Florence and beyond!

so as you might tell by the title of this post Im in Florence. I think I've finally just now figured out apostrophes on these european keyboards. the past few days since leaving Rome have been spent in Perugia, a small midevil village close to Assisi. That was the other high point of this trip. Going to Assisi was something I never in my life imagined I'd be able to do. In the Reliquary of St Francis they have his tunic it looks like a pair of well worn punk rock pants, covered in patches of dark fabric and white thread and so threadbare that one wonders if there was anything left of the original material. He would have been a really small man. I never thought about his height but I guess the nickname Il Povrello was more than just affection, he really was the little poor man. There was kneelng beneath the crucifix of San Damiano and the reliwuary of St. Claire and the beautiful cathedral art from that period between the midevil and the renaissance, I have some very definite things to say about Renaissance artwork but my thumb has been giving me lots of joint pain recently.

I'll be moving on to Venice again soon where I'll put together the zine and rest from the internets and then it's back to Vancouver via NYC. I've had a wonerfull time on this vacation but I am ready to go home I think that if nothing else this trip has gone to show just how hard it is for my family to travel together.

ok so that's the dirt.

pax et bonum

right now it's yesterday

as I write this it's almost 2am here in Rome but you reading this it's 5pm yesterday in Vancouver.

Today as I was sitting fown to breakfast in the hotel I had an epiphany, the best band name I have ever come up with: OCTOPUS AND THE LEATHER BOUND TOMATOES that's right, can't step to that shit yo.

I went to the colliseum and the catacombs today, lots of photos. expect to see many pictures of Rome in the next issue of the zine. none of the catacombs though, can't take pictures there it bothers the dead wooooooooo. actually I think it damages the artwork on the walls, it was really rad to be there though.

Hot Damn I'm in Rome~!

yup that's right, Rome.

So I've been in Italy with my mom and my brother for four days now and it's pretty sweet. Venice was a trip unto itself and I'm looking forward to going back there. I didn't get to go to the Bacillica at St. Marks because of the lines but I did see some really beautiful churches. There was one right next to our hotel where Tintoretto is burried and there is a lot of really beautiful art all over the place, neat surprises in the masonry and icons of the Blessed Virgin and St Mark recessed into the walls. Because there's no cars or roads the whole city is quiet. I mean really silent. You can hear the sounds of children laughing and birdsong and the church bells mark the hours you don't even need a watch. The major sites are a disgusting exhibit of capitalism but there are parts of the city which are almost deserted and some really amazing food. We are going back for the last six days. We are only in Rome for two or three, today we are going to the Colliseum and the Catacombs and then we are going to the Vatican.

There are so many motor scooters here it's really quite something.

There's a ferry which connects Venice to Grece I'll have to save up so I can do a trip out here again and take the boat to Grece and maybe from there to Turky. The really wonderful thing about Venice and Rome are the artifacts of an earlier Christianity, a time in the history of my faith when there existed a truly Orthodox Catholicism. Having been a parissioner at an Orthodox church for most of the last year I find it very hard to bear ewith Catholics and Protestants who claim the word to suppose their own traditions, Sadly one can not claim that there is a Catholic Orthodoxy because of the centuries old relations to empire and worldly power that have tainted the Catholic church, the "orthodox" Catholic line is it's own sort of heresy in so far as it ascribes a near oracular power to the Bishop of Rome and his abillity to msake infalliable statements, it's assumptions about church organisation and it's historical ties to authority and it's own quest at one time to be an empire all it's own are not Orthodox. Neither however is the Protestant assertions that Catholicism isn't a Christian tradition, it's rejection of the reality of the sacraments as something beyond symbolism or the profession of sola scriptura. I guess what I'm saying is that an honest examination of history has to admit that in the west there are a preponderance of Unorthodox churches but that orthodox or not the Protestant and Catholic churches have something to them or else they wouldn't exist. The Holy Spirit moves where it will and it breathes life into the Vatican as much as it does in the churches of Russia and Scotland and Alabama. I love how simple Christ made it at the end of John's Gospel: If you love me then keep my commandments, love God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind, and love your neighbour as you love yourself. (Paraphrase)

If you love each other you're practicing Christianity.

That said, it's very difficult to keep those two commandments. I'll likely spend the rest of my life worshiping in a church where the established message is not "reach out and care for your neighbours no matter who they are" but more like "everyone's welcome because we won't tell you to leave". I've mused often on how in my life as a Christian a recurring theme has been that I have to forgive my church, and I think that if everyone were to look into the past histories of their church tradition that statement would ring true for everyone. The Russian Orthodox church manufactured the Protocols of the Elders of Zion to justify anti-semetic genocide, the residential schools in Canada which sexually humilliated and physically abused indigenous first nations as well as Doukhobor children were run and administered by the United Church of Canada. "The God Hates Fags" church are Calvinist protestants. The Catholic church has a bloody streak that doesn't need repeating. This isn't meant as a malicious or spiteful rant though I always get anxious while writing things like this because I know how easy it is to touch nerves. What I'm saying is that it's being able to forgive unconditionally which helps one grow in one's faith, so much more than just sitting in the pews and listening attentively, that's important but it's only fruitful when ones faith is nourished by questions and the recollection that answers only lead to further questions. And sometimes like my friend Barrett said Church is a bit like a marriage, sooner or later someone ends up sleeping on the couch.

VODEO!

yes, that's right... Vodeo

V O D E O.

like video but with lots of cowboys.

V O D E O.




I'm going to go to sleep eventually but I'm a bit of a captive audience right now and the internet is addictive.

vodeo.

this moment brought to you by Moxy Fruvous

I saw this online and I liked it so much that I thought I'd post it to both my blogs.

I changed my mind. I don't feel like going back and cleaning up the last post you'll just have to deal with my sloppiness.

I'm in Toronto and it's almost 3am so I'll be brie. Tonight I went to see David Lynch's new film Inland Empire. This film is the fucking shit. It is a three hour long epic in avant guard cinema shot entirely in... yes folks... VODEO! affter an hour you get used to the strange graney texture of the shots and the sharp glare of the lighting, actually there are several parts of this film where Lynch makes the video stock work in beautiful and dramatic ways. The script is a mix of English and what I believe is Polish and it's filmed between LA and Lodz, Poland. The story is complex and while there is a plot it sort of walks out of the theatre to have a smoke break while the film carries on with you inside, then I think it went tro the store and bought some chocolate milk and lotto tickets before coming back into the theatre and making it's appearance in the film.

A very long time ago David Cronenberg made an adaptation of Willliam Burroughs ground breaking novel Naked Lunch, I never thought and I doubt he did as well, that someone could create a film which perfectly emulated the cut-up method which Burroughs pionered but tonight I saw it on screen. I spent the film first feeling as though I was a total outsider looking in on a world where every person is either psychotic or autistic or a halucination to watching in awe as I realise that without revealing anything of itself the film had drawn me right in, and then finally standing up at the end of the credits I felt in a total daze and walked an hour through West Toronto to get back to the Catholic Worker. If it's possible to fall in love with a piece of film I might have done just that tonight. Thats about all I can say about this movie. If you want to see something utterly unlike anything else you will ever see on a screen go go tomorrow, go tonight, go as soon as you can and watch this film you won't regret it. I've said to a llot of people that Lynch takes heavily from two other film makers; Jean Cocteau and Keneth Anger, and that their influence defines his asthetic. Watching everything he's made to this ppoint I was happy with that statement, seeing Inland Empire tonight was like watching him break his own mold and emerge from it as a consumate film maker, a master of the art worthy of succeding Ingmar Bergman, Fritz Lang, and Jean Renoire.

that's about all I've got to say right now. Toronto is a neat city, I have a new appreciation for it as an adult, walking through the run down streetcar suburbs like Parkdale is an experience unto itself.

I wish I'd had my camera.

what the shit happened??

So all sorts of fucked up stuff's happened since I posted here last. On mayday the LAPD marchjed through Mcarthur Park teargassing and shooting un-armed families and newspeople with rubber bulletts and fucking bean bags. The New Standard, an excellent source for professional indy journalism went defunct from lack of funding and viewer involvement, and I got the worst stomach flu I think I have ever had... twice! and now I'm going to Europe... and Toronto.

I'll try and tackle each of these things in order, I have stuff to say about them all.

LAPD shooting women and children with teargass and rubber bulletts... given the reputation of the Los Angeles police I can't say that I'm completely surprised, that sounds really cynical but I mean they have a pretty mercenary reputation dwon there. So surprised no, shocked and ashamed and deeply upset, all of those things I am in spades. It fucking tears me up inside to think about it. I've read a number of reports and seen footage of the crime and I'm in shock. I tried to put some of my thoughts down over on the christian radical blog. I don't think I did a very good job. I wanted to be detached and try and approach it from an objective angle but in the end I'm not really sure I did a good job at it. However this is my own blog and so I don't feel any obligation towards journalism here so I'm just going to let it out. FUCK!

I mean really... FU 8 CK!

(I left that 8 in there for emphasis I don't think fuck does it on it's own)

so basically if this had been maybe sixty years ago or less those same pigs would have been marching through that crowd with real bulletts fucking shooting at children with live rounds. Somehow trying to describe what happened on May Day seems understated because one has to describe rubber bulletts and other "non-lethal" munitions but I don't want you reading this to have any mis-understanding about this. those rubber bullets can do real damage. I've seen pictures of people after the police had their sick fun bleading purple wealts and bruising up half a grown man's stomach. That's what those fucking rubber bulletts do, I didn't try and find pictures of the bean bags that were shot but I can't imagine them being any friendlier. I alao want to stress that this wasn't some kind of soccer riot where the crowd were all grown men either that rally was full of children and women too, whole families came out to show support and solidarity with illegal immigrants. It was a FAMILY affair! These peace officers matched through a park full of families and started shooting. there was no warning given. news camera operators were clubbed down and reporters. what the fuck?

People talk shit about how the US is turning into the third reich well it's not turning it's turned. It probably happened so gradually that no one could point it out unless perhaps you go all the way back to 9/11, the reichtag fire American style. Since then everything's changed, anyone can tell you that, this abominable act by the LAPD is the fruits of the new fascism. If I were writing this in the USA right now it'd probably be flagged by some alphabet agency and I wouldn't ever know. Actually the only time I've fealt any sense of danger blogging at all it's been when I'm in the states--land of the free, home of the brave. And let's make no mistake, the rest of the "free world" is not immune from this political illness, we all have blood on our hands and the security state insanity coursing through our natonal conciousness. It happened on May Day in Los Angeles, that doesn't mean it couldn't happen tomorrow in London or next week in Winnipeg, and the system isn't there to help us, it's there for only the very few. The rich and the powerfull and the white.

I could spit pages of this kind of ire right now but I think it would be counter productive. I think that the time for idle talk is slowly drawing to a close. Sure, even the independant media on the web will content themselves to banter on for a long time yet, certainly governments will try and keep debating that's the sort of obfuscation we pay them for anyway. But the time is coming where individual people need to start to take stock of what they believe relative to what they are doing in the world. God only knows what this means or what it will look like but I have no doubt that further police brutality will take place at other peaceful rallies and protests and that it's up to us to find creative, and non-violent ways of resisting. Because if we don't use our imagination and our compassion, and if we don't quickly shift out of this mode where it's so easy to pitty the other poor suckers who have it worse than us be they American's, Muslims, Iraqis, the homeless, or whomever then someone else will do it for us and it won't be good.


Ok that's enough about that.

Tonight I was reading news on the web and I learned that The New Standard has ceased reporting and are taking their site offline. The New Standard was a news source that I wish I had taken more advantage of while they were up. I hae to admit that one reason I didn't was that I knew next to nothing about their operation or their mission statement. Now that they are gone I feel like you do when you find out that someone you knew and liked as an aquaintance has just died. I should have gone there more, read their reporting more frequently, maybe donated if I could, but now I can't because they've stopped reporting and printing.

Back after Katrina, once the rest of the news organisations (including truthout and gnn) had moved on to other sexier stories the New Standard reported tirelessly on things that were still going on in NOLA. They could have been the only journalists left in the city two months on for all I knew, after all once the story lost some of it's urgency everyone else was on to the next big thing, but they were tireless. if you would like to learn a little more about this website and the group who ran it check out their obituary it's posted to gnn at www.gnn.tv/articles/3070/A_Eulogy_For_The_NewStandard

Stomach flu x2
damn. I'm still eating rice and bland foods though tonight I also had some hummus... mmm hummus. I was so sick three days ago that I had to get an ambulence to take me from ny GP to the hospital. I'll spare you the details but suffice it to say that the entire experience was crappy in every concievable sense of the word. It also brought to mind one of my favourite quotes by William Burroughs:

"Stool Sample: you can't get a drink in a bar when sitting on one, and you should never try and give them away for free at the super market... stool sample."

On Sunday I'm flying to Toronto for about a week and then I'm going to Italy with my mom and my brother, I'm pretty excited about it to tell you the truth. I'll write more about that as events take place.

that's it for nowI'm going to bed.
I'll edit this for spelling and punctuation tomorrow.