“Progress…” is based on ideas in a book and series of lectures by Ronald Wright. It’s a BIG IDEAS film which is threaded neatly with stunning visuals and provocative commentary from Wright and the likes of Margaret Atwood and the aforementioned Suzuki, among other deep thinkers.

Suzuki will be well known to Canadian readers – he’s been the leading figure in Canadian environmental and scientific broadcast journalism for decades. The film sprouts evocatively from clips from a ‘legacy’ lecture Suzuki delivered as he reached his 70s and began to scale back his public life. Like “Progress…”, this film, superbly directed by Sturla Gunnarsson, also touches on  ideas about the folly of limitless growth and the arrogance of contemporary economics.

The Suzuki film is remarkable for its intelligence, intimacy and sensitivity in revealing private aspects of a very public man. The film follows the arc of Suzuki’s life from forced removals of Japanese Canadian citizens during World War II, to the legacy of the nuclear bomb at Hiroshima, the American civil rights movement and aboriginal protests in Canada.

Writer John Branch and a team of  ‘New Media’ story tellers have spun a profound tale about the ill-fated, late NHL ‘enforcer’ Boogaard. Many Canadian sports journalists, and seemingly all broadcasting entities in the country, led lamentably by the  juvenile Hockey Night broadcasts on the publicly owned Canadian Broadcasting Corporation,  condone fighting in the NHL.  It’s past time to read a deep account of how one hockey player’s life was ruined by the absurdist, lethal culture of fighting in hockey.

impromptu Layton memorial, Toronto city hall square

I did not know Layton well, but,  as his constituent in Toronto and frequent supporter, I chatted and exchanged e-mails with him off and on for about a decade. I enjoyed his exuberance and admired his intelligence, energy and tenacity.

Politically Jack Layton was right about a couple of very important matters. First, he did not apologize for wanting to be Prime Minister.  In a world where grown up countries regularly elect social democrats, and in a country with a history of competent NDP provincial governments, this should not have come as a surprise.  Sadly, it was only at the tail-end of what would be his final, extraordinarily courageous and effective election campaign last spring, that Canadians seemed finally to weigh the proposition in earnest. The centerpiece of that  success in making his party the Official Opposition in parliament reveals Layton’s other singular achievement as a party leader – Layton brought the NDP to Quebec, where he was born. In policy terms, this was an evident match waiting to happen – social democrats in Quebec were convinced by Layton to support his federalist party. That’s a credit to his sympathetic attitude to Quebec nationalism, his effective embrace of the French language and many years of persistent political effort. If the next NDP leader consolidates that link while continuing growth west of Quebec, Canada might yet see an NDP prime minister. If that were to happen, Layton’s historic legacy would be profoundly affirmed.

Ultimately, Layton successfully brought a left-leaning commitment to social and economic justice, to peace, to national reconciliation with Quebec and aboriginal peoples to the forefront of national politics. He made the NDP impossible to ignore.

Photos by James Cullingham (c) 2011

Harper’s victory means Canada will take on an increasingly American Republican character. Once again, this is no surprise. The vast majority of Canadians live along a 50 kilometer wide strip along the American border.  They buy American products, consume American culture and ape American values.  Colonies are like that. And, if any of my Torontonian friends are still feeling smug, don’t forget that Steve won his majority in Ontario.

Harper is smart enough to burnish the matters Canadians feel separate them from the USA – hockey, doughnuts, ‘universal’ health care and a significantly greater measure of gun control. Harper respects, and evidently enjoys, the French fact of Canada in a way that many of his left and centrist opponents do not, many being simply incapable of doing so because of their inexplicable uni-lingualism.

The good news?  Canada has its first Green member of Parliament. Kudos to Elizabeth May.  The New Democratic Party’s breakthrough was achieved largely in Quebec. It is a most welcome development in our politics. The mainstream media will chew on its Gainseburger over youthful, inexperienced sometimes maladroit NDP M.P.s. When that passes, Jack Layton, Thomas Mulcair and other experienced NDP members may well rise to the challenge of forming an effective opposition. But make no mistake, it’s Steve’s show for the next four years plus. Finally on the positive ledger, if nothing else, the election shattered the illusion that the Liberal Party was a legitimate, electorally ready progressive remedy to Conservative rule. Michael Ignatieff’s massive failure is one of the greatest in the history of Canadian politics. Let some new flowers bloom!

The day after in Toronto Danforth

For the record, this was my predication on the morning of the election:

CONS 152

NDP 77

LIBS 34

BQ 32

OTH 1 (I assumed independent Andre Arthur would be re-elected in Quebec.)

So…I, like everyone else, failed to grasp the entirety of the Bloc collapse, which of course moved en masse to the NDP.

As you may have noticed earlier on this blog, I am directing and producing a film about the wondrous guitarist, composer and provocateur John Fahey.

www.johnfaheyfilm.com

I am delighted to report that our project is now up on Kickstarter – a very cool, successful on-line financing tool for artistic endeavours. We seek completion financing for this worthy documentary film project.

Please check this link:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/963556219/in-search-of-blind-joe-death-the-saga-of-john-fahe

Consider your options. Please alert friends, music lovers and any relations who support the arts. We have until Bastille Day to raise US$25k

Ciao,

James Cullingham, president, Tamarack Productions

Immediately following the event, everyone seemed to agree that the NDP’s Jack Layton had done very well and that the PM Steve Harper had more than held his own.

No one that I know or heard from in any way who saw the English language debate thought that Liberal Michael Ignatieff “won” the debate last night. No, he did not drool.  In that way, The Igster absolutely overwhelmed the expectations of anyone dim enough to have wholeheartedly imbibed the Tory character assassination by attack ad that preceded the election by many months.

Twenty-fours later, Layton is basically no longer part of the conversation in the English Canadian mainstream media.  Ignatieff, apparently, scored through the repetitive use of mind numbingly short sound bytes that have, sure enough, been repeated over and over as clips since the debate ended.

So…minutes away from the French language debate, English Canada seems programmed for the exhausted polarity of the past: Tory vs. Grit.

Perhaps en francais Monsieur Layton will claim and cling to  a seat with the grown ups. He and independantiste Gilles Duceppe can still play decisive roles in this election in a place called Canada.

Meanwhile, le suave Gilles is on cruise control in Quebec.  Barring a Grit breakthrough, the BQ will win 50+ seats on May 2. The Quebec independence movement is dead you say?  Just couple that result with a likely PQ victory over the decaying Jean Charest in Quebec’s next provincial election. Then, we’ll talk.

If you ever wondered just how dead environmentalism actually is in Canada witness the lack of collective moral outrage over the exclusion of Elizabeth May from the planned leaders’ debate. The Greens are officially a political non-entity on the federal scene. If they ever win a seat, we’ll talk.

Finally, regarding the debate: that will be The Igster’s one real chance.  Basically, all he needs to do is stand there and not drool in order to belie the Tories’ devastatingly brilliant caricature. If, in addition, the Harvard prof turns Pierre Trudeau for 90 minutes or so in both English and French – that is, an intellectual Canadians can stomach and admire, he could catch lightning in a bottle.  Very slim odds, but a possibility.

Failing the above, Canadian political junkies will spend the night of May 2 counting to 155.

It’s clear that French President Nicolas Sarkozy sees domestic advantage in projecting French power abroad.  He’s running for re-election next year. Sarkozy’s big threat is to his right. Re-inventing France’s mission civilisatrice could well sell to the voters Nic needs to save his rear-end.

What’s less predictable, and even more discouraging, is the bellicose enthusiasm of British PM David Cameron and America’s inexperienced President Barack Obama.  Obama declared war on a trip to Brazil. At least it appeared he understood some of the domestic political risks, and the fretting abroad that might arise from an overt appearance of American dominance in the mission.  Cameron’s performance in the early days was sadly risible (unless you were under a British bomb). He strutted out under full TV lighting to a designated spot in front of 10 Downing Street to announce in a lame Churchill-like manner that British forces were in combat in the skies over Libya.  Puh-leez!

Of course, Cameron faces serious street protests over his attrition budget.  Perhaps like Sarkozy, he hopes that appearing to save the world will gain him favour at home. Obama just seems confused. As Niall Ferguson has argued, Obama seems to be making foreign policy up as he goes along – in Libya, as in Egypt, and, as in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.  His only foreign policy certitude, it appears, was to ramp up the war in Afghanistan.  How’s that working out?

As for Canada?  We joined NATO’s bombing party without discussion or debate. Apparently  matters such as going to war are not even worth discussing in Parliament. I hope the doughnuts arrive safely. Given that we are now in an election campaign, that’s the last Canadians will hear of the matter until at least May 2. Why discuss something substantive in election campaign? That would be downright non-Canadian.

So…favoured nations, you’ve made your priorities clear.  At a time when Japan is suffering unspeakably, you’d rather use your war toys in North Africa.  What’s next? Syria anyone? How about Gaza?  Yemen?

‘Owsley’, as he was known to hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of people whose lives were marked by ‘acid’, charted a bizarre, bumpy course as psychic traveling companion to the likes of author Ken Kesey and members of the Grateful Dead. His was a remarkably American journey – a product of wealth and the military who mastered dance, reinvented the staging of live rock ‘n’ roll along with his buddies in The Dead, unleashed a chemical torrent and, got, at least temporarily, rich in the process.

The waves emanating from San Francisco, almost half century ago, traveled through time and space.  They splashed upon drowsy Toronto where even high school students at a private Catholic school heard of the legendary Bear and might have means to sample the sort of chemical wares that traveled eastward.

Jerry Garcia, the aforementioned Kesey, John Lennon, the journalists Tom Wolfe and Hunter S. Thompson are but a few of the lives that Owsley Stanley affected deeply. His death – far, far from the locale of his dizzying rise to musical and pharmaceutical influence – is truly a milestone in the cultural history of our times.

The man who helped create the unparalleled Grateful Dead sound and image archive was responsible for compiling a Grateful Dead release during the band’s early prime.  I listened to Bear’s Choice (1970) yesterday. Made as a showcase for the Dead’s original organist/vocalist, the late blues shouter Ron ‘Pigpen’ McKernan, the album now serves as a fitting memento to both McKernan and Owsley Stanley.  Side One is acoustic. At a time when it was hardly predictable or safely cool for a full-on ‘psychedelic’ band to go ‘unplugged’, The Dead had begun doing traditional blues and Appalachian tunes during their opening sets.  Side Two is strictly classic electric Chicago style blues featuring ‘Pigpen’s’ astonishing vocal and harmonica chops.  It’s a charming, very odd, idiosyncratic selection from a band which was then renowned for playing 3-4 hour fast-paced, electric and sometimes highly improvisational shows.

Mr. Stanley, tip of the hat! Yours was indeed a long, strange trip.

Recommended listening:  Bear’s Choice and Anthem of the Sun, the Grateful Dead.

John Fahey and terrapin (courtesy of Jan Fahey)

John Fahey (1939-2001) is one of the world’s great guitarists. The father of ‘American primitive guitar’, a unique blending of classic guitar styles with Delta Blues and Appalachian influences, Fahey is a transformational figure in modern music.  He’s the subject of Tamarack Productions’ latest film “In Search of Blind Joe Death: The Saga of John Fahey.” The film will be released this autumn, 2011.

Musicians such as Pete Townshend of The Who, Joey Burns of Calexico, the pianist George Winston and Chris Funk of The Decemberists pay tribute to Fahey’s influence in our documentary.  We follow Fahey’s trail from his beginnings in Takoma Park, a Washington D.C. suburb, to California where he recorded some of his most memorable music, and to Oregon, where Fahey spent the last twenty years of his life.

John Fahey was a trickster, a raconteur, a wonderful writer, a self taught naturalist (with a particular interest in turtles!), a fount of knowledge about American and other musics, and, above all, a brilliant composer and guitar player.

My own saga with John Fahey began in 1982 with a radio documentary I produced about him for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.  Ever since, I’ve been inspired by his music, comforted by his bent humour and fascinated by his ever rippling artistic legacy. This labour of love will be completed this autumn – I can’t wait for you to see it.

Thanks to the John Fahey Trust, Oregon Public Television, Executive Producer JoAnn McCaig of Calgary, the School of Communication Arts of Seneca College in Toronto and American consulting producer Doug Whyte of Portland, Oregon for their invaluable assistance in bringing this dream ever closer to light.

Please follow the ongoing production of the film at

www.johnfaheyfilm.com

and

on the “In Search of Blind Joe Death: The Saga of John Fahey” page on that ‘social network’ we’re all aware of.

We are seeking completion financing for the film. So if you have a few $$$ to spare, please contribute to the production through PayPal at james.tamarack@rogers.com

We will also be launching a Kickstarter fund raising campaign shortly.

Stay tuned!

James Cullingham, Director/Producer, “In Search of Blind Joe Death: The Saga of John Fahey“