Changing times

Hello, everyone.

As some of you already know, a local weekly has decided to give me a voice in their pages every other week, for actual pay. I am shamelessly ripping off this blog for material, so I have to delete most of the posts here to avoid publishing for free online that which they have purchased to display in print.

I will probably continue to post here to test-run some ideas, but I wanted to let you know what's happening.

Thanks for all the comments and the encouragement - I still need both.

Exile

I'm an 'anomolly'

That's what Wendy just labellled me on MSN Instant Messenger. I asked her if that was her way of calling me an effeminate anomaly, my typically gentle way of pointing out her awful spelling. She said yes, because she's probably too drunk by this time of the evening to think of a comeback.

Some people who don't understand what's important in life protest that I am overly fixated on spelling and grammar. Spelling is strongly correlated with intelligence, so I can understand how this subject causes impatience and agitation. I was chastized last weekend for pointing out to a waiter that a menu contained two completely unacceptable apostrophes, placed before the final letters of 'entrees' and 'pastas'. My very reasonable suggestion that we go somewhere else was refused. I mean, if they can't get the punctuation right, what hope was there for the food?

Language fascinates me. I am in awe of truly good writing. It is almost a spiritual experience, the same kind of transcendence I derive from top quality singing, usually by women. My reverence for a shapely phrase no doubt explains my horror at its opposite. I can feel a mini-stroke coming on whenever I hear a double negative or a malapropism, like last weekend when an acquaintance used the word 'destitute' repeatedly when he meant 'desperate'. It's the same reaction I have to really bad singing, which is why I avoid karaoke at almost any cost.

I have studied several other languages, some more seriously than others, and I have spent more hours than I care to admit comparing words and their etymologies. I actually own a small book that charts hundreds of words in several Frisian dialects and provides their English, Dutch and German counterparts. I feel this psychologically bizarre loneliness on behalf of English that our tongue has no truly close relatives. When I hear a word in a foreign language, I can't help thinking about its roots and the evolution of its English translation. So when I hear a word misused and/or abused, it's like someone is insulting the entire Indo-European linguistic family.

There are those who say that they choose their words very carefully when they write to me. I believe they're trying to tell me that I should ease up because it makes them anxious or even paranoid. But why would I change my ways when I'm clearly having a positive effect on their communication skills? I'm an altruist, after all, and it pains me not to help others.

Wendy's asked me to wrap this up while she opens up another winebox. See? I always do my best to make everyone happy.

Avadim Ha'inu, Ata B'nei Horin

Pesach (Passover) begins tonight.

Every year at the Pesach seder table, participants read and sing from the Haggadah, a step-by-step guide to the food- and wine-heavy religious service that launches the holiday. The text is full of tales, songs and prayers, and everyone plays a part in the evening program. The holiday commemorates the Israelites' dash to freedom after hundreds of years of slavery in Egypt, as recounted in the biblical book of Exodus.

The significance of the holiday extends beyond these unique historical circumstances, however. Each seder participant is reminded to approach the holiday as if they themselves had been freed from slavery, to experience the joy of freedom and to help others attain it. Each generation redefines freedom through the prism of its own experiences, but the basic message remains the same.

You and I define freedom differently, in all likelihood. And each of us struggles against oppression in our own way, whether it comes from within or without. When I think of my own quest for freedom, the primary themes are gay rights, the fight against racism, and more recently, animal rights.

It won't surprise most of you who know me that my fight for freedom has often been in-your-face, whether it was confronting an Aryan Nations stealth candidate for Calgary city council at a public debate, going 'undercover' to a racist gathering to record the proceedings and gather literature as evidence, or writing incendiary letters to newspapers about an MP's bigotfest of a town hall meeting, where I spoke up, along with others, against what the hosts were doing.

Just as difficult are the internal battles for freedom, like when I confront my own internalized homophobia and my not inconsiderable racist feelings, not to mention more painful struggles arising from personal hurt, both inflicted and received.

Even if you don't celebrate the holiday, give a thought to freedom today - what it means to you, where you've come from, and where you'd like to go. And maybe even write back and tell me what all of this means to you.

Oh, and the title? They're the opening words from one of the songs in the Haggadah: "Once we were slaves, but now we are free."

The soft dictatorship

The personal is political and the political is personal.

I personally favour a socially liberal, free political environment, but I live my life under a 'dictatorship of the soft'. This is not at all what Marx or Lenin saw coming, but all they had to deal with were kaisers and czars. I have cats.

The prevailing system in this household is what I call 'unenlightened furry despotism'. The supreme ruler is Spot, whose picture appears above.

Imperious Meow, aka The Despot, established her rule at the age of three months. One evening she rounded the corner into the living room and saw me on the couch, with the ironing board open next to me. She jumped up on the board, from which vantage point she could look down on me. She made eye contact and then barked a sharp, concise command: "Meow!"

I didn't understand right off what she was trying to say. I looked at her and responded with my own "meow!" She looked indignant. "Meow!" she repeated. Because it was so cute, I kept responding in kind, but she eventually wore me out. Once I remained silent for a good couple of minutes, she seemed satisfied and jumped off the board, headed for a victory celebration of piling individual pieces of paper under my bed - she used to do that, very methodically and purposefully.

All semblance of equality disappeared that night. In the picture you can see her sitting on the imperial pillow her grandmother bought her, where she symbollically sits on and smothers a wolf. She only climbs down when she wants to play with something, use the litter, explore the balcony or hallway, or terrorize her twin brother, Ares. For food, she issues commands from the pillow. For affection, the same thing. If Ares eats treats or drinks water while she is on her throne, she barks and moans at him until he goes away.

Ares and I are both stronger than her but we do what she says. It's said that no dictator rules for long without the implicit consent of his or her subjects, and I think this is a good example - we have internalized the idea of her dominance to such an extent that we don't even question it anymore. And when my obedience wavers, she sprawls on her back or side, revealing her soft, white, furry tummy, which she knows I can't resist. She's also not stingy with corrective measures such as nosebites and swats across the face or arms to protest real or perceived slights.

The Despotic Kitten is also an expert in psychological warfare. She stares Ares down to back him away from his chicken-flavoured treats. Spot doesn't like them herself, but she doesn't want him to enjoy them, and has kicked them out of his bowl and used them as toys. She sometimes stands at the entry to the balcony when he's out there, barring him from coming back in.

Spot cultivates a cult of personality, and I'm not the only one who gets sucked in. Spot and Ares turn six on Saturday, and my crazy-cat-person mother sent them cards and a 20-dollar bill for cat toys, of which they already have plenty. She also sent them a Mozart music DVD meant for human infants and toddlers, to develop their aesthetic and mental capabilities. Although the gifts are to be distributed equally, my mother has confessed a special love for Spot, who seems to return the affection. I think it takes one control freak to truly appreciate another.

OK, enough for now. I'm being summoned. The hind paws are elevated and the expressive green eyes are shining brightly. "Meow," she said.

The Unbearable Tweeness of Yiddish

I don't speak Yiddish. I know a fair number of words but I don't really speak the language and I have no desire to. To the extent that my Jewish identity is expressed linguistically, it is through Hebrew, the modern version resurrected from the ancient language of prayer and spoken by almost six million Jews in the modern state of Israel. Yiddish makes me wince when I hear it, which I acknowledge is unfair in some ways and a huge slap in the face to my own heritage. And it makes me sound like I have a massive chip on my shoulder, which of course I do.

Yiddish was the mother tongue of millions of European Jews well into the twentieth century. Although written with Hebrew characters, its semantic backbone is German, with dialects incorporating various proportions of Hebrew, Russian, Polish, Romanian, other east and central European tongues, and even English in small amounts. Jews, being the archetypal wandering people, relied on Yiddish as a means of communication with their coreligionists in other lands, a means often less than intelligible to gentiles, which was not only useful, it was life-saving. Similar Jewish languages and dialects evolved from Morocco to Bukhara in central Asia, including unique forms of Arabic, Spanish and Italian (Ladino), Turkish, Farsi and several other languages.

But Yiddish had by far the most speakers, including the vast majority of the 3.5 million Jews of Poland, the 5 million of the Soviet Union, the 850,000 of Romania, the 800,000 of Hungary, and millions in smaller communities from Amsterdam to Tallinn. Yiddish was not only the language of everyday life, it was a language of literature and song, the means of expression of countless intellectuals and poets. It was even the basis of vibrant theatre and film scenes, in the twilight years between the world wars. Only a small remnant of these communities survived World War II: Yiddish virtually disappeared as a mother tongue, and for decades few bothered even to study it.

This gives you some idea of the emotional power of Yiddish in the Jewish consciousness and its formative influences on modern Jewish life.

But I can't stand to hear it.

The evil Chucky doll in Child's Play has nothing on my ultimate nightmare: A broad-faced gray-haired female doll dressed in a fur coat that when you pull the string says "abi gezunt" (to your health in Yiddish) and then makes a noise like it's sucking on a hard candy, followed by a deep sigh to the accompaniment of klezmer music.

Yiddish, to me, is the language of the disapora ('exile' - go figure), the language of powerlessness, rootlessness, self-abnegation, self-renunciation, superstition and interminable waiting. It is to me what Euro-American names are to a lot of African-Americans - a reminder of a time of subjugation and permanent second-class status. Hebrew, in contrast, is to me the language of self-determination, of assertion and restoration. And it generally avoids the tweeness of Yiddish words and expressions that I don't care to repeat here. The kitsch and saccharine factors are so high I'm surprised Celine Dion doesn't sing in Yiddish, at least as far as I know.

The latter-day revival of Yiddish in university departments, Jewish cultural activities and even literary works is remarkable, given the completeness of the destruction just six decades ago. But it is often creepy, particularly in the hands of non-Jews in places like Germany, who increasingly wallow in echoes of pre-war Jewish culture. Euros in their twenties watch Yiddish films and listen to klezmer bands ... it not only smacks of appropriation, it is positively ghoulish, given the history. It is as if such people are not comfortable with Hebrew and other more current manifestations of Jewish culture - they have to reach back to something far less threatening, less threatening because it is dead.

North American Jewish politicians and community leaders will often throw in Yiddish terms when it's "just us," which is annoying enough, but now even non-Jews do it sometimes with Jewish audiences, and I find it difficult to stomach. I assume they don't break into negro spirituals in front of Black audiences, so please spare us, or learn a few choice words in Hebrew.

I don't know how to reconcile any of this with the fact that I enjoy Fiddler on the Roof, but sometimes we just have to live with inconsistencies. I imagine most Jews reading what I've written here would be furious, but I'm OK with that.

Yes, I'm posting again and it's so gay

Sorry for the absence. I had a note but the cats ate it.

Today's topic is Brokeback Mountain. You're right. This is terribly overdue. However, I only saw the film last weekend, in the company of a straight but not narrow friend whose taste in film is so bizarre he deserved to see something quality for a change. I had wanted to get him to watch some John Waters movies, but after viewing some of his top film choices, I think Waters might be too Disney for him. Besides, he took some of my pizza home so I don't want to talk about him too much.

Yes, about the film. I read Annie Proulx's short story last summer at the insistence of another friend, a huge 'mo and all-around good guy, who distributed photocopies of the tale like confetti, such was his enthusiasm. He's a country boy and has had half the men between here and Red Deer, so he related to Brokeback Mountain's themes and characters. I thought the story was OK, though I was put off somewhat by the hayseed dialogue and the slow pace. I thought the film was better than the short story, and not just because the protaganists were played by two guys I enjoy seeing naked (my 'mo friend has the same smile and the same expression in his eyes as Heath Ledger, by the way). The director brought the story together in a way that made it much more vivid and emotionally intense than it was on the page, at least for me. The actors did a great job too, and I won't soon forget the scene where Jack and Ennis met after their first long separation and kissed like they would never ever let go, no matter what.

They did let go, of course, and without giving away too much to those who have yet to see the film, this is not a happy story. That's the main reason I avoided seeing it for so long my countryboy friend threatened to revoke my gay card. As if he has the authority - he wears solar-strength orange shirts with bright red pants. I am sick to death of sad gay films. I'm grateful we've reached the stage where not every gay-themed movie has to be about AIDS, but I don't see that we've made much progress since the bad old days described by the late Vito Russo in his book & film The Celluloid Closet: "In twenty-two of twenty-eight films dealing with gay subjects from 1962 to 1978, major gay characters onscreen ended in suicide or violent death."

That's pretty heavy stuff. It sends a powerful negative message, and the trend continues. For every Beautiful Thing, Prom Queen, or But I'm a Cheerleader, there are ten films out there about gay people where it all ends in tears or death or both. I don't expect every film about us to be a recruitment poster for happy homo-osity, but this is gross misrepresentation that heteros would never tolerate. Imagine, straight readers, if almost every film about het romance ended like Fatal Attraction or Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Or even better yet, Carrie or The Shining. I like all those films, but wouldn't it grate on your nerves to know that every onscreen protaganist you came to appreciate ended up permanently scarred emotionally, axed, bludgeoned or shot to death, or killed after being bathed in pig's blood? How would Hugh Grant, Julia Roberts or Jennifer Aniston ever sustain a film career?

My other objection to Brokeback is its timidity in portraying gay romance. There was more onscreen hetero humping than gay humping, but the little gay action there was was too much for some in the small audience the evening I attended. The male halves of two 60-something couples sitting behind us sputtered with outrage at the first how-do-you-do between Ennis and Jack and left the theatre. My friend told me he found the man-on-man kissing and sex "shocking," as he had never seen any before. There really wasn't much in that film that could reasonably be described as graphic. You want graphic, watch an episode of the recently retired Queer as Folk. We need more gay sexual imagery, not less - it's a substantial part of the world we live in.

And filmmakers need to remember that 'gay' is a synonym for 'happy' - I'd like to see that reflected back at us more often. For example, a better ending for Brokeback would have seen Jack and Ennis opening up a B&B in the Montana foothills, with two-stepping classes on Thursdays and special camping trips into the mountains. Now THAT would have won the best film Oscar for sure!

Some of My Favourite Words, by Wendy

Exile is permitting me to submit the occasional 'guest entry' to his blog. What you can expect is a departure from his well-written, interesting, and thought-provoking prose. My guest entries will be more like the commercial breaks in your favourite show. They will also likely be inane, meaningless and full of spelling and grammatical errors.

My first guest entry is about some of my favorite words. A simple, but important topic. These words came to mind while I was in the shower this morning. Obviously I am not a very 'deep' thinker, just a 'wet' thinker. Later, while putting pen to paper I realized that if I added definitions it would provide an educational element that was so sorely lacking with this germ of an idea. So, voila, with that in mind I submit to you...dear Exile blog readers...some of my favourite words:

Obfuscate - I love this word. I love the way it sounds. It almost has its own accent. I like the way it rolls off your tongue. It just sounds so damn smart and sexy. Politicians do this all the time. In my experience, obfuscation is a favourite tactic of the NDP and labour unions. Definition: make obscure or unclear. Don’t you love this word?!!

Fucktard - this is a new word. I heard it for the first time less than a year ago when it was being used by a friend. Its origin is still in dispute. But it perfectly describes many Conservative politicians, rude drivers and bylaw enforcement officers. Definition: I had to go to the Urban Dictionary for a definition. They were all so interesting I couldn't pick just one. You will have to look for yourself: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=fucktard

Vicariously - I use this word a lot. Right now I am a bit worried it is a reflection of the fact that I have no life of my own, so I am living vicariously through others. At times I have friends who tell me they live vicariously through me. I like the word better under those circumstances. What I really love about this word is that it has the letter 'v' in it and 5 syllables!! Definition: Felt or undergone as if one were taking part in the experience or feelings of another.

Orgasm - this is a word that some people have problems talking about. I personally love orgasms. I am not sure if there is anything I love more than orgasms. Were I not single I might love the person who was giving me the orgasm more than the actual orgasm itself, but I can’t be sure. Definition: An orgasm, also known as a sexual climax, is a pleasurable psychological or emotional response to prolonged sexual stimulation. It is often accompanied by a notable physiological reaction, such as ejaculation, blushing or spasm and may be followed by aftershocks. Blushing and aftershocks....yup, that's me. What??? Too much information?

Vain - I have adopted this word as MINE because an ex-boyfriend, in a fit of petulance, once told me I was vain. I was stunned. Speechless. Shocked even. The accusation, of course, was not true but it has now become a good excuse for all the 'nice' things I do for myself and a reason to live up to the label. AND, the word starts with a 'V' so that is pretty cool. Definition: conceited: characteristic of false pride; having an exaggerated sense of self-importance. Yup, that’s me!!!

There you go. Some of my favourite words. We can now resume our normal programming.

Wendy