Poem Weaver

On Tuesday evening it was still hot as I rode to Shab-e She’r but I only really felt the heat whenever I was waiting for a light. There was actually a pleasant breeze whenever I was in motion. Because of that, in some ways it would have been nice to skip the poetry reading and instead to ride my bicycle all night long.

I went through a corridor of tiger striped construction cones between Dufferin and Doverourt and then my thoughts eclipsed time and scenery until I was already passing Sneaky Dee’s and then the fire station with clock tower, which always tells me that the Church of St Stephen in the Fields is next. I saw Bänoo smoking and chatting in front of the church with a very large man who was wearing shorts and a plaid fedora. I also saw that there were no free bike posts on the south side of College, so I crossed north, found one, locked my bike, left it with a bag of oats, re-spanned the street, waved to Bänoo, thought about going up to her and singing a few bars of “Smoke Smoke Smoke That Cigarette” but didn’t, and then I went inside the church.

            Paul Edward Costa was sitting in my usual seat and there was no chair on the corner of the front-left side of the aisle, so I pulled one over.

            The church was hot with a cedar-perfumed stuffiness. A kilometre above the sanctuary and the stage was a lazily turning ceiling fan. With the help of the lights that surrounded it, it cast four spinning shadows on the curved vault from which it hung that were blowing just as much air as their parent.

             When Bänoo came back in I asked her if she and Cy had moved yet. She answered that they’d moved to an 11^th floor apartment at Queens Quay. I shook my head and tsked in exaggerated disapproval. In retrospect, even in joking, my gesture was probably a little rude. It’s a lot of work finding the right place, moving and settling in. I’m sure that what they found was more right for them than it would be for me. I can sort of see the appeal of living in a high-rise but I don’t think that I could ever live in one. Other than having lived on the sixth floor of a hotel in Vancouver for three months, I’ve never lived higher than the third floor in a building. It’s not so much the height that would bother me but rather the feeling of living in a hive.

            Sydney White arrived and asked if I’d heard from Tom Smarda, who hasn’t been to Shab-e She’r for the last three months. I told her I hadn’t but that I doubted if he would still be up north. I think that he only goes for a month out of every summer. She wondered if he had gone down into the devastation of Texas to visit his brother. I questioned why anyone would travel down there at all during hurricane season. She informed me that she used to have a place in Florida for twenty years and lived there from November till April every year. “I never saw a single hurricane!” she declared and I nodded, thinking that to be a very smart part of the year to spend in Florida, but then she raised her eyebrows and tilted her head forward in that way she does before she is about to let loose one of her conspiracies. “There’s a lot of engineering going on!” I got the impression from this that she thinks that the weather has been engineered to cause hurricanes since she lived in Florida. But the thing is, hurricane season has always been known to last officially from June to the end of November and there were a few named hurricanes in the 90s that formed in November. I don’t know when exactly her 20 years in Florida occurred, but engineering or not (and most probably not) she wouldn’t have ever seen a hurricane from December to April.

            At around 19:15, Bänoo went up to the mic to announce that this was the 55^th Shab-e She’r event since November of 2012. She repeated that it has always been her goal to make Shab-e She’r would be a brave space for people of all points of view and she said that despite this there has never, as far as she knows been any fighting or bloodshed.  As usual she first introduced Laboni Islam who would come to the microphone to do the land acknowledgement. Bänoo stressed though that Laboni does not want to be photographed.

            When Bänoo returned to the stage she told us that she limits the main features at Shab-e She’r to poets but that the open stage is open to all types of writers.

            The first open stage reader was Susie Berg, who said that she was inspired by the church and the fact that it was the Jewish New Year to read a particular poem – “In the beginning we create the packing lists … We pack bathing suits … groceries … Eager for beach … When it is light we need towels …We open the lift gate on the car and it is like the mouth of a whale … We consider the week … and we call the week good.”

            Her second poem was called “After Kadish” – “Silent we stand … we who fear the empty hand … fling our woman selves to the ground and wail … Hear our cries of sacrifice … lost love.”

            Daniela, from Uruguay, read two poems from her phone. The first was in Spanish. From the second – “Do not mess with me … I’m a food of the goddesses … My territory is free / My territory is me / I’m whole on my own.”

            Paul Edward Costa read – “When I first went there my feet carried me to the door of the mansion … I knocked and Lucifer opened the door … Lucifer sat, slouched and played an opening move … My sweat was like great drops of blood …”

            From his second piece – “In the sun blackout a woman down the hall hit all of the speed dial buttons … Huddle like children on lunar outposts … singing in the vacuous eternity.”

            Paul took a minute or so as usual to do his little self-promo.

            Susan began her poem, “Passing” with wordless singing – “Wohohoho, mhmhmhmmm! In the passing … where did you go … How selfish can you be … to confide in the passing … I long to smell your sweet sweat … and I will not miss … and I will continue …” She ended the piece the same way it began.

            Weda Shareqi read a poem called “Let’s Vote” about the first election in Afghanistan – “My tired life / my old eyes … We will make a change / Choose the king … We will have it all … Then we will fly kites …” I assumed from this last line that kite flying has some special meaning in Afghanistan. I looked it up later and found that the flying of kites is a national pastime and an important part of Afghan culture that was suppressed under the Taliban.

            Eden Nameri told us a story – “Way, way back at the beginning of time … god had just made the sun and the moon … but at that time they were the same size … The moon complained that it shouldn’t be the same size as the sun and so god punished the moon by making it smaller … The moon begged to be restored to its old size … God consoled it by telling it that it would rule the tides … and shine when people are most afraid … The moon sighed and wept stars.”

            It was then time for feature number one: Cole Forrest, an Ojibway of Nipissing First Nation who currently lives in Toronto.

            He began with “Indiginaity” – “It pisses me off when people tell me that I don’t look Aboriginal … My dad was never the chief … I’ve actually never been called Aboriginal … No one’s ever come up to me and said, ‘Are you from Canada?’ … This summer a couple of friends of mine and I took a cruise on Lake Nipissing … on the second Chief Commanda boat (because the first has been turned into a bar) … I felt like I was on Deadliest Catch … Drove through the Manitou Islands … There was once a uranium mine … The tour guide said, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, the people of Lake Nipissing were once wizards, able to shoot fireballs across the lake’ … Where’s my magic? Why would someone say that? Racism! Why would you call people that lived downhill from you wizards? According to the people of North Bay, an Indian can’t buy beer from the Beer Store … An Indian can’t go to university because education is a White man’s game … The Serpent People’s story might shed some light … A long time ago the people wanted to go out and hunt … set out for the islands … set up their huts … (a menstruating girl) She got her hut … As the night goes on … they’re fishing in this giant hole in the ice … pull out this beautiful black sturgeon … They cooked that black sturgeon … juiciest, most beautiful tasting fish … They took off their layers … because it felt good … So the little Anishinaabe girl … fell asleep … The next morning she came out of her hut … She saw the remnants of that feast … A slither mark going into the huts … From the torso down her mother had turned into a serpent … She ran to another group of Ojibway people … All they saw were slither marks going back into the ice … That’s probably why they think Nipissing people are magicians.”

            From “Brown Skin” – “I’m a self-identified Aboriginal person under the Indian act … Whenever I ask for help, I’m too young … I’m an Aboriginal person, and what does that mean anymore? I’m sorry that I don’t skin wild animals … Call me uncultured … I don’t smoke, I don’t drink and I don’t love … I’m an aboriginal person and I’m proud of it … No man will ever tell me what I do isn’t manly … I’m in a relationship with a girl … at a junction … under the Indian Act.”

            Cole told us, “My family was hit hard by the residential school system … All the women in my family wear their hair short … I never understood what being Aboriginal meant … I started seeking it out … As I’ve grown … I’ve found the culture … You see pow-wows more than ever … Amazing to see the resurgence.”

            From “Anishinaabe Youth” – “I swim in a sea … I’m drowning again … I wake up from the sea but my hair is still wet … They give me medicines from another time … My ancestors sit beside me … I’m drowning again … The dream catcher that hangs around my chest … I’m living a nightmare … I am not conquered … I am the bi-product of generational deconstruction … Please do not be afraid of my beads but do not touch without asking … Question my culture and you’ll get the long answers … Trying isn’t an option …  Warriors fight on … Lay down your tobacco … I feel the tear slice through my eyelids … I am swimming in brown skin.”

            Cole commented about how hot it was and recounted that he’d heard that we were in one of the longest droughts in Toronto history. I don’t know what he means. Ontario’s drought was last year. The rainfall was relatively normal here this summer overall.

            Cole told us that he was going to finish with four tiny poems:

            “I saw that in a note you wrote today … you are running away … You smudge too little … Our people need you … You’re supposed to be the one to pat down the grass … just don’t go into town. They’ll go looking for your braids …”

            “Your brown skin so smooth … They’re coming for me … I keep braiding and unbraiding my hair … I hope they don’t find my braids …”

            “The cold dew wets my moccasins … The wind doesn’t whistle … Moonlight through the dead cedar trees … The lake is beginning to ripple … Where is the whistling wind?”

            Cole pointed out that he was holding a tobacco tie and was wearing a tobacco pouch around his neck. He finished with a poem about his grandmother – “There she sits … crows feet around her eyes … She would paint murals … She would never paint over another stroke … ‘Those cucumbers are growing pretty nicely / Go pick some for me, will you?’ … We all fall sometimes … My feet were too big for my little body … She can put her back and vocal cords to rest … I became an artist just like you were … You stitched together a childhood for me … You were bigger than that small town …”

            Cole finished by saying, “The most important part of our culture is to share the stories of the people that we love.”

            Cole Forrest has some important things to say about his own struggles as a young man and the struggles of his people. Much of his work consists more of stories than poems, which is interesting considering Banoo’s earlier statement about picking only poets to be features at Shab-e She’r. Most of the poems he offers have trouble rising beyond slam clichés that tend to weigh down their power even in the moments when they are flecked with light. His strongest poem was “Braids”, but to repeat that success he needs more experience. He’s quite young, so there’s no strong reason why his skill shouldn’t improve with time.

            We had a fifteen-minute break. I went to use the washroom and lined up for one of the two loos on the edge of the gym where, as usual, Maggie Helwig, the church minister, was in a meeting with some of her flock. She looked up and I got the impression we were disturbing them. Someone from her group came over to point out that there were two washroom doors. I had been sure when I’d gotten there that they were both occupied and I told him so but then the person behind me went around me and found it empty.

            On the way back I stopped to chat with Cy about his and Bänoo’s new home. I had asked Bänoo if she liked it but she said she was still getting used to it. Cy on the other hand answered that he likes it very much and that the view is like a Monet painting at certain times of the day. I asked if they’d had to be approved by a committee and he confirmed that had been the case. It’s hard for me to imagine a committee ever approving me, though I guess I was approved by the management of 1313 Queen Street West 19 years ago when Artscape first set up the co-op there. It was more of a lottery process though that I’d won when they’d offered me a studio. What they offered though was not as spacious or as cheap as the place I had already across the street so I turned them down. Plus, I anticipated clashing with the community and therefore the management over my lifestyle of playing my guitar and singing at the top of my lungs every morning between 6:00 and 7:30. I asked Cy if they could handle something like that at his new place and he said the walls seem to be quite thick.

            After the break, the open mic performer that Bänoo selected to precede the second feature was Dave Walker, who was the big guy with the plaid fedora that I’d seen earlier chatting with Bänoo. Before he came up to the stage she thanked him because he had come very early and helped her set up.

            Dave introduced himself in Ojibway. From his poem – “I don’t hate her … I hate her trauma … I hate the molesting she suffered in foster care … I hate her youth being taken by drugs on the street … I hate the poison she started injecting into her veins … I don’t love the poison spirit she is walking with.”

            The second feature was Janet Mary Rogers, who is Mohawk/Tuscarora from the Six Nations band.

            Janet began by saying; “I’m confused about 2017. I don’t get it …Canada is 150 years old … Who here knows Chief Dan George?” I raised my hand and I guess several people behind me must have done so as well. “I love it when there’s an older crowd!” She went on to talk about George first becoming famous for his Oscar nominated role in Little Big Man with Dustin Hoffman but that he was also a residential school survivor and a poet who wrote a piece to mark Canada’s 100^th anniversary in 1967.

            Dan George’s piece was entitled “Lament for Confederation” and she read it to us – “How long have I known you, oh Canada … I have known you when your forests were mine … I have known you in your streams and rivers where your fish flashed and danced in the sun … But in the long hundred years since the white man came I have seen my freedom disappear like the salmon going mysteriously out to sea … When I fought to protect my land … I was called savage … My nation was ignored in your history textbooks … I was ridiculed in your plays and motion pictures, and when I drank your firewater … I forgot … Oh Canada, how can I celebrate with you … I must forget … Give me back the courage of the olden chiefs … Like the thunderbird of old I shall rise again … I shall grab the instruments of the white man’s success – his education, his skills, and with these new tools I shall build my race into the proudest segment of your society … I shall see our young braves and chiefs sitting in the houses of law and government, ruling and being ruled by the knowledge and freedoms of our great land. So shall we shatter the barriers of our isolation. So shall the next hundred years be the greatest …”

            Janet said she disagrees with George about his definition of success. The successes that Native people have experienced have been in White pop cultural arenas. She said, “When the colonial move into our arena and find success” then that would be a success for her people.

            Janet read her answer to Chief Dan George’s poem – “Ah Canada! Standing defiantly behind a line that doesn’t quite define or separate as it was wished and won by war, these spoils are yours … Taking and overtaking the dismissing and denying and buried under layers the ice is petrifying … Did you remember to ask permission? Ah, Canada! Don’t slip me the tongue and call it a French kiss … Offering song to join in false chorus, another choice to remain forgetful. Your soldiers stay true and the patriot hearts continue to glow each November when veterans take the stage and we the originals remember it differently … The strength of our identity was born before you were formed … so listen close … There is no home if there is no Native land … Ah, Canada! How many of me had to die so you could be you?”

            Janet commented, “If I had a choice between intelligence and wisdom I think I would choose wisdom. Wisdom just comes from knowing.”

            I think they both need one another. Wisdom gives direction to intelligence but intelligence gives depth to wisdom.

            From “Opposite Directions” – “Why talk about territories / Why vote and go to war … What do you hear inside my sound combinations … (she begins chanting) … Awakeness is not the same as awareness … There is not enough land to grow all the food to feed all the people … At least stop feeding people into the problem … Drums are sounding … The red ones have been caretakers of this land since forever … Happiness is a song sung on the land by those who know it.” She ended the piece by chanting again.

            Janet commented of the church that she liked the space. Then she read a poem called “Touch”, for men that love men – “He wanted to be touched … He just wanted the contact … more than anything … Go, let go … Torture his loneliness … All consuming crouch, touch, stroke, poke, evoke … See … he wants it … Touch, know him, show him … He ah wants it … Be him, feel him … He ah wants it, touch, touch.”

            Janet said, “What’s worse than this hot weather? Having hot flashes in this hot weather!”

            She announced that her final poem, “Something for the Tongue” would be about chocolate but not about chocolate – “Love chocolate / Love chocolate … Chocolate, chocolate, chocolate, chocolate / broken chocolate / raw chocolate /  … Searching reaching melting chocolate / Brown chocolate / dark chocolate / Chunky funky love chocolate / kiss me, kiss me, kiss me chocolate / Hot chocolate / Bought chocolate / Bunnies, chickens, ducks chocolate / Cheeks, breasts, dicks chocolate / Rivers of chocolate / Streaming chocolate / Everything chocolate chocolate chocolate /  Midnight chocolate / Secret chocolate … Love chocolate / Love chocolate /  Love chocolate chocolate chocolate / …Sun chocolate … Tummy chocolate / Lick chocolate / Suck chocolate / Bring me chocolate chocolate chocolate / Gobs of chocolate / Stacks and stacks and stacks of chocolate / Chocolate chocolate chocolate chocolate /  … Talk chocolate / Ancient from the past chocolate / Coco chocolate / Caca chocolate / Willy silly Wonka chocolate / Spicy chocolate / Homo chocolate / … Rock chocolate  … Great big cock chocolate … Swiss chocolate, Spanish chocolate / Cross the border at night chocolate / Get down chocolate … Love chocolate, eat chocolate” These last two phrases were repeated like a chant several times to end the poem.

            There was a little girl of about three years wandering around freely during Janet’s performance, but not more than a few meters from her mother. During this last piece though, as she kept hearing the repetitions of the word “chocolate”, she was drawn to stand directly in front of the stage to listen and watch Janet with fascination.

            Janet Mary Rogers has presence, confidence, rhythm, talent and whether she likes it or not, intelligence. She knows how to work, play and dance with words and phrases to weave a poem with internal rhyme. She knows how to build a line up and to orchestrate where it goes with either tension, humour or both. She’s got savvy, sass and sensuality and she can swing the poetic bat or whip with wit but without letting the listener off the hook. This was one of the best performances ever at Shab-e She’r.

            When Janet had left the stage, Bänoo urged people, “Please approach Janet and get her …” Janet interrupted and called out “Phone number!”

            Returning to the open stage, the first reader was Charles C. Smith, who read “After the Rain” based on the John Coltrane composition – “Light slashes a darkening sky … Clouds splinter into prisms … Rainfall in swooping sheets … Dangling in front of windowsills … In all this it was clear … Long cadence of something unusual …No one knew … such outrageous … overt circumstances of disorder … Synchronicity … a persuasive percussion.

            Bänoo mentioned that George Elliot Clarke, Canada’s current poet laureate has often performed on the open stage. I noticed while researching this review that George had placed Janet Mary Rogers’s poem, “Something for the Tongue” on the Parliamentary website.

            Jeff Cotrill read one of his humourous pieces – “Hey, talk about your feelings!” “But what if you tell me I’m whining?” “Talk about your feelings.” “Well, sometimes I feel insecure when …” “Stop whining!”
            “I baked these cookies for you! Have one!” “But what if you call me a mooch?” “I won’t!” “Here, I’ll pay you for it!” “I baked them for you!” “Okay, I’ll have one.” “You’re a mooch!”

            “You need a break!” “But you’ll call me lazy!” “No I won’t!” “Well, I guess it wouldn’t hurt to take five.” “You’re lazy!”

            “Tell me a joke!” “But you always get offended!” “No I don’t!” “Did you hear about the world’s worst thesaurus? Not only is it bad, it’s bad!”

            Nelley Garcia understood enough English to tell us that she didn’t understand anything that happened there that night but that she understood the spirit. She read a poem in Spanish, which she said was about the world and the universe.

            Next it was my turn. I got a laugh from the audience by mentioning that the shadows of the ceiling fan were blowing just as much air as the fan itself. Then I read my poem, “Anti Prayer” – “What if the world is just the result of unplanned parenthood?

Would its sudden reversion back to energy matter to the deadbeat deity? … Why aren’t we satisfied as microcosmonaut monkeys dead-locked in orbit around death while unlocking the secret code of boredom?”

            Sepideh Alavi read a cover poem by an ancient Persian poet. She did this only in Persian but her style was very expressive.

            Norman Perrin recited a story in which he incorporated his playing of the recorder at the beginning, at points within and at the end – “My Uncle Norman had the farm next to ours … Long ago he said, when I was six, my Aunt Matilda came to live in your house … I loved hearing her play the flute … One night she packed the flute and I followed her down to Black Bay … There were some that said it was bottomless in places … When the full moon had risen she pulled out her flute and began to play … The moon shone on the black water … out of which came the great head of a sea serpent … then two, then three, until there were twelve sea serpents … their long necks swaying in the moonlight … When she stopped playing those long necks descended into the water … The next morning there was a note: ‘I’ve gone to follow my friends’”

            Chai told us that a friend of his told him recently, “You are a great poet!” He asked him, “What makes me a great poet?” “Because you wear a poem on your back all the time!” Then Chai turned around to show us the back of his t-shirt (which he indeed always wears) with one of his environmental poems printed on it.

            He read the poem “ABC of Climate Change) which he has shared at every Shab-e She’r for at least the last three months – “A is for Alberta 2015 … B is for beautiful BC … C is for Canada 150 /Are you ready to cut down Canada’s carbon footprint? Do it before your dog catches fire! H is for Hurricane … W is for do you wish or want a weather war by your window? No poem can save you from forest fires … You either do it now or die later … the time we have left … is less than you think.”

            Mind the Gap read – “I want you to play the hand you were dealt like it was the left hand of god … We are all bleeding together … Being in the red is not an option …”

            Emilio read a poem in Spanish and one in English that was too short for me to catch.

            The next poet was Ghazahel Zarrinzadeh, the mother of the little girl in the pink dress. Her daughter had been impatient to leave but Bänoo told us that she had asked the child if she would give her mother permission to read a poem before they left. She agreed. The poem was called “Peace” – “The track I took many times to reach you … The peace is a black frame in my memory.”

            Shei Al-Kheir read a poem in Arabic but he told us in English that the story behind it reminds him of the song “Complainte pour Ste Catherine” by Philippe Tatartcheff and Anna McGarrigle.

            Sydney White told us that she’d heard lately that people have been getting killed while walking because drivers are texting. From her poem, “Transtextual” – “To spend your life clicking while time is ticking … Not give a shit for the people you hit … Pinch yourself hard and leave Transylbrainia”.

            The final performer was Terry Trowbridge, who said Bänoo had asked him to get up and do something, though he didn’t have any poetry or anything to read. He just began talking – “Talk about vocabulary! Ojibway is a verb-centred language …” Suddenly he called out to Janet Mary Rogers, “I love your earrings! Those are power earrings! I like the way you say ‘eh’, different from the Canadian ‘eh’ … Vocab8lary in Toronto … Let’s develop a different vocabulary in Toronto … On the TTC you can acknowledge that the other person has eyeballs but you don’t have time to count how many … TTC language consists of “sorry” and “thanks” … Someone stepped on my foot and said ‘Sorry’! I said to someone nearby, ‘I don’t think he’s sorry’.” The person heard that and came back to give a detailed and sincere apology. Tom thinks that people say the end of the word instead of the beginning and then shrug. He dove through a door that someone opened and it turned out to be the secret entrance to the Eglinton subway station. He called to the woman that he’d followed and said, “Thank you for showing me that door!” The person looked back, said “Sorry!” and then hurried on.  He told us, “It feels like we are living in an analog record or an AM radio station … He suggested that maybe we should work at Shab-e She’r to develop a mingle game to counteract the deterioration of communication in Toronto. “A revolutionary act.”

            First of all, one of the TTC riders proved Tom wrong inside of his own narrative when he came back to apologize. It also could have been Tom’s abrupt and intense manner that freaked out the woman that thought she was alone on a stairway or in a corridor. She could have meant, “Sorry, but I don’t have time to risk my life talking to psychos in the dark!” Finally, his observation that people on the TTC say “nkss” instead of “thanks” is something that I haven’t noticed in 36 years in Toronto. He admits that he’s a newcomer here so maybe his experience is limited or his perception is just off.

            Bänoo informed us that the next Shab-e She’r would be on October 31. She didn’t mention that will be Halloween. I wonder if any poets will be coming in costume.

            

Lady Philosophy

            I did steaming hot, sweaty yoga on Tuesday morning and later I was singing very loudly. Maybe that was because of the heat as well.

            I printed up the paragraph that I would have to hand in to my TA in the early afternoon. I also made a few small changes to the poem that I planned to read that night at Shab-e She'r.

            It was a hot ride to class, with a bus in front of me at first and construction on College, but I got around both.

            I plugged my laptop in behind me. Ryan, the student that always sits behind me, plugged it in for me on his side.

            In Professor Black’s lecture she finished up her talk about Augustine’s “On Free Choice of Will”.

            He thinks that he has proven that there exists immutable truth and that “god” either is that immutable truth or something higher. Although he was influenced by the Neoplatonists he differs from them in putting god above being.

            Evil is privation of good – all and only good things come from “god” so evil is a defect.

            God contains the hierarchy of reason, life and existence.

            It is not clear how moral evil comes about. Augustine has a problem understanding how free choice of will is the source of action and how it goes astray. Free choice is unusual because it makes the person that uses it responsible. We suffer from not understanding god’s order. Free will is unique because there is no prior cause or explanation in its own right. Free choice is the start of any action.

            Augustine was the first person to talk philosophically about free will. His position is actually Libertarian. His idea of the voluntary gets picked up by later philosophers and they try to reconcile it with Aristotle.

Is free will good? What is its defect? Why did I steal the pears? If free will can be abused why throw it into the mix and how can it still be good?

Hierarchy of goodness:

There are absolute goods such as virtue. Enjoyment – ultimate end.

There are intermediate goods such as the will, which is as origin of action is the means to higher or lower.

There are basic goods like chocolate cake or a sunny day of 20 degrees rather than 30 degrees.

We have a problem when we put will in relation to god’s plan. Free choice of will is not really free. There is a difference between voluntary and natural will. Natural equals necessary, such as rocks falling. God made a place in nature for free agents.

The second problem:

Aristotle’s “On Interpretation “ is concerned with S is P and later about the future contingent. A sea battle will happen tomorrow. True or false? If there is an omniscient god it entails that god knows if there will be a battle. If god knows something will occur then that thing is necessary. Necessity already has free choice built in. God’s knowledge includes knowledge of choices and free agents. God has foreknowledge of our will. God’s foreknowledge is a guarantee that action is free. God knows whether constrained or free. Boethius will later develop how this works.

If god knows what is going to happen then god is culpable if it doesn’t stop me from doing the wrong thing. Many are not satisfied with Augustine’s answers.

There were two Augustines: Before his conversion he was worried about evil, but later he focused on Grace. Original sin became a big deal later on.

Can humans take credit for good actions? Palagians thought Augustine agreed with them but he didn’t think so. We need grace to exercise free will and to orient ourselves toward virtue.

She said that one Halloween, one of her students came to class dressed like Lady Philosophy.

After class I went to the washroom. On the wall beside the urinal was an ad promoting the exciting opportunities for MBA graduates in car dealerships.

I had an hour before tutorial and so I decided to go to the Help Desk at Robarts because I wanted to make sure that my latest laptop could access the U of T network if I ever decided to do so. So far I hadn’t even tried, so first of all I rode up to the library but I had to walk all the way up to its north end just to find a free bike post. I went into Robarts and sat near the help desk to try and log in. My user name and password should have been the same as logging onto the student website, but it failed. I was offered a choice between trying again and terminating, so I terminated and got in line for the help desk behind a young woman that looked about ten years older than the usual student. She said she’d seen me sitting there when she’d arrived so she let me go ahead of her. It turned out that when my computer gave me the two choices it was just a matter of double-checking if I wanted to go onto the network.

I went to University College to look for the room where my tutorial would be and found it quite easily on the main floor. The noon tutorial was still going on so I sat outside in the nearest window seat and did some reading on my laptop.

My TA is Celia Byrne. She told us that she likes Medieval Philosophy because it’s weird and that the thinkers have some cool answers. She said that it’s fun to try to figure out how they think and it expands one’s horizons.

First of all she had us all introduce ourselves and tell us a little bit about who we are. I was at the very end of a long semi-circle and so I was the last one to speak. Noah, the third to last said that he’s the son of a parson and so he probably already knows a lot of the answers. Celia commented that probably wouldn’t be the case when we got to the Islamic philosophers. Jeremy, the guy next to me was a philosophy major with one of the snootiest sounding British accents I’d ever heard. He spoke so slowly and extended the words and the ends of phrases into a dangling drawl. I told everyone that I was an English major and that this was my fifth Philosophy course. I pointed out one interesting difference between English courses and Philosophy courses.  If one can do well in one English course one can do well in most of them but with Philosophy there is a much wider spectrum of difficulty or compatibility. I did well in both the Philosophy of Sex and the Philosophy of Art but lousy in Knowledge and Reality.

We started talking about paragraphs we’d written and it turned out that I’d committed a faux pas right off the bat. We were supposed to write based on the readings but I had written based on the lecture. She said it was okay this time. The tutorials are worth 15% of our course mark and the paragraphs make up half of that.

She asked what humans fear the most. Someone answered public speaking but she had meant death. We want to maintain our existence but death is non-existence.

She says that all medieval thinkers start with the letter A.

Why did Augustine steal the pears? I pointed out that he’d admitted that it was partially peer pressure. He perhaps wanted to look good before his friends. Breaking the rules made him feel powerful. He was imitating god. It was never just for the sake of stealing.

What counter examples could there be as motives for doing wrong? Someone said vengeance. I offered that it could be just to expand one’s horizons.

Has Augustine given a complete account?

Celia confessed that she is afraid of heights because she doesn’t trust herself not to jump.

We moved on to Augustine’s relating numbers to the existence of god. Numbers are proof of an immutable truth that is greater than our minds. He concludes that something greater than our minds must be god.

One of the students thought that our number system is man made and so it couldn’t be an immutable truth. It was pointed out to her that neither Augustine nor most of us would consider numbers a man made system. One plus one will always be two by any understanding. Numbers are part of the fundamental structure of reality.

“Judging about” versus “judging with”.

Judging about would be evaluation by certain standards.

Rules of judgement would be a cake made with a recipe; math; numbers; that which is above us.

I picked up some grapes, yogourt, bread and peanuts from Freshco on the way home. When I got there my neighbour Benji came out to tell me that he’d been scared all day because he could smell something burning. He figured Nickie had gone to work and left something on the stove. I had smelled something at the top of the stairs when I’d come in. He seemed to think it was all right then though.

I had time to go home and have lunch, then take a siesta before going to Shab-e She’r.

Amethyst Mining in Scarborough

            On Monday I anted to shave but the last disposable razor I had was getting too dull. A few months before I’d received from the food bank two boxes containing four each of Atoma razor cartridges. In the late morning I decided to see if the razor was available anywhere in the neighbourhood. I first went to Vina Pharmacy but they didn’t have it. The guy behind the counter though told me they could look it up, order it and have it by the next morning. I didn’t want to wait, so I went up the street to Guardian Drugs where they had plenty of Atoma products but all of them were disposable razors. It turns out that Atoma is actually the Guardian line of products but the guy I asked had to look up the product to confirm that it still existed and then he offered to order it. I said I didn’t want to order it because I wanted to shave that day. I tried Shoppers Drug Mart but they didn’t have it either, which I guess should have been obvious to me if it was a Guardian product, but I wanted to make sure the guy wasn’t wrong. Shoppers’ product is Life brand. I ended up going to Dollarama and spending $1.40 for a pack of four 3-blade razors. I’ll probably hold onto the Atoma cartridges but I tend to boycott Guardian drugstores because they are owned by Rexall and I boycott all Rexall drugstores because they passed me a fake $10 once and gave me a big hassle about paying me back in real money before they finally gave in. I complained to the company, saying that they should give me $20 for all my trouble but when customer service told me that I should consider myself lucky to even get the $10 back I decided the whole company was an asshole.

            When I got inside my building I checked the mail and found a letter from the Tor0nto Housing Allowance Program. It was not really a letter in that it wasn’t signed by anyone. It was probably entirely computer generated. It just confirmed that I would be getting the allowance and that it would be $250 a month, that the payments would be made on or before the 28^th of every month until June of next year and that they may include retroactive payments. When Cheryl called me a couple of weeks ago she didn’t know the amount but said that my first deposit would be retroactive from July. That means three months plus October, and so I should get $1000.

            At 16:30 I was first in line for Bike Pirates. Alain arrived about 15 minutes early and invited me and the two other guys that were there to come in early. I told him that I might not need a stand and then I detailed the events of Saturday evening when the locknut came off my left crank arm. I explained that I’d replaced the nut and tightened it. He said it that it just might be a matter of not having tightened it. He checked and saw that it looked fine now. He said if problem occurs again then I should replace the crank arm. I was relieved that I didn’t have to spend a greasy three hours in the shop.

            I noticed that it was still before 17:00 so I got ready for a bike ride.

            I had my phone in the right front pocket of my Docker shorts, which was the only front one without a hole. I left my building, walked a few steps and then suddenly my phone hit the sidewalk and fell apart. A guy that had been passing sympathetically stopped to pick it up for me. I put it back together and it seemed to restart fine. There was now a hole each in both my front pockets, so I put my phone in my backpack.

            There as surprisingly little bike traffic on the Danforth for a weekday at rush hour. Maybe it was the heat that kept people from riding. I had noticed there’d been a shitload of sirens all day long and had wondered if it’d been because of people fainting.

            I rode up Victoria Park and on the way to Dawes Road I saw a couple of boxes on the curb that looked like they contained more than garbage. In one of the boxes was a somewhat triangular hunk of what looked like volcanic rock almost the size of my head. Jutting out of half of it were several purple crystals that I think might be amethyst, some as big as my thumb, that were especially clustered along one corner of the rock. It would be nice to try to figure out how to separate the cluster from the rock. I happened to have three cloth shopping bags in my backpack. I put the rock inside of all three bags and put it in my backpack. It weighed about ten kilograms but it wasn’t too bad getting it home. The sky above me as I rode west along the Danforth looked like the skin of a pale blue tiger with white stripes suspended above me. I went down Yonge Street and then home along Queen. The western horizon was the colour of amethyst.

            

Kathleen, No More a Crossing Guard But Still A Dancing Machine

            On Sunday morning it was so hot that even though all of my windows were open it felt as if they were closed. There was hardly any air moving at all.

            There were a few things that I needed to buy that day, like toilet paper, but as I was getting ready to go I remembered that my bicycle was not functional because the lock nut had fallen off from my crank arm. I decided to see if Home Hardware had the nut I was looking for, but first of all I had to try to remove the nut that hadn’t fallen off. The problem was that I couldn’t the change heads on the socket wrench that Nick Cushing had given me. A website that I’d found said that is a common problem and they’d offered various solutions like WD-40, soaking it in oil or the last resort of prying it off with a screwdriver. Nick had also suggested that I try a screwdriver. I was surprised when I tried that a screwdriver popped it off like it was nothing. I found a 14 head and put it onto the wrench, and then I removed the nut to take it to the hardware store. The prematurely white-haired guy in charge, who I think owns the place with the shorter, moustached guy told me he’d need my bike in order to see if he had what I needed, so I went home and got it. After trying several nuts he concluded that he didn’t have one that fit.

            I decided to perhaps ride my bike with one pedal down to Mojo Cycles at Sorauren to see if they had the nut I needed, but I noticed there is a brand new bike shop right on my block. I went in and asked the owner for a 14 locknut and he just happened to have a used one on his workbench. I’d brought the ratchet with me and tightened it but it didn’t seem to tighten fully so I asked if he would do it with one of his wrenches. He told me that he’d have to charge me between $5 and $10 if he did it. I told him thanks anyway. He said I didn’t have to pay for the nut though. He seemed like a nice guy and an asshole at the same time.

            My bike worked fine though as I rode to No Frills at King and Jameson. I picked up some little Ontario grapes, some old cheese, a bottle of olive oil, some balsamic salad dressing and some “Hot Hot Hot” Calypso Sauce.

            While I was shopping, a woman came up to me and said hi as if she knew me. Since I looked puzzled she explained that our kids were once in a therapy group together. I think this was when my daughter was six years old, before she moved in with me. It was a weekly play therapy thing for the children and while that was going on the parents were in another group. It lasted for about a month or so but I didn’t notice that much came out of it and I never thought there was anything wrong with my daughter in the first place other than being a kid.

            The woman, who told me her name was Kathleen, said that her daughter was later diagnosed with autism.

            Kathleen mentioned that I also might remember her because she used to be the crossing guard on Dufferin.  I asked if she had been the dancing crossing guard that got fired a few years ago and she confirmed that had been her. She got suspended and they said she could have her job back if she promised to stop dancing, but she’d refused, so she lost the job. She said she could dance anytime she wants now. I told her that it always used to cheer me up when I was riding on Dufferin and saw her dancing. It was stupid of them to fire her. A crossing guard is supposed to be visible and she was obviously more so than most.

            I was in line for one of the cashiers when she asked the customer that was two people ahead of me how he was. He said he was fine and then responded with the same question. She exclaimed sarcastically, “I am livin the dream!”

            I suddenly realized that I’d forgotten to get toilet paper, so when I was next in line I packed my items back in my basket and left the line-up. I felt a little stupid because as soon as I turned away I saw a deal on toilet paper right in front of me. I could have just stayed in line and stepped over to grab a pack without making anyone wait for me. By this time the express cash had less of a line so I went over there. I couldn’t place the accent of the express cashier. It didn’t sound European or Slavic. As I was packing up my groceries, the tall guy that was now at the check-out said to the cashier, “You’re wastin a great day! How about goin for a beer?” She smiled politely and asked if he needed bags. After she’d handed him his receipt he told her, “Last chance for that beer!”

            He unlocked his bike not far from mine but he was done before me and when I walked past him he was already chatting up another woman that had just left the No Frills.

            On the way home I wasn’t sure if my crank arm had been fully tightened, but when I got there the ratchet wouldn’t go any further, so I guessed it was fine. I decided though that on Monday evening I would take my velo to Bike Pirates to get some advice. I wanted to find out if the lock nut falling off had been just the result of riding hard without tightening the nut from time to time or if the nut falling off had been part of a deeper problem.

Crazy House Revisited

On Saturday afternoons these days I tend to not take a bike ride because I want to finish writing up my latest food bank adventure. This time though I really wanted to get some pictures of the crazy house that I’d seen the day before near Victoria Park and St Clair, but couldn’t photograph then because my camera batteries needed a charge.

It was so hot that whenever I smelled food cooking I felt like I was in the oven with whatever was being prepared.

There was not a lot of competition eastbound and the Bloor Viaduct had not one cyclist ahead of me at all.

When I got to Maybourne and Bolster I set my bike against a sign and started taking pictures of the house. I started close on the sunset side of the building and worked my way along. A guy passed and I asked him if he lived around there because I figured there must be a story behind the house that maybe he could share. He told me he hadn’t been in the neighbourhood long enough to know.

Other than some other photographs contributed to a “weird houses of Toronto” site there is no published history about this place anywhere on the internet.

As I got closer to the eastern side of the mansion I noticed that the side door was open and just inside in the shadows was an ancient looking man in a chair staring out at me. I called out “Hi!” but he didn’t respond. “Then I said, “Nice house!” and he nodded.

I took several more pictures from further back and then went to Pharmacy and back down to Danforth.

On the way back I was passed by a young man that was riding with another that didn’t catch up. The guy in front of me slowed down for the other one. A little later the two of them and then one more of the group got ahead of me. I put on the steam though and got way ahead of all of them. At around Pape I started feeling that my left crank arm was skipping as I pedaled. A little east of Broadview it began to wobble, so I pulled over, reached down and the crank arm came off in my hand because the nut had fallen off. I put it back on, hoping that I could make it if I rode very carefully, but it wouldn’t stay. The three guys whizzed past me and I walked to Broadview station. Luckily this happened when I had money to take the subway.

I took the train to Dufferin Station, standing the whole time and shifting my bike to different sides of the train, depending on which doors opened to a platform. As I was leaving I heard a woman tell another, “If the other stations were as creative as this one I wouldn’t feel so bad about living in Toronto!” What’s creative about Dufferin Station?

I rode my bike with just the right crank arm by pushing down and then using the top of my foot to pull the pedal back up to thrust down again. It was slow and awkward, but quicker than walking. I made it to Brock and then till just south of College where it was faster just to walk up the hill to Dundas. I had to walk again from the bottom of underpass beneath the railroad bridge until I was level again and after that I was able to make it home. I lost less than half an hour from my normal time of getting home.

I looked through drawer where I keep my nuts, screws and nails, but couldn’t find a nut the right size. I found one though that would thread on just enough to hold the crank arm temporarily in place.

I got out the socket wrench that Nick Cushing had given me a few months ago and tried to remove the socket in order to change it to one that would fit my crank arm lock nut, but it wouldn’t budge. I’d tried to do the same thing a few months before when I first switched to a cotterless crank system, because it had occurred to me that the nut might need to be tightened from time to time. It didn’t come off them either and it had occurred tome several times since then to ask Nick about it but I kept forgetting whenever I’d had the chance to make enquiry.

I went out and bought a couple of cans of Creemore. There was a guy on Queen asking everyone for eleven cents. The penny has been out of circulation for a few years now, so how could he get eleven cents from anyone? I guess it’s an attention grabber. He asked two women in a car and they said sorry, but he kept persisting until the driver barked, “Look, three times I’ve said ‘Sorry, no!’” I guessed the liquor store would be closing soon and he was desperate to get something for the night.

Happy About the Pickles

            On Saturday morning I was re-reading Augustine’s dialogue, “On Free Choice of Will” and looking for a famous quote, “Unless you believe you shall not understand” for my Early Medieval Philosophy course. We would be having our first tutorial on the next Tuesday and our weekly assignment is to answer in a paragraph one of the prescribed questions on the reading material or else come up with our own. I planned to make a question and response to the above quote but I needed to find where it was in the text. Professor Deborah Black had quoted it during her lecture on the subject and I knew the phrase came from Augustine but didn’t recall seeing it in this particular dialogue. I didn’t have time to finish looking for it before going to the food bank, so I printed the last ten pages and took them with me.

            As I was locking my bike I saw the prematurely grey guy that used to volunteer at the food bank crossing the street. For no particularly logical reason I hurried up so I could get in line ahead of him. What difference would it have made if I’d been behind him? Probably none, but I’m mildly competitive from time to time.

            I think that I might have heard someone call the prematurely grey haired guy Brock. I might have been mistaken but until I hear otherwise I’m going to refer to him as Brock because he really does look like a Brock.

            Brock commented on how disorganized the line always is and related that it had been suggested when they were at the previous location that they set up a rope to create a corridor that would keep people in line. The board of directors though decided that such a set-up might make food bank clients feel too much like cattle.

            Brock also wondered why at the new location they haven’t let clients wait inside like they said they were going to do before they moved. I told him that the explanation they gave me was they weren’t allowed to let everyone in because of fire regulations. He pointed out that when the food bank was on Sorauren everyone waited inside. I think that’s true for all of the other food banks in Toronto. I suspect that at the new location they could utilize their space more efficiently and actually make room for at least a small waiting area for ten people at a time. The outside line-up was more sheltered at the King Street space, so I suspect it’s going to be colder standing on Queen Street in the middle of winter.

            Betina, my former yoga student who volunteers at the food bank, came out with a box of food and said hi. I guessed she’d put in her time downstairs and was leaving with some groceries. She commented that there didn’t seem to be as much pressure and so there was less air pollution that day. I looked up and around, shrugged and said, “I guess so”, though I really didn’t notice any difference one way or the other.

            The Ethiopian guy with the tattoos was there with his pom-chi mutt. He said, “Hi brother!” then noticing me reading my stapled sheets of text, smiled approvingly and commented, “You’re always studying!”

            A woman walking west had an un-leashed dog (I think it was a miniature pinscher) trailing her. It stopped to present its behind to the pom-chi, who used his nose to study it with interest. The dog’s caregiver kept on walking and finally called, “Leslie, let’s go!” Leslie, now with a happy erection, followed after her.

            Wayne was there with his big cigar but wearing a bucket hat this time. He was somehow just behind me in line but I hadn’t seen him when I’d arrived. As Wayne danced, Brock declared to no one in particular that he was having a much better time than he was.

            Wayne’s friend came up from further back in line to give him a fancy, short-sleeved white short. He tried it on and approved.

            I’ve never seen Wayne smoke his cigar all the way. He holds it in his mouth for a while until it goes out and then he switches to a cigarette, which he actually finishes. The guy behind Brock wanted to bum a cigarette but Wayne was listening to his music and had his eyes closed, so he reached for the left headphone to get his attention. Wayne opened his eyes and exclaimed, “Don’t touch!”

            Wayne, while watching the pom-chi, commented that his dog was a cat. He said, “I’ve had my cat for eleven years and it’s 133 years old. It’s afraid of women. Whenever a woman comes over it hides under the bed.

The food bank van pulled up with several boxes of bread and Brock helped the driver carry them downstairs. Lana, who was watching the door, asked Brock why he was in line. He reminded her that he hasn’t volunteered there since before April and he was trying to avoid doing it again. She laughed. He explained further that he’d just blown all of his money on his 44^th birthday and now he needed food.

            By some miracle the food bank opened on time for a change. For the first time in a long time, our line up was going in while the people outside of PARC were still waiting for the doors to open to let them in for the free breakfast. Someone over by the PARC entrance called out my name. It was a guy that has always called my name and waved to me with extreme enthusiasm ever since I first started teaching yoga at PARC. Every Friday on my way upstairs to the Healing Centre I would pause in the drop-in centre to shout an announcement about my yoga class. He would always call my name and wave, but, but like most everyone there, never came to my class.

A woman in a wheelchair, whom I think is Wayne’s neighbour on the third floor of 1499 Queen, asked him for two quarters. He told her that his quarters were in his other pants, but he started asking other people for two quarters for her, while at the same time asking her what she needed two quarters for. “I wanna buy a coffee!” What’d you do with your money?” “I spent it!” “What’d you spend your money on? You don’t drink or smoke!” I think he must have been joking there, since she’s always smoking.

When I got downstairs I didn’t even check to see what number I’d gotten before I dropped it in the coffee can. I assume though from the size of the line-up this time that it was something like 33.

Angie didn’t seem to be there this time. Minding the dairy and meat section instead of her was the young woman that was behind the computer last time. There was no dairy at all on this occasion but rather several dairy substitutes, such as soy and almond. It all tastes like chalk, but I took the one-litre carton of almond-coconut. Of all the nut and bean milks, coconut is the only one that actually produces something like milk naturally rather than having to be blended with water first and then strained. There was no yogourt on offer either but rather a choice of plain and vanilla flavoured cultured coconut. I took the vanilla. The meat choice was between the usual boring frozen ground chicken and a slightly smaller package of frozen ground Ontario pork. There were eggs as usual but this time rather than the four pee-wee sized white ones they were large and brown. She offered me a container to put them in, which was just plastic tub like those that hold sour cream. It would have taken up three times as much room as the eggs, so I just put mine in a pocket of my backpack. Most people still believe that brown eggs are more nutritious than white, and I guess that’s the reason why they are more expensive. The only proven difference is that brown eggs have slightly more omega 3.

From Sylvia’s vegetable section I received two leeks, a head of leaf lettuce, four plumb tomatoes that were mostly in good shape, a small narrow eggplant, six carrots, seven potatoes, two lemons marbled between green and yellow and a bag of salad greens that I assume came from the garden lady.

My helper at the shelves was a young, full figured Black woman with a pretty face.

In the cereal section there were mostly sugared kids cereals but I selected a package of “Indigo Morning”, made with whole grain corn, organic cane syrup, freeze dried blackberries and freeze dried blueberries. I assume it was donated by whoever brought the nut milks and the cultured coconut. I’ll bet it’s just as sweet though as the sugared kid’s cereals.

I skipped the pasta and there was no pasta sauce again this time.

The soup section had a choice between a can of Chunky soup and a carton of chicken broth. I find the broth much more useful.

There was no tuna this time and the only canned beans were red kidney.

I took a bag of buffalo wing flavoured popcorn, a handful of chewy granola bars, another jar of pickles and eight restaurant portions of “honey spread”.

I eschewed the bread because I had enough at home.

The dairy was the biggest disappointment this week. Unless someone can’t tolerate lactose, nut milks are no substitute for dairy. With the lettuce, the leeks and the other greens, the vegetables were the biggest prize this time around. I would have to go out and buy some salad dressing to go with them though.

I was on my way out when I heard Wayne turn down some item with the colourful but unnecessary explanation that, “It gives me the shits!” I turned and saw him at the last shelf and when he looked at the top and reached for the jar of pickles his face lit up, he smiled and almost started dancing again. “Oh yay!” he exclaimed, “I got the pickles!”

Frankentecture

            I spent quite a bit of time on Friday digitizing my lecture notes. Since I finished and it was a warm day I figured I’d better take a bike ride. As usual for a weekday there was lots of eastbound cycle traffic at that hour until I got out ahead on the Danforth.

            

            I rode up Victoria Park, over a hairy strip of squirrel jerky, to Dawes Rd, east to Pitt, south to St Bede’s Rd, back north again and turned right on Bolster. At the corner of Maybourne I discovered a wild house. It looked like a Frankenstein’s monster of architectural cultures, from Greco-Roman, to Gothic to Indian with an onion dome added on like the Taj Mahal. The dome was kind of sloppily made and the house seemed a bit run down but it looked freshly painted all white. The light was nearly perfect to take some pictures of the place but found that unfortunately my camera batteries needed a charge. I’d have to come back another day after recharging them.

            

            The sunlight was right in my eyes on the way home along Danforth. I went south on Yonge and for the first time in months I took it all the way to Queen. Queen Street is a much more scenic ride than College and because it doesn’t have a bike lane there are fewer annoying cyclists to pass.