kevin Colvin, etc.) and it hits the news (also run by OSCs) and gets spun to make it look as bad as possible. On the whole though,  this confuses things, instead of helping us understand what's happening as a result of the networking possibilities provided to us today. Yes, Kevin Colvin and those like him, who do not manage their identities well, and who don't understand that they still need to work in the world of the OSCs, should pay for their stupidity. It's funny when they get caught. It's their own fault. They should suffer the consequences of this ignorance. 


Indeed their situations should be cautionary tales for the younger set: helpful reminders that most of the people you meet in the real world live and work under the OSC assumption that identity is singular and indivisible. You have to manage this in their world, or you will hurt for it. However, on balance, the nature of public identity (and private?) appears to be in flux. Whether it's gaming or social sites or simply identifying yourself when you comment on an online news article, we are playing with who we are depending on the context. We are switching. We are renaming. And we're naive to think that when we rename, we don't re-identify. 


Frankly, I've always had roles to play: father, son, husband, teacher, friend, enemy, coach, whatever. But these roles have been more or less generic in form and when I enter into my "son" role I know what the rules are. These identity shifts, or the new roles I'm wondering about here are those in which I shift or morph my named self, my core "Paul" self, into something new, that doesn't necessarily fit into one of the generic categories. You can watch this happening out there; it occurs on all social platforms. Who is Stephen Colbert really? Who is Lady Gaga? Why are these two successful media figures able to manage their private lives? Why are Brittney Spears and Lindsay Lohan in such mortal trouble? Because Colbert and Gaga are "ID fluid," and Spears and Lohan are relatively "ID rigid." They're being too "old school" about who they are. They haven't done a Gaga, who has made (and continues to make) multiple avatars of herself to negotiate this strange new virtual planet we're creating. 

Just for fun I predict a Justin Bieber (a young OSCer?) epic-fail on the scale of Tiger Woods (who also couldn't manage his multiple vs his rigid (ouch!) identities). Bieber's ID is too static and he is being managed, it would seem, by money hungry OSCers who likely don't care what it will look like to be Bieber when he's 20, much less 40. If he need's privacy, and he's only got his "Bieber" ID, how's that going to work? How will he be able to restart the game, if he can't change his gamepiece?

Does this make any sense to you? 

It becomes his thing

Every Sunday he puts something, some sort of food item, usually vegetables, but it could be fruit, or loaves of bread, or buns, or muffins, or a single raisin butter tart for people to fight over. He makes some of it - the muffins and butter tarts - but most of it he buys on Tuesday, or some other day, from the Thrift Store. And never a word about it. He distributes it before the service. The three of them leave as soon afterward as possible, to get her mom out of the building and back to the care home for lunch, served at twelve sharp.

He can't tell when, but one day there's spite in it. He's no reason for it. He chastises himself for the feelings, but from this point on he puts the vegetables, or whatever else, on the hoods of vehicles in anger. Certain that she doesn't know, he endures the services, returns the knowing smiles of the other congregants, and helps her mother make her way out of the church immediately following the benediction. "You don't want to be late for lunch," he says loud enough for anyone who wants to know, to hear.

One morning, he thinks it's a Thursday, the phone rings and it's the pastor. He asks if they can get together to talk. He asks if they can meet in town and a restaurant. And since it's the pastor, he can't say no. He tells her where he's going, and why. She smiles and nods at him, and then as he leaves, to herself. She could be the Mona Lisa, she knows that much.

They meet in the Motor Inn coffee shop, the beery smell of the vendor wafting in from the moist carpet of the bar. But they only drink coffee. The pastor offers to pay, suggests they eat something "Break bread together" he says. So he orders a soup and salad. While they wait the pastor says, "You are a blessing to the congregation, you know that," he says, looking at him. "I can't tell you how many times members have come to me to express how much your gifts mean to them." He pauses. "They say, they're joking of course, that it makes them want to go to church. The kids wait for it," he says waiting, looking down at his cup. "You've extended the table," he says, and then sits in silence, sipping. "I want to thank you for this."

But he wants to get up and curse the man. He wants to stand and tell him that it's false, that the game has been called, that, like Christ, he never intended to do good for anyone but himself, that he was tired of it, that if it was the thought that counted, then there was nothing to tally. He wants to reveal to this earnest man the ironic fraud of it. That he's reading Nietzsche "On the Genealogy of Morality" and there is no opium for this kind of revelation. Not even a good hymn well sung. What would he think of that, a farmer reading philosophy (at least it was German)? Even as the pastor's unction rises from this upturned face and concerned eyes, he can only hear, echoing in that high Teutonic brogue: "Priests make everything more dangerous ..."


The ride in:         10'C Wind SSE 12 ks
The ride home:   (rode the cyclocross track with JS, then headed home) 20'C Wind NW 15 ks

He makes the best of things

After Sunday they take Monday off, although sometimes his brother will still call in the morning and manage to get him on the tractor by noon and then she ends up driving out to the field with supper. He leans on the truck while she sits in the cab. They eat in silence, the buzz of insects and the heady smell of tilled soil turning sandwiches and soup into a meditation on origins. She drives off with the dishes, leaving him a thermos of something cold, milk or iced tea, she never tells him and he likes the surprise.

She likes to shop at the MCC Thrift store in town. Says that if you're going to buy something, you might as well get it for less if you can. They're not open Mondays, and by Tuesdays they've restocked the shelves, so it's early in the morning to town for her. She drags him along. Just enough time to make a pot of coffee and she's dragging him to the truck so they get there on time for opening. One of these days, in the middle of summer, he sees the fresh produce, in white plastic bags sitting on the floor by the counter, organized by variety. Out of gardens all over and around town, gardeners donate our of their abundance. He looks through the bags and picks up a bag of peas and a bag of beans.

He's already paid the two bucks per bag before she complains to him that her garden at home is full of peas and beans and what do they need more for? He shrugs. When they get home he sits down to hull the peas and cut the beans. It takes him a couple of hours. "You're not fast, eh?" she says. He finishes in silence. Blanches and bags them himself. Puts them in the freezer despite her protests that there won't be space for what's in their garden.

"Do you mind?" he says. "It's a simple thing," and walks away leaving her to stare after him. They are too early in the marriage to really get into it, so she leaves it, but stews for an hour or two before she can forget it. By Sunday it takes her a moment to recognize what's what when he carries out a couple of grocery bags of frozen peas and beans and loads them into the truck.

"They'll thaw," she says.

"Then they'll have to eat them today," he says.

"Who?" she says.

"Who do you think?" he says, to which she shrugs and shakes her head and gets into the truck.

When they get to church, with her mother, he helps them get into the building and up the elevator onto the main level. Then he turns and heads back out. She watches for a moment, then turns back.

Outside he takes the bag of frozen produce out of the truck and makes his way around the parking lot, putting one freezer bag of beans or peas on top of the trunk of each of the vehicles parked there, at least he does this until he runs out. Then he walks back into the church, finds her pew and stands beside her while they sing "There's a Wideness in God's Mercy". She elbows him as he steps into the row. He looks down at her frowning and smiles. He holds up his end of the hymnal and reads along while the rest of them sing, "If our lovewere but more simple, We should take Him at His word."

Ride in:         6'C Wind SSW 12 ks

Ride home:   12'C Wind SE 14 ks

If it were up to him.

Really his call? They'd stay home on Sundays. But her mom needs to go, and she can't get her into the car all by herself. So every Sunday by 10:30 am they're on the road to church. And he thinks it's not too bad really, compared to what it was a few years ago when he, if you'd have asked him, if you'd have even thought he'd talk to you, talk to anyone, sitting in the curling club lounge drinking rye and coke and watching, his knees shot, and him unwilling to use that long shuffleboard pole to push the rock and then stand there like some invalid as it slides down the sheet. He couldn't even walk along to help sweep if they needed it. It was, in his word, stupid ridiculous.

One winter a few years ago she walks up into the club lounge during the women's spiel after her game and there he is at the window watching and sipping and, it's strange to say it of these two, really if you could see them they're just plain opposite of the romantic ideal: tall and stout meets short and plump, balding meets graying, but they were both wearing plaid quilted shirts. Maybe that was what gave them permission. Gave her permission to sit down beside him, with her drink in a tall cup, and a piece of blueberry pie. She just walks over to the window he's sitting at and asks if she can sit down. He nods. She sits. They sip and eat in silence. Ten minutes. Some of those who saw them there say it was twenty. Whatever it was, they sat there until all the games were over. Then they stood up at once, brought their cups and so on to the counter and walked out together. Into the night, as it were. Into their lives together. Ho hum. For some. Anyway everyone believes that's when they met first. That's when it started. No one knows for sure. No one's ever asked.

But he would rather be in church every Sunday with her and her mother than sit in the house with his older brother - who he farms with - and watch Jimmy Swaggart and Nascar. Of course he'd be happiest sitting in his living room with her, eating eggs and toast and listening to the radio - he's offered to bring her mother over for this sort of thing - and then get on with the day. But she just shakes her head. You can't always get what you want. And you know the rest.

Rode 40ks: E to 30, S to border, N to Altona (around by Bunge), S to 421, W to home. Wind S 30-50 ks.

Ever try to fix a computer?

Start with a hammer.
That's a joke.
I can hear Henny Youngman now: Take my motherboard! Please! Dammit!
I'm really not that good at it (the fixing the computer thing) but in this household, I'm the man.
So I stand in, I stand up, I stand up stand up stand up for ... WTE+1!
(EP - I like Bob Marley too)
And there's really only traffic and driving in Winnipeg that cause me to curse more freely than trying to get a driver to download using Dell's new "Driver Download Manager," which you need to download, then install (after which it tells you you have nothing on its list of things to do) so you go back to the website and make a list, and then open your already installed Driver Download Manager thinking it'll just find that list, because the damn thing supposed to find thing, because it is so damn fast after all, just sitting there making your life and mine so damn efficient and easy and click-on-able. But it doesn't. So you try something else, and something else, and something else, and then, you know what? You settle for second best. Maybe even third best. The fact that I'm typing this write now is a victory. It's the victory I'm going to take. The thing works. It's not perfect. It doesn't want to eject the cd that's in the drive. It doesn't even want to acknowledge that the cddvd drive exists on its person, but right now the fact that I can type this little love-missive for all the E+1'n world to see is victory enough.
This, my friends, is what we're reduced to by these machines of ours. Having been vanquished, we act like we've been conquerers.
So now I have to restart this baby, so that the antivirus program I just downloaded can take effect and so that the problem I haven't solved yet, and likely will just come to accept as a quirk of the machine ... isn't it cute ...
... into the ether I go.

I put my hands up in the air sometimes

Sometimes like a dog chasing a car you don't know what to do when you catch one.
Sometimes like the hairs on your head you grow and grow only to be cut back.
Sometimes like the day after day of your employment you go to work and get none done.
Sometimes like the child in need of sleep you yawn and yawn and refuse to sleep.
Sometimes like the magician waving his wand and chanting you feel like no one is following you.
Sometimes like an itch on a day when there's been a lice alert you refuse to scratch just to feel clean.
Sometimes without warning you sit up at night and hear the mice in the wall.
Sometimes in the early morning the cat scratches to go out and you wonder why she's not mousing.
Sometimes you get up to let the cat out and then go back to bed even though the alarm will go off in ten minutes.
Sometimes like a zombie getting shot by Woody Harrelson you don't care what it feels like.
Sometimes like your bedtime routine you forget to floss and make your lunch.
Sometimes you wake up in the darkness buzzing against the glass like a moth looking for the light.
Sometimes even though it's late you still have to read to feel like you did something worthwhile today.
Sometimes you don't finish the NYT crossword and that's the way it should be because it's Thursday.
Sometimes when you get a really good deal you walk away looking over your shoulder ready to run.
Sometimes you miss your friends but you don't do anything about it.
Sometimes it's just easier to be alone.
Sometimes it's the hardest thing ever to be left alone.
Sometimes you have more than one thing to do and you have no choice.