Customers Only

           

            As of June 25^th I was almost a month behind in posting my journal entries on my blog, on newz4u.net and on Facebook. The journal for most days was up to date on my computer, but it was the event reviews that were holding me back. In particular the Shab-e She’r event for May 31^st took ages to research and write from my notes.

            I cooked the rhubarb that I’d gotten from the food bank with the contents of a little bag of sugar that they’d given me a few months before. I forgot about it while it was cooking and I caught it just as all the water had boiled down, just saving the sugar from burning.

            My bike ride took me again to Leaside. I took Sutherland east to Millwood where it turns north and then I took it to Eglinton, then I went east to Laird and south along that. Laird seems to be the only stretch of Leaside that has any stores, so every restaurant, specialty service, school, supermarket, plaza and big box store is stretched along it, mostly on the east side.

            I had to pee really bad as I headed south and didn’t feel comfortable waiting until I got back to Yonge Street. Most of the restaurants on the west side seemed to be closed, but a sushi place that I was passing had some people dining at the window. As I got off my bike to look for a place to lock it I noticed that there wasn’t a single bike stand anywhere on Laird. I reflected at that point on how I also hadn’t seen any other cyclists so far throughout my travels around Leaside. The neighbourhood has the feel of a suburb even though it’s part of Toronto. I walked into Kintako Sushi and was greeted with smiles until the waitress found out that I just wanted to use the washroom. She told me, “We not open to public for washroom.” I responded, “Yeahhhh …?” and hesitated a moment and then a woman that seemed to be in charge nodded and so the waitress said it was okay. I went to the washroom but it was lockupied, so since there was no room to wait in the narrow space in front of the washroom door I went back into the little restaurant. I noticed that there was only one couple in a booth and that there were three times as much staff as there were customers. I would have thought they would be hungry to have customers that would want to eat there considering how empty the place was. Turn people away that only want at that time to use the washroom is the potential loss of a future customer. It turned out that it was a kitchen worker that had been using the washroom. The waitress told me I could go in because I’m sure she wanted me to finish and leave as soon as possible. I noticed that there were incense sticks in a little vase on the back of the toilet. I’d never seen those in a restaurant washroom before.

            I ate the rhubarb that I’d made with some yogourt. It was pretty good. I wonder why they don’t make rhubarb-flavoured yogourt.

            I watched an episode of Hawaiian Eye from 1961 that co-starred George Takei as a spy posing as a street urchin in Taipei. 

Goodbye to PARC

           

            As I promised myself, Friday, June 24th was the last chance for students to show up for my yoga class at PARC before I packed it in, called it quits, said goodbye, sayonara, adios and arrivederci. This would make it two months of no one coming and I was really hoping that nobody would show. After half an hour of waiting, I unhooked my fob from my key ring, closed the door on the Healing Centre, handed the fob in to Richard in reception, shook his hand and left for good.

            When I got home I sent an email to Tracy Cocks, the volunteer coordinator at PARC, to inform her that the room was now free on Fridays for something that members of the centre might actually be interested in.

            Later, I drove through the hot, but for a change fairly dry late afternoon air to continue my exploration of the Leaside neighbourhood. I took Moore and then Southvale to Millwood and then went up to Randolph, which I followed north, dipping east to Laird on the way, until Randolph ended south of Eglinton.

            On one of the side streets I heard a clanging bell coming from a little green van. It was a mobile knife sharpener. I hadn’t seen one of those guys for years. I recall that there was one in Parkdale when I first moved into this apartment.

            On the way home I took Yonge Street all the way to Queen, passing the nervous circus of buskers and evangelical clowns.

Rossini

           

            On Thursday afternoon, Nick Cushing came by with his video camera and a lapel microphone to shoot a video of me doing one of my songs. I did “Love In Remission” this time and tried three takes. I fumbled in different places on each try. I’m not really a perfectionist but I don’t want the kind of mistakes that interrupt the flow.

            That night I rode for four minutes up to Brock and Dundas for my first of two Thursdays of posing at Artists 25. When I got there, one member of the group was sitting and dozing just inside the building on the steps that lead down to the first floor. She chatted with me a bit but then apologetically told me that she was going to doze a bit more. She did so until another woman arrived and sat with us as we waited for Cy. He arrived as we were talking about my French language studies.

            Knowing that Cy’s girlfriend, Banoo, has been looking for a new venue for her poetry night, it came to me a few days before that the Tranzac might be a good home for Shab-e She’r. On one of my breaks I told Cy about it. He said that another friend of Banoo’s had also suggested the Tranzac. It’s an art friendly place; it’s a non-profit organization and Banoo could join the board of directors if she became a member. Both Cy and I agreed that the room just to the left as one enters might make a nice cozy home for Shab-e She’r. I think the space is called the Tiki Room and it even has a fireplace. Of course, it would also depend on whether they had an opening there for Banoo’s monthly event. Cy also pointed out that alcohol might change the atmosphere of Shab-e She’r. I do recall though that at the original location, at the gallery at Queen and Parliament, the owner of the space did sell wine during the break.

            Radio Canada was playing a piece by Rossini called Petite Messe Solonnelle (Little Solemn Mass). A section of it featuring a beautiful textured layering of voices really caught my ear. 

Songs For The Dead

           

            On the pleasant evening of June 22^nd, I headed out for the Fat Albert’s open stage. There was construction along College Street beginning at Bathurst and going east, so I walked my bike along the sidewalk for a few blocks until I could mount it again.

I arrived at Fat Albert’s and signed up. My two earliest possibilities to play were either number 2 or number 5. I would have preferred number 5, but since both Charles Winder and dark Cloud had written themselves in before that I was afraid that with the long flamenco pieces that Charles plays and the long songs that dark Cloud writes, that even with number 5, I might not get on before the feature.

            When I walked in, Brian Rosen was rehearsing back up vocals for one of Dark Cloud’s songs. They spent about an hour working on the piece that he wrote about Martin Luther King.

            There was no one setting up the sound at that point so I set up the tripods and mounted the speakers, hoping I’d gotten it right this time.

            When he and Brian took a break from rehearsing, Dark Cloud asked me what’s been happening at the Tranzac. I told him that I find playing for an audience of only musicians to be extremely cannibalistic. Both Dark Cloud and Bob Allen, who was sitting nearby, nodded in agreement. Brian’s ears perked up when he heard that there was an open stage at the Tranzac, until he heard what time it starts. Going out to perform in the last two hours of the day did not appeal to him at all.

            I went to the washroom and found John Reid sitting on the floor and playing guitar with his back to the wall. I thought that with the shadows cast by the bright overhead light, it made for an interesting image, so I asked if I could take his picture.

The paper towel dispenser is right in the corner behind the door. I was drying my hands when the building manager for the Steelworkers Hall opened the door and bumped me. He didn’t apologize, but rather gave me an accusing look as if to ask, “What the hell are you doing drying your hands when I’m opening the door?”

I came back and took three photos of John as he practiced Gordon Lightfoot’s “Early Morning Rain”. I told him if he gave me his email address I’d send them to him. He said he had one but didn’t know it, so he’d give it to me next time.

            Later, while I was sitting in the Fat Albert’s room, the building manager came to stand in the doorway and look around, giving everybody the hairy eyeball. When I saw Glen Gary I told him, and he explained that Fat Albert’s hadn’t been confirmed yet for the next week and so he the guy had been looking for him to clear that up.

            The open stage began as usual with Charles Winder, who just did one long flamenco piece that had lots of light percussion made by finger tapping after each downward strum.

            I was after Charles, and started with my translation of Serge Gainsbourg’s “L’accordion” – “ … When sometimes he massacres her buttons of pearl, he’ll rip one of his own for his accordion. When her support is in ganger he’ll lend his suspenders, so what holds his pants on is an accordion …”

            I followed this with my own “Next State of Grace” – “ … My mind hangs above this emotional wreck, like a scavenger looking for parts, and it lives in a mansion that’s built from the sweat of my tar paper third world heart …”

            The audience was actually listening this time when I played.

            Then it was Brian Rosen’s turn.

            Brian started with the traditional song, “The Three Sailor Boys” – “ We are three jolly, jolly sailor boys newly home from South Amerikee, our hearts still tingling from the salt, salt wind and the tumble and the tossing of the sea … Wind is in the sail and the thunder’s in the gale and the good ship is plunging to be free …”

            Brian told us that his second choice was about real estate, and then he sang George Vaughn Horton’s “Mockingbird Hill” – “ … Got a three-cornered plough and an acre to till and a mule that I bought for a ten dollar bill. There’s a tumble down shack and an old rusty mill and it’s my home sweet home on Mockingbird Hill …”

            Dark Cloud followed Brian, and he introduced his first song with a story. He told us that back in 1980 he had a friend that called him over to his place. When he arrived his friend informed him that he had a special telephone with which he could call heaven. He handed the phone to Dark Cloud and told him that he could call anyone in heaven with whom he wanted to speak, so he called Martin Luther King. When he asked if there was anything he could do, King asked him to write a song for him – “Well I woke up that morning and what did I see? Tears of a nation … Try walking side by side with full pride … Do you remember me? I had a dream … Do you remember the shots and the screams? My name is Martin Luther King …”

            From Dark Cloud’s second song – “ … I’ll still be by your side on that last train ride … Wheels slowing down, passing through Nashville town … the hour glass is empty, no more sand …”

            Next came Dawn.

            Her first song sounded like it was one of her own compositions – “You’re so wrong about me … let me be free … from tyranny … We’re all animals … Go and be brave, go and make history … I’m at your mercy … Liberation for the animals, cause we are all animals … Fear is what guides harmful behaviour.”

            Dawn’s second song also had the feel of being home made – “Venus, queen of love divine … Ocean of love, flowing free … join us now … let our hearts be one … bring my true love unto me.”

            Bob Allen received the formal introduction of “Robert Allen” when it was his turn. Glen Gary assisted him on the piano when he sang his own song, “Kenny and Charlie” – “I met a steamfitter named Charlie, he worked on the job every day … He had an old dog named Charlie … If anything happened to Charlie, I’m sure old Kenny would die … They both made a very good team, fixing them pumps and them boilers, a man and his dog and his dream …” Bob told us that it was a true story with a very good ending.

            Robert’s second song was another of his own – “Where have you been all my life, the ones I’ve known were full of strife … I can’t help feeling blue when you run into town with someone new … This does not change my mind, you see, I love you more each time we meet … and when you’re through with your old man, I’ll be around to take your hand …”

            After Bob was John Reid, who started with Neil Young’s “Rockin In the Free World” – “ … There’s a lot of people saying we’d be better off dead, I don’t feel like Satan but I am to them … I see a woman in the night with a baby in her hand … near a garbage can she puts the kid away and goes to get a hit … There’s one more kid that will never go to school, never get to fall in love, never get to be cool … Got Styrofoam boxes for the ozone layer … got fuel to burn, got roads to drive …”

            John’s second offering was a guitar instrumental of his own composition, called “Tuesday”. It was a good, complex and well-played piece.

            Then it was time for the feature of the night. It was Brian Morgan, with Lucien Millette on bass.

            Brian began with a story from the night before of he and Lucien rehearsing in the back yard and it started to rain. The thing was though that it was only raining on one chair. They looked up and saw that it was a raccoon urinating from above.

            Brian began with his own “Bad Mama Blues” for which Lucien played an intro on the harmonica – “I wanna testify … Every goose has a gander … but mine never comes home … She jiggles at the bar like an earthquake in a jar …” There was the repeated phrase of “Bad mama” with which the audience sang along …”

            Lucien played bass on Brian’s second song, which he said he wrote on a trip to Newfoundland, after visiting the old French fort at Placentia Bay. The song is called “Save A Moment For Me”. I’ve heard him do this song on several occasions. It’s from the perspective of a French soldier serving as a lookout in the fort, with lots of time to be homesick – “I live on dreams … Looking for ships that can’t be seen … Straining my eyes through a curtain of sea … Here on the ramparts the wind chills the bone … It’s been three years … The glory of kings I serve … I can see Paris when I close my eyes … Guard un second pour moi … lorsque je passerai eternite sans toi …” The French would be “save a second for me … when I’m passing an eternity without you.”

            Brian said that his next offering was a song of inflation from million to billion. The music was written in a Caribbean style and sung in a fake accent that is associated with that region, and Lucien sang backup vocals on the chorus – “Now I runnin round in circles and squares … Ooh whee, we gotta get us a billion … It doesn’t really make a lot of sense, there’s nothing left after the food and rent …”

            After that song, Brian and Lucien switched guitars. I had thought at first that Lucien was only accompanying Brian, but it turned out but it turned out that they were splitting the feature.

            Lucien did all covers, and his first was a Stan Rogers song called “Make and Break Harbour”, for which Brian sang the high harmony, even though he’d only first heard it the night before – “ … Once more we tack home with a dry, empty hold, saving gas with the breezes so fair, She’s a kindly Cape Islander, old but still sound, lost in the longliner’s shadow … The fish are so few that she won’t be replaced, should she founder. It’s so hard not to think of before the big war when the cod were so cheap and so plenty, foreign trawlers go by now with long seeing eyes, taking all when we hardly take any … The big draggers have stirred up the bay, leaving lobster traps smashed on the bottom …”

            Lucien took a moment to find the music for his next selection, which was Gordon Lightfoot’s “Carefree Highway”, on the chorus of which Brian sane backup – “ … Her name was Ann and I’ll be damned if I recall her face … The thing that I call living is just being satisfied without knowing I have no one left to blame … Searching through the fragments of my dream shattered sleep …”

            Lucien then put on his harmonica holder and announced that his last choice would be a Neil Young song. Mary Milne shouted out a reminder that Neil Young played Fat Albert’s back in the 60s.  The song was “Long May You Run”, which I had only figured out a few years ago was a love song to a car. Before that I’d thought the automobile imagery was metaphorical. Brian sang on the chorus while Glen Gary clapped out a rhythm from offstage – “ … It was back in Blind River in 1962 when I last saw you alive, but we missed that shift on the long decline … With your chrome heart shining in the sun, long may you run …” Brian’s harmony saved Lucien’s voice as it faltered on this one.

            Brian Morgan is a talented musician and songwriter, with a good voice. His songs, though not all outstanding, all stand apart from one another. He writes in a variety of styles, and while his lyrics are not exceptionally good, they do show that he puts a lot of thought into them. Lucien Millette works fine as a backup musician for Brian, but I think it was not a good choice for them to split their feature. As Brian performed original songs and sang them with a much better voice, he made Lucien look bad by comparison.

            Mary reminded everyone that the following week would be the last Fat Albert’s until the first Wednesday after Labour Day, so as usual there would be pot luck. Glen added, “We need roast beef, smoked meat, cold pheasant, caviar …” We were also reminded that next week would be Mary Milne’s retirement from hosting party.

            Returning to the open stage, the first performer was Bridget, with help from Ruth Jenkins.

            From her first song – “Watch what you say and watch what you do, watch what you wish for cause it might come true …”

            Bridget’s second offering was a break-up song called “You’re Still In My Heart”.

            After Bridget, performers were limited to one song each.

            Next came Elizabeth Block, who told us first of all that she’d gone to a town hall last week on the Trans Pacific Partnership, which is a trade agreement between twelve Pacific Rim countries, including Canada. She said all but one spoke against it. She quoted what she said that night, “Do I like it? No, no! I am a resister! Resisting still!” She added that as the Quakers say, “I spoke to everyone’s condition.”

            The song that Elizabeth did was in honour of her feelings on the topic of free trade. It was Grit Laskin’s “The Margins of My Neighbourhood” – “On Wednesday night I had a job …. And a begging I will go … I go past the smart cafes where I used to live … I am headed for the food bank … When there are factories on the moon, will the earth be on the dole?”

            John Stroud’s song choice was entitled “Words Like A Door”, though I don’t know who wrote it – “The words I use are dated, lines on pages faded … words like a door don’t seem to fit anymore …”

            When Mary introduced Glen Gary, she urged us to be nice to him, because he’ll be on his own next fall. Brian Morgan on violin and Wayne Neon on flute joined him on stage. Glen dedicated “Swing Low Sweet Chariot” to an old friend of Fat Albert’s named Correna, who had recently died. I think that the funeral had been that day.

            Then everyone remained on stage, plus Ruth stepped up to accompany Marianne Peck as she sang “You Are My Sunshine”. Ruth sang backup vocals. Glen directed the other musicians, calling for a violin solo after one verse, a flute solo after another and harmonica after another. Harmonica and flute do not blend well together.

            Next was someone new named Scott Rogers.  He did not name an author for the song he sang – “Take my hand and show me the right way to go … The road is dark and I’m afraid to walk this way alone … This life that I’ve led and all the riches that surround me, they’re like a stone that I’m sure in time will drown me … In love and ambition I have often travelled blind … My thoughts turn to envy and my actions are unkind …”

            After Scott came Isaac Bonk, who sang his own “Ballad of Sammy Yatim” – “ … The officers thought he would kill … His mind was lost, a line he did cross … That knife in his hand … Guns were pulled … They aimed … These cops felt no shame for the boy of 18 … The tension it grew as the bullets they flew … Now Sammy lay dead, all covered in red … nine bullets all that he was fed … The blood on their hands it’s too much to stand …”

            Michelle Lecce Hewett invited Brian and Wayne to accompany her for her song, which she wrote recently while going through her cancer journey. She told us that while she was sitting at the arts and crafts table at Sunnybrook Hospital, she drew a palm tree and tried to think of calm things. What came to mind was the phrase, “hope spring connection”, and that led to her song, “Give Me Faith” – “ … Lately I’ve been hiding, hiding away … Once I danced to Bowie, now I’m left with his songs … Give me faith, give me hope, give me connection …”

            Michelle was followed by Neil Trotter, a name that one would expect to be attached to someone with a British accent, and it is. He told us that he works for the government, pushing paper, and he looks like he does too. He sang Steve Earle’s “My Old Friend The Blues” in a nasal voice, but it was an effective rendition nonetheless – “ … Another lonely night, a nameless town, If sleep don’t take me first you’ll come around …”

            When Peter James came to the stage with his guitar, I thought that he was going to do a song, but he performed an instrumental piece. He told us that he plays it every day when he wakes up and while doing so thinks about friendships, what he might have done wrong and what he can do to make things right. He dedicated it to Correnna Lee.

            Randy was next, and as usual he’d brought a CD player, with which he sang along. This time it was Carole King’s “So Far Away”. At the end he was crying over the death of Correnna Lee, though I got the sense that Randy had not known the person at all.

            Always near the end, then came Ruth Jenkins, with Brian on violin and Glen on piano. She sang John Denver’s “Annie’s Song”, dedicated it to Correnna, and then declared, “She’s still here in the ether and that’s all there is to it!” At one point Ruth got lost and so she asked Brian to take a solo. He played facing Glen as to follow the chords.

            After Ruth was Wayne Neon, who dedicated his rendition of Hedy West’s “500 Miles” to Correnna Lee. Glen played piano and Brian played violin.

            I wondered where Tom Hamilton was this night. It seemed an odd coincidence that the only night he didn’t show up was when there was another fiddle player in the room.

            This was followed by Zoe Henderson doing a short instrumental on her ukulele. 

            The second to last performer of the night was Elizabeth Knowlton, who also dedicated her song to Correnna Lee. It seems to me that all of these dedications to Correnna would have been more useful to her if she’d received them while she was alive.

            Elizabeth read the lyrics from the music stand, which was quite a ways away from her – “I was never born, I will never die … I’m the smile upon your face … I’m the one you love to see, I’m the one you long to be … I am the ancient one … There’s a million questions, I’m the answer … I’m the sickness and the cure … I’m this twisted fate … I’m the one that bends … I’m the trouble and the fun … I’m the only place to run …”

            The last singers were the duo of Carole Farkash and Paul Nash. Unusually, Paul did not have his guitar with him this time. They sang “Today” by Randy Sparks” – “Today while the blossoms still cling to the vine, I’ll taste your strawberries, I’ll drink your sweet wine. A million tomorrows will all pass away ‘ere I forget all the joy that is mine today … I can’t be contented with yesterday’s glory, I can’t live on promises winter to spring. Today is my moment, now is my story …” When Carole and Paul were finished, they gave each other a hug, and then he took her hand to help her down from the stage.

Rhubarb!

           

            At the food bank on June 22^nd, I couldn’t stay in line because of all the smokers. Whenever one person finished their cigarette in front of me, someone else lit up behind me. It would have been better if they’d all just smoked at the same time. That way I could have at least had a break during their between fag intervals.

            A man leaning on one of the garbage bins was telling another a man by the door that he’d quit smoking a few years ago but had given up drinking years before that because it was too expensive and too much trouble.

            The man by the door asked, “Did you stop drinking before you stopped doing this?” He pointed at the crook of his own arm to indicate the place where one would inject a needle.

            The man by the garbage told him that he had kept on doing drugs for a while after he stopped drinking.

            After several minutes there was breathable air around my place in line, so I stepped back in. I was still reading the French tween book, “Klonk” by Francois Gravel and periodically consulting my Le Robert et Collins French-English dictionary. There was a tall, scraggly haired man about my age behind me who had been one of the smokers that had earlier caused me to step out of line. He was watching me, and finally commented, “A dictionary is a good thing to have!” I closed mine and showed him the cover, telling him that it was French. He nodded and said, “Even more important!” Then asked, “Do you speak French?” I answered that I could speak it well enough to almost understand a book for eleven year olds. He said, “Well that’s better than me!” Then he proceeded to tell me that when he’d been younger he’d been immersed in a francophone community in northern Quebec as a volunteer for Katimavik. He rattled off a few phrases that showed his pronunciation is far better than mine. It turns out that we have a few things in common. We’re both originally from New Brunswick and we both had a parent that was a schoolteacher.

            Later on when I came to pick up my food, the exact same items were on the top of the first set of shelves as there were the week before: pickles, artificially sweetened lemonade mix and olive oil spray. I took another can of the spray, even though I already had five of them and haven’t even tried it yet. But I’m almost finished with the big jug of canola oil that my upstairs neighbour gave me a few months ago, and I’ll be very surprised when I start using the spray if each can lasts very long.

The next shelf down still had lots of Triscuits, but also some Vegetable Thins and some Ryvita rye crisps with “a hint of chilli”. I took the crisps.

My helper gave me a handful of granola bars from the bottom shelf. I usually just keep those in my bag and eat them when I’m out late at night at open stages after missing dinner.

From the bean shelf I took the navy beans, which was the very last can that they had.

The cereal section had a choice of Apple Jacks or Shreddies, so I took the Shreddies.

There was dog food on the bottom of the last set of shelves, but no cat food this time. Fortunately I bought a big bag of kibble a while ago that will last for a while.

There were very slim pickings across the aisle where the refrigerated food is offered. There was a choice between a one-litre bag of chocolate milk or a litre of 2% milk. I took the white stuff.

            I skipped the bread this time around because I had some already.

            The vegetable lady gave me two tomatoes, three potatoes and a turnip. Then she asked if I wanted some rhubarb. I enthusiastically said that I did. She gave me the rest of what she had, which wasn’t much, but rhubarb is a rare treat in my adult life, though we had lots of it growing alongside the barn when I was a kid. I commented that it was the first time I’d seen rhubarb at the food bank. She told me that a lady had just brought it in.

Parkdale Amazon

A woman busting out all over

A woman busting out a lover

A woman wearing black all over

She was native or maybe part black, with curly hair

She was either drunk, stoned, bi-polar or empowered

in a black dress that seemed threatened by the body beneath.

The v-neck of her dress was under siege from cleavage

She was wearing fishnet stockings and high heels but she was tall already

An Amazon dream dressed up like a hooker

but if she was she wasn’t working

perhaps because she was too hot that night to whore it up

She walked across the street in full view of my window

and proceeded to hike her knee length dress

high up to her hip bone where she tied it.

Then she tied the other side until she’d made herself both cooler and hotter.

As she walked the sway of her hips threw the street off balance

It was hard for me to look at her and hard to look away

She looked like she was probably more used to wearing jeans,

had a presence that said she could hold her own in a fist fight with a man

and could melt the women around her with womanhood.

Her body was aggressive and unyielding

but willing to give in for money.

A short, skinny, masculine woman with a brushcut and a bicycle came up

They seemed to know each other and talked briefly

then they walked off together down Queen street.

I went to my other window and leaned out to watch her walk away

Her dress was knotted at each hi p but hanging down in the middle

Just enough to slap the imagination with magic indecencies.

My eyes followed her drunken sexy stiletto pivoting sway 

She reached out with her left arm and hooked it around the neck of her friend,

            then yanked her head into her shoulder and held her there as they walked away.

Black History and White Geography

           

            Tuesday, June 21^st was my last job of posing for the ladies of Studio 1181 in Mervish Village, since their space, the vintage video store above, most of the other buildings in the area and Toronto landmark, Honest Ed’s, will be demolished to make way for a major transformation of the neighbourhood starting in 2017. I first worked for the group back in the 80s when they were located in Leaside and their address actually was 1181. Their ages range from 77 to one of them pushing 100, so they’ve decided that they won’t be looking for another studio after leaving this one. Helen, the woman who does the booking is 88 years old and gorgeous! She was not there for my last gig because she was back home in England. Jane, the 77 year old baby of the group, is originally from Minnesota. She told me that Helen is planning to live in Spain. Apparently there is a colony of retired Brits living in Spain, much like the Canadian “Snowbirds” who live in Florida. The other Jane, also in her 80s has always said that mine is one of her favourite faces to draw and that she’ll want to hire me privately in the future. Lots of people have said that, but very few have followed through. Twenty dollars an hour with a three-hour minimum is a lot for one artist to pay. I told them that I was going to miss them because they’re one of the nicest, if not the nicest group around, and I’m not the only model who feels that way about them.

On the evening of Tuesday, June 21^st, I rode my bike under an endless sailing field of sleepy voluminous clouds on my way to Shab-e She’r.

I took my usual seat at the back. The air conditioning was on even though it was quite pleasant outside.

When Bänoo Zan went to the front to start taking names for the open stage, she announced that new people and minorities would be especially welcome. I told her that I was both new and a minority because there is no one else like me.

As Bänoo was walking past me I asked her if she could shut off the air conditioning, and she did. I could feel the results almost right away, but was hoping it would not get so warm that people would want it back on. It was feeling pretty nice, but opening the front door would have been a nice way to get some fresh air blowing into the room.

I chatted with Michael Fraser, and since he’s a high school teacher, I wondered if the academic year had finished yet. He told me, “After next week.” I asked if he’d be going anywhere for his holiday and he answered that he’d be visiting his sister in Massachusetts. I said that I have relatives all through New England and he shared that it’s the only part of the States he’s ever been. I informed him that while the accents may be different between the Maritimes, where I’m from, and New England, the speech is similar, so we don’t call the sisters of our parents “ants” like they do everywhere else in the States and Canada.

I noticed that the air conditioning seemed to have gone back on by itself.

At 19:00, Bänoo announced that we would begin the readings in two minutes. She was only three minutes in surplus of her promise.

To start, she gave her usual speech about Shab-e She’r being the most diverse open stage in Toronto, and gave a bit of history as to how it came about. Banoo landed in Toronto from Iran in 2010, and started going out to the available poetry events in the city. What she discovered was that literary readings in Toronto did not reflect the diversity that one sees on the streets of Hogtown, so she set about to try and build a better mirror. She told us that a few minutes before, some Iranians came, expecting us all to be speaking Persian, but left when they found out otherwise.

The first performer on the open stage was Andrea Thomson, who sang and recited a piece that she said was about the return of hope, optimism and empowerment. Her composition was intermixed with parts of the song, “What A Wonderful World” by Bob Thiele and George Weiss and she began singing the first verse followed by her own words – “ … They’ve invented a bathmat made of moss … We were trained into passivity … ostrich palooza … posting inconsequential statements on Facebook …” She sang the second verse of the song, then – “ … Maybe it’s a simple matter of alchemy … the word ‘possibility’ teasing our lips like raspberry … They’ve built bus benches into swings in Montreal … The lure of a heart suddenly too seductive to ignore …” She sang the third verse of the song, then – “ … We needed to stand stupid and hopeless … We have only just begun.” Andrea ended with the final verse of “What A Wonderful World”.

I’ve heard Andrea do the above piece before and researched some of the information she includes in the piece about progressive human friendly innovations that have come into our world recently. I had exposed one of her claims as misinformed, about a high-rise apartment building in Milano which she had said was “made” of trees and shrubs. The building in question is actually made of concrete, with extra large balconies serving as little parks for each dwelling. I noticed that Andrea had changed the piece this time to make her information about that building more accurate. I don’t know if corrected it on her own or if she’d actually read my review.

In reference to Andrea’s mention of bus stops made into swings in Montreal, I’ll have to once again be a researching killjoy and point out that this is not the case. The swings are a popular art installation called “21 Balançoires” on the Promenade Des Artistes. They are only set up from late spring until the early fall, during the festival season in Montreal. Because they are near the Place Des Arts metro station, some outsiders have gotten the notion that they are bus stops. But the busses stop across the busy street and if you wait for them on the swings you might miss your bus.

            Bänoo declared that she always feels especially blessed when former features like Andrea Thomson come back to Shab-e She’r.

            Next on the open mic was Valérie Kaelin, and from her excellent poem – “Original skin … we each sleuth out the largest organ … Here I am … wound, split-boned, sequined and fringed … It knows only its knowing … against foolish wanderlust … The original skin … it means well … the presence of animal … inclement weather … It’s hovering, radiant hand … The mind streaming … loneliness the common enemy of its heart … From delegate tracings bitten by the cold winds it acquires the furrows … survival … needful … finds metaphors … wild creatures to domesticate … Worried skin … in this arises the sanctuary laws … to dress our yearnings …”

            After Valerie was Diana Manole, who informed us that George Elliott Clarke, the poet laureate of Canada, had selected one of her poems for his Poem of the Month Gallery.

            The poem that Diana shared with us was called “Deflowering English” – “With my rough accent … my chronic inability to remember the place for modifiers … A double act of rape and enslavement … my syllables copulate with yours … our thoughts and accents contaminate English … But how can a word ignore its own accent … Revirginising the English language for a redemption we are not ready for.”

            Then we had a story poem called “A Mirror” from Hari Kumar – “It was found in an Egyptian tomb … I put it on the ceiling to watch myself lying bare … He’s so beautiful … He looks at me dreamily and closes his eyes… I feel his lips on mine, currents shake my body … His fragrance is mine, his taste is mine … The night lights up, the air ignites … We erupt inside each other … Now in each other’s arms, sweetly spent … I see him stretch in the mirror above … He mimics my love … his face … waves of anguish … The glass shatters … We will be one again …and in the sliver that stabs my heart I see his bleeding eyes …”

            When Harry was done, Banoo took a moment to once again sing the praises of diversity at poetry readings by saying, “If you only make sense to people like you, you are not making sense.” She also reminded people that since Shab-e She’r does not receive any government grants, it survives by donations. She said that anything under $3,000 would be accepted, and anything over that, come and talk to us.

            Next on the open stage was Shagufta, who said that her poem was based on research on South Asian women receiving a virginity test upon entering the U.K.- “The feel of his latex gloves as he opens me to the cold table … I stare at the ceiling … my legs flopped … The stinking smell of lubricant … A light snakes round and pours into me … Oh, my secret snatched … Speculum … I am nothing more than my flesh … My heart … my skull … heavy as chalk … Status confirmed … I remain open … humiliated … I think instead of my mother.”

            I was sceptical about this having happened, first of all because it didn’t make sense to me why British immigration services would give a damn whether or not a woman from South Asia was a virgin. But a little research online showed that it did happen just as Shagufta said, except that it would have been helpful if she’d clarified that it happened in the 1970s and that the practice was terminated before the end of that decade. So the story behind this fucked up turn of events is that most South Asians moving to the U.K. back then needed to apply for a visa in order to do so, but for some reason the Home Office waived this requirement for unmarried women as long as they were scheduled to be married within three months. In order to prevent women that were already married from cheating the system, some genius with the Home Office had the naïve notion that South Asian women do not have sex before they are married and so a virginity test would detect any women that were trying to get a visa under false pretences. A historically deeper degree of ignorance was behind the very concept that the detecting of a torn hymen during a virginity test provided any proof at all that a woman was not a virgin, since many activities other than sex throughout the lives of girls and women can cause their hymens to tear. Most of these tests were given in India or Pakistan before the women left for Britain but some happened at local hospitals shortly after arrival and even some right there at Heathrow airport.

            Following Shagufta was Nick Micelli, singing acapella a song about the participation of Irish immigrants in the U.S. Civil War, called “Paddy’s Lamentation”, which he said research has shown was written by an unknown Canadian composer – “It’s by the hush me boys … listen to poor Paddy’s narration. I was by hunger pressed … so I took a thought I’d leave the Irish nation … Take my advice, to America I’ll have ye’s not be going. There is nothing here but war … and I wish I was at home in dear old Dublin … When we got to Yankee land they shoved a gun into our hands, saying ‘Paddy, you must go and fight for Lincoln!’ …”

            As Bänoo was introducing the first feature, Michael Fraser, someone reeking of several days of tobacco smoke came and sat beside me.

            Michael read from his latest book of poems: “To Greet Yourself Arriving”. He took the title from a line in Derek Walcott’s poem, “Love After Love”. Each poem in Michael’s book is an homage to a different Black figure.

            Michael began with a poem inspired by Neil Degrasse Tyson – “Sometimes I think this never happened … I know we are all living parallel lives … Hitler rules this blue orb … When we were single cells … when we were stardust … surprised to hear the barefaced brownboys wonder within …”

            From a poem inspired by Howling Wolf – “I can hear the train coming … Mama left before I could spell my name … A dead man tuned my first guitar … Hell is a mama that never wanted you.”

            From a poem inspired by Gil Scott Heron – “Blazing … winter in America … Pure pulse … you know he’s the real … What’s going down … Power to the people … You stand in the shade of his blow-out fro … You have to keep on keeping on … The revolution will not be televised.”

            I never quite understood the expression, “the revolution will not be televised”. Even before television, as long as there have been journalists, they have covered revolutions, and so of course the revolution will be televised.

            From a poem inspired by Frederick G. Douglass – “Yesterday I found the person I used to be … Words carried me away from him and multiplied in my leathered hands …as his thin illiterate memory left nothing …”

            From a poem inspired by Cilia Cruz – “ … The sutured swell … the two-toned background singers … the oak or amber beads … the pewter mic … the plumed papaya queen … the capered feet … the bass rumble … the half-pint whose smile lights the sun.”

            From a poem inspired by Barack Obama – “ … His voice the cleansing of space … He refuses to swing at England’s red face … The world expects miracles … No one could possibly be from where they claim … like freed slaves scooting north …”

            From a poem entitled “Underground” – “Crickets squeaked wings … Even near the border they were always one cough away … When they crossed into Ontario, Africans knee deep in the vomit of snow … They dreamed of cotton … running barefoot into morning.”

            Michael then read a poem inspired by Joe Frazier, but first explained that he didn’t celebrate Ali because Ali had used colourism against Frazier – “You’d have loved to drop Ali … You insisted on calling Clay by his earthen name … Cameras and tape recorders came towards you like locusts … Beyond the ropes, men are broken.”

            Michael’s final poem was inspired by the Black Panthers – “Because Watts was burning … blasting my Jim Crow past … Let the safety click speak up in public … Perched on painted lady porches … Ozzie and Harriet time … Our soldiers felled in Vietnam … I couldn’t choose bus seats … I was half time in law offices … My children walking coatless to winter schools … I linked up with Stokely Carmichael and Angela Davis … clipped the magnum to my side and finally decided to wake the hell up.”

            The last few times that I’ve heard Michael Fraser read, he shared poems based on research into African Americans who were conscripted to serve the United States as soldiers a few hundred years ago. My problem with that book was that he was too far from the subject matter to be able to conjure up and command any enticing imagery to give power to the poems. This night’s reading was a little closer to home, but still far from the watermark Michael had set with his first book of poems that talked about his own life. Those poems were tactile and beautiful because they were about things that touched him on a deep level. Michael is a schoolteacher and a family man. I’m sure that he’s being touched every day by real experiences that could make for much better poems than those that are derived from research.

            There was to be the usual break, but first there was a raffle for a small package of books. After a few numbers were called by Kate Marshall Flaherty of people that didn’t answer because they must have left, someone of course eventually won the prize.

            After the break, as she has tended to do lately, Bänoo had one of the open stage readers serve as a sacrificial lamb to help to re-gather the attention that had been broken by the break, so the feature wouldn’t have to work as hard. She chose Ali Ibrahimi for this task, who read a poem entitled “Truth and Reconciliation” – “Platelets repurposed … schoolhouse dons … moving lawns … Tomorrow we will see truth again …”

            The second and last feature of the night was Soraya Peerbaye.

            She began with poems inspired by her trip to Antarctica. She informed us that when one goes to Antarctica one is asked not to pocket anything.

            From her first poem – “Coal eyes albatross … bones hollowed for flight … Icebergs … the continent opens its mouth … syllables of snow … blue, luminous … spectrum sharpened to shadow of mirror … a white room asylum …”

            Soraya’s second poem was called “Throat Song” – “Harmonic intervals of cloud … Carcasses ransacked … broken into eggs in the shadows below … a droning undertone … frozen, unable to rot.”

            She told us that she went to Deception Island where there was once a whaling station that closed in 1929. The carcases were abandoned and the current landscape looks like Mars – “ … Whalebone … boat hull … on an island named Deception … I press my hand to each body … Even decay wants to live … The mining of a living ore … Sea lulls bone … Rail of wind and rusted lungs … Constellation of a holocaust and still beauty … A whale marked by a flag and left floating … Wash their hands in warm blood …”

            In the second half of Soraya’s set, she read for us from a series of poems based on the gang assault and murder of Reena Virk in British Columbia – “ … Salt marshes … throats and the breasts of birds … There had been a tumult of rumour … He testified how her jeans slid from her hips … amidst exotic blackberry … stems blackening … She started mumbling words … wanting something to catch … In Warren’s testimony she drowned … Two girls … One standing … He stood on the shore … saw Kelly raise her hand … Smooth ligament scars … Her face pressed to the estuary floor … floods her mouth, her nostrils … I’ll make her eat her words … How could he see from the moonlight glimmering on the water … Kelly’s jacket … She said her jacket reeked like blood, like rotten fish … The edge of the hand brought down like a hatchet blow … Pressure against soft palate … the tongue in the wave …”

            From “Slow Time” – “Here the force is ice … A series of shadow lakes … pine cones holding themselves close … salt lines on tree trunks …”

            From “Stones” – “I will take anything that is given … What do the pebbles tell you … That it became harder … Watery night against her open eyes … clutch of tongue between her teeth …”

            Soraya’s final poem was “Lagoons and Lakes” – “I liked diving … a glass of Fanta cracked my lips … licked the fine, bitter dust … Here it was sweetwater … tilted and teardropped …”

            Soraya Peerbaye’s poems about Antarctica were some of the most inspired writing presented at Shab-e She’r that evening. They created atmosphere and tactility; they trembled with the emotion of the experience of being there. Her set of poems about Reena Virk’s murder suffered from the same distance as Michael Fraser’s poems about famous strangers. She couldn’t call up any strong images because of course she wasn’t there to mine them from the moments of the event.

            Bänoo immediately returned to the open mic, starting with Anushka.

            From Anushka’s poem – “I speak for my grandmother … spit revolution … for the dissolution of self … I will speak in my mother’s tongue … This tongue will go dry … for the sister beaten to death by her brothers for wanting a divorce … We have been silent for too long.”

            Next was David Bridges, who informed us that it was National Aboriginal Day. His poem was called “Be Cause” – “Orlando ordeal … because you slaughter those disgracing your fanatical cause … This is the American way … as guns and roses grow freely … Counter insurgency of compassion … May the black rose know the white rose has no shadow.”

            After David came Rula Kahil, who told us that Banoo was going to kill her, but because she has a birthday coming, she had written a “Poem for Banoo” – “Curly hair … innocence that resides in the layers of your silence … a presence that is constantly present … The friends we are in between lands …”

            Then Banoo invited me to the stage where there is no stage. I read part two of my translation of Boris Vian’s “Un Coeur D’or” – “ … Very gently, Candy Breeze lifted the razor he had been holding and passed the sharpened blade over the taut, white knuckles of the murderer …  One by one, the tendons of his fingers snapped like the over tightened strings of a guitar, and with each cut, there resounded a feeble note …”

            Following me was Megan Hutton, who told us that she represented some kind of diversity in that she is a 70 year old lesbian that has been with the same woman for 31 years. She said she sat through the Vietnam war and has been a playwrite, but now that she is older she composes poetry. She shared two poems.

            The first was entitled, “Primal Desire” – “Carefully folded into that interior you call self … you roll under my tongue … Darkness hides your armour … the push and pull that is you … fall to the earth with confusion … I wonder if your silence is a language.”

            Megan explained that her next poem described an encounter between a  down and out man and a couple of uptight Forest Hill lesbians. She called “Fast Eddy” – “My eyes dance on his words … a dishevilled stranger … The risk of opening up to two unlikely participants with matching purses … he asked them what day is Monday … He remembers his place … My drinking, my downfall … left over from a Christmas he can’t remember … warn, peeling and chapped … Recites The Cremation of Sam McGee … believing for a time in a future he can still imagine …”

            Before inviting Alexia to read, Bänoo took a moment to thank her team and said that her nightmare is not having one.

            Alexia told us that this was her first time reading her poetry in public and that she is a student in Andrea Thompson’s spoken word class at OCADU.

            Her poem was called All At Once” – “It doesn’t happen all at once … Your mother hands you a pad … Am I a woman now … It’s just your period … You take her offering into the washroom … the pad unfolds like a lily blooming … you will bleed into this whiteness … You are not allowed to speak of it … There are models in commercials who do this really well in white bikinis … You bear your period like a champ … You must repent … You must collect the red brightness of it … offer it to the moon … Keep secret stains behind the nails lest you forget your mother was wrong.”

            Next was Geoff Lepper, who read a poem he’d written for a friend who is terminal, and he cried through most of his reading – “Perhaps we are all like icicles hanging … She was a child of life … More than tables, she walked into walls … People looked at her and wondered … People don’t simply walk through walls … She’d had every intention of walking through walls … Her spirit still dictated that she walk through walls … Life is much more than being at home, full of tears … Those who thought of her as having poor sight … This woman of joy gave all who knew her positive spirit.”

            After Jeff, was Mind the Gap, who asked if we wanted her to cheer us up. I think that the answer was yes. She interspersed her poem by singing the refrain from the REM song “Losing My Religion” – “That’s me in the corner, that’s me in the spotlight, losing my religion … Come into my office … I’d offer you a seat at my desk … I am amused … We can have cigars in the armchairs … I want you to see my paintings … That’s me in the corner, that’s me in the spotlight, losing my religion … So please come into my office.”

            Then we heard from Kate Marshal Flaherty, who read a poem she’d written about Norval Morriseau’s painting, “Skinwalker” –“ … I don’t have the word for story in Ojibway … The deeper thin lichen teal … sunsets like copper pots … Your skinwalker … I hide under its hide … Miigwetch the only word I know.”

            The final reader on the open stage was Sarah Flogan, with a poem called “The Rash” – “The ice cold of the iron bars … She is pinned, mute … She summons air … arches her back … puts on a sweater to warm her belly, gathering her strength … she steps forward.”

            After helping put the chairs away I chatted with Cy Strom and Natasha Khan. Natasha had only just arrived. She asked if I’d done a song this time on the open stage. I told her that I’d read a story. As I recall, Cy described it for her as having been about a murderous criminal who meets his end at the hands of a child that is even worse.