If you are a dreamer, come in

Art Rant

2009-03-20T17:51:00.002-04:00

What is art? Perhaps we can say, anything that explores the human condition. Well, personally, I don’t see how a bunch of a flowers in a vase explores the human condition, but it’s still art. You could say that art is the exploration of beauty and anti-beauty, if you will, but what of the stuff that first in between? What of the smoggy barges, or the poached egg?
Perhaps, as the character Sergeant Colon put it in Terry Pratchett’s Discworld books, art is a bunch of naked fat ladies, a piece of gauze, and an urn. While this seems to be a characteristic of much classic, world-renowned art, it is slightly too exclusive. ;)
Is art an expression of human emotion? Perhaps this one gets closer to the truth, but then what makes Great Art great? What makes a really quite stiff portrait by a great master receive acclaim and a central spot in a museum exhibit, while a 4-year-old’s finger painting, full to bursting with passion and enthusiasm, is relegated to the fridge?
The Webster English dictionary defines art as “The conscious use of skill and creative imagination, especially in the production of aesthetic objects.” This definition, in a way, brings me to my little rant: modern art.
Now, I’m not griping about all modern art--I think some of it is beautiful and challenging and courageous. But tell me--how does a big beige canvas sell for millions? How come if I splash some red paint on a piece of paper and scrape it with a stick, I do not automatically become a great Artist? Perhaps the truth is that I need to glue my hairdryer to a canvas and then explain how I’ve lost the wonder of it as I lost the wonder of my childhood. Looking at it this way, it seems like the creation of ‘art’ doesn’t take much skill, but it sure does take imaginative creativity--in convincing people that my latest piece is full of meaning, and not just a cop-out.
Or maybe what I really have to do is make something that halfway expresses an actual concept or feeling, get lucky and become rich from it, so that when people see my newest piece of expensive blue paper, they’ll struggle to interpret it, and finally give up due to their inferior understanding. Perhaps I’m a bit too cynical, but how much of art is based on reputation? If all art was judged individually and objectively, (on ‘skill’, remember?) instead of by its birthright, would many artists be forced to return to their day jobs?
I’m just sayin’…
And even then, who says all art is human, anyway? Is there not art in a raindrop, a bird’s song, a mountain range, or a sunset? If a flower blooms in a forest, and no one is there to see it, is it art?
Perhaps our definitions of the word need to be reevaluated.

Pattern of Life

2008-10-30T20:38:00.000-04:00

I see my time as a bolt of cloth

With a clear pattern

Lengths of dark blue and grey, drab and dull and uninteresting,

though occasionally flecked with reds and purples.

And then every so often there is a patch of vibrant

Rainbow colors

Glowing and shimmering, eclipsing the other sections in their beauty.

These sections are my favourite

But the other parts drag them down.

They are outnumbered, and sometimes they are unravelled or stained.

And so I lose one patch of exquisite design, and must wade

Through more of the grey

In hope that the next section will be perfect.

But then I pause as I study the fabric, and look away from it

And realize that I am the one doing the weaving.

I am choosing to weave the pattern I do.

So why am I mostly using grey?

Surely I can make a better design than that.

I look through my yarns. I know that I can’t weave everything in rainbow

But I choose a gold thread,

And add it to the loom here

In another place I add a skein of crimson,

A dash of violet

A splash of lush, vibrant green.

I weave for a little, then sit back and smile

I can still see the grey, faintly.

The blue peeks through occasionally.

But now it is surrounded, embroidered, wrapped and intertwined .

A bit of silver catches the light and glitters; a liquid aquamarine flows in and out.

And I am happy.

Because now even though they are not rainbow

The patches have a beautiful pattern of their own.

Musings on love ♥

2008-10-29T13:51:00.003-04:00

Love, love, love, love, the gospel in a word is love. Love makes the world go 'round. If love is the rythm, you are the music. So this is love...
Augh. It seems that every song is about love. Or at least 80% of them. Lately, it also seems that all my thoughts are about love. Or at least 80%.
Ever since last Saturday, it's been the only thing on mjy mind. I see the world through a heart-shaped lens, a pink tinted fog. It's not quite that I'm in love, it's just that I can't stop thinking about it, musing about it, wondering about it.
True love's first kiss. May I have this dance? And, (gulp!) will you marry me?
Boxes of chocolates, buckets of popcorn, plates of spaghetti. Cologne and roses and fresh-cut grass and smoke from a bonfire. The glitter of a charm bracelet, the sparkle of an eye, the shine of a perfect tux. An orchestra tuning, techno music at a bowling alley, laughter, soft comforting words whispered in an ear. Running my my fingers through your hair, holding a rough, large hand. Beinging enfolded in a huge hug. A sweet, tender kiss. Love heightens the senses. It fulfills them.
How can anything truly go wrong when you have a prince who will treat you like the princess that you are and protect you from every danger?
Like every girl and woman, I just want one thing: to love, and be loved in return. Passionately, deeply, intensely, tenderly, strongly, steadfastly, and completely. All you need is love.

From my journal archive-The Last Day of Summer (modified)

2008-10-29T13:20:00.003-04:00

Tomorrow is the first day of school, and as I can't concentrate on anything else right now, I may as well mull over how I feel.
How do I feel? Well, for one, disappointed. This is not for a moment the sort of large scale depression I felt at Camp. It's just disappointment. My summer that was supposed to last forever obviously didn't. And I didn't fill near the list of expectations I set for myself. But...I think I'll still do them. In fact, they'll spice up what otherwise might be an uneventful year. Speaking of boredom, I'm a bit apprehensive. I'm afraid this year is going to be boring. Worse, I'm afraid it's going to be...bad[?] What with this new office thing and stuff, and the likely frictions with certain relatives who will remain unnamed? And no recess? Fie, it could be dark indeed!
But I also feel faint hopefulness...and a tiny flame of excitement. No matter who teaches it or how it's taught, history is still glorious history! Biology is still about LIFE. Art is art is art. Latin is classic and heady and soo useful (rolls eyes). Geometry is, well, shapes. Hey, you win some you lose some. And English is where I can always express myself. Hey, I'm sort of looking forward again to learning! Who woulda thought it?
And then there's the hope. In the worst of my depression, my thoughts were: it will always be the same, never changing, never interesting. But I forgot the wild card of life. AS long as there are kumquats and blueprints, and the Office, and weekends and haircuts, and of course wonderful boys (:D), then things will always turn out okay. Sure, I may be bored occasionally (life can't be constant excitement--you'd die from exhaustion), but I don't have to worry about life being boring. After all, we affect our surroundings, and if I was boring, I'd kill myself.
Sometimes life seems like something just to get through (Superchick!). We just have to remember that the journey is half the fun. And to stop, occasionally, and smell the roses and snapdragons and daffodils and skunk cabbages. Blooming in the most unlikely places.

October 2, 2008

2008-10-02T15:11:00.005-04:00

Sorry that I haven't posted in a while. But then, really, why am I apologizing to my readership of zero? Things have been busy, I've been sick, I lack inspiration, and at the same time nothing much has happened.
If anyone actually is reading this, thank you. As is obviously clear, I didn't get close to achieving my "70 Things that I would do this summer". I think the final tally rests somewhere around, oh, ten? However, I've come up with this resolve: Most of the things that were on my list were not specifically summer things. Really, they were just living-more-vibrantly-and-adventurously things. So...I'm going to spread them out over the school year and continue to do them. It will spice up a year that might have been otherwise unextroardinary.
I guess I'll just end with another poem, as there seems to be no better way to create blog posts without much thinking than to leach off other people's genius.

Magic, by Shel Silverstein

Sandra's seen a leprechaun,

Eddie's touched a troll,

Laurie danced with witches once,

Charlie's found some goblins' gold.

Donald heard a mermaid sing,

Susie spied an elf.

But all the magic *I* have known

I've had to make myself.

Brown Penny

2008-08-07T20:47:00.002-04:00

I whispered, "I am too young,"
And then, "I am old enough";
Wherefore I threw a penny
To find out if I might love.

O love is the crooked thing,
There is nobody wise enough to find out all that is in it,
For he would be thinking of love
Till the stars had run away
And the shadows eaten the moon.
Ah, penny, brown penny, brown penny,
One cannot begin too soon.

-William Butler Yeats
Abridged, in "Looking at the Moon", by Kit Pearson

Funny Song

2008-07-23T16:18:00.002-04:00

I thought I'd take a break from all the serious trip-blogging and just put something fun up. This is really hilarious, but it will only make sense if you've seen Lord of the Rings, and preferably like it. I didn't make it, originally YourDailyMedia.com did. Enjoy!

OTTAWA VACATION: SATURDAY (the last full day!)

2008-07-23T15:06:00.009-04:00

Satuday
Saturday was such a change of pace that it was a bit of a shock. We decided to go to Gatineau Provincial Park, only about half an hour away, and I was a bit apprenhensive, having read about black bears and watersnakes and timber wolves, but my dad insisted, so I had no choice.
On the way in, we saw the biggest turtle I've ever seen in the wild before: it had a super long tail, and the poor guy, when he started crawling off the road and down this embankment, he tripped or something and fell, end over end to the bottom. But, he crawled away afterwards, so I guess he was ok.
After stopping at the visitor's center we went to our first real stop: Mackenzie King's estate, now a national historic site. Now, apart from the fact that King was really weird, and had seances with his dog and stuff, he sure did know how to pick a location. We went inside his first cottage, Kingswood, which was right near little Lake Kingsmere, which he chose because it matched his name. The guy must have spent a lot of time napping, because he had a bed in almost every room! Also, the doors were really low (but then, he was only 5'2", so I guess he didn't need huge arches everywhere).
Then my dad, Paul, and I went down to the boathouse by the lake, because my mom, following her tradition, was still up in one of the guest cottages reading everything. We sat by the lake for a while, talking and watching birds and such, until my mom finally found us, somewhat exasperated that we had just taken off like that. It really showed the difference between my dad and mom's logic: my dad's first instinct would be "Here is a lake. It looks nice. That's probably where they went." My mom's is: "Oh no, they left me behind. They're probably back at the car or at the other cottage (which we would visit later...it was a little way away down a path)."
We hiked up the path to the other cottage, Moorside. It was much larger, painted yellow, and surrounded by immaculate lawns, benches, a tent where a trio was playing classical music, and beautifully manicured gardens. Tea was being served on the porch, but we bought drinks at a scalping from this kid who looked no more than twelve running the snack bar. Sitting on a bench sipping a cold drink, and then strolling among beds of flowers...this was my idea of enjoying nature and Victorian-era luxury. We decided against playing croquet, but it was an option. Instead we decided to look at "the ruins", one of the most interesting aspects of the estate. Mackenzie King had an odd penchant for building his own "ruins" on his land, with material from real ruins he had imported, artifical ones he had had carved, and interesting architectural elements that he had taken from homes or banks when they were being demolished. The three ruins were the Arc de Triomphe, which he took mostly from a bank, the Window to the Forest, where three arches separated by pillars gave a picturesque view of the woods beyond, and the "Abbey Ruins", a group of random unrelated ruins from different parts of Europe stuck in one spot, which King fancied looked like a monastary from far away (though no one else agreed with him).

After that, we got in the car and drove along the side of Lake Meech, where the Meech Lake Accord was formed. Then, after stopping at a look-out point where we saw some great views we went to a picnic area and ate our lunch that we had bought from the deli the day before. My dad suggested we hike down to see this waterful, so once again we did, got more pictures of me standing nervously on a rickety, slippery bridge, then got in the car and drove to yet another park, this time a nice city one where there were no horrible blackflies like the ones that had been swarming us all day. We read for much longer than we had meant to, and then drove through a super-expensive neighbourhood, staring at ambassador's homes and consulates for the Catholic Church and just generally massive houses.

Oh yeah, and then we went back to the hotel where I watched Big Fish for the first time and cried.
The next day, we got up really early (buahahaha yeah right, we got up at like 10), thought we had to check out by 11, rushed around packing, eating breakfast in record time, and then found out that checkout time was 12. Boo. We travelled in the car again, ate lunch/supper at Mongolian Grill, and Paul and I watched Pirates 3 on the portable DVD player, performing all the scenes along with the characters to our parents chagrin, and finally got home. I had a great time in Ottawa, but I wasn't sad to leave. Going on a "restful" vacation can be surprisingly tiring. I'm still recovering.

OTTAWA VACATION, FRIDAY

2008-07-22T14:37:00.014-04:00

Friday

Friday, our last day of intensive touring, opened maddeningly unintensively: we spent most of the morning watching WarGames on TV in our hotel. I laughed at the pathetic computers, cheered for a cameo by Mr. Strickland, and wished that Matthew Broderick was not something like 45 by now. And then I realized to my horror that it was 11:30, and we hadn't done anything yet all day.
As soon as we got into downtown, we parked under this mall and walked towards Parliament Hill, hoping to catch the 12:30 tour. Unfortunately, by the time we reached the Ottawa InfoCenter across the street from Parliament Hill (aptly named, believe me...you try hiking up it 4 times and you'll realize too) it was 12:29 so that was sort of out of the question. The Ottawa InfoCenter was pretty boring, just an information booth and a little exhibit on Ottawa, and an interactive map. However, there was a perk: a Mountie band playing outside! Benton Fraser, unfortunately, was not there in all his polite awesome-ness, and all the Mounties looked to be over 50 at least. (I have a theory that these poor Mountie dudes were there, wearing different historic Mountie uniforms and playing for photo ops because they were too old to actually fight crime. I'll bet they resent it, too.)

We jogged up Parliament Hill to a tent information center just beyond the West Block (where they were doing renovations) and decided to go on the 6:05 tour so we could do something else for the afternoon. Then my dad got the bright idea of going to the Currency Museum in the Bank of Canada, only a few blocks down the street, apparently. Half way there it started pouring. It was then that I began to realize the folly of wearing a skirt and flats. Believe me, I would come to understand this much, much more before the end of the day.

With much sulking and complaining from my brother and I about having to go to a boring museum, we finally arrived in the huge, glass-enclosed atrium of the Bank of Canada, and posed grumpily next to a huge yap stone. (I was momentarily perked up for already having learned about these in geography.) Then we went inside the museum and were given...free iPods! No, I wish. Actually, they were lent to us for the audio tour, and we had to forfeit two pieces of photo ID to make sure we didn't walk off with them. But I was tempted. My dad didn't really need his health card and driver's license, did he? We started the tour and gradually, I found to my amazement that it was actually interesting. Very interesting. Much more interesting than my dad and brother found it. Of course, they gave up on using the iPods about halfway through the 2nd gallery. My mom would have too, but she was moving with me so she was able to get me to push the buttons for her at every stop. Sheesh. Adults. It's a wonder they've survived as a species for so long.

The actual exhibits dealt with everything from counterfeiting, to the beginning of money as we know it today, to strange currency from around the world and across time, to money during the fur trade, to Canadian money today. Along the way we saw Chinese banknotes that included the punishment for counterfeiting as warning on them, copper shields that were worth the equivelant of thousands of dollars to the people who traded them, and...a wampum bird. The story behind this is interesting. The tribes who used wampum made it themselves, out of clamshells. But they didn't want to tell the people this, because if they did the people might decide to make their own, and that would ruin their monopoly on the wampum market. So they made up a story about a beautiful wampum bird that crashed into the ground near a different tribe. The people killed the bird and took the wampum from its wings, and traded it to the tribe whenever necessary. This would explain any new wampum that arrived, and also the fact that they couldn't just go out and get some nearby. The Europeans, of course, being their scheming entrepeneuring selves, set up wampum-making factories so as to buy out the natives. As a result, the value of wampum plummeted and what may have been the first example of inflation in the New World occured.

By the time my mom and I made it through all 6 galleries, my dad and brother had gotten so bored that they had gone across the street to check out a game and puzzle store, so after (sniff) returning the lovely shiny iPods and getting my dad's ID back we crossed to join them and decided to eat at the dingy little food court. Half the stuff was closed--at 3:00, because apparently the business district closes EARLY. We ended up getting Chinese, only being able to pay with cash, and ending up with...one penny to spare. That's called either divine providence or cutting it really close. By this time the folly of wearing flats was really starting to sink in--the back of my feet were raw and bleeding, and we had to stop at the drugstore in the mall and buy bandaids. So, so it began.

On our way back toward Parliament Hill we made a sidetrip and took pictures of the War Memorial. There were two guards standed there, absolutely motionless, in full dress uniform. And it was surprisingly creepy. Tourists were going up and taking pictures with them, and my parents insisted we do too. First I felt guilty, for taking my picture with someone without asking for permission first. Then it was just sort of weird, having a picture with someone who never moved nor blinked. You'd have thought she was a statue.

A quick walk down some stairs took us to the Rideau Canal, where I took pictures while being freaked out standing on a rickety bridge over dirty rushing water.

Then, with only half an hour before we had to start walking to the tour, my mom and I went to the mall again, this time with money. First we stopped in HMV and we got my souvenir, the soundtrack to Titanic. (Yay! I think I was born 10 years too late because I'm now going through a fangirl phase about it. And yeah, I know, I have a bad habit of buying souvenirs that have nothing to do my trip.) We also went to Smart Set and bought a really cute shirt...and it was then that the aforementioned hamburger feet came into play. We were already late, so we were running back to the escalator when I suddenly felt a horrible stabbing, grinding pain in my left foot. Pulling my left shoe off I realized that, a) my already uncomfortable shoes had been grinding against my foot all day, b) some water from the rain had gotten in there, causing extra rubbing, and c) the glue from the bottom (since the lining had come out) was melting and sticking to my foot. The grinding sensation was what made me describe it as "grinding my feet into hamburger," and it was also led the very very hurried buying of a pair of flip-flops Payless. Big mistake. I bought the hard kind, with fake bamboo in them, not the soft foam kind. The moment I put them on, I started limping from the strain they put on my legs. By the time we met up with the guys at Chapters and started walking (running, really) back to Parliament Hill to make our tour, I was hobbling along, not even able to run. Utterly exhausted we finally arrived at the tent pavillion with 15 whole minutes to spare. We collapsed onto benches and waited. And then, though barely rested, our tour guide arrived, our group assembled, and our tour began.

Going through security was scarier than it should have been. This was because our guide told us to turn on all electronic devices for the guards. So, I turned my camera ahead of time. When we reached the front of the line, I put my camera, camera case, and the random contents of my pockets in the box and started walking forwards through the scanner thing. Behind me I heard, "Miss! Miss! Excuse me, miss!" but I didn't think the guard was talking to me, until my mom said to go back, and turning around, the guard was gesturing to me. He had a heavy French accent, so when he held up the camera and said something, I thought he said "Take a picture," so I was getting ready to take a picture and he was like, "No, no, did you take a picture?" And I was like, huh? And he said "Did you take a picture coming in?" And I said, "Uhhh...no." And then he was like, "Okay," and he waved me through security. After nervously picking up my stuff from the end of the scanner and following the guide, my parents, and the first half of the group into a gallery with benches, I sank down onto one of them and waited, with two thoughts going through my head. One, I totally embarassed myself back there (I never have been very good at understanding accents), and two, why on earth were they afraid of me taking a picture of the entrance? Are they afraid I'm some criminal who's trying to crack their security system? And why don't they ask people with cellphones too? Are they that uninformed, technology-wise?

Our tour started, and our guide had us all introduce where we were from, among the participants from Mexico, India, and Argentina (wow, who new that Canada was so interesting to be such a tourist destination) was a family from Hawaii who was here on vacation. Which posed the question: Isn't it a bit twisted to come to damp, muggy Canada from paradise?

As we travelled through the Senate, the House of Commons, and the Library, gawking at massive oil paintings, fluted columns, inlaid floors, glass domes, and ornate Gothic everythings, I reflected on the fact that it was so sad that a place that was so gorgeous in its architecture and decorating should house something so boring: politics. Sigh...if only it was a castle with a murder or something. Anyway, I took lots more pictures, some of which are at the very bottom of the post, and got yelled at by security again, falling behind from my group while trying to take a picture of a column. Who knew that little miss goody-two-shoes was such a delinquent?

Completely and totally exhausted, and wondering what it would feel like to be dead, we hiked back to the parking garage, endured an entirely absurd search for our car in the airless heck that it was, and stopped at a grocery store to buy deli foot for that night and Sabbath.

Then, sitting in my hotel room, I received the highlight of my day: we finally got the wireless internet to work, and I had a blissful couple of hours before finally falling asleep, so exhausted that I couldn't even think of any more adverbs to describe my exhaustion.

Dreaming

2008-07-22T14:06:00.005-04:00

The title of my blog comes from my favourite poem, "An Invitation", by Shel Silverstein.
If you are a dreamer, come in.
If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar,
A hoper, a prayer, a magic bean buyer,
If you're a pretender, come sit by my fire,
For we have some flax-golden tales to spin.
Come in!
Come in!
I cannot say exactly why I love this poem so much. Maybe it is because it describes every sort of person I am, or want to be. Maybe it is because these people ar the romantics, the ones with the magic, the wondrement, the enchantment. Not to say that others don't have those things, it's just you seem to find it more consistently and abudnantly in the hopers, wishers, pretenders, and such.
If I can't claim to being any other part of this poem, I'd have to say that I'm a dreamer, both literally and figuratively. I have dreams, in terms of imaginings, plans for the future, fantasies, and inventions. I have trouble connecting with reality sometimes. I refuse to accept the world as facts alone dictate. I prefer to float among the clouds. Sure, you may not be very down-to-earth when you've got your head in the clouds, but you still find yourself walking on sunshine. I strain to hear the songs of the stars and the butterflies. I do believe in fairies. And I try to paint with all the colors of the wind. Don't take me to be some sort of New-Agey spiritualist type, or some Mother-Earth-worshipper either. I'm not. But I am a dreamer.
Also, I am a literal dreamer. Sometimes, I have to wonder, what do dreams mean? I'm not talking about weird interpretations full of Freudian overtones and "longings" and stuff, nor visions of the future. (Edgar Cayce, anyone?) I know that dreams are mostly my crazy imagination gone wild, weaving or sewing elements of my thoughts and my life into a tapestry or patchwork quilt. It isn't very warm, but it sure does look cool. Anyway, what I'm saying is, are dreams a barometer that reflects how our lives, our characters, and our priorities change and mature? Silly as it may sound, do our dreams reflect our dreams? Is dancing with different partners a metaphor for life and loves? Is it any wonder that ever since I was little, my happies dreams have been when I soared?
All this drivel and nonsense is likely the cliched musings of a wannabe philosopher and poet.
But still.
I'll just finish by saying: If a dream is a wish your heart makes, and dreams come true, what happens if your heart is out of control?

OTTAWA VACATION: THURSDAY (since obviously I can't fit all the days in one post)

2008-07-21T12:53:00.012-04:00

Thursday

On Thursday morning we were planning to go to the Canadian War Museum, the National Gallery, Parliament Hill, and ByWard Market. We ended up going to the Canadian War Museum. And the mall. It just goes to show that you should never try to cram too much into one day, especially considering my family's strange love of museums, and my mom's insistence and reading every single thing.

Architecturally and aesthetically the War Museum was exactly the opposite of the Museum of Civilization. The outside was all angles and cement, with a triangular prism of glass jutting off of one side of the roof. We accessed it from the parking garage, which made the whole thing seem like a bunker, and then took an elevator up to the main lobby. The entire thing was so nearly empty that it was scary. Our hands were stamped and then we went to this hall thing where there was a mural on the wall with words about war and such, and a big map in the middle of the museum. We started through the galleries; gallery one was about the wars before the 20th century: European-Native conflicts, the Battle of the Plains of Abraham, the Loyalists, the War of 1812, etc. Surprisingly, there was a video playing on one of the screens built into the wall that had clips from Canada: A People's History. I had a really scary 7th grade history class flashback...Also, I got to see Isaac Brock's coat with the bullet hole in it, and a wooden cannon. Whose bright idea was that?

Next was the Boer War and WWI gallery. Highlights included the trench that you could walk into, with recreated sounds, mortar blasts, and moody lighting. Sorry it looks so bright in the picture, but I kept flash on. The trenches were really horrible, and reading some of the stories about the atrocities was almost sickening. Slightly less serious, and really amazing, actually, was a mini-exhibit on life in the trenches, which was tied into by a entire exhibit of Trench Life that we would see later. What I thought was really cool was this art that soldiers made in the trenches because they were really bored. There was a model airplane made out of shrapnel and bullet casings, a shell casing made into a pitcher, and a carving done in a block of chalk that was taken from the side of the trench.

In the WWII gallery there were exhibits about D-Day, Sicily, and work on the Home Front, among others. We saw Hitler's limo, a huge amount of tanks (I think I must have taken at least 20 pictures of random tanks that day), a model of a house in Italy that had been taken over as a battlefield, and the kitchen from a house for war veterans coming back home and settling down. I liked reading about the home effort especially, which included ration stamps, children's board games, and propaganda posters.

Fourth was a gallery on the Cold War, the Korean War, Peacekeeping, etc. It ended with an echoing gallery where on either side there were stations where you could answer questions such as "What is war?", "Can we ever have peace?" and "When is killing justified?". In the middle there was a bilingual magnetic board where you could say what your fears for the future were. We went out from here into a small, round, room that opened onto all the galleries and briefly summarized Canada and war. In the center of it was a scale model of the War Memorial, the real thing which I will have a picture of later.

We went back to the introductory gallery and through this thing into the Regeneration Hall. You start at the top of these stairs. The walls slope and narrow in a sort of upside down 3-D "V" shape towards a narrow window that spans both stories. On the left, sloping wall, spaces have been punched out so that the sun shines through as the Morse code for "Lest We Forget". (I had a little question about this: Does it say "Lest We Forget" bilingually in Morse code, or just in English? I mean, how many people can read Morse code anyway. In fact, I had to wonder if the French brochure said it said N'oublions jamais, and the English one said that it said Lest we forget. I looked it up on the website; apparently it says both. Bilingual Morse code...you don't find that everyday.)

The hall is designed so that as you go down the stairs you get a fleeting view of the Peace Tower through the slit of a window, then it is blotted out, as peace is blotted out. But as you continue down the stairs, the statue of Hope, a plaster model of the one in Vimy, is illuminated from behind.

When you reach the bottom of the stairs, there are statues on your right representing Knowledge and Peace and Love and Mercy and such. You go through the doors and find yoursjelf in...a huge cavernours room filled with tanks and airplanes, sort of like the War Museum in Mt. Hope. It's a bit jarring, and I was thoroughly bored in this gallery, so I amused myself by finding tanks, cars, guns, etc that were pretty colours. I know, I know, I'm pathetic, but my feet *hurt* and the special exhibit I wanted to go to was closing soon, and my dad and brother were taking their own sweet time. So I found one pretty artillery-gun-thing that was powder blue and chocolate brown, and a tank that was painted white.

My mom and I eventually decided to go ahead to the special exhibit, Trench Life, that we wanted to see, because it closed at 4 and my bro and dad showed no signs of coming.

Trench life was both shocking and funny. The soldier's almost necessary callousness was scary; they often hung stuff on dead bodies jutting out of the sides, stole stuff from them, talked to them, etc. There were also funny and beautiful parts, like the pictures they drew and the graffiti they did. When they were on leave, a group of soldiers would put on comedy plays and sing and dance and such, and because there were no women, they would dress up as girls too. One captain fell in love with one of the girls dancing on stage, and had to be told that she was really a he. He spent the next month or so apologizing and making excuses!

In terms of tone, and the images and feelings it left you with, the other special exhibit we saw was exactly the opposite. Called "Deadly Medicine: Creating the Master Race", it was about the Nazis and eugenics, and was sponsored by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. It was horrifying how they applied Darwinism and the survival of the fittest to the human race, at first forbidding marriage between Jews and Nordics, and Nordics and "unfit people"--those who had defects, were sickly, or were not of high intelligence, then eventually sterilyzing "weak" or "inferior" people, and finally gassing--murdering millions of Jews, disabled people, and people in insane asylums, including children. They even killed people who were simply poor, calling them "feebleminded" because they couldn't answer questions of knowledge. Coming out of the exhibit, one feels stunned, or, as my mom put it, "Shell-shocked", a perhaps grimly appropriate description considering where we were.

After leaving the museum we went to a tiny vegetarian place in a mall in the middle of ByWard market that had been recommended by our guidebook.

After supper we got gelato at a place called Sugar Mountain (very kitschy, colorful, retro, and fun...you can practically smell the sugar). Then, being proper females, my mom and I went to Rideau Center mall and ooh-ed and ahh-ed over super expensive dresses, despite the fact that we only had $15 with us because my mom had left her wallet at the hotel.

In my next post: our busiest day yet, with mounties, parliament buildings, wampum birds, and hamburger feet!

OTTAWA, THE FIRST 4 DAYS, continued

2008-07-20T20:30:00.009-04:00

aturday.
Well, it's now Sunday night, and I'm at home. Vacation is over, but I'll try to pick up where I left off.
Wednesday (cont.)
Ah yes, the Canadian Museum of Civilization. The Hall of First Peoples was unfortunately a little boring, if only due to the fact that there weren't many photo opportunities. After all, since I was stuck with the camera all day, I had been using it.
One thing that was interesting about it was an exhibit on their creation myths. The one pictured on the right is a model of a story of how the Skywoman fell down to the turtle's back and created Earth. There was also a weird story about the birth of good and evil, where they were twins, and good was born first, the natural way, and then evil was jealous so he escaped out his mother's side instead of waiting his turn. There was a sculpture, but let's just say I don't want to include nudity here.
After lunch in the cafeteria I took some pictures of the parliament buildings and such across the river from the lawn. Then we raced upstairs to make it to a performance of a play called "On the Edge" at 1:30.
There was only one actress, alternating between three different characters with different accents and outfits, but wow can that lady monologue. We weren't allowed to take pictures, but afterwards we toured the exhibit that the play was part of and were allowed to try on different historical costumes, including a lady's 1600s headdress that I thought was a lace ruff for the chin, but turned out to be a headdress, which in turn was inspired by Louis the Fourteenth's mistress wearing a garter, of all things, on her head, so as not be uncovered when her hat fell off. (Sheesh, what about revealing the fact that she wore a big lacy garter on her fat leg?) Since we were already on the second floor, we visited the Canadian Children's Museum. Wow, I wished that I was little again because I would have had so much fun there. Come to think of it, I did have fun there anyway, taking a zillion pictures of my brother against his will, posing him cutting plastic vegetables and wearing a kaftan and trying on carnival masks and riding a camel. Since he's 11, and thinks himself superior to others his age, he was none too thrilled, and I think in the end I had more fun than he did.
Afterwards was a quick stop in the postal museum where, among the unfortunately uninteresting to me stamp collections and postal code histories I found a gem: Lord of the Rings stamps from New Zealand! My friend Jillian will love this. Sorry about the resolution, I was taking it through glass. Also, there was a potentially interesting exhibit about the post in culture, including TV, movies (i.e. You've Got Mail, The Lake House, Cyrano de Bergerac), books, etc. Unfortunately, I was rushed off to the Hall of Canada on the 3rd floor because there was supposed to be another play in the Quebec square there at 4:30. It was only there that my mom more closely reexamined the schedule and discovered that the play was only from Thursday to Saturday. So my exploration of "The Post Goes Pop!" was tragically and unjustifiably cut short, and I decided to make the best of things and enjoy the Hall of Canada. Now, the Hall is incredibly impressive. When you come up the escalator, you look up and there's a beautiful multicolored glass dome above you with detailed, abstract patterns and pictures. Then you go through these doors into the start of the hall. For anyone who doesn't know what the Hall of Canada is, it's this massive gallery that takes you through Canada's history, while simultaneously moving west. (In terms of the history's place in geography) It started with life-sized models of a Viking woman saying goodbye to her husband as he got on a boat, and progressed through fishermen and whalers, villagers in a 1600s Quebec town, shipbuilding, the mainstreet of a small town, a country area, a cafe in Northwest Territories, and a 50s airport in British Columbia, before ending up with a helicopter that seemed to be in Yukon. All of this was represented with scenes, vehicles, props, etc, and there was even part of a real church that had been donated for the small town mainstreet. Also, while the only one we saw was in French,there were actors who wandered around their respective areas and pretended to be from that time and place.
Last we went to this special exhibit on the Greeks, which was pretty cool, only my feet were so sore by then that I didn't enjoy it as much as I wish I had. There was one pair of earrings from the Byzantine period that had little gold ships hanging from them! I swear, they must have weighted a ton.
We walked to a pizza restaurant after we finished up at the museum, and that was another adventure in and of itself. Perhaps I forgot to mention that though the museum of Civilization is only about 5 minutes away from Ottawa, it's across the Ottawa River in the town of Gatineau, which means that it's in Quebec. Where they speak French. And in this particular restaurant, the menu was in French only. I was actually really excited, because it meant that I got to put all my years of taking French to use, but we ran into a few speed bumps when we realised that most of the words I didn't know on the menu were for different kinds of meat, and so would not be useful in avoiding them. Luckily, our waiter turned out to be bilingual, but it did take a lot of the adventure out of the experience.
After eating we jogged on back to the museum for our IMAX show on Ancient Greece (can anyone guess that the museum had a sort of theme going here?) It was okay, but nothing really spectacular compared to others I've seen. (But then, how can you expect ruins and coastline to measure up to NASCAR-in 3D!)
And that was my very long Wednesday. As I'm getting bored right now and would rather go do something else (such as unpack and sleep), I'll have to continue tomorrow.

OTTAWA VACATION: THE FIRST 4 DAYS

2008-07-18T21:07:00.007-04:00

Hi from Ottawa!
I've decided to liveblog (is that the right word?) my vacation to Ottawa...but unfortunately my internet access didn't work until tonight so it sort of defeats the purpose. Today is Friday, and I'm sitting in my tiny hotel room next to a bottle of pickles on the little desk.
So I'll try to recap what's happened so far.
Tuesday
We drove for 5 hours. Driving conditions were normal. Highpoints included eating donuts and watching Stardust on the DVD player. We arrived at Comfort Inn Downtown (not actually downtown), checked in, hiked up the stairs, marvelled at the room smaller than my bedroom, the lovely inadequate lighting, and the bathroom so small that when I sat down on the toilet I scraped my elbow.
We hiked around the city for two hours on my father's demand before eating supper. It was getting dark, we were disoriented, and I was unjustifiably terrified by buskers. Well, terrified is a bit of a strong word...but uneasy at least. We finally found a food court that was closing down and bought some ricotta and spinach pizza things that were surprisingly good.
Then we were walking through the city and came out in front of Parliament Hill, and wow! Suddenly, Ottawa wasn't that bad. The entire capital buildings were lit up in multi, changing colours, and there was loud electronic music, and then this presentation thing started, with clips and narrators and quotes and poems and stuff, all talking about what it means to be Canadian. It turns out the show is called "Sound & Light on Parliament Hill", and it's every night at 9:30 and 10:30. It was around that point that I decided Ottawa wasn't that bad, and at least for a little while stopped comparing it to Boston and San Francisco and Washington D.C.
Wednesday
The Canadian Museum of Civilization is now officially the coolest museum in Canada, in my eyes. It is also very hard on the feet. That's not an opinion, it's a fact. The entire museum looks as if it's eroded out of a sandstone hill or something, all natural curves and lines and waves. It's also nicely placed on a ridge on the edge of the Ottawa River, so when we ate lunch in the museum cafeteria we had a great view of the Parliament buildings, Chateau Laurier, etc.
Our first stop was the Great Hall, a huge hall full of totem poles (the largest collection of totem poles indoors in all of Canada...or the most important...or something like that). There were facades of West Coast Native dwellings on the side, and you could enter doors to see artifacts and stuff on the inside. Then there was an exhibit about a really ancient tribe (I can't remember exactly which one) that used so many shells that the soil contains layers and layers of them, just piles of broken ones, some of the layers as much as 8 feet thick!
Oh, I've got to go to bed now...to be continued, with the unfortunately rather boring Aboriginal Exhibit, and then the really cool monologue play.

Wishes

2008-07-04T19:57:00.001-04:00

The band Superchick is probably my favourite Christian band...most people haven't heard of it, but they've probably heard some of their songs, which have shown up on The Hills, in Legally Blonde, and and in Ice Princess.
My favourite song by theirs is called "Wishes", and it's about a breakup, but when you think about it, a lot of it could be about unrequited love. It's pretty mainstream, it's not alternative or anything, and it doesn't use interesting instrumentation. It's just a song that expresses how I feel.

Newberry Recap pt. 1

2008-07-03T20:06:00.002-04:00

I decided I may as well write short reviews of the 20 or so Newberry Medal winners I've read so far, with summaries and comments and stuff. Some of them will be rather sketchy, because it was a long time ago.
The Tale of Despereaux, by Kate DiCamillo (2005)
This is the most recent one I've read, so far the only one since I started my list.
The book ties together the story of three inhabitants of the castle: a tiny mouse with huge ears named Despereaux, who loves the princess Pea and can read, to the chagrin of his family; Roscuro, a dungeon rat who loves the light; and Miggery Sow, a servant girl with "cauliflower ears" who wants nothing more than to be a princess.
The book was simple, and sweet, and gave me a sort of contented feeling when I finished it. It's written in a "Dear Reader" style. So far, I was thankful that it was one of the few Newberry books I've read that haven't made me cry.

Crispin, the Cross of Lead, by Avi (2004)
What is it with long titles?
A boy named Crispin lives in a medieval village. His mother dies, he receives a mysterious cross, and stuff happens. Hey, I'm not amazon. This one didn't really stick in my mind very much. But Avi is a pretty good writer. Read "The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle". I can remember that one.
The book was decent, an interesting view of Medieval life and superstitions. It didn't make me cry.

Holes, by Louis Sacher (1999)
Stanley Yelnats is sent to Camp Greenlake, an alternative to juevenile detention, in the middle of the desert. Every day he and his fellow inmates must dig holes: 5 feet by 5 feet by 5 feet. However, Stanley becomes suspicious. Are they really digging the holes to build character, or is the Warden looking for something?
I bought this book in a used bookshop in Napa, California. It had always looked weird, but I was curious, so I read it, and surprise, surprise, it was worthy of the honours it received. The book is hilarious, well-written, and suspensful, with quirkily drawn and engaging characters. The end made me go, "ah-ha!" though maybe I just missed all the clues leading up to the twist at the end. I'm slow. :)

The View From Saturday, by E.L. Konisburg (1997)
This book is a collection of four short stories about 4 kids who end up on the school academic bowl team together. Every Saturday they get together and the Bed & Breakfast run by one boy's parents and drink tea and practice for the bowl.
This book was interesting and very well written. It gets points for not making me cry. It's a quick read, and it has good characterization. It's interesting to note that it's by the same author as "The Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler"...a book that was publishe more than 30 years earlier.

In Beginning

2008-07-03T19:22:00.000-04:00

So I made this stupid list, right? I was bored, and I was feeling adventurous, so I sat down with a sheet of paper, and wrote "___ Things I Want to Do This Summer." I wasn't sure how many I could come up with. I started listing random, bizarre stuff that I didn't know if I could fulfill, that I didn't know if I wanted to fulfill, but it sounded more interesting than doing nothing. I ended up with 70. Now I'm two weeks into the summer and I've accomplished...let's see...oh yes, 0. Out of 70. I figure I'm going to have to average about one a day. But unfortunately lots of them are long term stuff. You try reading 5 of Shakespeare's plays in a day and then tell me how you feel.
I'm going to try to blog whenever I finish an item. It should be an adventure. Though I don't know how interesting some topics will be. You try writing several paragraphs about doing tie-dye.
One item, though, I think is extra ambitious, and of particular note. I'm planning to read all the Newberry Medal-Winning Books. Ever. So far I've read 21 of them, but 20 of those were before I got the idea. I'll try to write a review of each one. That would be a separate section.
I'm also planning to have a section about Culture and a section about Life in General.
Sorry that my first post was so boring. I wasn't sure what to write in it. And I promise not to use proper grammar all the time. :)
I've never really blogged before, so bear with me.