Category: Patriarchy

'The unknown' is a monster

12/14/2024

I'm betting its bite will be worse than its bark

Lately I’ve been asking anyone I come across: Is it just me or are we all sort of in a calm-before-the-storm, high-alert mode? So far, the score is 100-per-cent ‘Yes.’ Although in retrospect those affirmatives could mean, Yes you’ve asked me that already many times or Yes it is just you please let me pass.
My state of mind is somewhere between what former Village Voicejournalist/author Laurie Stone noted the night before this writing: “Everyone I know feels the edgy nothing” and satirist Samantha Bee’s last post: “Things are about to get fucking WILD.”

Anecdotal evidence through reading rational opinion reveals that countless numbers of engaged humans are not waiting to exhale but bracing for impact of the incoming turbulence in the Divided States of America — and beyond. The unknown is unnerving. It’s also intentional and we’ve seen it before:

Above: That other lying Donald, back in a 2002 press conference spreadingthe Big Lie that launched the catastrophic war in Iraq.

Living in the unknown has already taken its toll as seen during the global pandemic. Heightened fear and paranoia have morphed into the cultish desire for a strongman/daddy figure to fix it and us. And the geo-political trend shows no nation is immune.

To anyone prone to dismissing me by using the C-word (catastrophizing — what were you thinking?), consider this pre-emptive journalistic self-censoring under Trump 2.0: the two MSNBC “Morning Joe” hosts apologizing on air last week for possibly offending Fox News. (See “‘Morning Joe' Sorry David Frum Made Forbidden Joke About Fox News, Please Don't Hurt Them!”) To be clear, this is a left-leaning cable TV network obeying in advance by apologizing to “one of the most malevolent corporations in all of America, whose decades of lies, propaganda, and racist brainwashing are perhaps more responsible than any other single entity for America’s current slide into brain-damaged ethno-fascism,” in the words of the managing editor of Wonkette. Frum, a Canadian-American former Republican and speechwriter for George W. Bush then took issue with its apology in The Atlantic with the kicker: “It is a very ominous thing if our leading forums for discussion of public affairs are already feeling the chill of intimidation and responding with efforts to appease.”

Suffice it to say this is an early-warning signal that the way things are now won’t be the way things are after Jan. 6. But how to proceed until the big hammers come down on respected, fearless journalists and all the other perceived enemies? Is it more helpful to read Robert Reich’s latest, “How Trump could bring on a second civil war” or bingeing How to Become a Tyrant on Netflix? (True, there is no mention of the American meddling in the making of some of those dictators but the playbook tracks.)

I’ll think on that while I continue to do like the kids and live in the moment, channeling creative energy, even — or especially — the negative.

“The Unknown”, embroidered linen on hoop, 2021. Felt-pen drawing (inset) and words by young nephew Kaleb.

Of portraits and the patriarchy

1/3/2014

Comments

When my brother showed me his inherited oil painting of a senior citizen, my first thought was: Yeesh. No wonder the young nudes endure.

They may not be remembered by history, like this unfamiliar subject, but they are pretty enough to pass down for generations of display.

It's not kind to speak ill of the dead, even if that dead man is the paternal grandfather we apparently met a few times as tykes, but he's not exactly a looker. Despite the fact that he is skillfully rendered by accomplished B.C. painter Robert Genn it's hard to know where the inherited painting should live. With no particular connection to the person — he is the divorced father of our divorced father — he's a deftly-done stranger hanging around my brother's house, a visual connection to our genetic past (and perhaps my brother's future).

If Vancouver had a portrait gallery, there may be some interest in acquiring the depiction of this man we never knew as Grandpa, but any value would only be attached to the painter, not the painted. Portrait galleries typically feature those subjects who have had an impact on society, those who have made a difference. I have gazed at crowds of those Important People in my one tour of the National Portrait Gallery in London, most of whom looked a lot like this guy. And I recall Beatrix Potter. And a smattering of pretties. Seething over the fact that there were few or no sisters on the wall I stomped out and headed to the nearest pub. Less than 25 per cent of the Important People in the National Portrait Gallery are women, but you won't spot that statistic on its official website. (It took some digging to mine that factoid.) Judging by the Gallery's own website it appears there is some serious back-peddling to the point where it is actually featuring female subjects.

So perhaps we should all be sighing with relief that there's no historical portrait display of Important People in our town because it would doubtless be a colonialist accumulation of all the second-rate royals and British government officials that are already remembered in a huge chunk of schools, streets and parks in these parts.

But portraiture is changing. The powerful, triumphant expressions of the dudes in charge are being challenged by the likes of Alastair Adams, who is enjoying a great amount of attention for his freshly unveiled, in-your-face portrait of former Labour Prime Minister Tony "Coalition of the Willing" Blair. The artist hands the judgment to the viewer.

However, he's still a dude among dudes who make up most of the minglers on the geo-political stage, remembered in oils by famous artists and hung in prestigious galleries and palatial spaces.

Portrait painters have a hand in remembering. Their own perspective of what is worthy of their efforts has played a part in the patriarchy. The deceased wife of the old man hanging at my brother's house was the accomplished former head librarian at UBC. People still ask me if I'm related to Anne Yandle, whose image will soon be forgotten to history.

Hello, nudes and old men.

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'The unknown' is a monster

Of portraits and the patriarchy

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