Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Built Ford Tough

Progressive Torontonians are freaking out about the election of Rob Ford as mayor, not just because they're worried about what he'll do to the city. They're also disturbed by how many of their fellow citizens voted for a man with track record of bigoted speech about gay and lesbian people and Canadian newcomers--or just about anybody else who is not a car-driving, home-owning middle-class straight married person. Is this what my neighbours/people in the 'burbs think of me? they wonder.

It's true that these attitudes are part of the Ford package. But I think other less worrisome (though no less desirable) factors played a part in Ford's election.

The biggest factor is star power. Torontonians love to vote for a strong, sharply defined character. Exhibit A, Mel Lastman. Rob Ford ran as himself, a classic love-em-or-hate-em character, right out of The Family Guy. Even David Miller, with his stylish hair and upright appearance, had a Soccer Dad/Dudley Doright persona that was immediately understandable on an emotional level. Ford's main rival, George Smitherman, had been a "character" in the past, but ran a campaign where he tried to quash his established persona of Furious George and failed to adopt a new persona along the lines of "gay dad." Voters wondered who Smitherman was and, ergo, if he was hiding something. Torontonians will vote for a big, authentic personality, no matter what policy it's offering them.

As well, David Miller's mishandling of the 2009 garbage strike meant that even moderate voters were keen to punish anyone who seemed gutless in seeking efficiency and, especially, seeking efficiency from the unions. They wanted guts. Pantalone was too closely associated Miller--and too pro-labour--to answer this need. Smitherman, bizarrely, considering his past track record, wasn't able to position himself as someone who could be a tough bargainer. The one thing you know about a loose cannon like Ford is that he won't back down (even when he should). Will it he be effective? I doubt it. But voters wanted someone who acknowledges the problem and will try to solve it.

For better or, more precisely, for worse, it's shallow perceptions, not what runs underneath them that will win or lose you an election in this city. Ford ran a great one-note campaign that capitalized on voter frustration: stop the gravy train, stop the gravy train, stop the gravy train. Ford's specifics--tearing up the streetcar lines or defunding Pride celebrations--were not, I think, a big part of why people voted for him.

Fingers crossed.

Monday, October 04, 2010

Ennui Blanche

So many of the complaint about Nuit Blanche are hard to remedy.

The biggest one--the crowds and their increasing obnoxiousness--could only be solved by something vaguely fascistic. A survey might be distributed: "Which do you care more about: art or getting drunk on the street?" and those who chose the latter might be imprisoned inside their homes for the duration of the evening.

One of the charms of the early days of Nuit Blanche was to look around you and see a panorama of Torontonians exercising their curiosity about their city and what was happening artistically in it. Some of those people were even drunk, but they were engaged. Now one looks around and sees people delighted only that the streets are closed and that there's food for sale on the rutted asphalt.

There's something sad about people so disconnected from their city--so shut out of urban spaces--that they'll turn up in droves to eat corn on a stick in the middle of Yonge Street. You have to wonder why we don't have more permanent pedestrian streets, period. But that desperation is not their fault. And so, as annoying as they are, I would never deny any peaceful folks the pleasure of doing whatever they want to do in the middle of major downtown intersections. In this, Nuit Blanche felt something like a G8/G20 healing session, though my heart did skip a bit when a posse of masked all-in-black young people went by. It took me a moment to realize that there outfits were too tight to do anything but writhe and gyrate.

There have also been complaints about the art, that it was dull. Personally, I keep my expectations low. I'd rather be pleasantly surprised by paper swans hung from trees behind the Eaton Centre than spend all night looking for the "big thing." Nuit Blanche needs to creep up on you, not slap you in the face. Besides, the bigger the "thing," the bigger the crowds. Jeff Koons could land a spaceship on the roof of city hall and any non-masochist would know the most pleasant place from which to watch it would be eight blocks away or some inaccessible perch in the sky like Canoe.

What got me frustrated was the incredibly high percentage of "stuff on screens." I know that there are lots of people doing video art who should not be denied access to Nuit Blanche's exposure. And not all of it was inappropriate--the Holt Refrew "smile" thing was okay, partly because of the irony of the luxury store hosting images that were so folksy. But we live in a culture where so much of our quotidian existence is dominated by screens: our computer screens at work and home, the information screens in the subway, our television screens at home, our phone screens in our pockets. When the goal is reshaping our perceptions of the city--of life--I want something physical, I want something that's real, even if I can't touch it. I want something that has gravitational force.

The moment that just killed me is when we broke from the crowds on Yonge Street and went down McGill to a little parkette, perfectly sized for a perfect surprise. The piece, "Meeting Point: After a planner whose search for new forms pays tribute to existing and familiar places, 2004," by US artist Iman Issa was described as an installation. The image in the program shows a large platform-like object on the grass in a park-like space. We come around the corner and see, not a platform-like object or any "structure" at all, but a screen with an image of a "structure." The screen probably took much more effort to set up than the structures depicted would have taken. I wanted to move around something, to feel it change the world around it. Instead, I got a picture on a screen. They might as well have emailed it to my BlackBerry and saved me the trip.

Give me paper swans in trees, giant clown heads between buildings, loops of tape held aloft by fans (much freakier to see than it sounds reduced to mere prose). If the pieces aren't crowd friendly, put them behind a fence, if you must. But don't give me anything I could easy get on the interwebs.

Monday, August 09, 2010

Ideas and their enactment

Attending theatre festivals like the Fringe or SummerWorks, which is on this week, I usually focus my attention on the ideas behind the plays, what they might become rather than what they are.

Now, a lot of festival shows are fantastic. But even great festival shows (especially great festival shows) are often on their way to something else, like a main stage full-evening mounting. So there can be times when you have to let your imagination fill in the gaps of what might be under more optimal conditions. The creators are often trying things out, seeing what works within the limits of the festival's time frame (usually an hour) and logistical constrains (limited tech time, limited rehearsal time, limited time to erect and strike a set). The bells and whistles that come with a long theatrical run are denied festival productions. To watch (some of) these shows fairly, you have to accept that the intentions and spirit of the production are more important than their execution.

And then you see blow-you-away performances like Atomic Vaudeville's Ride The Cyclone and Edwidge Jean-Pierre's Even Darkness Is Made of Light. You realize there's no reason to handicap festival shows.

With Ride the Cyclone, a young cast sing and dance their way through numbers that personify the lives of their (dead) characters. The electricity coming off the stage is amazing. Each song crackles with bravado when it's not pulling at your heart strings.

It feels weird to describe a play about suicide as a tour-de-force but that's exactly what Even Darkness is. Harness up Jean-Pierre to the grid and we could pretend nuclear energy was never an option. She covers ever inch of the stage (and much of the theatre), taking her character from self-pity to joy to depression to silent redemption in the blink of an eye. She finishes the show bathed and sweat and, inside our heads, so does the audience.

Exceptional performances can happen anywhere at any time. How was the lighting and the sets? Who noticed?

Wednesday, August 04, 2010

Look familiar?

Maybe it's just me, but the new Blackberry looks eerily like Palm's Pre, which floundered on release last year?

Who cares about young people?

Ontario's new law that prohibits drivers under 21 from drinking any alcohol at all before driving reminds me of something an old friend said years ago.

He used to do market research, focusing particularly on young people, what attracts them to particular brands, what values they wanted to see in consumer products, etc. He pointed out that nobody cares about youth issues except youth themselves. Teenagers might rail about not being able to vote or drink or how their schools treat them or how they are targeted by the police. But then they turn of age, leave school and they don't care about those issues anymore. In fact, young adults often put a great amount of distance between themselves and "youth" issues. I know there are adults who advocate for young people and they do great work but they are an exception, and usually paid for their advocacy.

Which is why governments can get away with clearly unconstitutional laws like these. By the time someone gathers up steam to launch a proper court challenge, which can take years, their age makes them stop caring; they move on to other things. There is not enough continuity to create a genuine movement.

Imagine if this law was applied to any other group that's protected by the Charter, which protects people from discrimination based on race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, age or mental or physical disability. For "under 21," imagine "men," "Protestants," or "Irish-Canadians." It could never happen. That's because these characteristics are (mostly) permanent and the affected individuals would stay affected for a long time, long enough to lobby against the law.

Youth is fleeting. Governments exploit that fact every time they take away young people's rights. It's politically pragmatic but it's hardly fair.

Friday, June 18, 2010

Is Pride more important than a high school prom?

As someone trying to figure out what the current imbroglio around Pride Toronto means for the future of Toronto's LGBT community, I found Douglas Elliott's excellent speech at the Law Society of Upper Canada's Pride reception this week especially helpful.

In his assessment of the tone of the debate over whether the phrase "Israeli Apartheid" should be banned from the annual Pride parade, Elliott was bang-on. Even setting aside the name-calling, negativity and assumptions of ill-will I've heard from both sides, the language of "otherness" has played much too big a part in this debate. There have been some very eloquent, consensus-building and compassionate voices, too. But I haven't heard so much "us" versus "them" rhetoric since the Christian Right showed up to prevent the legalization of same-sex marriage. Elliott's emphasis on "we" is vital.

When Elliott set out to define the key issues, though, I lost the thread. "Pride is about our LGBT community. It is the one time of the year when it is all about us." That's true, but I was immediately reminded of another institution about which you could say the same thing: high-school proms. A few of them, here and in the U.S., have been placed in jeopardy over LGBT issues. A student wants to bring a same-sex date, the school forbids it, the conflict escalates and the school or a court threatens to cancel the prom until the matter is settled. Elliott himself is very familiar with this narrative.

You only get one graduating prom in your life. The (mostly straight) students who suffer from the same-sex date controversy did not set the policy--it's not their issue, really. Why should they be made worry if their corsages will be left to rot in the fridge? Can't LGBT students do their own thing elsewhere? Isn't their choice of date a distraction from more serious education issues? Shouldn't the issue be decided somewhere offstage, so (mostly straight) students aren't pulled into it?

I don't agree with these complaints--I do indeed think equality issues are important education issues--but I suggest them here to demonstrate how rhetoric, rather than reality, frames how we decide what issues belong where. When Elliott was fighting for the right of Marc Hall to take his male date to the prom, I'm not sure he would have accepted a "not the right venue for this kind of thing" argument.

LGBT activists like Elliott have (rightfully) supported and celebrated these teenage same-sex date-takers (there must be a more elegant expression for that) as heroes. If one particular prom suffers in the larger fight for LGBT equality, then it's a small price to pay. But you certainly don't feel that way if you're an 18-year-old straight student and it's your prom. You might be angry with your school, but you might also just want the gay boy or lesbian girl to go away or, at least, tone it down. LGBT haven't traditionally settled for the "please go away and tone it down" option.

Then there's the issue of timing. Pointing out that the federal government withheld $400,000 of expected funding this year, Elliott says "I felt that this was a time when we all needed to rally behind Pride to cope with this financial squeeze." This quote reminded me of the Bruce Cockburn song "The Trouble with Normal." According to Cockburn, the trouble with normal is "it always gets worse."

Yes, the federal funding cut was a pain, probably motivated by homophobia. Yuck. But I look at Pride 2010 and see an organization as big and as rich as it's ever been. In the words of not-for-profit types, Pride has built a lot of capacity in the last few years. The budget looks to be more than $3 million, up from $2.7 million last year. There are 10 people on staff and a crew of able, smart and dedicated volunteer coordinators. I'm sure they would have all liked to have had this discussion done with 10 months ago--or 10 years ago--or 10 years from now. But if 2010 is not a year when people can--compassionately--discuss the meaning of Pride, how it relates to the community, how it relates to the mainstream, the compromises it's prepared to make to be well-funded and who should or shouldn't be allowed to participate in it, then I'm not sure when a time for that discussion would ever come.

Why not now? Would the middle of Toronto's World Pride in 2014 be better timing?

Nationally, it's fair to say that the court-driven queer activist agenda of the last two decades is almost at an end. We won. Yay! (Add an asterisk or two here; trans people should add several.) If we want to move ahead as a community, to manifest a form of activism and collective identity beyond the courtroom walls, we need to figure out who we are and what we want to do next. The current discussion about Pride's handling of Queers Against Israeli Apartheid is extremely pertinent to those questions. Well, it is if it can shake off the personal attacks, the lack of compromise, the unwillingness to admit mistakes, the broad sweeping generalizations, the paranoia and the snark.

Is it a pain for Pride Toronto that it has become a principal actor in this debate? Totally, yes. I bet they're much rather be blowing up balloons, booking talent and training parade marshals--or having a root canal. But they should also find it flattering. Pride celebrations, more than any other LGBT institution, are a repository of the struggles and dreams of our community. Even its harshest critics care what Pride does. That's not hate, that's love. I just wish it sounded more like it.

Saturday, June 05, 2010

What's really been in and out of the parade

There's been so much vigorous (acrimonious?) debate over whether the group Queers Against Israeli Apartheid (QuAIA) should be allowed to march in Toronto's Pride parade, there's been little I felt I could add. But it's dawned on me today that both sides have been making not-quite-right statements about the parade's history.

As someone who's watched every parade since 2000 from beginning to end (Oy! I know! I'll never get those hours back!), I wanted to add some facts to the mix.

Several times I've read city councillor Kyle Rae implying that the content in the parade has historically been queer-specific. "What they were doing is bringing in another issue into a queer community event," he told the Globe And Mail.

Well, in past parades, I've seen anti-meat signage, anti-fur signage, "Free Tibet" signage, anti-Catholic signage and anti-Pope signage (more on the Pope in a moment). Is it true to assume Pride messaging is always positive or, if negative, aimed only at those who oppress LGBT people? Tell that to the Latin American Coalition Against Racism that marched in 2000 or the people from Gays Liberation Against the Right Everywhere who, with Rae, founded Pride Toronto in 1981. Or the marchers in 1999 who chanted "Homelessness is a national disgrace."

The 2001 parade included Jewish Women Against The Occupation and people with signs stating "Bi Babes say screw the FTAA!"

All of these causes are debatable, some of them controversial. None are queer-specific. Neither is nudism, really--I've heard that even straight people are naked under their clothes--but nobody has questioned the desire of the group Totally Naked Men Enjoying Nudity (TNT!MEN) to march in the parade, even as they've questioned their right to. (As an aside: One of the criticisms I've heard levelled against QuAIA is that they're nothing but attention-seekers. Uhhh, it's a parade. Everybody who wants to be in a parade is an attention-seeker. It's the single common denominator of parade participants.)

The Toronto parade I've witnessed (endured?) has historically operated with the assumption that queer people who have what I'll call "generic" interests are permitted to, er, expose them in the parade. I haven't done a statistical breakdown, but I would bet that at least 25 percent of parade participants are queer people expressing generic interests, from their religion to their admiration for CBC radio to their distaste of the current government, whoever that might be. It's understandable that Councillor Rae has missed this; he's spent more time in the parade--and in the early days organizing the parade--than watching it. But the parade I've watched glide down Yonge Street year after year has never been a single voice speaking with a single unified message; it's a cacophony. If something in it doesn't make you uncomfortable, you're not paying enough attention.

Now, although the gayness of TNT!MEN's exhibitionist tendencies have not been questioned, their right to participate in the parade has. When Pride's executive director Tracey Sandilands talks about the words "Israeli Apartheid" making attendees "uncomfortable," she seems to be forgetting or ignoring the discomfort TNT!MEN's weenies have caused over the years. In the early 2000s, there were complaints about them almost every year. Prior to joining in the parade in 1999, then mayor Mel Lastman reportedly tried to pressure Pride organizers to get TNT!MEN to cover up. In the early 2000s, there were times when volunteer marshals at the staging grounds encouraged them to do so. Around that time, Pride adopted a semi-official hands-off policy with regard to nudity: organizers would pass on warnings from the police and inform participants that illegal behaviour would not be condoned. In 2002, police did arrest parade nudists, leading seven of them off in handcuffs, their asses still hanging out. The charges were eventually dropped and, as far as I know, neither the cops nor organizers have interfered with nudists in the parade since then. The nudists were never banned, but they have often been discouraged and, at the very least, were left to fend for themselves.

Which brings me to a not-quite-right claim I've been hearing from critics of Pride: that "Israeli Apartheid" is the first time Pride Toronto has censored something in the parade.

Actually, the kooky cult the Raelians were censored in the 2004 parade. They had brought signs that I believe criticized the Roman Catholic Pope, John Paul II, but I can't say for sure because the words on their signs (and they had a lot) were covered up with black tape and other makeshift coverings. The signs you could read said, "Not Allowed By Pride."

You could argue that the QuAIA case is the first time Pride has voted to censor a group, but, in a way, that's preferable to a last-minute crackdown because it opens debate prior to the event and allows the group time to challenge the decision. Also, at that time, Pride's board members, rather than paid staff, ran the festival. I don't know who called for or who approved the Raelian censorship, but I'm sure board members were either involved or close by. Nowadays, volunteers and paid staff can't be confident the board members will be on site to give such advice--the organic connection between community and organization has been severed by the professionalization of Pride, by money, so to speak--so the hands-on people obviously want these things settled before the event.

Regardless of whether a vote for censorship is better or worse than impromptu censorship, the bald fact of censorship has reared its head at Pride before.

Most of this information is available in the pre-2005 archives of Xtra.ca; my memory isn't that good.

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

What Adam Giambrone needs to do next

Take a break from electoral politics, Adam. You've worn your heart on your sleeve about your political aspirations for a long time and it's not too late to still become prime minister (or perennial NDP leader as the case may be). At 32, you have plenty of time to pursue this goal, and maybe even become premier of Ontario along the way.

But now is the perfect time to catch your breath. Resign as TTC head and don't bother running for councillor in the next election. In your ward, you are not the most popular person right now (for pesky issues, I know, like the Queen Triangle debacle, the narrowing of Lansdowne, for parking on Dundas, but these are issues dear to the hearts of voters). Losing the next election would add insult to injury. Step away from the ballot box.

Your early fresh-faced entry into electoral politics proves the maxim about power corrupting.

(Disclaimer: I don't think a promiscuous person is a corrupted person. My qualm is cultivating the public image that you're single and available (how else was Now able to mistakenly presume you're gay?), then parading a quasi-wife figure when you announce your candidacy for mayor--as if that's even necessary in this day and age--then, when confronted with the facts of a sexual relationship with somebody other than your quasi-wife, lying about it. Toronto could have easily handled--perhaps even celebrated--a swinging single mayor. It's the role the women were cast in that's off-putting. If, with the support of your quasi-wife, you could have replied to The Toronto Star allegations with a confident "So what?" you wouldn't be hiding out in Italy this week.)

So here's what to do. Spend the next three to five years doing something else. Something that will make a difference but is somewhat under the radar. Run the United Way. Get involved in some green-energy company. Do an academic fellowship for some kind of centre for innovation. Show that you're not just a smarmy politico but someone who has the smarts to solve real problems and deliver real tangible results. We can debate forever whether the TTC would have been better off or worse without you; it was a major mess and remains a major mess. Grab hold of a project that will show success within five years, something manageable enough that the success will show your signature. Pick something close to your heart that shows you really care about the work, not the public attention it gets you. If you're out of the headlines for a few years, so much the better.

After people have all but forgotten your time as city councillor, run for provincial or federal politics with a campaign that demonstrates how much you've learned from your time in the private/not-for-profit sector. Tap into that newfound wisdom for political problem-solving strategies.

Hey, it worked for former Winnipeg mayor Glen Murray (who admittedly wasn't trying to leave behind any taint other than being non-Ontarian) who just became an MPP at Queen's Park. His time as president and CEO of the Canadian Urban Institute was not wasted. Yours won't be either.

Thursday, January 28, 2010

Blaming the victim

I was going to post a rant about the police response to a dramatic increase of pedestrian-vehicle fatalities (and we all know which side of that equation suffered the fatalities), but the Star's Christopher Hume beat me to it, articulating what is most galling about the cop's propensity to blame the victim. When we have a traffic system that never ensures the safety of pedestrians (and cyclists, for that matter), whether they obey the rules or not, any incentive to obey the rules is removed.

People wonder why there's been such a rash of accidents. My theory: drivers are more cautious when there is a certain threshold of pedestrians around. Drivers have to see a decent number of human beings to register, "Hey, there are people around I have to watch out for." (As a cyclist, I've learned that the most dangerous time to bike is spring, just as biking weather hits. Drivers have to re-learn how to navigate us.)

Un-vehicled people are scarce on many streets and neighbourhoods in the winter so drivers become more cavalier. Our warm snap brought pedestrians to places where motorists weren't expecting them, but not enough to make them more careful.

Regardless, any response that treats pedestrians and people zooming around in 5,000 pound worth of fast-moving, gas-guzzling armour as equally responsible is a response that's out of touch with reality.

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Bright young thing

I have also been doing work lately for Yonge Street Media, a weekly online magazine that spotlights innovation and creativity in Toronto. Having focussed so much on theatre lately, I often feel like I'm applying arts-style coverage to business and community-building projects, which is kinda fun.

Link to 'This' article

When out came out in the fall, my piece on queer politics was paper-only, but, ever slow to catch up, I just realized it's now online.

Tuesday, January 05, 2010

A clever balance

The uproar over how Prime Minister Stephen Harper has prorogued Parliament has focussed mostly on how it helps him escape the controversy over the allegations that Afghan detainees under the care of Canadian troops were handed over to be tortured.

But the strategy is also effective for a minority PM who has struggled with not looking too scary to moderate Canadians. People talk about how legislation dying on the order paper must be a disappointment to him. But perhaps some of it--copyright, the end of conditional sentencing and the overhaul of the national sex offender registry--was introduced to keep his core right-wing supporters happy without Harper caring if the laws ever passed. You introduce legislation to please the core and kill the legislation to please the moderates. The result is that nobody hates you and you can wield the powers of a Canadian prime minister, powers that are much grander than the lowly enacting of legislation.

And the fury over the proroguing? Name me somebody who lost an election due to the abuse of Parliamentary procedure.