Better Proclaimers

What's with these politicos going off half-cocked, lately? It's such a prodigal misuse of their big swinging dicks . . .

After belatedly finding that his Slur-of-the-Month Club dealt him very shoddy goods, the PM retracted his latest partisan insult with appropriately bad grace, before a single TV camera in a bare studio. So as not to face the embarrassing prospect of an actual, you know, audience while he did the, ummm, manly thing.

Meanwhile at the local level, Temporary Putative Ottawa Mayor Doug ("Dog") Thompson took a minute off from harrassing innocent coyotes in the 'burbs to become a wannabe proclaimer, as reported below. He then swiftly proclaimed that he is naught but a mere groveller before the wilting rage of councillor Jan "Nobody's Bunny" Harder.

Enough. The Scots-type guys in these pictures are definitely better Proclaimers. They sing. They play. Some pogo gracefully. And on Friday night, in the midst of a superlatively soggy summer, they bore sunshine from Leith to the free Bluesfest stage on York Street. Bless 'em.

The Proclaimers

It seems the ESI were offline for a day or two. I blame some of this on the latest scandal to come to our parochial city. Yes – the sudden proclamation and de-proclamation of Shannon Tweed Day seems to have heightened the public debate regarding whom is entitled to get the keys to the city for a day. I really think this is short-sighted policy from our public officials. Long before most of us learned to type with one-hand on the internet, all that we had was what we found in our friends’ dads secret hiding spots in the basement behind the loose acoustic tiles. And Shannon Tweed was part of that history. Okay, so she wasn’t from Ottawa (a newfie no less), but she was a bit of an icon to this town having a bar on Bank St. named after her (ed. Zoom, you must have been to Shannon’s at some point? Did it become Hoopers?) And I read somewhere that she waitressed on Elgin Street for some time before breaking out for the big time. Lets face it: breaking out of Ottawa in the pre-internet, pre-instant celebrity, pre-Youtube world of the 1980’s deserves some recognition. Moreover, there was no pretense as to what Ms. Tweed represented. Meanwhile, we have currently-seated elected officials having streets named after them before they even leave office. Our Mayor is currently teaching his wife how to bake a file into a cake in case the judge doesn’t side with him. The guy who lives at 24 Sussex makes Machiavelli look like Gandhi.

So, I say, give Ms. Tweed her day. It can’t be any worse than what we have done before or what we will most likely do next. Besides, I hear Marlen Cowpland may be looking for the same recognition at some point and it may be in our collective interest if we can say: Sorry Marlen, it’s been done.

Trials of Larry: The Offishul Evil Genius

We're not outta the woods yet - the verdict doesn't come down until August 12. But as of yesterday, Mayor Larry's influence-peddling trial is all over but for the gavel slam. Done. Like summer barbecue. Or your back, say, after falling asleep on your boat in the sun, whilst contemplating a mayoral candidacy over a beer or two.

All we citizens have to do is kick back on the patio for another month and let the assorted smog from burnt hot dogs, journalists' Blackberrying thumbs and lawyers' overheated brains dissipate into the ozone, while Mr O'Brien sweats it out in his secret lair exclusive penthouse.

As an occasionally black and white kinda coyote, I really appreciated the lawyers' summations.

Prosecutor Scott Hutchison faint-praised main witness Terry Kilrea as "hardly Machiavellian." Then Larry's best-money-could-buy defense guy, Michael Edelson, did his darndest to paint him up as some kinda evil genius.

Which on the evidence, compared to Larry, he may be...

Performance Art

Stopped by Gallery 101 on Friday night with a few friends to see Not Tonight Honey, an art show that promised to include performance art.

By the time we arrived, we had missed three performances, but we stayed long enough to catch at least one.

We may have caught two. One of the gallery's bathrooms had a closed circuit TV camera in it with a monitor out in the gallery. At one point, a woman went into the bathroom and on the monitor we could see her pacing back and forth waving her arms. I wasn't sure if this was a performance or perhaps a private display of tension or strong emotion.

But we definitely caught one full performance. The room got suddenly quiet while I was in the middle of expounding on something. We had missed a young woman disrobing and then kneeling in front of a set of candles and water bottles filled with a dark liquid.

The woman lit a candle, said a prayer, whipped herself a dozen or so times on the back with a flogger and drank a bottle of the liquid. Then she lit the next candle and repeated the process. Her back was getting bright red by the fourth candle and the fourth bottle. It occurred to me that she was drinking too much in too short a time for it to be healthy. That is when I realized that a part of her ritual that I thought was silent prayer was actually regurgitation into a large container.

I decided that I didn't really want to see any more of the performance and walked out to the Gallery's back deck. The others who had come with me, Aggie, the Disheveled Waiter and Woodsy had apparently also seen enough.

We had a lively discussion about the performance and performance art in general. But I am left with several questions including:

1. Are nudity, self-flagellation, regurgitation and religious iconography passé in performance art?
2. Or do you need at least one of those elements so that people will know it's art?
3. Are the levels of self-harm and audience discomfort directly proportional to the quality of a performance art piece?
   

A significant birthday

It is time again for us to to wish the Fifth Muse a happy birthday.

When we Irregulars set up shop back in the cybercretaceous era, we were all about the Muse - we even called her "ours" in a proprietary way, although she wrote compellingly about her life for, well, the whole Net. Frankly, it was a bit of a drama. But we felt engaged.

We also saw a need for comment and occasional nudges along the way, if she chose to accept them. We filled it in our fashion, which is mainly solid individually, enthusiastic certainly, but perhaps anarchic collectively. (And no, ma'am, it was never entirely about finding a date, although that issue figured prominently for you. I digress. Again. Imagine that...)

The Muse (wisely, we think, although we miss her) withdrew from semi-public anonymity to live life rather than blog about it. We're no longer party to her thoughts, but hope that she's still keeping a journal. Someplace quite private would be best.

Oh, we still hear occasional snippets about her life. She's around. But following her lead, we don't pry, and these days we chance only upon random items. Let us just say that she, like most people, has had good times, bad ones, and a triumph or two to which we have raised quiet glasses.

The Elgin Street Irregulars have obviously moved on too. We continue, likely less impassioned without her. The first great fling is always the most memorable... But we wish her well, and hope she has a decent date now and again. Happy Birthday, Muse!