I want [...]]]> The title of this post is cheerfully ripped off from the Richard Brautigan poem “All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace” — a typically-whimsical, typically-Brautigan meditation on a future devoid of labour and filled with connectedness, via technology, to all of the natural world — but it’s really just the title I’m stealing.

I want to tell you some stuff you already know.

Our physical selves are, stated dispassionately, nothing more than finely-crafted machines, or an aggregate of thousands of tinier machines, perfected through countless generations of evolutionary R&D. To move your arm, a signal is sent from the brain to elicit an electrochemical surge in the machines of our muscles, which respond by contracting, but only to the degree meted out by the information received by your eyes or by touch to those centers of the brain which will, in turn, stop sending the signal to move when the operation is complete.

And over thousands of years, Evolution Inc’s R&D Department imbued higher species with consciousness. And self-awareness. And since evolution is, functionally, nothing more than insurance that each species will continue to pass along genetic materials to generations following, conscious minds developed a complex, hyperintricate set of protocols not unlike the programmed circuits running practically every machine we use today. These protocols work to guarantee the survival of all sentient species by establishing bonds with or barricades against individuals (and families) within that species. And between species.

It’s hard to speak of these protocols, these emotions, in a dispassionate fashion. I won’t even try. Hey, take a look at the greatest, most perfect music video ever crafted:

Video: Björk + Chris Cunningham, “All is Full of Love”

A number of friends and web-correspondents have been trying to find some peace, some grace, in their emotional selves following recent — and even longer-term — disappointments in their romantic lives. I have, too. We rage, we despair, we achingly long for an end to those sleepless nights, to that soul-corroding loneliness, to that overwhelming fear of connecting with another and being hurt again or, worse, we fear never again being able to connect with another. I have no tangible solution to offer to you. Or to myself.

But the world only spins forward.*

And we are still human. We’re still machines which need to move and fuck and eat and shit and feel. We can’t not. It’s how we’re built.

We’re built to experience exhilarating joy, impenetrable sadness, debilitating fear, warm contentment, searing hurt and the gentle embrace of love. We can’t not eat, we can’t not move and we can’t not feel. We’re programmed that way, we electrochemical-machines. We emotion-machines.

So, go. Do. Feel. Accept with grace that it’s never easy, never painless and never without crushing disappointment. But it’s also undeniably built into the very fabric of our bodies, of our consciousnesses. To deny that is to deny our humanity. We machines of loving grace.

The spacecraft was a long way from home.

I thought it would be a good idea, just after Saturn, to have them take one last glance homeward. From Saturn, the Earth would appear too small for Voyager to make out any detail. Our planet would be just a point [...]]]>
Video: Pale Blue Films; Music: Mogwai

The spacecraft was a long way from home.

I thought it would be a good idea, just after Saturn, to have them take one last glance homeward. From Saturn, the Earth would appear too small for Voyager to make out any detail. Our planet would be just a point of light, a lonely pixel hardly distinguishable from the other points of light Voyager would see: nearby planets, far off suns. But precisely because of the obscurity of our world thus revealed, such a picture might be worth having.

It had been well understood by the scientists and philosophers of classical antiquity that the Earth was a mere point in a vast, encompassing cosmos—but no one had ever seen it as such. Here was our first chance, and perhaps also our last for decades to come.

So, here they are: a mosaic of squares laid down on top of the planets in a background smattering of more distant stars. Because of the reflection of sunlight off the spacecraft, the Earth seems to be sitting in a beam of light, as if there were some special significance to this small world; but it’s just an accident of geometry and optics. There is no sign of humans in this picture: not our reworking of the Earth’s surface; not our machines; not ourselves. From this vantage point, our obsession with nationalisms is nowhere in evidence. We are too small. On the scale of worlds, humans are inconsequential: a thin film of life on an obscure and solitary lump of rock and metal.

Consider again that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it, everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you’ve ever heard of, every human being who ever was lived out their lives. The aggregate of all our joys and sufferings; thousands of confident religions, ideologies and economic doctrines; every hunter and forager; every hero and coward; every creator and destroyer of civilizations; every king and peasant, every young couple in love; every mother and father; hopeful child; inventor and explorer; every teacher of morals; every corrupt politician; every supreme leader; every superstar; every saint and sinner in the history of our species, lived there—on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena.

Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner. How frequent their misunderstandings; how eager they are to kill one another; how fervent their hatreds. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that in glory and triumph they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe, are challenged by this point of pale light.

Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity—in all this vastness—there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. Like it or not, for the moment, the Earth is where we make our stand.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. It underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the only home we’ve ever known.

The pale blue dot.

Carl Sagan, 11 May 1996

Protect Insurance Companies PSA from Will Ferrell

Courtesy Sheepy.

Aptly-Named Beach, Vancouver, 21 September 2009

Fragments: “Better than Crash“

Patrick Farley on America’s Same-Sex Marriage Debate

More evolved societies — the ones which considered the pink arguments somewhere between “wrong” and “ludicrous” before granting full marriage equality to gays and lesbians — must look at the U.S. flavour of this debate as [...]]]> Webcomic artist Patrick Farley nails the American same-sex marriage debate in graphical form:

Patrick Farley on America’s Same-Sex Marriage Debate

More evolved societies — the ones which considered the pink arguments somewhere between “wrong” and “ludicrous” before granting full marriage equality to gays and lesbians — must look at the U.S. flavour of this debate as a cringing reminder of our own foot-dragging on an issue steeped in ignorance and outright lies.

(Via BoingBoing)

But for reasons to be revealed in a post or two, I won’t be bothering you with the decrepit craptitude of Toronto’s streets for much longer. For now, though… enjoy!

Remember how I was telling you about the incompetent pothole repair crews:

On the two most recent occasions I’ve witnessed pothole repairs, [...]]]> Okay, so maybe I don’t promise.

But for reasons to be revealed in a post or two, I won’t be bothering you with the decrepit craptitude of Toronto’s streets for much longer. For now, though… enjoy!

Remember how I was telling you about the incompetent pothole repair crews:

On the two most recent occasions I’ve witnessed pothole repairs, the crew consisted of two workers, shoveling shitty “asphalt” from the back of a pick-up truck, stepping on it, then tamping it down with the back of their spades. Use a roller to smooth it over? As. IF.
Making matters worse is that not enough asphalt is used to even fill in the holes completely. Within hours, the edges of the repairs are pressed back down into the potholes.

Well, I was lucky enough to capture a cellphoto of a pothole repair just minutes after a crew of “asphalt artisans” did their deed, Toronto-style:

Toronto Pothole, Yonge at Shuter

Note, please, that the fuckers couldn’t be bothered to press the asphalt into the pothole. Any pressing was accomplished by cars driving over it. That’ll end well.

And here’s one, scarcely a quarter-block east, right across the street from Toronto’s historic Massey Hall, in the bike lane, fercryinoutloud!

Toronto Pothole, Shuter East of Yonge

Yeah, I know, it looks like it was cut for some purpose but, whatever, right now bikes (and cars) are free to ride right over the hole, perfectly designed to puncture tires with protruding, rusty-steel rebar! And Toronto has the gall, the unmitigated, fucking gall to suggest they give a good god damn about cyclists?

I want to tell you a story about a teenager in Calgary, Alberta. A normal kid, smarter than most, bookish but enthusiastically into politics and culture in all its forms. Like most teenaged young men, he had a healthy (read: voracious) sexual appetite. He had an [...]]]> So, hey, it’s International Day Against Homophobia 2009 today. IDAH’09!

I want to tell you a story about a teenager in Calgary, Alberta. A normal kid, smarter than most, bookish but enthusiastically into politics and culture in all its forms. Like most teenaged young men, he had a healthy (read: voracious) sexual appetite. He had an appropriately-secret collection of erotica, having moved beyond the usefulness of the Sears catalog’s undergarment and swimwear sections. Of course, he was still a virgin. But he had plans!

He planned to get married and have a family and live in a beautiful house he designed (and built) himself. He would be happy and successful. He would have sex with his wife and, on weekends in the summer, he would join the other husbands and fathers in the neighbourhood for “bachelor” weekends at the cottage. Where they would be naked most of the time and spend a good deal of time wrestling around naked, too.

Don’t worry, Mom, that’s as explicit as I’ll get. Oh, right, I forgot: that teenager was me. And while smarter than most, he wasn’t very smart when it came to things like his own, burgeoning sexuality. “Delusional” might be the best word to describe it.

Of course, that was over twenty years before information/community (re)sources like the intertubes, and it was a time in which the only information on homosexuals was in the aberrant-psychology section of the public library and in hair-raising articles in TIME Magazine, with headlines like “Are Homosexuals Sick?”

TIME Magazine, 31 October 1969
(Homosexuals == Scary, Pink, Sugar-Bowl-Emulatin’ Freaks)

Of course, ten years after that issue of TIME, a teenager no more, I met and kissed (et cetera) the man who’d be my first boyfriend. And I learned in short order that being true to who and what I was was far better than those childish fantasies, which today even don’t exist in the dreams of… anybody. Almost a decade after that I met and fell in love — real, passionate love — for the first time in my life. And I came out to my friends and parents. It wasn’t easy but it was necessary. And, man, did it feel good.

And in the thirty (!) years since that time, when being honest to both myself and the people who purported to love me unshackled my spirit, I’ve traveled the world, fallen in love dozens of times, have had relationships as deep and meaningful as anyone could hope for, engaged an insane amount of ridiculously hot (SAFE) sex, buried lovers and boyfriends and tricks and friends and friends-of-friends during The Plague Years, been on television and in print and have made friends the world over. I’ve marched in parades and stormed government buildings, here and abroad, written politicians and worked for equal-rights groups. And I’ve never been happier or more alive in doing so.

And none of those things — not one — would have occurred had I not followed the first rule of Fruit Club. TIME Magazine told me when I was entering puberty that I’d wind up sad and lonely, because my “abnormality” and the homophobic world — though they didn’t call it that back then — would make me sad and lonely.

And that’s my wish for all the young people in small towns who are afraid because people are mean and stupid and hateful, and those people want to hurt you and make you go away: come out.

Come out.

It’s the first and most crucial thing you can do to become… yourself. It’s the first and most crucial way to fight homophobia, by shedding your own homophobia. Come out.

Move to a city, no matter how scary that prospect might be, because in a city you will find love and community. (Preferably, move to a city where your vote for marriage equality will tip the scales, okay?) Fight the homophobia you hold inside you and then you can fight the homophobia in others, alongside your gay brothers and lesbian sisters. Come out!

Happy International Day Against Homophobia, everyone.

17 May 2009: International Day Against Homophobia
(featuring vintage, 20-year-old Queer Nation Tee)

It would be funny if it wasn’t so fucking shabby and inept and [...]]]> This is the entrance to the Bay at Yonge and Bloor Streets in downtown Toronto. It’s also the entrance to the most-visited subway stop covering the two most-traveled transit lines in the city. This is how we roll in Toronto:

It would be funny if it wasn’t so fucking shabby and inept and disgusting. And typical.

Happy Mothers’ Day!

May 10, 2009, Yonge & Bloor Streets, Toronto

Springtime in Toronto is always… interesting when it comes to our roadways. No city is immune to potholes but every year, Toronto’s potholes are increasingly epidemic. Here’s why you had to laugh: City Councillor Karen Stintz has proposed corporate-sponsored road repair in the city:

“People realize and they know that the potholes are [...]]]> You had to laugh.

Springtime in Toronto is always… interesting when it comes to our roadways. No city is immune to potholes but every year, Toronto’s potholes are increasingly epidemic. Here’s why you had to laugh: City Councillor Karen Stintz has proposed corporate-sponsored road repair in the city:

“People realize and they know that the potholes are bad and the roads need to be fixed and we do have budget problems,” the Eglinton-Lawrence rep admitted. “So if we can be creative around how we solve it, it’s better for the citizens, it’s better for the streets and it’s better for City Hall.”

But the Mayor is (rightly) skeptical:

“I wouldn’t want the city to be dependant on a boon year in auto sales, therefore your roads get fixed,” [Mayor David] Miller said. “You need to repair the roads properly, it’s something that should be paid for through the property tax system.”

A couple of weeks earlier, CITYnews covered the pothole situation in Toronto with a quote from dreamboat Councillor Glenn Debaeremaeker:

“You can be on a road with no potholes Monday and Wednesday there’s a pothole.”

Indeed. But CITYnews explains away the pothole situation in a manner not unlike the way we often hear summer=hot explained (“the Earth’s position causes warmer temperatures because it’s closest to the Sun during summer”):

Potholes are a reality for an aging city infrastructure that contends annually with wild fluctuations in temperature which force concrete to expand and contract as water enters the cracks and seasons shift.

Which is to say… yeah, but… no. (The Earth’s tilt causes warmer temperatures in summertime, by the way; it’s as far from the sun during the summer as it is in winter).

The large fluctuation in temperatures is problematic for Toronto, and does deteriorate concrete and asphalt through water freezing and thawing and then the cracks and the potholes and the frustration.

And it’s frustration not just for motorists concerned about the assault on their suspensions. Cyclists are rightfully enraged by the increased danger caused by swerving to avoid potholes. And pedestrians in downtown Toronto are well acquainted with rainwater collected in the potholes and projected toward the sidewalks by typically-conscientious downtown motorists.

But I hafta tell you… that Civil Engineering degree doesn’t hang above my toilet for spending four years in art college, and Toronto doesn’t have a really shitty pothole situation because of our freeze-thaw cycling; Toronto has a really shitty pothole situation because the repairs are not made properly. I’ve actually observed several road-repair crews in action in the downtown core.

And this is what I saw:

1. Road-repair crews in Toronto use shockingly substandard asphalt. Asphalt is a concrete-like mixture of gravel, sand and viscous, bitumen (think: tar) and its quality and longevity depends very much on the proper proportion of each, combined under heat to make the bitumen flow better. There are cheats, of course, such as using solvents to avoid the heating of the mixture.
   If you guessed that cheats are used in Toronto, you’re on the right track, but it’s not just cheating. No, the asphalt used in much of the repairs to Toronto’s roads barely has enough bitumen to hold the gravel together, too. Predictably, it starts to spall within hours of application.



2. The asphalt is applied by crews without proper equipment or training. On the two most recent occasions I’ve witnessed pothole repairs, the crew consisted of two workers, shoveling shitty “asphalt” from the back of a pick-up truck, stepping on it, then tamping it down with the back of their spades. Use a roller to smooth it over? As. IF.
   Making matters worse is that not enough asphalt is used to even fill in the holes completely. Within hours, the edges of the repairs are pressed back down into the potholes.
3. If the pothole repairs are supervised and/or inspected after the repairwork, someone needs to lose their supervisor and/or inspector jobs. I’ve never seen supervision or inspection.

If Toronto can’t afford road repairs to the extent that we need corporate sponsorship, maybe we should think about doing the repairwork properly the first time around. So, please, CITYnews, stop with the bullshit explaining-away of our crappy road situation with that specious nonsense about freeze-thaw cycles. Because… yeah. BUT NO.

ADDENDUM: Then and Now…

Hey, remember this repairwork, reported here in early 2008?

Well, a month after I posted that photo, the asphalt was repaired. A year later? This:

One Year Later (click to enlarge)

Oy. And vey.