Juan de Onate: Conquistadouchebag

            On Saturday morning I translated a few more lines of "Complaint du progress" by Boris Vain.

            I memorized the second verse of “C’est la vie qui veut ca” by Serge Gainsbourg. I had to rethink some of my rhymes because I saw that all of the first lines rhyme with each other, all his second lines as well, and so on.

            I didn’t go to the food bank and probably wouldn’t be going for the next few weeks because it takes me at least a day to write about it and I have to focus on school. Between now and the beginning of December I have five assignments to hand in.

            I washed the seven board wide area under the shelf on the threshold between the living room and the kitchen. The main dirty part is a strip of floorboards that I glued down myself on top of a concrete ramp that I made there more than ten years ago. There had originally been a toe-stubbing jump in elevation between the two rooms because long before I moved in they used to be in separate buildings with a brick wall in between. I’m quite proud of the ramp that I made because I didn’t know how to do it but it worked out well anyway. I cut the floorboards from a section of the kitchen floor in front of the cupboards that I’d intended on replacing with plywood and covering with tiles, but never did. The floorboards have a lot of glue on them that did not all come off when I cleaned the first seven boards and so it still looked patchy even after being washed, brushed and scraped. I think it would take an electric sander to fully strip the glue off. I have thirteen boards to go to finish that ramp and so maybe I’ll go over all twenty again in the next session.

            I had three corn crackers and some old cheddar for lunch.

            I finished reading the first chapter of Ways of Knowing. It paints a picture of the North American First Nations people as having a lot of dogmatic beliefs and that a Native person that is an atheist would have a hard time fitting in to any of the communities. It made me think that atheism seems to be mostly a white phenomenon and that maybe it arises from a sense of privilege.

One interesting and alarming statistic was that of the 53 Indigenous languages in Canada, in the next ten years only three will be left: Ojibway, Cree and Inuktitut. But that quote came from 1992. According to the itk.ca website there are 60 languages (UNESCO says 70) and all endangered but none of those are dead yet. However speaking of those languages has dropped by half since 1996. 

            In the afternoon I did some exercises while listening to Amos and Andy. In this story Andy wants to avoid any more breach of promise suits but there is one woman he proposed to a few days before and she was recently seen shopping for her trousseau. He learns that soldiers can’t be sued for breach of promise and so he borrows a uniform from someone who's just been discharged, puts it on and goes to see the girlfriend. It turns out she is getting married but not to Andy. While he is there dressed as a soldier he meets the woman’s father, who is a major. Andy tries to lie his way through but when he tells the major where he is stationed he says it just so happens he’s on his way there and he’ll give him a lift. His battalion ships out in two days. The only funny line is near the beginning when Andy is telling Kingfish about a woman that he once dated who had so many chins he couldn’t tell where her mouth was to kiss her. His solution was to hold a piece of candy in front of her face and to kiss the part that opened up for it.

            I took a bike ride to Bloor and University but this time I took Queen first. Queen is a lot less smooth eastbound than westbound. On University I felt my left crank-arm was loose. I stopped and the nut was about to come off. Luckily I carry the socket to tighten it in my backpack. I think I caught the nut just in time before it would have fallen off.

            I rode along Bloor to Lansdowne and then went south to No Frills. I bought grapes, peaches, a bag of red potatoes, a strawberry rhubarb pie, mouthwash, kitchen bags, yogourt and kettle chips.

            I saw my next-door neighbour Benji in the hall on my way out and on my way in. Both times he joked about me wearing blackface. Both times he also said people are making a big deal out of nothing. While we were talking our upstairs neighbour David came in. He wanted to buy me dinner but I told him I’d be making dinner.

            I started reading Thomas King’s The Inconvenient Indian. I bought it while looking for Ways of Knowing, which we were told in our first Indigenous Studies lecture is the required reading for the course. I picked it up thinking that it might be mentioned as secondary reading for our course and also because I’ve read some stories by King that I enjoyed. I just found out that I accidentally made a good decision because the King book is required reading for this course. But the syllabus offers no reading list and I only figured out when the lecture for next Monday was said to be on “King chapters 1 and 2” that the professor was probably talking about Thomas King. This is the most shoddily prepared course I’ve come across at U of T.

            The Inconvenient Indian is much better written and more interesting than Ways of Knowing. He said that the second biggest massacre by Natives had a loss of 295 settlers in the small town of Almo, Idaho in 1861. The thing is that it didn’t even happen. The whole story was made up. The largest massacre of whites happened in 1813 in Alabama with a loss of 400. After that the largest massacre was 108, then 90 and then much smaller numbers. On the other hand there are plenty of massacres of Natives by white people. In 1598 Spanish conquistador, Juan de Onate killed 800 Acoma in what is now New Mexico and cut off the left foot of every man over 25. In the 17^th Century another 600-700 were killed during one massacre in Connecticut. Throughout the 19^th Century massacres took place in which 200 were killed, some tribes putting up no fight whatsoever.

            I had an egg and a spinach pastry for dinner with a beer while watching Wagon Train. In this story the train is crossing the desert on their way to California and it’s running out of water. Flint has gone ahead to the only spring that isn’t dry but before he takes a drink he sees animal bones and realizes the spring is poisoned. Unfortunately his horse drinks before he can stop it and he has to put it out of its misery. He makes his way back to the wagon train on foot but is sick and delirious from dehydration by the time he gets there. There is only one other man that knows the way to Fort Paiute and that’s Monty Britton, who is traveling with his wife Betty. The Major doesn’t trust Britton because he thinks he is a deserter from the military. Britton denies he is a soldier. Finally, when there are only two canteens of water left, Britton takes them, steals a horse and sneaks off. A day or so the cavalry arrives with a water wagon and Britton sick in the back from having given all his water to his horse and ridden through a sandstorm to reach the fort. The commanding officer is Betty’s father and it is revealed that Britton never deserted but was dishonourably discharged because he commanded his men to retreat in the face of battle and caused several deaths. But he was only suddenly in command when his senior officer was killed and he may have been following the last orders of that officer. He could have appealed the court-martial but felt betrayed by the army and left. In the end it looks like he's going to be back in the army.

Rebirth

            On Friday morning I translated a few more lines of "Complaint du progress" by Boris Vain.

            I memorized the first verse of “C’est la vie qui veut ca” by Serge Gainsbourg and almost nailed the second verse. I was able to sing it once by itself but not in conjunction with the first verse.

            I washed the bookshelf that sits on the threshold of my living room and kitchen. I also cleaned my amplifier that sits on top of the shelf. Next I'll clean the floor there.

            I had a couple of pork ribs for lunch.

            In the afternoon I did some exercises while listening to Amos and Andy. This was the second half of the two-part story. Andy’s ex-girlfriend is suing him for breach of promise to marry her. He manages to avoid receiving a summons on a few occasions but when a woman comes and flirts with him she turns out to be delivering the summons. In the end Andy’s ex drops the charges.

            I took a bike ride to University and Bloor, south to Queen and then home.

            In the mail was my FIT shit test results informing me that I don’t have colon cancer. They should have a test where you send shitty poetry to a lab to find out if you have brain cancer. Also I received my birth certificate. It has a new design and it looks more like Canadian money. It’s also no longer wallet size. I guess they don’t want me to carry it around with me. Next I can get my Social Insurance Card renewed.

            I finished updating my journal.

            I cut up a butternut squash and boiled it. I had about a third of it for dinner with three pork ribs and a little gravy while watching Wagon Train.

            This story was interesting. Flint has an injured shoulder and so he can’t scout effectively. The Major trades places with him and puts Flint in charge of the wagon train. There are two factions on the train from the two sides of the Civil War. Thaddeus Field leads the northerners. He is fanatical and believes that the north should have laid waste to the south after winning the war. Roy Pelham, who leads the southerners, is decidedly more sensible but he still likes to fly the Confederate flag. Roy is in love with Thaddeus's daughter Harriet but she claims she wants nothing to do with him. Floating philosophically above all of this is John Wilbot, who always carries a book of Shakespeare but never needs to open it because he seems to know every play by heart and has a quote for every occasion. Harriet and John strike up a friendship in which they have long talks. Two young women that are smitten with John take from his wagon his Shakespeare book. Harriet gets it back from them but her father looks at it and finds a newspaper clipping about John Wilkes Booth recent assassination of Abraham Lincoln. There is a conspiracy theory at this time that Booth escaped capture and is still alive. Thaddeus gets the notion that John is actually John Wilkes Booth. When confronted about it John is not desperate to deny it but he does calmly offer alternative possibilities. The northern and southern factions are split over whether to put John in chains. Perhaps just to keep the peace John admits to being Booth. Whether John is lying or not Flint has no choice but to put him in chains until they can turn him over to the authorities. The wagon train is attacked by Shosone and John is released to help fight. During the battle John is mortally wounded. As he is dying he is asked his real identity. He just smiles, says, “My name is John Wi …" and he dies.

Threshold

            On Thursday morning in my translation of "Complaint du progress" by Boris Vain I decided “chasse-filou" would be “hunting hook” and that I’d rhyme it with “animatronic cook”.

            I started memorizing “C’est la vie qui veut ca” (It’s life that wants it that way) by Serge Gainsbourg. It’s basically someone arguing with a lover that they never promised to be faithful, and that’s just the way life is so deal with it.

            I washed the threshold between my living room and my bedroom. Now I can no longer see a dark dirty part under my curtain from where I’m sitting at the computer. I think that next I’ll wash the threshold between my living room and the kitchen and that will take care of all the dark parts of the floor that I can see from my desk.

            I had the rest of the quick chili that I’d made on Tuesday with the rest of my potato chips. I drank the bottle of bone broth that I’d gotten from the food bank and it gave me a bit of a bone buzz.

            In the afternoon I did some exercises while listening to Amos and Andy. In this story Kingfish decides to become a promoter of Andy’s greatest talent, which is being a lady’s man. He gets him a job writing advice to the lovelorn under the pseudonym of Juliet Heart. When a woman asks for advice on how to deal with her boyfriend who had promised to marry her and backed out, Andy tells her to sue him for breach of promise. She takes the advice but the boyfriend turns out to be Andy. This is a continued story.

            I took a bike ride to Bloor and University, south to Queen and on the way home I stopped at Freshco. There I ran into Lee, and we chatted for several minutes before we went off to do our separate shopping.

            I bought four bags of grapes, a basket of nectarines, three containers of Greek yogourt, a beef sirloin roast and a twelve-pack of toilet paper. Obviously all that would add up to more than $15 but when the cashier said $50 I heard $15 and counted that much out before she pointed out my mistake.

            At home I worked on my journal.

            I had a potato, a squash, some ribs and gravy for dinner while watching Wagon Train. This story was about a wild west performing star named Rex Montana who travels with a manager named Clyde who writes best selling dime novels about Rex’s adventures. Also in their troupe is a Cherokee named Chenwakee and a Paiute princess named Loetha, who was initially kidnapped but fell in love with Rex. Rex’s reputation was built by Clyde after the Bear Tooth Pass massacre when he fictionalized Rex as the hero. The fact is that Rex can shoot and put on a good show but he’s actually a coward and abuses Loetha and Clyde. The real hero of the massacre was a man named Rodney who is now an alcoholic with brain damage who remembers nothing of his past. He is cared for by his brother Bill in Salt Lake City. Clyde encounters Rodney and sneaks one of the Montana books into Rodney’s pocket so Bill will find it, know that Rex is near and will come after him to kill him. But when Bill finds the wagon train and is about to shoot Rex, Loetha screams and Rex kills Bill. Later Clyde sets Chenwakee free to go and inform the Paiute that Loetha is on the train. When Chenwakee arrives with the Paiute riders he shoots and kills Rex. Loetha doesn’t know that Rex is dead but the unlikely outcome is that when the Paiute come for her she willingly leaves with them.

            

Lilith

            On Wednesday morning I tried to find a translation for “chasse-filou" in order to figure out how it could be even a nonsense appliance in my translation so far of  "Complaint du progress" by Boris Vain. It translated directly "hunting-rogue”, so I'll have to give it some thought.

            I finished working out the chords for “La baigneuse d Brighton”.

            I hadn’t done any of the reading for my "Aesthetic and Decadence Movements" seminar and so I sat down and read for two hours until it was done. The first reading, entitled “The Fleshly School of Poetry” was a biting critique written by Robert Buchanon in the late 19^th Century in response to the fifth edition of D.G. Rossetti’s Poems. In the article Buchanon attacks not only Rossetti but the whole Pre-Raphaelite art movement. He says the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood are minor contributors to the world of art suddenly being given the attention of important figures. He compares them to supporting characters in Shakespeare’s Hamlet stepping forward in the middle of the play and drowning out Hamlet’s lines with theirs. Buchanon’s is reacting against the Pre-Raphaelite idea that the body is more important than the soul. His responses to the eroticism of Rossetti’s poetry makes one think that Buchanon is such a prude that he would divorce his wife for farting.

            The other readings were more in praise of the Pre-Raphaelites and the final piece was Rossetti’s 78^th sonnet, “Body’s Beauty”.

            When I was finished I had time to shower without shaving, eat an apple and some crème brulée and then leave.

            There was another class in room 57 when I got there and so I waited in the hall. The first other student to arrive was the 50ish woman. She asked what I’d thought of the readings. I told her they were a little dry but thy put the subject in perspective.

            It was a little after 14:00 when the other class left. There was a staff member at UC there to set up the projector for Professor Li.

            She told us that our reading questions for next week are posted online.

            She showed us some more slides of Pre-Raphaelite paintings. The first was “Last of England” by Ford Madox Brown, showing emigrants on a boat staring forlornly back at England as they leave for the new world. Immigration in those days was permanent and there was rarely any chance to return even for a visit. That made leaving a sad experience.

            Thomas Carlyle invented a secular religion.

            The first stage of Pre-Raphaelitism was naturalistic and symbolic.

            The second stage explored Victorian femininity.

            She showed another Pre-Raphaelite painting called “The Awakening of Consciousness” by William Holman Hunt.

            “Mariana” by Sir John Everett Millais. 

            “Lady of Shallot” by William Holman Hunt depicting woman protesting.

            The colours are more intense than those of Raphael. The reds are not brownish red.

            The Pre-Raphaelites wanted to take up from where the Gothic artists left off.

            She showed several depictions of the lady of Shallot. The one with the pained expression, locked in a spell and on her way to die by John William Waterhouse.

            She showed us some wallpaper by Morris. Some of it is still produced. The politics of handwork of the tapestries were socialist in a way.

            The rules of Raphaelesque art would be too restrictive today.

            The Birmingham Museum has the largest Pre-Raphaelite collection.

            Pre-Raphaelite art was self-conscious and a revolt against academicism.

            We looked at Walter Pater’s review of Morris’s “Defence of Guenevere”. Pater’s criticism is a kind of creative writing in itself.

            Medieval art was paradoxical.  It was Christian but also breaking out of Christian restraints.

            The Pre-Raphaelites were essential for Victorian aestheticism. They were closer to tangible real life without illusion. The affirmed the senses passionately by evoking a raw version of the Medieval. Hellenism versus heroism.

            We looked at Robert Buchanon’s “The Fleshly School of Poetry”. He claims that his critique is literary and yet it seems obviously moralistic even in the title. “Fleshly” evokes sweat, bad smells and lust.

            He uses words like “affectation” and “pretensions”. A critic has said that Toronto is pretentious in that it is really a village that tries to be a city.

            Buchanon is setting up values. He says Rossetti’s poems are unwholesome which implies not only that they are unhealthy but that they will make those that read them sickly as well. His argument is ad hominem.

            He implies the poems are common.
            He refers to the “so called” Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, meaning that it is really something not worth having a title.

            He calls the poetry “exquisite” but the word can also be negative in the sense of being ornate like Baroque art. An “exquisite” was another word for a dandy.

            Buchanon switches to “we” sometimes to give force to his opinion.

            He uses backhanded praise in saying that Rossetti has the right skills but the wrong judgement. In the end he uses false self-deprecation by saying that he might be wrong.

            We took a short break. I asked the professor if the otherly named editions of Pater’s “Studies in the History of the Renaissance” are the same but she said that some of the text is different.

            We looked at Rossetti’s 78^th sonnet, “Body’s Beauty”. He had his manuscripts buried with his wife but then changed his mind and had to have her dug up again so he could get his writing back.

            “Body’s Beauty” is part of a larger sonnet sequence. She asked for a volunteer and so I read it. She thanked me for including the title in my reading because so many students leave the titles out:

Of Adam’s first wife, Lilith, it is told

     (The witch he loved before the gift of Eve,)

that, ere the snakes, her sweet tongue could deceive,

and her enchanted hair was the first gold.

And still she sits, young while the Earth is old,

And, subtly of herself contemplative,

Draws men to watch the bright web she can weave,

Till heart and body and life are in its hold

The rose and poppy are her flowers; for where

Is he not found, O Lilith, whom shed scant

And soft-shed kisses and soft sleep shall snare?

Lo! As that youth’s eyes burned at thine, so went

Thy spell through him, and left his straight neck bent

And round his heart one strangling golden hair

            “Body” is Lilith. He links body with beauty.

            Is this a Shakespearean or Petrarchan sonnet? It’s Petrarchan because it has an octave and a sestet with no couplet at the end.

            Lilith’s hair is enchanted.

            She weaves a bright web, which makes one associate her with a spider, but it should be noted that in Victorian times a web could be fabric. I pointed out that the original English word for woman was wyfman, which meant, “person who weaves”.

            The long vowels like “i” in the sestet slow our reading down. The consonants also have a slowing effect.

            “Lo” has a lamenting sound and it is followed here by a lamentation.

            The sestet is more sensual than the octave.

            After class I rode to University and Dundas to the bank machine. I’d found earlier that my grant refund had come through and so I wanted to get some cash. I went to Yonge Street and then north of Wellesley to ABC, but they didn’t have the Pater book. I headed back down to College and then across to the U of T Bookstore. I got the last copy of Pater’s Studies in the History of the Renaissance. I was surprised at how small it is, since I’d expected it to be our textbook. It turns out it’s less than 140 pages long and only cost $12.55.

            I looked for our indigenous studies textbook. The one they had was for our course but it seems from a previous year and not Belanger’s Ways of Knowing. Professor White still hasn’t posted next week’s readings online. This seems to be a shoddily run course.

            After I got home I went back out to buy a six-pack of Creemore. The cashier was playing “Lazy Sunday Afternoon” by The Small Faces. The singer really shows where John Lydon’s influence came from.

            I had a very late lunch of a toasted tomato and cheese sandwich.

            I did some exercises while listening to Amos and Andy. This story about Kingfish putting Andy up for adoption. A woman walks into their office asking directions to the orphanage. She starts to chat with Kingfish and tells him that she’d never had a son but if she had he would have been around 40 now. Kingfish convinces her to adopt Andy because he’s already 40 and she won’t have to wait. She agrees and Kingfish manages to talk Andy into it because the woman seems to be rich. But once the papers are drawn up and signed she puts Andy to work. When a man comes to the door from the mortgage company Andy concludes that the old lady is broke and he leaves her. Later however he finds out that she’s adopted another adult son and given him a large sum of money because she owns the mortgage company and is rich after all.

            I tried to work on my journal but I was too tired. I thought I’d lie down for a while but I slept for two hours and got up at 21:00. I had to make dinner right away. I had an egg, with a spinach pastry and a beer and watched Wagon Train.

            This story was about a spooky young man named Ruttledge Munroe. Flint encounters him while scouting. He hears someone singing outside his campsite. When he goes to investigate he finds Munroe standing there pointing a sawed off shotgun. Munroe opens the gun to show that it is empty and then laughs. Flint brings Munroe to the wagon train. The Major says he can bed down with two other strangers that had arrived recently. As they bed down for the night Munroe begins singing a song: “Run away, run away, runaway hide / Your troubles will tag along right by your side / No matter how far nor how fast you may run / you’ll find that your troubles have only begun / Run away, run away in a disguise / Your whole appearance you try to revise / but even if you take on a new name / the fear in your eyes is always the same / Run away, runaway, what have you done / to cause you to be so afraid of someone? / What is your shame, or your guilt or your sin / that’s caused you to be in the fix that you’re in? / Run away, run away, no use to run / No place to hide your past under the sun / Someone will chase you until you’re outrun / and you’ll meet your end with the sound of a gun.” It turns out that the two men are outlaws that betrayed their gang and stole some money meant for the whole gang. They are convinced the leader has sent Munroe to kill them. They decide to wait until Munroe is asleep and to steal the wagon train money from the Major before escaping. But Munroe only pretends to be asleep. He warns the Major and they both catch the thieves in the act. The Major shoots one of them but the other one is about to shoot the Major when Munroe kills him. Having saved the Major’s life Munroe is now in good standing. The other passengers are awakened by the gunshots and come out to see what’s going on. Munroe notices one attractive but frightened young woman. The next day he tries to talk to her and she avoids him. She tells the Major that night that she is running from her husband who wants to kill her and her baby. She tells the Major that she thinks that Munroe has been hired by her husband to kill her but the Major suggests that it’s more likely that Munroe is courting her. That night outside of Ruth’s wagon Munroe sings, “Run away, run away, what have you done / to cause you to be so afraid of someone?” and then the same lyrics he sang before. Then Munroe steps into Ruth’s wagon. She says she knows Ralph sent him. He tells her he won’t hurt her as long as she agrees to be his girl. The next day Munroe tells Ruth not to try to signal the Major in any way. The next night she has to make dinner for Munroe. She goes into her wagon and tries to signal a guard from the side of her wagon to go get Major Adams. But Munroe shoots the guard and says it was in self-defence. But the Major doesn’t think it rings true. Munroe tells him to sit down and he’ll tell him why he came to the wagon train. Munroe says that when he senses that someone is on the run he works on them and makes them believe he’s the one after them. He did the same thing with Ruth but this time it was because he liked her. He says you don’t even have to lie to convince someone you know all about them. They just have to be scared enough. But the real reason that Munroe has come to the wagon train is to kill Major Adams. Munroe had served under the Major in the war. He had been court-martialled for slaughtering eight confederate prisoners and sentenced to five years in prison. He’s sent a letter of appeal to the Major but he hadn’t responded and that’s why he wants to kill him now. The Major hadn’t responded to the appeal because he thought the sentence had been too lenient. They have a show down. Munroe draws quicker and there is a shot. Munroe falls dead because Ruth has killed him with a rifle.

            Munroe was played in a great performance by John Drew Barrymore, who struggled with addiction and extreme behaviour to the detriment of his career and finally became a hermit in the wilderness. He was the father of Drew Barrymore. He had been signed to appear on an episode of Star Trek but didn’t show up and so he received a Screen Actor’s Guild suspension.

It's a Living Room

            On Tuesday morning my backache was pretty much gone.

            I went back over my translation so far of  "Complaint du progress" by Boris Vain and changed some of the listed appliances to match the ones that are invented. For instance I used “shovels for your Jell-O" and “a gun for making pancakes”.

            I finished memorizing “La baigneuse de Brighton” by Serge Gainsbourg. I’ll look for the chords next but I assume I’ll have to work them out for myself.

            I washed the bookshelf in the southwest corner of the living room. I had to scrape a lot of plaster off of it. I also cut a piece from a colourful old woollen blanket and hung it over the exposed papers where the top drawer is supposed to be on my dresser. It took quite a while to cut it to the right size but that finishes my living room cleaning project.

            For lunch I made a quick chilli with a can of kidney beans, some tomato sauce and a can of green salsa and had it with a bowl of potato chips.

            I did some exercises in the afternoon while listening to Amos and Andy. In this story Kingfish buys a $6 desk for his office that the salesman cons him belonged to George Washington. Meanwhile it’s his and Sapphire’s twentieth wedding anniversary and he’s forgotten about it. Sapphire is very upset and shows Amos some love letters that Kingfish wrote to her twenty years ago. Amos wants to help and so he takes the letters and puts them in Kingfish’s desk drawer to remind him of his relationship with Sapphire. But Kingfish has forgotten that he wrote them and when he finds them and sees love letters signed “George” he thinks he’s hit the jackpot and found letters written by George Washington. After getting the letters appraised, Kingfish realizes they aren’t authentic. But when the salesman hears about the letters he thinks the desk must have really belonged to Washington after all. He buys back the desk for $50. Amos informs him that it’s his anniversary and so he buys Sapphire a fur coat.

            While making dinner I was cutting something and washing it at the same time. I had the knife in my right hand and was adjusting the water temperature with the same hand. But in gripping the faucet lever I stupidly squeezed the blade slightly against the inside of my thumb near the joint. It bled for several minutes and was sore for the rest of the night.

            I had a potato, sautéed onions with orange pepper, pork ribs and gravy for dinner while watching Wagon Train. Flint rescues a tough middle-aged woman named Cassie who is travelling by herself out west from an attack by Paiute warriors. She says she’s going to California to find a man. Flint takes her to join the wagon train and she immediately begins flirting with the Major. He spends a lot of time avoiding her. While riding to buy horses to refresh the train Flint gets shot with a Paiute arrow. Cassie removes it and volunteers to go in Flint's place. An attack on the train by the hostiles is imminent but for some reason several men accompany Cassie on her mission. The train is attacked by the Paiute and Cassie gets the horses. The wagon train is still under siege when Cassie and the men return. Cassie stampedes the eighty horses towards the Paiute and saves the train. On of the men asks her to marry him and she says yes.

            Cassie was played by Marjorie Main, who played Ma Kettle in eight popular Ma and Pa Kettle films.

Everyone is Racist

            On Monday morning while trying to translate “chasse filou" in "Complaint du progress" by Boris Vain and to make sense of it as one of the appliances that he lists I discovered that it’s really a made up implement. Later I found an article in French that confirms that a lot of the items like "waffle pistol" do not exist and are simply used to make consumerism look ridiculous. I’ll have to go back and reassess my adaptation.

            I started memorizing “La baigneuse de Brighton” but had to make adjustments in the translation as I went along. A "baigneuse" is a female bather but I think the way it's used means "bathing beauty". I needed to say it in two syllables but “bath girl" or "bath babe" doesn't really invoke the sea. I settled on "The Mermaid of Brighton" since a woman doesn't have to be an actual mermaid to be called one just like she wouldn't have to be an Amazon to be called one.

            I had time to shave and shower before leaving for class. I put the required reading on a flash drive and brought my laptop along since I hadn't had time to finish all the reading. This time there was another class in our lecture all and I assume thy will be there before us from now on at least for the fall term. That means that next time I won’t have to leave home an hour before class. I sat in the hall and read some of chapter one of Ways of Knowing.

            Our lecture was on the preface and chapter one.

            People have been studying Natives for centuries and yet Native Studies are only two generations old.

            Gate keeping is holding back knowledge and keeping the cultural stream pure. William Fenton was a gatekeeper and Professor White's nemesis.

            Who owns the past?

            Native Studies are more nuanced in Canada than in the United States.

            There are two schools of thought. There is the established framework of American studies.

            Interdiscipline is a jack-of-all-trades approach.

            Native literature was argued not to have critical mass because there were no Native critics.

            Native Studies don’t have meaning and importance until universities have Native or Indigenous Studies departments as opposed to “centres" and "institutes". Only Trent University in Canada and Arizona State University in the United States offer PhDs in Native Studies.

            Professor White told us that he participated in building a longhouse and the science works. It was quite solid by itself but they were required by law to use bolts and screws afterward.

            The clan mother and her daughters controlled the longhouse.

            Europeans thought of “Indians” as being dirty but Europeans were less inclined to bathe and to some Christians bathing too much was considered a type of devil worship.

            He said they are making another film adaptation of that horrible story, The Last of the Mohicans. It reflects an American fascination with the past. Indigenous people need to be understood on Indigenous terms.

            He mentioned the anthropocene and said the last cene was a million years ago. The term anthropocene is not yet fully recognized. The geological epoch we are currently in is the Holocene, which started 12,000 Years ago after the Ice Age. We can altr the planet. He said before he left the US for Canada he tried to pawn all his VHS tapes but nobody wanted them. He tried to recycle them but there was no facility for that and so they ended up in the dump.

            Native culture is grounded in thinking. The best education is dialogue but the United States has forgotten how to do that. When he came to Canada he was floored by the dialogue he saw in Canadian Broadcasting Corporation programming.

            We are reliant on the written word and the telephone game does not usually worked. He said he saw it work once. Someone said that we all know the story of Goldilocks because of oral tradition. But there are three versions of the story and it has become severely whitewashed since the 19^th Century and so one can’t really say that the oral tradition has successfully preserved it.

            The many native cultures are treated as interchangeable.
            One needs special training in memory for oral transference to be successful.

            How do we form intellectual disciplines and knowledge? Anthropology had similar growing pains but Native Studies is more complex.

            We had a ten-minute break.

            I asked the professor to clarify his statement about three species having their blood measured. He confirmed that the other two species are horses and dogs.

            I asked what is the difference between being a mixed member of a nation and being Métis but he seemed to say that he didn’t know. He said we would be covering it later. I get the impression that he’s only just ahead of us in reading our textbook and that he’s lecturing on it just after reading it.

            There are 634 recognized First Nations in Canada.

            In the United States there are 575 federally recognized Native tribes and federal recognition trumps that of the state because each nation feels communication is nation to nation. Most state recognized nations are in the south. On the US federal level only congress makes decisions about Indigenous communities.

            Indigenous Studies is a broad based scholarship.

            The professor’s friends don't like crossing the border with him because when he is asked for his citizenship he says, "Mohawk” and causes delays.

            The Onondaga and the Tonawanda still operate the way they did before European contact.

            There are two spellings: Haudenosaunee and Haudenoshaunee. One means people building a longhouse and the other means people that have build a longhouse.

            The words Iroquois, Mohawk and Sioux are not flattering terms.

            Calling some stories myths invalidates the knowledge.

            There is more hope on the Canadian side.

            Different nations and even different communities within nations have distinct views.

            “Good mind” is a vast concept.

            He asked, “Why do dogs sniff each other’s tails?" I asked, "Are you sure it's the tail they are sniffing?" He said they do but they don't. They sniff the anus, but anyway he told us a story about dogs going off with each other and gossiping about their masters. Something happened that caused them to have to remove their tails for a while but when they put their tails back on they all had the wrong ones. They sniff each other’s tails now because they are looking for their own tails.

            The moral is don’t gossip. Take responsibility for free speech.

            After class I went directly to my first tutorial, which was just half a block down Huron. I opened the door to room 75 a crack but there were people inside and I thought there was a class going on and so I closed it. The TA came out and told me I had the right room.

            Our TA is Safia Gahayr. She looks Ethiopian but is Somali. She said people that look like her are the minority in Ethiopia.

            She’s actually taught this course a couple of times.

            She says Equity and Indigenous Studies are both very tough to teach. She started in social justice education.

            We went around the room and everyone gave a little introduction of themselves. A lot of the students are in Criminology. I was surprised to find out that I’m the only one studying English.

            She said that in Somalia there is also an oral tradition.

            She told us that Kevin White's way of teaching is very much of a US style.

            She said something that I’ve heard before but it always stick sideways in my head: "Racialized people don't have the power to be racist."

            She told us that in our essays we should be aware of our words and use respectful terminology. The word “Aborigine” has implications of subhumanity while "Aboriginal person" is okay.

            Ways of knowing are views of the world and philosophies such as IK or Indigenous knowledge.

            She said the word “othering” was coined by Edward Said. I know he used the term but I can't find any reference to him inventing it.

            An example of gate keeping is that The Bluest Eye, one of Toni Morrison’s books was banned in the southern United States.

            She recommended the book Decolonizing the Mind by Ngugi Wa Thiong’o.

            Many native people choose to reclaim the negative word “Indian"

            We have assignments due on October 21 and December 2.

            She asked if there were any questions and I asked her about her earlier statement that "Racialized people don't have the power to be racist." I asked what about racism between two racialized groups. She said that is internalized racism and that they can be biased and prejudiced but not racist. I told her the story of when I worked with an Ethiopian guy one day in the 1980s. He told me the story of escaping the war and even showed me where a bullet had creased his temple. He then said, “I just want to live in peace. I don’t hate anybody, except for Pakistanis." She said that people without power couldn’t cause harm by expressing prejudices. I argued that they could influence people in power with that kind of talk. I understand that to have privilege and power and to be racist is more harmful but all racism comes from the same state of mind. The whole class discussed this. One woman half agreed with Safia and half with me. A Pakistani guy in the back agreed entirely with me. If internalized racism has the word racism in it then it must be a type of racism.

            After class I headed over to Robarts because I wanted to get another student card but I found out that the T Card office is now in the Koffler Student Centre at College and St George. When I got there I was told that I needed to show a piece of government identification but of course I didn't have any because I'd lost my wallet. It seemed odd that they couldn’t just ask for my Utor id password, since that allows me access to confidential information. I was told I would have to go to my registrar’s office and get them to send them an email confirming my identification. I had twenty minutes before the T Card office would close and so I rushed up to Woodsworth. The woman at the desk didn’t know me and so I had to talk with one of her superiors who was seeing another student. The other student left and he invited me to his office. He asked me information about my courses and my birth date and things like that. He sent the email and I had ten minutes to get back to the T Card office. I got there with three minutes to spare. The young woman I’d spoken with before said she had been worried that I wouldn't make it. I stood against the screen to get my photo taken but when she told me to squat slightly I spread my legs and couldn’t help smiling. The picture makes me look balder than I look in the mirror. I rode up to OISE to renew some books and found out that they didn't need to see my card after all that rushing around.

            I rode down St George to Beverley and then to Queen and headed home.

            I was home too late to take a siesta or to have lunch since it was only a couple of hours till dinner.

            I did some exercises and listened to Amos and Andy. In this story Andy has met the girl of his dreams but when he goes to see her at her job he goes to the back to tap o the window and inside he sees her stealing money. He tells the police but is reluctant to incriminate her in court. He marries her and so he can’t testify against her but it turns out her brother forced him to marry her. The marriage is annulled and he is able to testify.

            I grilled frozen pork ribs.

            I had some of the ribs, a potato and gravy for dinner while watching Wagon Train.

            In this story the Major runs into an old friend named Hogan whom he’d known in New York as a constable and a boxer when he was a fight promoter. Hogan’s super power is having very fast fists. Now he is a rancher out west with a family. He always defends people and intervenes when his friend Cliff is being threatened by Jason Rance. He knocks Rance out with one punch but then Rance challenges him to a gunfight. Hogan does not use guns and decides at the coaxing of his wife to leave town with the family. But when Cliff turns up dead Hogan changes his mind. He confronts Rance in a bar at close range and challenges him to draw his gun while he will only use his fist. Rance draws but Hogan strikes him first. Rance inadvertently shoots himself and dies as he falls.

            Mary Hogan was played by Rachel Ames who was the longest running performer on General Hospital. She started in 1964 and she’s still on it. She made her film debut in 1954 with "When Worlds Collide"

           

Why Isn't Furniture Made Out of Fur?

On Sunday morning my back was still in pain. It hurt through yoga and song practice.

I translated a few more lines of "Complaint du progress" by Boris Vain.

            I posted “La cible qui bouge” by Serge Gainsbourg on my Christian’s Translations blog.

I almost considered taking some Tylenol for my back but I managed without it.

            I washed the top, front, back and sides of the dresser in the southwest corner of my living room. I thought it wasn’t going to take very long and that I'd have time to clean the bookshelf that sits on top of the dresser, but it turned out to take over an hour. The next session should finish the living room.

I weighed 91 kilos before lunch when I had a toasted tomato and cheese sandwich.

My back was still aching in the afternoon but not as much.

I did some exercises while listening to Amos and Andy. This was their New Years Eve episode. Anybody that's anybody has been invited to the Charles Jackson residence for New Years Eve. Andy is certain that among his friends he is the only one that is anybody because he is dating Jackson’s daughter Camelia. But one by one his friends reveal that they have all received engraved invitations while Andy has yet to get one and the last mail of 1944 has come and gone. Andy decides to go over to the Jacksons to invite Camelia out on the town even though he's broke. He is certain she will tell him that she can’t go out because of the party but will be reminded to invite Andy to the bash. But Camelia says she’d be happy to paint the town with Andy. Andy has to call her later to tell her he has to go out of town on business. Andy is moping around his office depressed about his situation when his minister arrives to give him a talk on casting his bread on the water. Andy is inspired to give it a try and so he calls a journalist friend that had recently asked him for a favour but whom he’d turned down because of bitterness. Andy tells him he’d be glad to help him out and it turns out that he wants Andy to take his press pass and take a date to all of the best clubs in Harlem where he’ll get free drinks and food. So Andy calls Camelia again to invite her out. But then when Andy meets a couple of newlyweds that are too broke to celebrate New Years he gives them his press pass. Now Andy is dejected again because casting his bread on the water didn’t work. But then he gets a call asking him to take Lena Horn, the best looking woman in the country, to the best club in Harlem, because she’s just gotten into town and doesn't have a date.

My back gradually eased back to a mild ache by evening.

I had an egg with a warmed up spinach pastry and a beer for dinner while watching Wagon Train. This was the second half of a two-part story and it was as boring as I expected. The Major’s old flame has come back into his life and he asks her to marry him. She turns him down but doesn’t tell him that it’s because she is terminally ill. She leaves the wagon train with her brother in law in Arizona but when she reaches her sister’s home she has an attack and calls for Seth. The brother in law goes to fetch the Major and he comes to her. She dies in his arms.