No Stories are Real but They are All True

            On Monday morning I memorized another eight verses of “Le bras méchanique” (The Mechanical Arm) by Serge Gainsbourg.

I weighed 88.8 kilos before breakfast.

I tried to listen to a bit more of the online lecture but in twenty minutes I only got from the 20 minute mark of a 34 minute video to 22.

I had the rest of the broccoli I’d steamed last night in a salad with cucumber, tomato, avocado, green onion, parsley, dill and a the rest of my raspberry dressing.

After an hour and three-quarters siesta I logged onto the Indigenous Studies course site to try to listen to the last fifteen minutes of one lecture and the one hour long final one. I didn’t expect to have a good connection and was already considering taking my laptop outside to sit on the sidewalk in front of the café again. But amazingly I had had pretty much steady wifi for both lectures and even had to stop it and go back a bit to catch stuff I missed. I was finished in an hour and a half.

I did my course assessment and gave bad reviews of both the instructor and my TA. It was the most scathing critique of a course I've ever given.

           

            Part B of “Rename, Reclaim, Reoccupy”:

            He says renaming is in a way a type of colonization. Only in a metaphorical way.

            Indigenous people reasserting their identity through reciprocal relationship with traditional places. The offer to co-name a place comes from colonizer to accepting the older history of the place.

            There was a lot of anger towards Indigenous people two weeks ago and the media turned comments off.

            Assertion of rights is newer. When asking government to honour treaties Indigenous people are viewed as having a special relationship to the governments of Canada, the crown and the US. It is seen as unfair.

            How we look at treaty language is important.

            UNDRIP is important because Canada, US, Australia and New Zealand did not sign at first. But they voted no for legal reasons and not because they disagreed with the declaration. They didn’t want to put themselves at a disadvantage in court later on during treaty negotiations.

            Gomer is not a good writer and he makes grammatically incorrect shortcuts in Tarzan talk for his slides.

            It was so noisy out on the street that I couldn’t hear my laptop very well.

            On social media there were calls to violence against protesters. The rhetoric is centuries old.

            Under whose authority are the stories told? The two perspectives of Little Big Horn. Textual material about the military resolving conflicts and ignoring the Indigenous side. One needs a cultural context to understand that the dancing and singing after Little Big Horn was not in victory but mourning.

            Signs are moved to a less visible place to de-emphasize what looks bad.

            He went to the Boyd-Parker massacre site in Grade Seven. Indigenous villages were destroyed and two men were tortured. They intended to wipe the Iroquois from the Earth. Now there are signs up with no prominent Indigenous side. The Indigenous perspective is on a sign on the other side of the rock where few people go.

            Is the inherent name enough?

            There is a history of connection so when Indigenous people know the name why not change it back to original?

            Squaw peak, New Mexico. He said “S” word Peak although he said “Squaw” in part A.

            Sirens, traffic, streetcars.

            First Indigenous woman to die in terror attack.

            Authorities say the name has become morphed in myth and so it can’t be changed.

            Not many people out but lots of vehicles.

            If we are co-existing why ignore the Indigenous perspective?

            Changes take root like a plant. I guess he means if one changes the name then other changes will follow. I’m not sure if there’s any guarantee of that.

            At his old institution in Hooterville it used to be called Iroquois Studies but they fought for 25 years to change it to Haudenosaunee Studies.

            The Six Nations have six languages and each has a different name for the same places. Sometimes if they move they will take the name with them. The Haudenosaunee moved to another place with a spring and gave it the same name. So how is that different then?

            There is already a London, England and so why is there a London. Ontario? They draw from the authenticity of the old world to remake into the old world ideal. Return to a place of long ago.

            What about land acknowledgements? Does anyone really think about what they mean? Would all nations with their different histories agree?

            The Dish with One Spoon became a trading place.

            Naming is a powerful tool of colonization and the maintenance of long standing cultural relationships.

            Places can have more than one name.

            There are special locations around North America that are sacred because their energies and cultures are collectively understood by many nations. These areas are where people set aside their differences because they find strength there. An example is The Badlands for the Lakota, the Cheyenne and the Arapaho. The nation of the United States however saw it as a place to exploit for gold, which was a treaty violation.

            A Mohawk man was brought to trial in Canada and insisted on being tried in the Mohawk language. He said that he was being tried in Mohawk territory and so his language should be spoken. Mohawk speakers were brought in.

            Conquest is rejected on treaty language.

            White says he is new here in Toronto and there are new customs for him to learn but he is still Haudenosaunee. He always declares his nationality to be Mohawk at the border. It would be too complex to tell customs he is Haudenosaunee because it is not written on any of his identification cards. When he came to live in Canada he was classified as a new settler. He does not consider himself an expatriate of the United States. He has roots on both sides because he is Haudenosaunee and because of the 1794 Jay treaty. More about himself, that the Mohawks recognize him but the Seneca don’t entirely, boo hoo. Nobody owned the land and all that used it had a responsibility to the land, each other and future generations.

            He says the names of Toronto Streets honour Eurocentric models. Most of the names are actually after people with connections to Canada.

            There are no reservations in Canada in provinces that don’t have roads named “Colonization Road”.

            Who are the naming experts in languages?

            When Goner was a grad student he worked in a state park near Buffalo. He was returning a library book when someone commented on his shirt with the lake name on it, “Canandaigua". They argued about how it was pronounced. The Mohawks have a different pronunciation than the Seneca. He says the name refers to apple blossoms turning the fields white. They would have to have been crab apples if the name is that old, since any other kind of apples didn't come to western New York until the 18th Century.

            If we don’t know the proper names for places, who are the experts? Is it important?

            I moved on to listen to and make notes on the final lecture, which was about Vanessa Watts’s essay on Indigenous Place and Thought and Agency Amongst Humans and Non-Humans.

            We were supposed to have had a course review on March 30.

            Watts is looking at the subject through two lenses, as an Indigenous person and an Indigenous woman.

            Most Indigenous thought interweaves action, thinking, understanding and knowledge. She emphasizes agency and inclusivity of  female and animal. While western thought, philosophy, theology and culture gives agency only to humans. The idea that only humans think and have reason and that humans stand at the pinnacle, outside of the natural world.
            Well, certainly animals have some degree of reason in relation to their immediate environments but they don’t have the complex levels of reason that is built upon the having language. Animals can’t think about thinking.

This results in a culture clash. Western thinking results in economies of extraction.

Because of coronavirus western people on social media are worried. He says so0me other cultural groups see this time as linked with the natural world. Native social media says this is a chance for the Earth to heal. Pollution is dropping because factories are closed and fewer planes are flying.

At the end of the extinction game when man is all that is left what will have been won?

For Indigenous people women and the land sit at key points. Women are more muted in the west. Among the Haudenosaunee women collectively owned the clearings and men the forests. In the west men owned everything. They did not become the land but rather took from it. Is that the most effective for a reciprocal relationship with the natural world?

We know where we come from. We miss everyday connections to place.

There were treaties to balance the homeland.

Mythologizing Indigenous stories separates Indigenous people from the natural world and allows for colonialism. He objects to calling stories “myths".

The west’s creation stories are the big bang, Genesis or creative design somewhere in between. Indigenous understanding has reciprocity in ceremonies of thanksgiving to renew the world. Things recur. The first robin and flowers budding are signs of spring showing that the world continues.

Indigenous people say that everything had original instructions for our benefit. Living in natural cycles we have abundant life. Hunters, fishers and maplers watch the cycles.

If one looks at the west the natural world and childbirth are punishments for the original sin of partaking of the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil. Pandora’s box is similar with a punishment for curiosity. There are Indigenous versions of this as well.

The west presents its stories as untouchably true.

The Indigenous stories are not myths. Bits and pieces of stories are interwoven through many nations. There are common Anishnaabe, Cherokee and Plains tales.

In the west the thinking is all put together. Someone is trying to find the original source of some Indigenous stories, and presumes that someone started them. It’s problematic to think that oral history relies on human memory.

The creator placed thoughts into seeds and those seeds created the first woman.

Skywoman from Skyworld came down to Waterworld and needed to find a way to live there.

Gambling for the seeds of creation.

If we dismiss the stories as mythology we miss the patterns.

First of all to call the stories myths is not a dismissal. It allows for the metaphorical unpacking of the stories.

In Haudenosaunee creation stories specific things are planted by the creator or Flint. Creator or Sapling creates something and then creates something else to balance it. Sapling created berries so that when humans arrived each could eat one berry and be contented. But his twin brother Flint thought that would be too easy and so he put thorns on the vines so pickers would have to work. Then something else is created to also eat the berries so that there will be balance.

Invasive species result from a lack of balance. The emerald ash borer may decimate the Indigenous basket industry. Overpopulation is another imbalance that can result in famine and dying off.

Before colonization one could drink from Lake Ontario and eat the fish.

The two world views clash on creation. Thought, power of imagery, human renewal is rooted in place.

He considers Rochester home but in school it was Buffalo, then Oswego and now Toronto. Because it’s all about him. He says that all these locations around Lake Ontario and Lake Erie are part of the traditional lands of his ancestors. Women took the umbilical cords of their babies and buried them to root in the place. Place and thought cannot be separated. I don’t see why not. One often thinks without thinking of place.

Colonists connected to places and became part of the landscape but did not reciprocate. Colonization removes Indigenous reminders of home. Not always. Lots of place names in Canada are Indigenous, including Canada, Ontario, Toronto and Spadina.

Settlers came in and rather than finding new ways they remade the new into the old.

The conceptual framework of the pre-colonial mind is healthy mindedness that has been altered but overlaid. He says colonial thinking is unhealthy mindedness. Good and evil are western ideas whereas healthy and unhealthy mindedness are Indigenous ideas. What’s the difference? Is evil not unhealthy?

Some Indigenous people are trying to return to the pre-colonial diet. Chicken and pork are not precolonial but venison and bison are safe. He says he likes cheeseburgers too much to give them up.

Watts cosmologizes and declares that the stories actually happened. He once believed that as well. He thinks Skywoman is part of creation but that she is not physically real. The story of creation is about recovering the grief of Skywoman’s experience of an ecological disaster.

The west says there can only be on truth but he says all can be right. That sounds like lazy thinking to me.

Colonization is about delegitimatizing Indigenous knowledge through purposeful and ignorant misrepresentation of Indigenous cosmologies. Actually colonization is about forming and settling in colonies. If colonists did something bad to Indigenous people it had nothing to do inherently with being colonists. It had to do with being assholes.

Stories are systems of knowledge. Movies are sometimes an extension of books and books are an extension of creative thinking. Many films are based on true stories.

Knowledge is erased in mythologizing Indigenous cosmologies. The opposite is actually true. The people that starve themselves of the truths presented in the Bible and other myths are those that believe the stories are literally true.

He’s been around the world but feels most comfortable in Dish with one spoon area.

Healthy mindedness comes from well-balanced living.

He is agnostic but believes in the spiritual forces of the natural world.

We discovered that he does not hold our attention.

Creation can be connected to the same place. He had a garden back in Hooterville but might plant one in pots so he can be connected in Toronto.

Stories a primitive mind can understand. Indigenous people maintained these relationships. Spirit goes into place. Thought which determines agency with creation, which becomes societies extensions and obligation to communicate back to spirit. All of this is interwoven. Indigenous scholars expanded a circular system expanding exponentially constructed epistemologically sidesteps for removal of the point of abscess that doesn’t come back to the beginning. Gobbledeegook.

The west think in linear time and history is recorded. God altered specific moments.

People in sporting events sometimes thank god. Does god really care if their team wins?

Indigenous thinking is about cycles of nature in a pattern.

Versions of the Haudenosaunee creation story say that once humans had populated the worlds then clans came as a way to identify kin relationships like seeds that were planted and became akin to one another. Humans were allowed to take root and populate the back of the turtle but they forgot their original instructions. So the creator had to come back to reinstall four ceremonies, re-instruct and break the people back up into clans.  Each clan has duties learned from a specific animal. Medicines come from the bear clan because they learn about them from watching bears. Settlers assume that all Indigenous people are interchangeable.

People have different gifts. Some students write essay, some prefer tests and some prefer learning by talking.

The danger of overlaying western interpretations on Indigenous philosophical frameworks is flawed because they don’t understand that one comes from experience. There was divine intervention in both systems. Indigenous knowledge is not faith based but based on experience. He has faith that is true. When enough people see the same thing they see a pattern of the natural world. That is how to establish relationship and reciprocity with that relationship. Pragmatic lived experience. Indigenous versus community.

The best student may be considered to be the one with the highest GPA but there is also the shared experience of common learning.

The west assumes that animals and plants behave without reason but during the Australian fires animals rescued other animals that were not of their species. He's referring to a social media post about wombats that Greenpeace reposted but later deleted because it was unsubstantiated. Apparently wombats are extremely short sighted and wouldn’t be able to shepherd other animals into their burrows as was claimed. Gomer just believes anything that supports what he believes. What a scientist! It's more likely that other animals just took shelter in the wombat tunnels on their own.

Animals and plants are more knowledgeable than we think. Animals were put here first to serve as our guides and to remind us when we forget our obligations to the natural world.

The west sees the natural world as something to be conquered.

Does the natural world fear death? Is death part of life to begin with? Do humans fear death? Each animal comprehends death differently. Dogs go off by themselves because they know it is the end. Do we think in the same way? Animals do fight to live but death is part of the cycle of life.

The Skywoman is a botanist braiding sweet grass. There is a story of a discussion between Skywoman and an enlightened botanist. The land bears the scars of that meeting. Eve is told she got the short end of the stick. Place is feminine.

Clashes of world views.

In the end he called Skywoman “Skywalker”.

I steamed a bunch of asparagus and had it in a salad with tomato, cucumber, avocado, dill, parsley and green onion. I have a lot of mustard squeeze containers that still contain mustard but not enough to squeeze. I used one to make mustard dressing with vinegar, olive oil, garlic, salt pepper, honey and dill. It turned out pretty good. I ate while watching two episodes of Noggin the Nog.

The first was the end of the first set of stories about Noggin travelling north to ask Nooka of the Nooks to be his queen. They are married and the giant bird Graculas flies back to the Land of the Nogs to let everyone know that Noggin has married and can now legitimately become the king rather than his evil Uncle Nogbad the Bad. But when Graculas returns to Nog he is captured by Nogbad and put in a dungeon. The six week pass and Nogbad goes to declare himself king. Graculas speaks to a robin that comes to his cell window and gives him one of his green feathers to take to Noggin’s mother to show that he is in Nog. Although the robin cannot speak Brunhilda learns from sign language that Graculas is in Nogbad’s dungeon. She sends her guards to rescue him and then banishes Nogbad from the kingdom. The story doesn’t explain how Nogbad could take the throne anyway since there is no indication that he is married.

The next story I watched is the first of a second set. A Scottish sounding man named Ronf from the Hot Water Valley comes to Noggin to ask for his help. He says that in his land a giant dragon is terrorizing his people and trampling their crops. They will starve unless something is done. Noggin agrees to go with Ronf to fight the dragon.

On March 31, 1990 I Was Hired

Thirty years ago today

It was a Saturday and in the morning I went all the way up to Yonge and Finch for a job interview. It would pay nine dollars an hour for a six month review period, after which there would be a complete package, including dental. After I got home the guy called and asked me to start on Monday at 7:00.

I took my second collage downtown to make a final two copies. I was getting tired of working on that one. I picked up some negs at Toronto Image Works.

I was still eating only salads and hadn't cooked anything except for some broccoli and cauliflower.

Nancy hadn't gotten home yet but her sister had been calling for her.

Bad Connection

            On Sunday morning I memorized lines 13 to 16 of “Le bras méchanique” by Serge Gainsbourg and made some more adjustments to my translation.

            I weighed myself before breakfast and I was at 88.3 kilos, which is almost a kilo less than just before I broke my fast. Of course I’m still only eating salads right now.

            I worked on typing the notes from the online lecture I’d listened to the day before.

            I had a salad for lunch and after a siesta I finished typing the lecture notes.

            I did my exercises while listening to Amos and Andy. In this story Kingfish finds a card in an old suit withy the words “The best in town” and a phone number. He figures he might get something free and so he calls the number from his office at the lodge hall. The person in charge isn’t there and so Kingfish leaves his number. He and Andy go out for lunch and then Sapphire comes to his office to see him. She’s about leave him a note when the phone rings and it’s the owner of The Best In Town Lonely Heart’s Club returning George’s call. Sapphire is very angry but Kingfish manages to explain the situation. Later however Andy is sitting alone in Kingfish’s office when a beautiful woman walks in saying she’s a member of the lonely heart’s club and she’s looking for George Stevens. Andy tells her he's George Stevens. Later at the beauty parlour the young woman that Andy just met happens to be sitting under the dryer next to Sapphire and she says she has a date that night with a man named George. When Sapphire finds out it’s George Stevens she is so mad that she leaves with the dryer still on her head. Sapphire sues for separation and they and their lawyers are meeting. Kingfish says that he’s got squatters rights on the sofa because he’s been sleeping on it for seven years and it reverts to him under the Homestead Act. Later Kingfish notices a number on the back of the card that had gotten him into trouble and he remembers that it was for a hair processing place that he went to a few years before. He goes and explains it to Sapphire and she takes him back but later she calls the number. The hair place had gone out of business and the number was recycled. The woman that answers the phone says, “Lennox Burlesque Palace, Fifi Larue speaking!”

            I tried to listen to part B of the online lecture, “Rename, Reclaim, Reoccupy” but I could only hear five minutes of it here. I decided to go across the street to sit in front of the café but there was a guy standing in the doorway using the wifi for his phone. Then another guy came to talk to him. The first guy left and the other guy stood in the doorway drinking beer for a few minutes. When he left I went over there. The connection was better but it was very hard to hear the lecture with all the sirens, streetcars and traffic. I had to put the speaker right up against my ear and still it was difficult. I managed to listen to a full 20 minutes of the 34 minute lecture but then the video stalled and it was time to go home and cook dinner.

            I think my headphones will fit the laptop so if I have to go over there again it might work better than struggling to hold the laptop to my ear.

            I steamed some broccoli and had it in a salad with raspberry dressing while watching two episodes of Noggin the Nog.

            Noggin and his men are on a ship sailing north to the Land of the Nooks where Noggin plans to ask for the hand of King Nan’s daughter Nooka. He had fallen in love with her when given a knife with her image on the handle. The ship has come up to a small island and one of the men goes onto it to dig a soil sample with a shovel. But suddenly the island rises and it is a giant walrus. The walrus introduces himself as the king of the walruses. Noggin greets him politely and offers him s ship’s biscuit. The walrus eats the whole crate of biscuits in one gulp. When Noggin tells him where he is going the walrus says he is going in that direction anyway and offers to pull the ship there. When the Land of the Nooks is in sight the walrus has another crate of biscuits and leaves. They are greeted by a Nook in a kayak who they are and tells them he will go ashore to let the king know he is coming. When the ship arrives Nan is there to greet them. He takes Noggin into his igloo for a hot drink and then introduces him to his daughter Nooka. Noggin falls in love with her even more upon meeting her in person and she falls for him. He immediately asks her to marry him and she says yes. That was a quick courtship. They are married and then Graculas flies back to the land of the Nogs to let everyone know that Noggin is married do Nogbad the Bad cannot claim the throne. But it’s a long flight and on approaching the land of the Nogs Graculas is very tired and so he lands on a flagpole to have a little sleep before finishing his journey. But the flagpole happens to be that of the castle of Nogbad, who climbs the flagpole, capture Graculas and puts him in the dungeon.

On March 30, 1990 I Quit Before Starting

Thirty years ago today

On Friday I called that guy that had hired me to start work on Monday and told him I didn't want the job.

I applied for Unemployment Insurance and then went to Driving For You to pick up my pay, my vacation pay and my separation slip. Then I took the slip back to U.I.C. I paid my phone bill, bought condoms and salad dressing and went home. From then on I just basically puttered around because I felt like I'd had a productive day.

The wood lathing place that I'd applied at didn't call me back like they said they would.

Nancy's sister called for her several times but she wasn't in. I'd thought she'd gone out to Scarborough.

I did a lot of work on my third collage.

Noggin the Nog

            On Saturday morning I finished my search of the chords for “On n’est pas la pour se faire engueuler” (We Didn’t Come Here to Be Shouted At) by Boris Vian. Over the next few days I’ll figure out which chords fit.

            I memorized lines nine to twelve of “Le bras méchanique” by Serge Gainsbourg.

            I worked on my journal.

            I got off Twitter before the morning was over but not by much. I’m caught up with old tweets now so I don’t think I’ll be spending as much time there as I have since being off Twitter for a week.

            I went to No Frills where I skipped buying grapes because they were all too soft. I got a pint of strawberries, vine tomatoes, two bags of avocadoes, cilantro, dill, two bunches of asparagus, two English cucumbers, some mushrooms, two packs of roasted seaweed, two cartons of soymilk, and some mouthwash. They have plexiglass cough shields installed at all the checkout counters now, except of course the automatic ones.

            For lunch I had a lettuce, cucumber, dill, green onion, tomato and avocado salad with balsamic dressing.

            I took a siesta at 14:30 but only slept for twenty minutes and then felt restless. It’s been like that since I started drinking caffeinated tea again.

            I did my exercises while listening to Amos and Andy. This story was basically a repeat of an episode from a few years before. There is a vacant lot next door to the lodge hall and Kingfish and Andy decide to open a parking lot there. Kingfish gets his brother-in-law Leroy to watch the lot for a few minutes but Leroy thinks it’s a used car lot and sells one of the automobiles for $600. To get out of trouble Kingfish gives his half of the lot to Andy and gives him the $600 so Andy will be blamed and not him for the lost car. When Andy asks where he got the $600 Kingfish says he took it out of his unemployment insurance. They only give clients that much if they never plan on getting a job and are absolute bums. After Andy has spent $100 he meets the guy looking for his car. Instead of getting punched in the nose Kingfish decides to help Andy. They have to find the guy that bought the car and give him back the $600 to get the car back but Andy needs to raise the extra $100, which he does. Then Kingfish wants Andy to sign the lot over to him and so Andy agrees. Then Kingfish asks Andy how he raised the $100 so fast. He tells him Leroy sold a Cadillac from the lot for $100.

            I was able to listen to part A of Gomer White’s lecture on Rose-Redwood’s “Reclaim, Rename and Reoccupy. It’s a thirty-five minute video but because of my connection it took about two hours.

            The power of naming places and people are powerful tools. Places are important to people and culture.

            Europe is considered the “old world” and the sacred places of the settlers of North America tend to be outside of the Americas and in Europe or the Middle East. Settlers must leave North America to make pilgrimages to those sacred places because they are not connected here. But Indigenous people of North America make their pilgrimages here.

            The fact is that most settlers don’t make any pilgrimages. Why would what a few people do define anything meaningful about the majority? Even among religious Christians there are some sacred sites in Canada, especially in Quebec and people do make pilgrimages here. There are special tours taking people to all of the shrines of Quebec.

            The names of streets and places in Canada like Queensway refer Kingsway allude to a connection to the crown. Those kinds of names probably make up less than one percent of the names of places in Canada. Most of the places named after people refer to people that had something to do with Canada.

            He draws the lamest conclusions.

            He said giving European names to places that already had Indigenous names is a form of erasure. But then he mentions that the Humber River has had many names given it by different groups such as the Anishnaabe, the Mississauga, the Wendat and the Seneca. He seems to be defeating his own argument here. He says the Humber and Toronto all fall under the “dish with one spoon” treaty and so it was common territory. If naming other people’s places is erasure then why didn’t the other nations call the Humber by the name of the first group that named it? If it was common territory then how could the Mississauga sell Toronto?

            He started to talk about the US again. He can’t help himself. He should go home.

            He says that in the northeastern States and upstate New York there are a lot of blue and gold plaques evoking settler history but it is usually a history of war and chaos.

            Renaming Indigenous places is the language of erasure of Indigenous connectivity to their land. Well, inadvertently but probably not intentionally.

            The Onondaga lived in Toronto in 1740 and it’s still Onondaga territory. Their territory is upstate New York.

            Reclaiming storyscapes. Stories are part of the collecti9ve that lived near the place in the story. Parts of towns are named after ethnic enclaves. They invoke their own places and subcultures. Names and images are supposed to invoke certain things and bring out identity. Well duh!

            There are older stories than the historical markers. Some of the histories recounted on the plaques are inaccurate, but they don't correct them. More about States.

            Naming reinforces ownership. So is Alberta more owned than Saskatchewan?

            Stories of the fabric of the land and relationships. Several nations agreed on the dish with one spoon sharing treaty of this part of Ontario. But if the Mississauga sold Toronto does it still fall under the dish with one spoon agreement?

            Mount Douglas on Vancouver Island was once called PKOLS.

            Are land acknowledgements enough.

            More about the States. His old institution in Hooterville was the College of Oswego. It’s in Onondaga territory. Part of reconciliation lies in recognizing where institutions sit. Oswego sits on unceded land. The lawyers preferred “The traditional lands of the Onondaga over “homelands" because there had been no permanent structures. The area had been a place for hunting and fishing camps. Gomer wanted to call them “unceded traditional homelands" blah blah blah USA. The lawyer says treaties are bills of sale.

            Wet’suwet’en is truly unceded. Gaslink had no right. But the elected chiefs gave them the right.

            Names connect and recognize particular groups or peoples through the land to the ancestors.

            The idea of “turtle island” is quite common among Indigenous people. He says North America is roughly shaped like a turtle. I say if you want badly enough for something to look like something else then it will look like it to you.

Stories tell of specific locations and connect with the land.

Settlers give the names of sacred places far away to locations here. Sometimes,

but more often the names have something to do with here.
Indigenous places have names that connect to the culture here.

Devil’s Tower in Wyoming looks like it has claw marks on its side. He says it’s in a national park but it’s just the first declared national monument in the United States. The Indigenous story is that some children climbed it while escaping an angry bear. Again, I see from research that the place has had many Indigenous names given by different nations erasing each other’s names.

The location has become a hotspot for legal issues because it is a favourite spot

 for rock climbers. Officials encouraged climbers to take Indigenous people into consideration in June when they go there for ceremonies. 85% of climbers honour that request but some have tried to sue because they claim the ban violates the separation of church and state.

There are sacred places all over the Americas.

Belleville (He said “Belleview”) in the Tyendinaga Mohawk territory where the

OPP raided the blockade is the area from which the Great Peacemaker began his journey. The Peacemaker first met the Mohawks at Cohoes Falls on the Mohawk River near Waterford New York. They told him that they would only listen to him if he climbed a tree. They cut the tree down with him in it and sent it over the falls. They said that if they found him cooking mushy the next morning they would listen to him. So it’s like this, “We are going to try to kill you and if you survive we will listen to you.” I don’t see the connection between being able to survive a murder attempt and being worth listening to. I also don’t see why someone would think that people that tried to kill them would be worth talking to.

Cohoes Falls is a sacred place with signage all over the place about the Great

Law.

Even among settlers renaming happens all the time. Albany used to be Fort

Orange. Throughout Europe the maps have changed because of changes of place names.

In Oswego four or five nations have streets named after them. It was proposed

that the Onondaga also have a street. More about States.

Declaration of Cultural Resurgence. The right to authorize the decolonisation of a

place. In 2015 the Seneca petitioned to have the name "Squaw Island" in Buffalo changed because the name was racist. The city council voted unanimously to change it to Unity Island.

Reconciliation is about the power of naming.

Even when he’s at home and has the opportunity to read from a script he decides

to adlib badly and repeats himself several times.

It was already after 20:00 when I finished listening to part A of the lecture.

I had a salad for dinner and watched episodes two and three of Noggin the Nog.

Prince Noggin’s father King Knut has just died and now Noggin must choose a

bride and marry or else the kingdom will fall under the rule of Noggin’s Uncle Nogbad the Bad. All of the eligible maidens have gathered for Noggin to choose but Noggin goes down the line and finds none that he wants. At the end of the line is a human-sized green bird named Graculas who begins to speak to Noggin and tell him that he represents King Nan of the Nooks in the far north and he presents him with a knife decorated with the image of the king’s daughter Nooka. Noggin falls in love with Nooka’s likeness and declares that he will build a ship and travel to the north to ask for Nooka’s hand in marriage. A ship0 is built and a crew of twenty men travel with him along with Graculas as their guide. Out at sea after they survive a wicked storm, Graculas has become seasick and falls into unconsciousness. The wind stops and but they have no idea which direction to row without the guidance of the green bird. Suddenly they spot a small island. One of the men steps onto it and tries to dig into the soil but the island begins to rise and reveals itself to be a giant seal. 

On March 29, 1990 I Was Hired

Thirty years ago today

Just after midnight I made a few concoctions of various vegetables in Nancy's juicer. The fruit juice was a little bitter but tolerable, however the vegetable juices were all too bitter. I tried different combinations and added spices, hot sauce and tomato sauce but it still wasn't right. I finally decided to put it in the fridge and work on it after getting some sleep.

Later in the day I got a job and was supposed to start on Monday but after seeing what else was potentially available I decided that I would call the guy the next day and cancel it. The best job that I applied for was at a health food warehouse called Alpha.

Food

            On Friday morning I searched for more chords for "On n'est pas la pour se faire engueuler" (We Didn’t Come Here to Be Shouted At) by Boris Vian and found a couple of music sheets that I copied.

            I memorized lines five to eight of “Le bras méchanique” (The Mechanical Arm) by Serge Gainsbourg and made adjustments to my translation as I went along.

I weighed 89.1 kilos just before breaking my fast with a bowl of mangoes, raspberries and gooseberries with honey on top.

I also had black tea for the first time in two weeks and so I was buzzing in the late morning.

The wifi connection was very weak and so there wasn’t any chance of getting off Twitter before the morning was over.

I had a lettuce, cucumber, tomato and avocado salad with balsamic dressing for lunch.

I tried to take a siesta in the early afternoon but I was still high from the cup of tea I’d had that morning and so I couldn’t sleep. I got up after 48 minutes.

            I did my exercises while listening to Amos and Andy. In this story Sapphire’s mother moves in with her and Kingfish. Sapphire tells him it’s his fault because he is the one that caused her mother’s marriage to the wealthy Mr Smithers to be broken off. Kingfish decides that the only way to get rid of his mother-in-law is to try to patch things up with Smithers. He sends a telegram to Smithers and signs with Sapphire’s mother’s name, telling him to come back to New York so they can get married. We learn that Smithers considers this a golden opportunity because he is in fact not a millionaire at all but a con artist who poses as a wealthy man. Smithers comes to New York and shortly after that they leave for Connecticut because Sapphire’s mother wants to get married in the church where she married Sapphire’s father. After they leave Amos comes to Kingfish with a detective magazine. In the back among the “Wanted” notices he has found a picture of Smithers, with “Smithers” listed as one of his aliases. Kingfish has to try to stop the wedding and so he borrows his lawyer’s car and they head out in a snowstorm to try to beat Smithers’s train to Connecticut. But the road is blocked by a car with a flat tire. Kingfish and Andy fix the tire by giving the man their spare, but as soon as he leaves their tire blows out. A few minutes later at the church the minister is about to perform the ceremony. He tells Sapphire’s mother that he wouldn’t have made it if not for two nice men that leant him their spare tire.

I restarted eight more torrents that I’d lost in the power outage, plus a few new ones.

I tried for the third day in a row to download the .pdf file “Reclaim, Rename, Reoccupy”. After it failed on the U of T site I found it on other scholarly sites, but I had the same problem. My connection was not strong enough to download a 16-megabyte .pdf file without it failing. If it had been in a torrent there would have been no problem because as long as someone is seeding a torrent it won’t fail. If one’s computer stop or if the wifi goes down it will just stop and then pick up from the same place when things are working again.

Finally I got dressed, grabbed my laptop and went across the street to sit with my back to the door of the café. I logged on with a strong signal and downloaded the file in five minutes.

I went home and downloaded one more, smaller pdf, then I tried to look at one of Gomer White’s lecture videos, but it didn’t even load. I might have to watch those while sitting in front of the café as well.

The note on the café door reads, “We love you. See you again soon.”

I had a salad for dinner while watching the season finale of Star Trek Picard.

Spoiler alert!

The story left off with the synthetics, under the leadership of Sutra, preparing to transmit a signal to the distant, advanced civilization of synthetics to summon them against the threat of humanity. Picard is under house arrest. Angela is helping Dr Soong. Narek has escaped after apparently killing one of the synths. He goes to the crashed Borg cube where he finds his sister. I had thought that she would have been assimilated when the Borg drones overwhelmed her but I guess when Seven of Nine disconnected herself from the cube they stopped being part of a collective again. Narek gathers some high-powered grenades and Narissa says she is going to get the weapons of the cube on line. On the La Sirena Rios and Raffi are trying to figure out how to use the device that the murdered synth had given them to repair the ship. All she said was “Use your imagination.” Rios is holding the gadget, which has no switches to trigger its activity. Raffi suggests that he imagine the ship fixed. He does so and the device begins to send energy out to effect the repairs. Later Narek comes to them to ask to join forces against the synths. Rios, Raffi and Elnor approach the synthetics’ city while pretending to hold Narek prisoner. They are disarmed but Rios is carrying a football that they allow through the gate. The soccer ball contains the grenade they plan top use to blow up the transmitter but when Rios throws it Soji intercepts it and explodes it in the sky. Meanwhile Angela has only been posing as an ally of the synths and now she frees Picard from his room. They go to the La Sirena to try to delay the approaching Romulan attack force. Soong, while examining the body of the murdered synth sees a projection of what she saw before she was killed and we see that Sutra was actually the killer. He uses a device to shut Sutra off and begins helping the humans. On the cube Seven interrupts Narissa as she's starting to power up the weapons. They fight for a while until Seven knocks Narissa over a very high precipice. One assumes she dies. Picard pilots the La Sirena by himself. The Romulans, commanded by the Starfleet traitor Oh, come out of warp over the planet and prepare to exterminate the synths. Angela finds a way to create hundreds of holograms of the La Sirena to distract the Romulans. On the planet Soji opens the transmitter. Picard is trying reason with her when he suddenly has an attack of the terminal brain illness that he was told by his doctor would soon end his life. He asks for a stimulant to keep him going, even though it will speed up his death. The Romulans are about to attack when suddenly between them and the planet hundreds of Starfleet warships come out of warp, commanded by Will Riker. He tells Oh that he’d like nothing better than to kick her ass but she's outgunned and she'd better stand down. Picard is temporarily recovered from his brain attack just as the advanced race of synths is following the beacon through a wormhole. Either they or their ships look like creepy caterpillars. Picard appeals to Soji one more time and she finally shuts off the transmitter. The alien synths are sucked back through the wormhole. The Romulans stand down. Picard thanks Riker and the fleet leaves just before Picard begins to die. Soji beams him down to the planet and Picard dies surrounded by the crew of the La Sirena.

Picard wakes up in a comfortable old-fashioned study and data is sitting there. Picard asks if he’s dreaming. Data says that it’s a simulation. Data explains that they have successfully put Picard's consciousness into a synthetic body and so he would be leaving soon but he asks Picard a favour. Data’s consciousness has been kept alive for all of these years in a disembodied simulation. He asks for Picard to allow that consciousness to die. Picard leaves Data and wakes in a synthetic body exactly like his own but without the brain disease. He keeps his promise to data and ends his life forever. When they leave on the La Sirena Soji and Seven go with them.

Commodore Oh was played by Tamlyn Tomita, who co-starred in “The Joy Luck Club” and the bizarre and very funny “Four Rooms”.

The Case of the Disappearing Document

            On Thursday morning I started tracking down the chords for "On n'est pas là pour se faire engueuler" (Trans: We Didn't Come Here to be Shouted at) by Boris Vian. I found a few versions and copied and pasted them into a file. I only spend ten minutes every morning on this project and so it will take a while for me to find the chords that fit for me.

            I started memorizing “Le Bras Mechanique” (The Mechanical Arm) by Serge Gainsbourg. It’s basically a list of all of the body parts and accessories that this woman with the mechanical arm has and most lines rhyme with “eek”.

            I managed to not spend the whole morning on Twitter, but just barely.

            In the early afternoon I went to Freshco. In addition to the usual tomatoes and avocadoes to have today I bought salad ingredients and some dressing for Friday when I would break my fast. I bought cucumber, lettuce, green onions, broccoli and a raspberry vinaigrette. I also bought grapes, a half pint of gooseberries and some petroleum jelly. I looked for sea salt but the salt shelf had been pretty well stripped by hoarders.

            At Freshco, instead of the cashiers wearing masks, there have now been installed plexiglass cough shields between the cashier and the customer, about a metre high and a metre and a half wide.

            In the afternoon I did my exercises while listening to Amos and Andy. The story begins with Sapphire modelling a one-piece bathing suit in front of her mother and Kingfish. Kingfish begins making fun of Sapphire's body but her mother says that Sapphire once had the figure of Miss America. Kingfish says, “It looks like she lost most of Canada and gained all of Mexico.” The mother in law tells Kingfish that he's so bow legged that if he ever went to Scotland he could take the high road and the low road at the same time.

            Kingfish learns that Sapphire and her mother are going to Florida for Sapphire’s sister’s wedding and they have made a deal to drive a man’s car down there. Kingfish is supposed to pick up the car from the garage for them, but when he goes there the clerk thinks he’s somebody else and gives him another person’s car. The result is that halfway to Florida Sapphire and her mother are arrested. They finally get off and get back to New York very angry at Kingfish. He feels bad and sells all his clothes to a guy in an alley and makes $300 to buy them train fare to Florida but they get arrested again because the $300 was counterfeit.

            I was typing my “Thirty Years Ago Today" journal when the document disappeared and it became “closed for editing”. When this happens, any Word document I have open also goes away and I have to close Word in the Task Manager. It does this fairly often with this particular file but today it happened about seven times. It was extremely frustrating. To finish it I had to type a few words and save over and over again until finally it was done. It only happens when I’m typing but if not, nothing happens. I don't know why this occurs with mostly this file. I think I will start to just use Open Office for that journal and see what happens. 

            I started re-downloading six more of the torrents I’d lost in the power outage, plus I added a few more.

Thirty years ago today I weighed 75 kilos and today I’m at 88.5 kilos.

I downloaded a couple more the sets of pdfs from the Indigenous Studies course site but when I tried downloading one 15 megabyte document it failed and my second try stayed stuck at 7.1 megs.

I had my last meal of just tomatoes and avocadoes with no dressing and watched the ninth episode of Star Trek Picard.

Spoiler alert!

The La Sirena arrives and comes out of the wormhole above Soji’s home planet of Coppelius. They are immediately attacked by Narek. They damage his ship. Suddenly also through the wormhole comes the Borg cube that Seven of Nine had put back on line. Giant orchids come up from the planet and engulf them. Their power goes out and they crash on the planet but the orchids soften their landing. When they leave the ship they walk and find the crashed cube. Inside they discover Seven and Elnor still alive, along with some of the former Borg. They are all working to repair the cube. Picard and his crew go to the city of Soji’s people. They know her immediately and she knows them. They meet Altan Ineego Soong, the son of Data’s creator Noonian Soong, after whose image Data was created. Altan looks like an elderly human version of Data. They also meet a golden skinned version of Soji named Sutra.

Picard warns them that over two hundred Romulan warbirds are on their way to kill all of them. Picard offers to take them to safety in the La Sirena.

Sutra mind melds with Agnes and sees the vision that Oh planted which had horrified her. But Sutra sees it as a message for her people from the more advanced synthetic beings that are watching over them. It is telling them that they will come to help them eliminate the threat of organic life.

Narek is captured but Sutra allows him to escape if he would do something for her. The synth who had been watching Narek and caring for his needs is found murdered. This seems to be part of a plan by Sutra to turn her people against the humans. Picard is arrested but not Agnes because she now wants to stay with the synths and complete Bruce Maddox’s work to develop a synth into which human consciousness can be transferred.

Altan Ineego Soong is played by Brent Spiner, who of course also plays Data.

On March 28, 1990 I Was Fired

Thirty years ago today

On the twelfth and final day of my water fast, just as I was heading out to work in the morning I realized that I'd forgotten to call my dad on his birthday. I made a mental note to phone him that night.

When I got to work I was just about to begin unloading a truck when Bob came out and looked me over. My coat was closed and so he couldn't see much but he noticed that I'd done some sewing at the bottom of my jeans and commented, “Borderline!” He paused a moment and then asked, “Don't you have any other pants you can wear?”

I opened my coat and said, “Look Bob, I have two kinds of pants. Work pants and pants that I wear to go out dancing.”

He said, “Come with me ... Bring your stuff!”

I said, “Talk to me here!”

He said, “Okay, wait right here!”

He came back in a couple of minutes with my time sheet. I argued with him for a while and then after saying goodbye to some of the guys, I left.

Borg Queen

            On Wednesday during song practice I had all my chords and words back for the most part and it didn't hurt my barring finger as much to play. My voice was strong as well and I had a pretty good session.

I finally finished memorizing "On n'est pas là pour se faire engueuler" (Trans: We Didn't Come Here to be Shouted at) by Boris Vian. Next I will have to look for the chords.
I looked for the lyrics for “L’ile Enchantresse (The Island Enchantress) by Serge Gainsbourg but no one had posted them. There are videos of Jacques Dutronc singing the song and so I tried to transcribe the words by listening, but it’s still very difficult for me to fully understand spoken or sung French without the words in text. I would try again on Friday but if that didn't work I would move on to the next Gainsbourg song on my list, of which I already have the lyrics. 
I had a bad connection again in the morning and it caused my time on Twitter to drag past the morning. The wifi went down at lunchtime and so I ate my tomatoes and avocadoes while watching the first seven-minute episode of “Noggin the Nog.” It was a British cartoon show that started in the 1950s about a Viking King named Noggin. It was barely animated at all, with just a little bit of low budget motion and there were no character voices but rather just one narrator saying what everyone said. In the first part Noggin is only a prince and his father Knut is very old. Knut dies and the rule is that Noggin has to become married before he can be the king. All of the eligible maidens of the kingdom line up for Noggin to choose and he walks along inspecting them all, but doesn’t pick one. He goes to the end of the line where a very large bird just happens to be standing and he is looking at it curiously at the end of the episode.

            I worked on trying to get caught up on my journal.

            In the afternoon I did my exercises for the first time in a few weeks while watching Amos and Andy. This story continues from several episodes before when Sapphire left Kingfish and moved in with her mother. At the end of the last story Kingfish heard from somebody that they had seen Sapphire buying a baby bassinette and so now Kingfish thinks he is going to be a father. He does the unthinkable and gets a job so his child will be proud of him. He calls up Sapphire and hears a baby crying in the background and so he thinks his child has already been born. The reality is that Sapphire and her mother have gone into business running a baby nursery. Kingfish goes out to Brooklyn to get a look at his child and sees five babies. He begins to panic but nonetheless tells Sapphire to bring the babies home. Later he finds out that the babies are not his or Sapphire’s and he is greatly relieved but then Sapphire shows up at home with seven babies, saying that when he’d said he wanted the babies there she realized how much he loves children and so she decided to move the business there.

            Over the last few days I’ve been tracking down and restarting some of the torrents that I lost when the power went off on Sunday. I’ve recovered seven so far.

            I got caught up on my journal.

            I downloaded several sets of slides from the Indigenous Studies course site.

            I had the usual for dinner while watching the eighth episode of Star Trek Picard.

            Spoiler alert!

            The story begins with a flashback to probably fourteen years before. A Romulan secret society of female assassins called the Zhat Vash are performing a ceremony around an energy structure. The women in the circle must enter the structure and not go insane. Only Narissa survives. Commodore Oh tells her their next mission is on Mars. It was the Zhat Vash that instigated the slaughter of the Mars colonists. They did so in such a way to make it look like the synthetic people had been the killers.

            In the present Narissa and her centurions are hunting for Elnor. They find him and he takes out several but he is overwhelmed. Suddenly there is phaser fire and Seven of Nine arrives to save him. She kills all of his attackers.

            In order to save the Borg that are in stasis Seven has to become the Queen and awaken them. She hooks herself up to the Cube but Narissa has hundreds of Borg jettisoned into space. Nonetheless enough survive to kill the centurions and then overwhelm Narissa to assimilate her.

            Meanwhile, Picard and Soji have just arrived on the La Sirena. When Captain Rios sees Soji he is in shock like he recognizes her. He goes into retreat. Raffi points a gun at Soji but Picard steps in front of her. Raffi says that the last person Picard brought on board, Dr Jurati was carrying a tracker in her body.

            Picard goes to see Jurati and tells her that they are going to Deep Space 12 where she will be turned in to the authorities for the murder of Bruce Maddox. She tells Picard that Commodore Oh planted a psychic block to keep her from telling people about the tracking device.

            Raffi tries to figure out what is wrong with Rios and so he talks to all of the various holographic crewmembers on the ship that look like him but have different accents and slightly different personalities. He assembles them all in one room and puts together some of the pieces of the tragic moment that had caused him to be kicked out of Starfleet. Rios’s captain, Vandermeer had killed himself. Finally Raffi goes to talk with Rios. He has been drinking ever since he first saw Soji. He tells Raffi that Vandermeer had rescued a small ship containing two crewmembers, one of which looked exactly like Soji. The captain had reported the rescue to Starfleet and after talking with them he pulled out a phaser and killed both of them. Then he used the phaser to kill himself. When Soji learns of this she suddenly remembers everything about her history and the place of her birth. The people Vandermeer had killed were synths and Soji’s family. She also now knows the coordinates of her home planet. She takes over Rios’s ship and sets the coordinates. She also has acquired the knowledge of Borg warp passageways and can get them to her distant planet in hours. Rios appeals to her that it’s his ship and so she asks politely if he would take her home. At the end of the episode they open a wormhole and go through, but they are followed by Narek.

Piece of Cake When You've Already Been Distanced by Society

            On Tuesday morning I had my first song practice in over a week. It was nice to stand and move rather sit like I’d been doing for the last eight days while I was writing my essay. I enjoyed singing and playing again as well except that it was a bit painful because the protective calluses on my barring finger seems to have healed. I also felt like I was just on edge of forgetting the chords to some of the songs, as I fumbled quite a bit. For the most part, even though it was a French song day I hadn’t my mind hadn’t lost any of the words although my mouth sometimes did. My whistling however was better than it’s ever been.

            Eight days ago I had almost memorized the very long “On n’est pas la pour se faire engueuler” by Boris Vian and would have nailed it the next day if I hadn’t started the marathon of writing my research paper, which took away time from my translation projects. I came back to it today and found that I’d only lost the last couple of lines and so I should have it in my head soon.

            I spent the whole morning getting caught up on some things that I follow on Twitter, like The Daily Show and with my poor connection that took a long time.

Thirty years ago I weighed 76 kilograms and today I’m at 89.2. It must be all the avocadoes that keep my weight up.

            In the early afternoon I went to do my laundry and was very worried that the laundromat would be closed because of the virus. I was glad to see it was open. The manager was very friendly and smiling, I think because her friend was there working on some traditional crafts with her. While I was there I saw my second floor neighbour, Shankar. It was the first time I’d ever seen anyone from my building there. While my stuff was in the wash I went down to No Frills to find a line-up outside and there were signs explaining that the supermarket was practicing social distancing. Only a certain number of people were allowed in the store at one time. We live in interesting times. I was ninth in line and after five minutes the security guard let our group in. I bought tomatoes, avocadoes and raspberries.

            At the checkout they’ve taken away the food dividers because they want customers to stay back two meters.

            I had a late lunch of tomatoes and avocadoes and then took a very late siesta.

            I worked on getting caught up on my journal. During the week I’d spent writing my paper I hadn’t posted my daily blog but I had quickly jotted things down so I wouldn’t forget what happened.

            I had the usual tomatoes and avocadoes for dinner and watched the last half of the documentary about British children’s television, "From Andy Pandy to Zebedee". I had downloaded it because I was looking for British children's shows from the 1950s, and Andy Pandy was on the list. Andy Pandy was a puppet show. I hadn’t heard of most of these shows but I had downloaded an episode of Blue Peter a few years ago that had featured Doctor Who.

March 27, 1990

Thirty years ago today

It was the eleventh day of my water fast and my father's birthday.

In the morning at work I was about to leave for Brampton with GG when Bob opened the door on my side of the truck to tell me, “And tomorrow, change your pants!”

I asked why.

He said, “Because those look so horrible! You look like something off of Queen Street! I was gonna send you out with Norm today but I couldn't let you go down to the premier's office with those rags on! If you wear those pants tomorrow I'm sending you home!” and then he walked away.

GG and I worked at the courthouse in Brampton.

I wasn't going to change my pants.

I sewed them up as best as I could that night, but I doubted it would help.