Today at mass the priest used Shellys Ode to the West Wind blindly. Thinkign it was a pretty lyric, he didnt realize the revoultionary subtext. So read it .

In 1991 a poet from californis published this poem in the overseas communist journal.

Lantern Festival

The east wind caresses the face and hastens the peaches and plums.

A sparrow hawk spreads its wings, unfolding a bright future.

The moon reflects in the sea, bringing hot tears.

A traveler ascends a tower, remembering his home.

I shall not fail to live up to lifelong aspirations to serve my country
.
The people who raised me are more valuable than 10,000 pieces of gold.

We must do all we can to catch up and reinvigorate China.

We wait for spring to spread across this sacred land.


Diganolly in the Chinese text from the left corner , the phrase Li Peng Step Down appeared.
Li Peng orchastrated teh Tinnamen Square Fiasco .

Poets are the secert legistors of the world because poets (or at least good ones) are like spy masters transportign dangeorus ideas in banal packages.

FRanks cover this week was interesting

It had THE WAR AGAINST in 72 point times new roman

on a sticky note was terroism

inder that crudely crossed out in red were the worde Communism, dugs, poverty, sexual harrasment, drinking and somking and unleashed dogs

Now Frank is not known for his subtly but it is interesting how it views this war as a war agaisnt dissidence and social control .

On Wednesdays Golbe and Mail there was a picture of a glammed up 16 year old Osma enjoying a school trip to switzerland in the mid 70s. Underneath the fold was news of the Swiss Massacre. Sometimes Synchroncity is an editorial Decsion

Today the Globe Tabloid had a picture of bin Laden in a Western Dead or Alive poster w. the word poster scrawled out.
Sometimes happening here , im not sure what

Hank Williams III used to play punk. He played nasty and angry grinding fuck you music. All blitzkreig drums and buzz saw guitars. He had the lust for music instilled in him by his granddaddy but playing that kind of music had problems. Hank Williams was to Country like Keats to Lyric Poetry . The oepdial energy was so strong that his son ended up playing Good Old Boy and sliding thru on Football Anthems. Who knows why but Hank III started to play country but to this day while playing live he wears a Misfit Shirt under his flannels. Maybe he realized that punk was to the cities what Country was to rural areas. Maybe he realized there was a new tradition emerging that refused to sell out to the"flood of Assholes" (Robbie Fulks) , the men in Armani who fly in from LA rather then the men who migrate from the rurals and buy a Nudie as their first suit . It started off as crude electric bar blues with such titles as I Put the Dick in Dixieland . He is angry and eloquent and plays guitar like a hanging noose. He is not as lyrical and lonley as his grandfather but he is nearly as passionaite. Maybe Alt Country will save Nashville. Record Sales are down and Universal is putting their hat on Faith Hill. But people are taking notice of this whole generation of people who take country as a vehicle for some pretty important traditions. Maybe Kasey Chambers and Lucinda Williams will kick Faiths ass . Maybe Robbie Fulks , Hank III and Ryan Adams will take Garth Brooks, Allen Jackson and Tim McGraw back behind the Barn. Because w. a marketing degree from the U of Oklahama cannot be a very effective weapon.

I am tryign to rope two freinds to go to Vancouver to see momus, drink tequila and seduce sailors. They have classes and seem to care about them so i am failing.

Yesterday i saw a new Robert Atilla Lukas work at Douglas Udell. I have seen a substantial amount of his work in Reproductions. I have seen on rare occasions some of pieces in real life. His work is visceral in both an emotional and physical sense . He depicts the objects of queer fetishization ( cops , soldiers, sailors ) in their trained traditional roles of mechanics of often violent social control . He explores the implications of what this means. Power no longer equates with sex, it realties to oppression. Blood is not a freudian metaphor for semen it is the direct physical result of submission. He shows how dangerous sexualizing those trained to subdue or kill can be/ He has always worked as a representive painter but his paintings were stained and smeared pastels, water colours and gouaches . The piece i saw at Udell had little violent or angry contents. In its chirouscoco lighting and the darkness of its colouring it looked mannerist. An oil portrait of a young man stripped , his haunches undepicted. I talked to the front end worker end worker about how odd the piece seemed considering the context.

Apparently there was an article in the Canadian art mag Border Crossing a couple of months ago . Lukas had given up painting, changed his name ( to PonyBoi)and started a webzine.

Udells rep couldn't find the mag , the mag was not at another gallery downtown who has most issues of it. The issue was at the Public Library but the article was not there . I googled the name and the search came up blank.

A dealers rumour and no other information is more often then not means a P.R. stunt but there are a couple of factors that seem to make this case more complex. He does not seem to be seem to be as attached to spectacle as the other artists who seem to be working similar ideas ( cf . The Chapman Brothers) . The work is not mired in sentiment or voyeurism. It is too traditional in medium to be and too ambiguous in its intent for him to be a media star .
Its also worthy to note what the allusions of the name PonyBoi could signify . The character comes from a book written by a woman about a gang of boys who are sent to away from civilization as a consequence for violent acts. The movie featured heartthrobs that had a history of speculation concerning the queerness of their identity or sexual acts ( Swayze, Cruise, Lowe) .

By spelling it Boi instead of boy he claims both gender and sexual transgressive ness. It is a term used by Drag Kings and young queers in a playful and reclaimed way their fluidity . Much like the word queer.

If the PonyBoi persona is accurate and if the allusions are as heavy as it seems to be at first it leads to some interesting speculation. Is it a loosening of his traditional severity . Is it an attempt to be a Warholian superstar ? The fact an artist of his calibre would consider the F(f)lash of web art viable is fascinating stuff . I wish i knew more about it !

Its not much, its mostly symbolic. But it provides people comfort. The Virginia Bear Company is donating 500 bears to rescuer workers and firefighters. They want each one to come with a personal message. so spend 5 minutes and fill out a card

i know its good advertising but sometimes mercy overrides cynicism .

Doctors Without Borders do not advertsie tehir charity (cf red cross ,united way) but do need help.

Most days i forget i am queer. It just seems so much part of my life that it betrays thought. Then a few things pile up and i remember. This week it happened. It started of with a 1968 volume on Homosexuality. It made the argument that we were not sick fucks . We were pathetic and diseased individuals. Then Franks Who's Gay Issue poked up. Frank is the canuck version of to Private Eye. Who's Gay is usually a dishy treat. This time it was petty and small. Then a bus driver called me cream puff. I yelled back at him " I prefer faggot". Two mooks on the train yesterday were talking about fags taking their jobs. Then Bush suspended the restrictions on queers in the army.
I think that we have made progress. Death in Venice is taught in high schools, Our Lady of the Flowers is taught in colleges. Porn is availble in the local news stand. We can talk about sex. The media loves us it gives us sitcoms . We have a dozen glossies that we can pour over. We are mentioned enough ads that there is an archive .
We have our own publishing sections at the big houses. We have three shelves on most bookstores. We can get married in Europe and Canada . We can adopt Children. We have Barry Frank and Svend Robinson. Cable shows explicit queer sex . Every town almost know has a community center . We square dance and do rodeo .
There are still problems. We can point out other countries We can mourn for the 52 people who are about to die for sodomy in Egypt. We can notice the draconian laws in a million places. We can blame homophobia on backwater rednecks. We can say we are safe in the cities. But even if this were true there still are loads of problems. I would argue that were are not safe in cities. I would argue the shows that are given credit for queer lives exoticize it or geld it. I would argue that we are being distracted by the orgnaztions that are supposed to protect us.
We have misplaced our priorities . We have allowed GLAAD to speak for us. One of our tools used to be outrage . WE used to throw shoes and coins at cops . We flirted with homophobes. We held kiss ins and died in the streets. Now we are like a school marm, telling artists not to offend and give money if they do. We make sure people tow the lines. They yelled at Elton and Kevin Smith because hate cannot be funny. Hate has to be funny. We NEED camp. It is the way we process They charge artists money the minute they cross the boundary. They enforce a stalinist orthodoxy with guilt , this is censorus black mail. Remember Blackmail. It was the reason we were not allowed in the CIA, CSIS, The Police Services, The Army. Now we are doing it.
What do they support . Will and Grace . Yeah the drag queen and the eunuch guppie are great role models. played by the actor who refuses to come out of the closet and the actor whose marriage is mentioned in every episode. The only queer actress on that show plays a sociopathic lush . ( She's also the funniest)
The other shows on TV that show queer life tell us we are closet queens (6 feet under), Sluts ( Queer as Folk ) or Perverts ( Law and Order ).
We are also fighting for marriage. The archaic breeder ritual which was a way to confirm the legitimacy of woman as property is viewed as the most important tool of our liberation beside adoption. So know we are safe. We are no longer those nasty fellows who fuck and dress in woman's clothing . We are nurturers for the children no one wanted

Sodomy is illegal in 13 states. Lesbians, bisexuals and Transgendereds have not entered into the public discourse . Queer Bashing and Murder is incredibly common . It is not safe to be a young queer in schools. No one knows anything in grade 10. Lets them not all flock to Houston and New York and Vancouver. Lets make everyone safe and legal in Edmonton and Lubbock and Patterson. The first Pansy Division song i heard made me feel belong. Out made me feel small and working class. Out still makes me feel working class. But we don't talk about class because we are all happy in our queer utopia

Tammy Wynette makes me cry. She has this planative wail that strips you of any sentiment , replacing it with with hers. Something like My Elusive Dreams where she describes moving to almost every state with her husband. She portrays it with almost documentary clarity. The fact she lost a child is as ordinary a tragedy as not to be overemoted . It is an anthem , along with Stand By Your Man that should make any femminist cringe. But her voice with that little twang, the twinge of sadness , its good.

I was going to buy season tickets to the opera but its mozart and verdi. Sickens me. I would not pay 20 dollars to see another back water slaughter of a very very boring opera. Bring on the Rakes Progress or Billy Budd.

I am tired and trying to do 10 000 things at once. Starting in October i am writing a Monthly Canadian Column for Delusions Of Adequacy.
I am preparing a bunch of poetry for publication. As well as my ordinary tasks but today is payday and that means NEW BOOKS . Its Thom Gunn and Bruce Weber for sure today.

More Seriously Bush's declared war on Afghanistan is called Infinite Justice. In the press conference he called it a " Crusade". Just what we all need another Holy War. Because the last one turned out so well. Its hard to be a pacifist but according to Salon people are still not joining the miltary .If they call the draft who can apply for concitous objector status. Will they be called "Yellow Concie" as my quaker buddies fathers were called in World War Two. They have alot of reservists, all of whom are being called up. Will that be up, they are sending in the special forces first ( Marines, Rangers , Green Berets, Seals) What happens next? In the paper yesterday with an immigrant from Kabul . He says alot of the Taliban were not Afghans but "Tourists" from other muslim countrys who belived this is an ideal state.

I AM SCARED

Yesterday i went to the doctor to be put on medication. I am now on Starnoc and Effexor.
I am not sure how i feel about this. I think i am at the point where it may be nesscary, but does medicating deal with the real problems and issues. Dont know, although the dreams are pretty fucking vivid.

Rosh Ho Shonna

Call someone you love today and make ammends .

Americas Most Wanted is playing fear mongering propghanda minister.
the whole we are winning the war, we are catching these people and you can help.
As much as i know about propghanda .

As much as i belive that i am a complex and rational person

As much as i belive no one can win a war

As much as i belive that a convential war in Afghanistan will be as much or more of a blood bath then vietnam

As much as i am cynical about Osma Bin Ladens involvement

As much as when when i read Henry Kissenger i am amazed at his chutzpah (wait i am never surpised at Kissengers Blindness)

it worked i wanted blood

This is not humane , i will work on mercy

I feel burnt out . I am slowly devolping a layer of cynicism , like an oyster and his mucus. I do not expect a pearl.

i saw Eisensthens film October about the bolshevik revolution this afternoon
as much as i know about lenin and his historical failures , his cruelty and his coldness and bloodthirst towards his goals .It worked. I belived in the grand Soviet ideal .

As Peter Sims says :

hat's why we need all the tools in the humanist arsenal. Without memory, we forget too easily. Without intuition, reason will lead us astray. Without common sense, we accept the insane. Without reason, we are led by emotions. Without compassion, we are ruled by bloothirsty men.

Without democracy, it doesn't matter what the fuck we believe, because we don't make the decison anyway. We need both democracy and humanism. And they've been overruled several times this century, to disastrous effect. We're living through the next incarnation of that.

some thoughts on why the liberal- left is so ineffective:
There's a young woman named Colette who began a piece in her zine looks yellow, tastes red with this:

Last year I was taking a woman's studies class. I sat there for several hours a week with the same group of people, presumably reading the same essays and texts, hearing the same lectures and conversations, etc. And I remember one day near the very end of the semester where one girl raised her hand in our discussion section and prefaced what she was saying with a very loud and clear, "Well, I'm not a feminist or anything, but..." (on to prove, to her credit, a well-thought-out, enlightened point). What?

I could proudly say that I don’t tiptoe around the word feminist. I could say that I try to be quick to point out that assuming that "feminist" means "militant, man-hating feminist" is not unlike assuming "Christian" means "militant fundamentalist, abortion-doctor murdering Christian." But I know there is a lot I tiptoe around...

My initial wisecrack response to this was, "Well, militant feminists don't really hate men anyway; they're too busy hating other feminists." But a deeper thought was that feminists, despite all their diversity and all their conflicts with each other, are something of a social category – not that they all come from the same social class or social group, but that they are a social group – "feminist" – in the way that in a high school "preps" is a social group, and "jocks" and "dirtbags" and "skaters." And a woman who's a potential supporter of feminist social and political ideas might nonetheless say, "I'm not a feminist or anything" because emotionally and socially she simply doesn't feel like a feminist or identify with feminists. And she might not want to engage in political activity with feminists if she feels different and isolated around feminists, or frightened by them, or repelled by them. If she believes that she'll have to give up important parts of herself to become a feminist, then she's not going to become one.

Anyway, substitute the word "leftist" for "feminist" and you'll see what I'm driving at: "leftist" is something of a social category, and those not in the category don't want to make common cause with the left. (Yes, and of course I've greatly oversimplified, "left" is a ridiculously vague term for disparate sets of people, etc.) The left can't overcome being a kind of counterculture; it attracts people who want to be leftists, and so the attraction only reaches so far ....

This is Frank Kogans opinon , one i think all leftists should consider .

Today in the Globe and Mail there was an article on the demorcraticazation of news . It seems like everyone has a cellphone and a still camera or a video camera . The first question newsman ask now is who has the best footage, more often then not its not a journo . The interent has been my source. Espically through bullentin boards and instant messages/email . Personal memory, speculation, conventinal news and unanswerable questions are piling pell mell. With the net there is at least some organzational structure .

That said there are gigs in Washington, New York , London

Red Cross accepts Pay Pal payments.

please consider sending something to Doctors Without Borders who are doing triage.

Side note , today the islamic students assocation was handing out buttons today. They said " We are all immigrants "

There are 1100 dead already. We do not know how many dead in the world trade center. I think Geoff Parkes. Questions are ones we all should be asking.
I will try to answer them myself later !

I know this seems petty with all that is happening. I know that 10k people have died. I know that we are living in a state of fear and panic now. I know we will never be safe. But what i keep thinking about is the art . The World Trade Center had a well curarted collection of Modern Classics. Almost 1000 peices of art will never be seen again. This is a tragedy almost as important as the burning of Alexendra.

Thanks Be To God .

Everyone i know on the net has got their act together

They have spread informtion and compassion.

In the evil and pain that this has spawned it is good to know their is a community that calls familes and makes sure everyone they know themselves and through people is safe.

I want to say a million things but my energy is low

Tomorrow

But one thing that is sort of realvent that i want everyone to know


I do telephone surveys two days a week for the eighth largest market research firm in the world. This evening, eight hours after the bombing, we did a survey on the american reaction to the bombing. The survey consisted of twenty questions. 8 of those were dealing with Bushes preformance and the republicans in general. I do not know who commiosned the survey

I may lose this job for posting it but it is odd enough to mention.

New York


I have an essay when i try to figure out how i feel. Tonight i had to conduct a survey about how americans felt concerning how they felt. Eight hours after it happened.

I have to rush off , school and all but here is a paragraph on lit !

Mishimas Patriotism

This 10 page short story expresses everything Mishima is both praised and condemned for. It features intense nostalgia for a martial nationalism that may not have existed. A subservient woman who does what she is expected to do. A thick current of blood and sex. all of this would not be very interesting if Mishima was not an expert prose stylist . These pages are not only an almost perfect ascending climax , suspense that goes so fast to the farthest extension of its logical conclusions . It is also deeply poetic. It is self contained and elegant. Only occasionally do the banalities of everyday life interrupt the tension. They are not the comic relief expected in Western Fiction. They seem to be rocks in a garden. Something to ponder instead of where the lines of sand are going. At first the blood gushing dual hari kari seems to be a shock . But there are clues. The sand lines are confusing but if your eyes are strong enough you can follow them. I have always wondered if this story was a rehearsal. But it is always dangerous to assume Autobiography even if its intentional.