the cassandra pages

Style

She got on the train at Berri-UQAM and sat down nearby: a woman of indeterminate but elderly age. From the black silk flower in her hair to the soft and artful black and rust outfit, her huge black-framed glasses, and the handmade-looking bone-bead bracelet watch with its oversize dial, she had put together a fabulous look from inexpensive pieces, and carried it off with the same confidence and grace I noticed in her smile when she looked over at me. She got off at Place des Arts; I continued on, feeling inspired.

I went to a dental appointment, and then spent a couple of hours downtown doing some shopping. It was fun to browse around with a little extra time to spare; I was looking for a gift for a friend who's graduating next week but also checking out the sales, enjoying the spring colors and patterns and stopping for a cup of coffee and a biscotti at Indigo. I bought a simple $9 black T-shirt and a half-price short grey trench, cut close to the body with large dark buttons and a funnel neck,  lined in a funky yellow and red print.

Today we got up at 5:00 am and drove down to Vermont, leaving the city before rush hour. In the early afternoon I was at the local mall buying groceries, and shoppers in their baggy shorts and sweatshirts were looking at my new trench coat as if I'd dropped out of the sky.

The Foot Lady

Last night I received this story in an email from my friend Vivian. She's a Canadian-American who has lived in Montreal most of her adult life, but she's voting in Florida by absentee ballot. In these days of not-much-humor about the upcoming elections, I appreciated this story:

"Last Friday, a week ago, I went to get a pedicure in the local community centre. My friend Deb made the appointment, or, more accurately, she had given me the appointment her father had since he is now having trouble getting around. I got there late but the Foot Lady wasn't there yet. I sat in the hall on a chair. It was a youth centre, with its own Bingo hall and a little office where they made all the appointment on a clip board. A woman came in from the street and sat down, she said she couldn't stand any longer. Are you waiting for the bus? I asked. I am waiting for a gentleman who is blind, he comes to play Bingo.  How is that? He has special cards, cards in Braille.  So we chat a little. She is retired, as am I, and she hates it, she wants to be busy but the doctor says she cannot work.  Then the Foot Lady arrives. It doesn't matter much, the appointment after me was open, a cancellation. It turns out she had had to detour around a big traffic jam on the overpass at Angrignon and then rushing through Verdun had gotten a speeding ticket. Who knows it is 30? That is too slow. They are just trying to make money. I didn't think she could afford to pay it. A Foot Lady who commutes from the West Island to a different community centre every day of the week, and takes private clients too. It must be tiring. She was a little French Canadian woman  with a round sweet face with bright blonde hair in ringlets around her face, kind of a mullet actually long in back and shorter on the sides, and she patiently unpacked her gigantic black valise with her electric sander-thing and swabs and two stacks of clean towels and the foot soaking tub and creams and little metal implements of different kinds. What kind of work do you do, she asked, are you creative? I think you are artistic.  She spoke an almost unaccented English, just a bit tentatively.  Sometimes she searched for a word. When she found out I was  originally from the U.S. she said, oh, and what do you think, about the vote there?  That one who is running to be the next prime minister, what is his name...Oklahoma!..."

(Most Canadians, I should add, have the facts straight, though they do find the interminable U.S. campaign and electoral college pretty hard to fathom. Every single Canadian I've talked to has asked me, worriedly, "but are you going to vote?" and looked very relieved when I've told them I already have, and for whom.)

Fa-sin-eh-ting!

How to do (and not do) an American accent: lessons for Brits from a famous acting/speech coach. Living in Montreal, where many English-speakers are either truly British or have a British accent, I'm more aware than ever of my American way of speech but hard put to identify exactly what I do that gives it away: here's the start of an explanation, amusingly delivered. Repeat after me: fleece, creep, speak...

Are We What We Wear?

Warning: rare judgmental rant ahead. Above, shopping and cafe sitting on St. Denis, Montreal

They've got to be kidding.

I've always shopped in consignment stores - my mother-in-law, smiling slyly, used to call them her "boutiques" - and many of my favorite pieces of clothing have come from them, like the dark blue Italian wool jacket I've worn for countless business meetings - $50, ten years ago. I used to make a lot of my clothes (before everything we put on our backs was made cheaply offshore) and still would if I had more time. I grew up sewing and knitting, I read about couture, clothes and their design and construction are still very interesting to me.  But paying more than $100 for an item of clothing, with a few rare exceptions like boots or a coat or something really special, has always struck me as, frankly, obscene; my price range is more like $10-$50, tops. I was shocked to read the article linked to above. People are starving and the way to feel less guilty is to buy your one-use evening gown for $3000 on E-Bay? What kind of a planet are these people living on?

Maybe living in Montreal has made me especially sensitive to excess and ultra-consumerism, here where style tends to be individual and hip, and "cheap" is considered smart rather than déclassé. It certainly makes me ashamed of my fellow Americans limping to parties in their recycled Manolo Blahniks - especially those who whimper about trying to live "green." Give me a break.

What's your clothes-buying policy? Do you have an upper limit that feels OK to you?

Contact

I've been haunted all day by the aerial pictures taken of an isolated, previously-uncontacted Brazilian tribe: the red-painted men shooting their arrows up at the airplane which returned six times, the black-painted figure, possibly a woman, looking upward. The body paint and bows and arrows appeared after the first fly-over,  when all the people ran away.

How terrifying the airplane must have been - like the recurrent nightmare I've had where black planes slowly appear over the lake of my childhood, finally darkening the sky, and bombs begin falling in the distance, or paratroopers start hurtling down into my world.

These are human beings, even if we insist on returning and photographing them, capturing them for the world to gawk at. The Brazilian native Indian foundation insists that the tribal lands are protected so that the people can remain autonomous - but why, then, did they take and publish these pictures?

Get away! I want to shout, along with them, though they seem to be silent as they stare up at the airplane. Let these few last isolated inhabitants of the planet remain in their innocence of what the rest of us are doing and have done.

Guest Blog: "L'Onde de Choc Solidaire," by J.

Here's a guest post from my husband and partner, known to some of you through his photo website and to others  as the "J." of this blog. Enjoy!

From the back room where I work the persistent chatter of voices was the first tipoff that something was happening, the second the deep-throated drum beat that came and went. Finally, after a couple of hours it dawned on me that these sounds were not a normal demonstration. I got up from my desk and walked to the front window.

I now am accustomed to seeing demonstrators marching down our street, but peering out I was still surprised. This was not the political manifestation, but a meta-demonstration fed by dozens and dozens of bright yellow school buses which ringed most of the periphery of the 100 hectare park. Many of the buses had hand-lettered placards identifying where the students were from, and from each bus issued a demonstration unit: students, flags, costumes, posters, drums – the raw tools of political dissent. Yearly (since 1970) this event is organized by Oxfam-Québec (far right column, "Marche 2/3 2008") and involves about 15,000 students. This year's theme was "Provoque l’onde de choc solidaire/Provoke a Shockwave of Solidarity." I decided that the work that had been keeping me to the back room wasn't that important after all and grabbed my camera.

   

Inside the park the day was actually winding down, and the marchers were heading back to their buses. Still there were several thousand high school students. I had a role to play as well: spectator! As groups would pass the posters and banners would snap towards me (the spectator!) As such I was the only element not in generous supply. The theme of the demonstration was equitable distribution for each person of the world economy, and the injustices of the current system. From my point of view I was intent on watching and couldn't help but notice many things, but especially the teachers embedded in each group. Marching too as demonstrators with their students, undifferentiated except for their age, it was they who were transmitting the precious genetic code of political engagement to their already receptive students.

The signs in the photo above read " Later is Too Late" and "To recycle is to Predict the Future."

Click on the photos for larger versions, and here's a viewer for more photos from the day.

No One is Illegal

For two hours this morning, small groups like this walked around Parc Lafontaine, probably as part of this week's MayWorks events and demonstrations for international workers rights, fair trade, immigrant justice, and against poverty, racism and racial profiling, the latter sponsored by the group Solidarité sans frontières/Solidarity Across Borders. Note the baby carriage and small kids: that's the case in nearly every demonstration we've seen on the streets of Montreal - and demonstrations are a common occurrence. The annual May Day workers' march got broken up by police this year - the police were touchy after the destructive riot that broke out after the Canadiens won a playoff game earlier in the week, and apparently some neo-Nazis came to the MayDay march ready for violence; in any case, the march was practically over before it started. All of which didn't go over well in this city which prides itself on being peaceful but political. It looked like today's march may have been an attempt by certain groups to pick up the pieces and walk in solidarity in a different location on a rainy Saturday instead, just on principle.

In any case, the issues highlighted were underscored by the film we saw last night, "The Visitor." Shot in New York City, near Washington Square, and in Queens, the film focuses on a bored, unhappy white college professor who arrives at his little-used apartment in New York to find a foreign couple living there: they turn out to be a Syrian musician and his Senegalese girlfriend: both illegal aliens. Things get much more complicated, as we watch the professor grow through his relationship with the couple and an unexpectedly personal political awakening. The film also has a lot to say about music as language, solace, quest, and expression; its ultimate point is not so much about deportation and rules as it is about what constitutes our responsibility to one another as human beings - and how far the United States has come from that in its policy about detention, and toward those who aid illegal aliens or anyone who runs afoul of the Patriot Act.

The helplessness of American citizens and accused immigrants alike, against "the system", contrasts so starkly with the grassroots sentiment and activism I'm observing here in Quebec. Perhaps one clue to the difference is in that baby carriage you see in the picture above. Children here grow up being exposed to the idea that participation in the political process is a right and a privilege - and one that has an effect. Demonstrations, public meetings, and membership in civic organizations are not grim affairs, but seem to include an element of humor that prevents officials from taking themselves too seriously, and therefore the separation between employees of "the state" - whether police, bureaucrats, or elected officials - and ordinary citizens is much thinner and much less hostile and aggressive.

Is it too late to change this in the U.S. and other industrialized countries?  I wonder. But I can guarantee you one thing: it won't happen from the top down.

"Je ne comprends pas grand chose aux États et aux frontières.
Je sais seulement que la Terre est ronde, et contrairement aux arbres
qui ont des racines, les humains ont des pieds pour marcher."

("I don't understand the big thing about states or borders. I only know that the earth is round, and unlike trees which have roots, humans have feet for walking.")

--Quotation for tomorrow's "No One is Illegal" march

I also liked this one:

"Any Wall Turned on Its Side Becomes a Bridge"

What's at Risk?

My morning began (after checking email, of course!) with reading several articles about education. An editorial in the New York Times commemorates the 25th anniversary of the publication of "A Nation at Risk", the report of a national commission in response to “the widespread public perception that something is seriously remiss in our educational system.” I had forgotten about the report and what it found, except that - contrary to what the administration expected - it corroborated the public perception. What was interesting about today's article was the before/after discussion of one of the report's conclusions: that a strong educational system focussed on "the basics" would result in greater economic competitiveness. American educators back in 1981 were very concerned about being outstripped by the much higher-performing, rigorous Japanese and Korean school systems. But then the American economy improved, while the Asian economies began to falter:

With the wisdom of hindsight, it is clear that the link between educational excellence and economic security is not as simple as “A Nation at Risk” made it seem. By the mid-1980s, policymakers in Japan, South Korea and Singapore were already beginning to complain that their educational systems focused too much on rote learning and memorization. They continue to envy American schools because they teach creativity and the problem-solving skills critical to prospering in the global economy.

Indeed, a consensus seems to be emerging among educational experts around the world that American schools operate within the context of an enabling environment — an open economy, strong legal and banking systems, an entrepreneurial culture — conducive to economic progress.

To put it bluntly, American students may not know as much as their counterparts around the Pacific Rim, but our society allows them to make better use of what they do know. The question now is whether this historic advantage will suffice at a time when knowledge of math, science and technology is becoming increasingly critical. Maybe we need both the enabling environment and more rigor in these areas.

My question, on reading this, is much broader: should the purpose of an educational system even be economic competitiveness? Does it distress anyone besides me that this is stated so bluntly as a given fact? First, who benefits from such a goal, and how? Are we raising children who are capable of thinking about the effect of globalization, for instance, or children whose primary goal is to make as much money as possible; i.e., are we raising yet another generation of capitalist consumers, or world citizens? On the other hand, I know that many young people today are quite idealistic - where are those values coming from? And is it only my perception that, 25 years later, an even greater percentage of kids are falling through the cracks, both in terms of secondary education and access to higher education, due to racial inequality, poverty, troubled family environments and many other factors?

What do you think? And I wonder if Canadian readers see differences between the stated goals of education between the two countries. In Quebec, at least, the values of the society are quite different, and it's hard for me not to think some of this comes from the focus of education, as well as what children learn at home.

True Love, and a True Romance

Last night we went to a wedding.

The couple in question were being married at their home, in a small civil ceremony attended by family and close friends. We walked along the snowy street to the lighted porch at 6:30 pm, and were met by the immediate warmth of incandescent light and candles; smiling people crowded into a few small rooms; flowers; trays of champagne and little hors d'oeuvres.  We all greeted one another and talked happily until all the guests had arrived, and then the hosts called us together saying, "All right, let's do this!"

After a few words of welcome, we listened to "Concord", from the Choral Dances by Benjamin Britten, and then the ceremony began, presided over by a very handsome Quebec notaire, who read the civil code for marriages to the two partners, as required: it states that, by law, both are required to keep their own names, that they are obligated to live together, that they will each contribute financially to the expenses of the family "according to their means," that they are both required to care for each other and share the responsibilities of the relationship. And then the rings were blessed by two Anglican priests who were the official witnesses; the rings were exchanged; the notaire pronounced the couple married; and they embraced while we all spontaneously burst into applause, with hands that were already wet from wiping tears from our faces.

After more champagne the hosts brought out a beautiful home-cooked meal served on their own china: poached salmon with a lemon cream sauce; a filet of beef; a porcelain terrine filled with a fragrant vegetable curry; salads; delicious wine; and later all sorts of little bar cookies  - raspberry, lemon-coconut, chocolate - for dessert.

It was, in a word, wonderful, and I was honored and very, very happy to be there. For yesterday was the exact 35th anniversary of the day our friends had met; they had gone home together that night, and have never been apart since. For years, they felt marriage wasn't necessary, and then, more recently, had changed their minds - but wanted it to be in the church where so much of their life has been lived, and their community has been found. But in spite of the presence last evening of seven Anglican priests, all of whom deeply love this couple, and the continued efforts of many of us present, this is still impossible in Canada. So these two men decided thirty-five years was long enough to wait, and gave themselves a wedding.

A couple marries each other, and P. and R. did that last night. I hope there is no doubt in their minds that their wedding was holy, sacramental, and complete. The room was radiant with love.

A Deeper Look at Pakistan, the West, and Benazir Bhutto

If I could make one political wish for the New Year, it would be for westerners to become better informed about Middle-, Near-Eastern and South Asian politics, culture, religion and history. The recent death of Benazir Bhutto is a case in point: was she the attractive, English-speaking, champion of democracy portrayed sympathetically in the western press? Or a more complex player in the violent and corrupt struggle for power that is modern Pakistan, with hands that were perhaps not quite as snowy as the white gauze veil she always wore in public?

(at left: a stamp from Pakistan's first series after independence, 1947.)

I've spent some time during the last week reading various articles about Bhutto and Pakistan, all stemming from a link I found on Nancy Ghandi's Under the Fire Star. Just before Christmas, I finished the final book in the Raj Quartet, which ends with the detonation of the atomic bomb in Japan, abandonment of hopes for a united India after independence, and the inevitability of the partition of India and Pakistan into Hindu and Muslim states, accompanied by terrible violence. This complex legacy of western influence and religious and cultural conflict continues, of course, along with underlying political intrigue.

The picture is murky at best. What we do not hear much of in the west is how General Musharraf still protects his friend Khan, who sold Pakistan's nuclear secrets to Iran and Libya. We do not hear how Benazir Bhutto's government supported the Taliban takeover of Kabul, or the allegations of her role in the murder of her brother, with whom she quarreled politically. And we do not understand that the reason for the rise of support for Islamic governments in many of these countries is because -- unlike the generals, or wealthy aristocratic ruling families -- the Islamic parties are perceived as helpers and champions of the poor.

Here are some links; I hope you will take a look and find them as informative as I did, not only about foreign politics, but about our own pre-conceptions.

William Dalrymple in the Guardian, "Pakistan's Flawed and Feudal Princess":

For the Americans, what Benazir Bhutto wasn't was possibly more attractive even than what she was. She wasn't a religious fundamentalist, she didn't have a beard, she didn't organise rallies where everyone shouts: 'Death to America' and she didn't issue fatwas against Booker-winning authors, even though Salman Rushdie ridiculed her as the Virgin Ironpants in his novel Shame...However, the very reasons that made the West love Benazir Bhutto are the same that gave many Pakistanis second thoughts...

Jason Burke in the Observer:

The day I spent on the campaign trail with her this month was vintage Benazir. At first I interviewed her in a relatively formal fashion. Then I put my notebook away and we simply talked - about her ambitions, Pakistan, the coming elections and, of course, the various threats against her. As ever, I was impressed by her intelligence and courage and depressed by her delusions and ego...

Robert Fisk in the Independent:

Of course, given the childish coverage of this appalling tragedy – and  however corrupt Ms Bhutto may have been, let us be under no illusions that this brave lady is indeed a true martyr – it's not surprising that the  "good-versus-evil" donkey can be trotted out to explain the  carnage in Rawalpindi...

Tariq Ali's, "Daughter of the West," in the London Review of Books,is a prescient in-depth look at the life and political fortunes of Benazir Bhutto, published just a few days before her death. (The title is a play on that of Bhutto's own memoir, Daughter of the East.) If you really want to know more about Pakistani politics and the history of the Bhutto family, read this piece. It is long but fascinating, and details Benazir Bhuttos's long road from her days as a young, courageous political idealist trying to keep her father alive, to her falling-out with her brothers, her marriage to a corrupt businessman with whom she made millions, and her transformation into a power-seeker no longer truly concerned with reform, and largely out-of-touch with the people of her own country.

Finally, here is an article by Omar Waraich in Karachi, written from photographs and eyewitness accounts of Bhutto's assassination and burial which proves, to me at least, that she died the way we were originally told: shot in the head and neck by an assassin before the suicide bomber detonated his device. Not generally a method used by Al-Quaeda.

Pakistani politics are complex, with their share of corruption and violence, and the Bhutto family has been on the receiving end as well as causing, indirectly or not, the deaths of many other people. Who killed Benazir Bhutto? Many had their reasons. Robert Fisk believes the assassination was ordered by General Musharraf and carried out by the ISI, the Inter Services Intelligence, Pakistan's powerful secret police.

This vast institution – corrupt, venal and brutal – works for Musharraf...But it also worked – and still works – for the Taliban. It also works for the Americans. In fact, it works for everybody. But it is the key which Musharraf can use to open talks with America's enemies when he feels threatened or wants to put pressure on Afghanistan or wants to appease the " extremists" and "terrorists" who so oppress George Bush. And let us remember, by the way, that Daniel Pearl, the Wall Street Journal reporter beheaded by his Islamist captors in Karachi, actually made his fatal appointment with his future murderers from an ISI commander's office. Ahmed Rashid's book Taliban provides riveting proof of the ISI's web of corruption and violence. Read it, and all of the above makes more sense.

Bhutto herself, speaking to Jason Burke, described "a cabal of retired senior military officers and intelligence agents in league with radical Islamic militants 'embedded in the country' who, she said, formed a secret parallel state of immense power." She may, of course, have been talking about the same people.

Whoever it was, the fact is that Musharraf remains in power, elections have been delayed, Washington's power-brokering deals are off, and Bhutto lies in her family's tomb.