A Thousand Words

Two nights ago I got up and performed at a local open mic here in called "Thundering Word Heard." It's always exhilarating and nerve-wracking to get up in front of an audience and perform, but the thrill is in conquering one's stage fright to override the natural trepidation involved in standing in front of a group of strangers who have given you their undivided attention while you regale them with songs or poetry.
I prefer to hide behind my music when I'm on stage though because speaking or reciting words is a bit like performing naked. It leaves you much more exposed and vulnerable to the audience's scrutiny. Luckily, the audience was pretty encouraging and appreciative as it tends to be at events like this. However, I couldn't help but notice the line-drawn in the sand between the separate cliques of the spoken word poets and the musicians and I sense there is a bit of a snobbery by those who call themselves spoken word artists towards musicians or singer/songwriters. As if their form -- undistilled language itself -- is so much more pure, authentic and "important" than music.
I've always felt this sense of inferiority for my visual art and musical skills and have been made to feel that these talents aren't "enough" in this culture that gives primacy to the word yet ironically, is much more immersed in visual imagery.
I think the word snobs perceive themselves as being the vigilant upholders of a dying linguistic form and of vitalizing language against the audacity of other forms such as visual art or music to demand equal respect. We are a very word-centered culture and I often feel that in order to be taken seriously, one must have an ability to communicate using articulate language no matter what discipline one practices. How often have we witnessed the painter or photographer relying on his/her "artist's statement" to promote his/her work? The text is given precedence over the created image or sound in some cases so much so that a forgettable exhibit of paintings or photographs is made indelible by the grandiose terminology surrounding it. It's as if non-text based media cannot be relied upon to be standalone without the help of text. The precedence that written or spoken language is given over other media comes as no surprise in a culture such as ours that is dominated by the impenetrable codes of legalese or the weighty circumlocutions of academics and politicians. A certain dignity -- a gravitas is awarded to writers that is never quite awarded to visual artists or musicians. Rarely does a piece of music or a painting or photograph require the same length of examination and critical consideration that a novel does. I am not rejecting the novel here, I believe the world would be in a sorry state without the existence of novels, but I am remarking on the prejudice that is shown to other disciplines, albeit it's fair to say that nowadays, that if one describes oneself as a "writer" they will find themselves in the company of other castoffs from other disciplines. Nobody in any creative discipline gets half the respect they might have been allotted a century ago. We are all, truly in it together.
It's always been a struggle for me to accept my "art." I was raised in a family that was very vocal and strongly favoured eloquence and sharp debating skills over more reflective and non-verbal forms of self-expression. I developed a skill in language as a self-defense. My brother on the other hand, went silent as a way of protesting the competitive verbal barrages that characterized our family's dinner environments. My mother valued proper diction and articulation so much so that she would become visibly irritated with anyone who mumbled or even paused during their speech. This often created a frustrating, adversarial environment in which respectful discussion gave way to emotional shouting matches very quickly.
It would be nice to be free of this need to feel validated through language - to have that sense of being respected for my non-verbal forms of expression, but as long as the people in power are the ones with the slickest grasp of how to use and, indeed, manipulate others to satisfy their own ends (with the exception of George Bush), then language will always prove to be the tool for real power and those with the words will be given the social status and attention that those without words can only dream of.
This is why I believe in the potential of the comix medium to use both text and images to work in tandem with each other to convey a story. The image resumes where the text leaves off and vice-versa.

The Monsters Among (within) us...

Fall is already nudging summer along here. I woke up to a rained-out Saturday with with damp, cool fall air after a week of going to work under solid blue skies
and high-temperatures. I was planning a camping excursion with some friends but of course, those plans had to be shelved. It's been a strange and shocking week as far as greater events are concerned. I'm specifically referring to the tragic and brutal stabbing and beheading incident aboard a Greyhound bus in Manitoba over a week ago. I haven't been so haunted or scared by a news story in a long time. The suddenness and random nature of it and the gruesome graphic accounts have really cast a pall of shock and disbelief both nationally and internationally. This is one of those incidents that is so senseless and so extreme that it has temporarily bypassed our jaded collective consciousness
and assaulted our comfortable sense of remove from isolated incidents of unleashed psychosis. The unnerving nature of this event reminds us of the underlying primitive, violent impulse that each of us possesses but few act upon. We, especially as Canadians, have always prided ourselves on our moderate and peaceful nature and then an episode of such unexplainable horror happens and contradicts this almost smug self-image that I think I've mentioned in previous blogs, is a rapidly becoming an outmoded delusion in the Canadian psyche. We've finally entered the big, dangerous world and in a sense, we've experienced a further fraying at the edges of our naivete. It's inevitable that an event like the beheading, has traumatized not only on the witnesses but by extension the entire populace here. There is a palpable psychic resonance from this event that has lingered in the last week. A public grief and shock that is almost the nail in the coffin to our innocence as a nation. Perhaps I've consumed too much media lately and I should disengage and find joy in the simpler moments of life but this doesn't preclude or erase the tremendous potential for evil and harm that exist in this world and more and more in the west where anti-social trends are marketed and sold to a spiritually-bankrupt demographic. We are awash in what some with a dubious grasp of reality and a literal grasp of biblical exhortation would describe as apocalyptic times, yet to convey this is to attract the suspicion of those in the intelligentsia who are skeptical of catch-all labels. It feels like there's this overhang of rage in our society right now and that it will express itself in more and more mentally-unbalanced individuals acting out in extreme ways. I think the threat of Islamic terrorism is one shade of many fanatical and angry groups or individuals. To illustrate my point, two radical groups tried to capitalize on the funeral of the victim of this Greyhound bus beheading. One was a U.S. based group of right-wing, fundamentalist lunatics who wanted to cross the border to picket the funeral insisting that the murder was God's retribution to Canada for it's liberal policies vis-a-vis gay marriage and abortion. This logic is so irrational and offensive that a hate group like this so-called "Church" are morally equivalent to the perpetrator of this dastardly crime. Another radical fringe group PETA exploited this event as an opportunity to compare the stabbing, beheading and defiling of the victim as similar to the butchering of animals for food. It's ironic how an organization like this could show such tasteless, callous inhumanity in protesting the inhumanity shown towards animals. Who are these vile and detestable groups? They have been allowed to flower in our culture of permission and tolerance. We can always compare our system to China and feel good about it, yet there's always a dividend.
But to return to the point. A horrible event like this always offers up proof that civilization is merely a varnish for our much darker and violent impulses.