Who was Cassandra?
In the Iliad, she is described as the loveliest of the daughters
of Priam (King of Troy), and gifted with prophecy. The god Apollo
loved her, but she spurned him. As a punishment, he decreed
that no one would ever believe her. So when she told her fellow
Trojans that the Greeks were hiding inside the wooden horse...well,
you know what happened.
the cassandra pages
words, pictures, and a life
Saturday, November 13, 2004 Eglise St. Jean-Baptiste, rue Rachel est(St. John the Baptist Church, on Rachel East, not far from our house, where there are many classical chamber music concerts)
We've been having beautiful days - but quite cold. After hours (two days, really) of struggling to understand and chronicle the rise of the so-called "renewal movement" (and locus of anti-gay activity) in the Episcopal Church - a misnomer if I ever heard one, since the latest incarnations thereof seek not to "renew" the church, in my opinion, but to replace the historically spacious, questioning, and litugically rich tradition with a rigid, conservative one - I felt emotionally exhausted and almost soiled, as one does when forced to be in too close proximity to negativity, closed-mindedness, hatred, and fear. So I went out on my bike, all wrapped up in scarves and gloves; the cold air on my face felt glorious and I rode down to Chinatown, where I bought pantoufles (slippers), and on into the downtown and then north, stopping at my cafe for a cup of coffee. There I listened to two earnest McGill students discussing ideal primes for a final in Abstract Algebra, and wrote the outline for my section on the opposition to Gene's ordination. Then I rode home happily through bright streets, but after I got back I had to soak in a hot bath to warm up. If this bike-riding goes on (and I hope it does) I'm going to have to add long-johns.
Last night we had dinner with our former landlady, her husband, and their wonderful little three-year-old girl, who is alternately "un lion", "un chien", or "un chat". She prefers things that growl, loudly, and is in her element with four adoring adults as an audience. J. made pizza at their house - a brilliant improvisational performance - and we drank wine and ate and told stories, switching back and forth in the two languages.
I told G. about my new lenses, and said I'd done some shopping. She is young, creative, ingenious and thrifty, and loves putting together outfits; she wanted to know what I'd bought. Not much, I said - a very short black skirt that was on sale - mostly I just and looked. She smiled, knowingly. "We say lecher la vitrine - licking the window."
Last night we went with new Montreal friends to hear Madeleine Peyroux at the recently renovated and re-opened Cabaret la Tulipe on Papineau, close to Av. Mont Royal. It was a brisk night; J. and I walked west to St. Laurent to meet our friends for pizza before the show, enjoying the slower pace (bicycle days are definitely becoming numbered; the bike paths are being closed now so that the city will be able to do snow removal, although there are diehards who keep biking, apparently, through the entire winter on bikes outfitted with studded tires and covered derailleur mechanisms) as we walked down rue Rachel with its little bring-your-own wine, white-tableclothed bistros where waiters polished glasses in preparation for the first customers; the small specialty clothing boutiques; the Portugese bakeries.
When we arrived at la Tulipe, glistening with a new coat of shiny chocolate-colored paint, nearly an hour before the starting time for Peyroux, the lower floor - set up cabaret-style with small tables and a bar in the back - was completely full. We sat in the balcony, which was tight and filled with standard theater-style seats on a steeply-pitched floor; a small bar had been set up in the left box-seat area, and people brought glasses of wine and bottle of beer and Perrier back to their seats; we heard the empty bottles rolling - and occasionally crashing - for the rest of the evening. The good-natured crowd was non-plussed, but la Tulipe's owners clearly still have some de-bugging to do.
A young man from Sacramento, Jackie Green, opened for Peyroux, and he won over the appreciative crowd almost instantly. He was a lanky, skinny kid with straight black hair falling into his eyes, totally at ease with his acoustic guitar and the harmonica mounted around his neck that he played like a man possessed; he peeled off his jacket after the first number and played in shirtsleeves and frayed jeans. His Dylanesque ballads and blues had fine lyrics that the obviously young man ("Let me get this out of the way," he confessed, with an endearing glance out from under the fringe of hair - "I'm 23.") sang with a confidence befitting someone who had lived a lot longer and suffered a lot more heartache than he probably has: such is the product of raw talent, as well as, I'm sure, countless hours in a California bedroom, practicing his guitar, penning love lyrics, and wailing on his harmonicas.
Peyroux, by contrast, was one of the most uncomfortable stage performers I've ever seen, yet she has a truly unusual voice - now soft and torchlike, now twangy - and a unique jazz timing that is part Billie Holiday, part Patsy Cline. She's a tall, lanky woman herself, part self-styled hippie, part chanteuse; last night she was wearing a drapey pink top with slit sleeves - the Greek karyatid look, perhaps? - with high heeled sandals and a pair of beautiful russet-colored velveteen trousers, slit to the knees, but her chin-length straight hair seemed to annoy her, so she kept tucking it behind her ears like a school girl. The contradictions would have been more appealing if she hadn't seemed so awkward: nervous about performing in front of a French audience despite her famililiarity with the language, and with recurrent vocal control problems, with both pitch and breath, but the audience - fans of the two CDs, spaced eight years apart, that she's released in her elusive, critically-praised, and rather atypical career - were mostly supportive and encouraging, even adoring, especially at the point, late in the evening, when she abandoned her guitar and stood, waiflike in the smoke-filled spotlight against the blue stage, and sang Edith Piaf's "La Vie en Rose". Other highlights were her cover of Leonard Cohen's "Dance Me to the End of Love" and Patsy Cline's signature tune, "Walking After Midnight". She's clearly terrific in the recording studio; maybe she'll come into her own as a stage performer with more tours like the one she's just been on.
By 11:30 some of the Montrealers had left - past their bedtime on a Thursday night?? - but the others called Peyroux and her excellent bass and keyboard players back for an encore. She came back out onstage, followed by a sleepy Jackie Green, harmonica in hand, looking like he had been woken up from a nap in the wings, and they sang two American folk songs: a Dylan-inspired rendition of "Wish I Was in Dixie," and "Goodnight Irene" - a sure-fire, American sing-along song that the mostly-French-speaking crowd liked but certainly didn't know; the evening thus ended on an enthusiastic but fittingly bemused note.
Wednesday, November 10, 2004
MES NOUVELLES LENTILLES
After seeing my opthamologist in the U.S., I got a second opinion from a doctor in Montreal. She felt I should try soft contacts, which can now correct astigmatism, and yesterday I went to pick them up. I've worn hard, gas-permeable lenses for thirty years, only using glasses early in the morning or late at night, and being without any contacts for the past month has been quite a trip down memory lane for me: the fogging-up of glasses upon coming into a warm interior after being outside; the way they get all greasy when you pull off a turtleneck and smush the glasses against your forehead; that clicking thing and potential entanglement when you kiss someone else who's wearing glasses (yes, J. even wears reading glasses now, but he sure didn't when we met). It's OK; I have new glasses that I really really like - they are Italian and stylish and much nicer-looking on my face than the wire- or tortoise-shell rims I've tended to choose in the past - but I miss my face.
So yesterday I drove back out to Boulevard l'Acadie for a contact lens fitting and, if all went well, to bring a pair home to try. The drive itself was exciting: I'm just learning to drive and navigate in the city, so it was fun to go all by myself and feel confident and, sort of like that other rite of passage from thirty-plus years ago - getting a driver's license - free to explore on my own.
I arrived at the office building - one of hundreds in the flat sea of retail outlets, home renovations depots, restaurants and produce warehouses that flank Blvd. l'Acadie - and went up the elevator to the third floor. There wasn't a long wait, and I was asked to come into a fitting room where a white-coated assistant asked me to wash my hands and proceeded to show me how to put in, take out, and care for the lenses. She was a woman a little older than myself, and she spoke almost no English, so we managed a rather technical conversation with two fractured languages, a lot of pantomime, and considerable good humor - she was very nice, and we liked each other. "Il faut que pousser?" I said, putting the lens against my eye and watching her mime a pushing motion; when I didn't push the lens didn't stick to my eye but came away on my finger. Such a strange thing - this tiny glistening blue bowl that was flexible, not rigid, and determined to turn itself inside-out on my fingertip, and yet could correct my vision perfectly!
After putting in the lenses I sat and waited for the doctor, who came in a few minutes. She is a young woman, very pretty and blond, who grew up in the Eastern Townships of Quebec; like all the professionals I've dealt with here, she has been unhurried, very direct, kind, and interested in having a mutually-satisfactory encounter. "The fit seems very good, they're moving well, and your vision is 20/20 - we can't ask for more than that!' she said, swinging the machines away from my face and looking pleased. "But how do they feel to you?"
I said so far they felt fine; I was a little amazed, since I well remembered the painful process of getting used to hard lenses. "That's great," she said, "often it takes several tries with different kinds. But I think these seem like they'll be fine for you."
We said goodbye and I checked back in with the nice woman who had given me the training; she put her hand on my arm and laughed, "We did all right!" she said. I said I'd try the lenses for a couple of weeks and then call her to place the order if they continued to feel good.
I looked out from the third floor window of the waiting room as I put on my coat and scarf, using the tall verdegris steeples of the churches near Jean-Talon and little Italy to orient myself to the city arrayed on the flat plain before me. Montreal has a compact downtown, but the city stretches for miles in every direction on the wide floodplain of the St. Lawrence. It's not beautiful, in any classic sense, and the landscape is really fairly monotonous - but Montreal is unique, and becoming familiar, and I actually know where I am most of the time, and how to get where I need to go. Standing in front of those big, clean plate-glass windows, with my new crystal-clear vision, I watched big jets slowly pass overhead on their way to Trudeau airport, and imagined the scene on the streets I now could identify in the distance. I felt a surge of affection for my new, adopted home, and utter astonishment that I could call it that. And then I went down the elevator and out into the cold air to buy groceries at Adonis, the nearby Middle Eastern market, and take them home for lunch.
Those of you who read French will be amused by this article - if you don't, the gist of it is that a New York company is offering travel packages for Americans to come to Canada and get a flu shot. The price for two days and a shot? 220 $ US.
«Nous leur offrons un moyen relaxant d’avoir leur vaccin, en plus de découvrir Montréal», dit Douglas Tam, de l’entreprise AuctionMatic USA.
I've been wondering whether to get one; we usually do, but I've never been sure if they were all that effective. I also haven't had the flu for a number of years. Tomorrow there are clinics in our area - free to seniors and those "at risk", $10 Canadian for others - but I don't want to pay the "American premium", if there is one! Still - sure beats a nine hour bus ride!
And a report from P., a longtime resident of Ohio, on demographic trends he's observed and why they led to Bushs victory there (from comments here, but I don't want you to miss it.)
Jason's comments on the previous post are worth reading, and while you're at it (not indulging in extreme stereotyping and dividing, that is) please take a look at this map of Purple America, previously linked at Creek Running North and referenced in Jason's comments.
Like Chris, I grew up in a state that was very mixed, a county that was mixed, and a town that was mixed (although in descending order of heterogeneity). It was the same state as his, actually - New York. It seems to me that during my lifetime, upstate New York has become less hidebound and conservative, perhaps partially due to the fact that there has been an influx of "otherness" that the people have gradually gotten more used to: urban people, liberals, Jews, a few blacks, gays and lesbians. But people in general are not as rigid or easily pigeonholed as the analysts would like us to believe: how else could a state be proud of such a diverse cast of characters as Hillary Clinton, Mario Cuomo, Nelson Rockefeller, Ralph Giuliani? Perhaps because those people all have admirable qualities and less-admirable ones: above all, they are real, and New Yorkers - both downstate and upstate - see aspects of themselves reflected in each of them.
As Chris and Jason point out, the national county map is a far more accurate way of looking at our country and ourselves than in big Electoral College blocks, though sadly, that is what it still comes down to. The worst of it is how dismissive this system, and this sort of red/blue analysis, is of the individual voter.
I haven't wanted to write much about politics since the election; others were doing such a good job, and I didn't feel like adding one more voice to the blog-din. I also wanted to take some time to be quiet and reflect on what was happening, especially from this northern perch across the border. I still feel that way.
I wasn't surprised about the election. The trend seemed ever clearer to me during the year that I stood on a street corner every Friday, before the war in Iraq, watching the reactions of people going by. I was shocked at first - and eventually numbed - by the intense polarization of the small numbers who did have an opinion, and the indifference of the much larger group who didn't. Among the latter, there seemed to be a complete lack of understanding that this government's policies have a direct effect on our lives; if they made up their minds about one candidate, it was likely to be on one or two issues taken out of context, or on that elusive factor known as "image". Among the former, everything was black-and-white, and although it was hard to know sometimes why the people held such definite opinions, it seemed to come down mostly to self-identity and background: they'd served in the military or knew someone who was serving; they had a religious reason for either supporting the government (adamantly pro-Israeli, fundamentalist Christian) or being against it (concerned progressive Jew; Arab or Muslim; committed progressive Christian pacifists); or maybe they had been war resisters during Vietnam...some, like the young men who'd drive by and yell obscenities from their cars, just seemed to be excited by the prospect of America going somewhere and "kicking ass".
While I appreciate all the soul-searching that's going on in blogland, and all the sincere attempts to understand the minds of those who voted for Bush, I think there are some clear rights and wrongs going on. It's wrong to kill, humiliate, and maim other human beings; to destroy their homes and livelihood; and especially to kill unarmed civilians, women and children. Yet we are doing this, and our tax dollars are supporting it - for nothing that could possibly be called "justifiable. I can't condone this. I can't say it's OK, or spend more time trying to understand someone's convoluted reasons for thinking it is OK. It's not. And I also cannot spend any more time and personal energy arguing about it, or waiting for a charismatic national leader with the courage to stand up and unequivocably, persistently say so.
I have a list of people who attend the monthly interfaith prayers for peace that I lead. After the election, a clergyperson in another denomination forwarded an invitation to hear a Jewish peace activist talk about the Middle East and foreign policy in the wake of our election. She said it would be an evening of hope and discussion for those who had been dismayed by the "disatrous" results of the election. Another friend of mine, who attends these monthly services, wrote and asked sarcastically if he would be welcome, being someone who was "excited and positive" about the election. This is what I no longer have time or energy for: the endless conflict, the arguing, the posturing, the insistence that both views have equal time as if both are morally equivalent. I am sorry. In God's world, and in the world I try to live out on earth, they are not.
Of course we are our brothers' keepers, and we are called upon to be decent to one another; I will always try to be decent even when it's not reciprocated. But we are faced with a grim situation, not only for the world but for our own survival as thinking, feeling, compassionate beings who have chosen not to live out a world view of continual aggression, conflict, and destruction as a means of pursuing "peace" and "freedom". As individuals, we have several potential paths. One is to continue to work toward policies and coalitions that will change the power balance. Another is to work to relieve suffering wherever we encounter it - any small way that we can help is vital, including helping one another. And we must take care of ourselves and our spirits by remembering and living out what it means to be human - continuing, despite the prevailing climate, to be creative, thoughtful, aware of the past, appreciative of the present and engaged in the possibilities for our future: to be people who refuse to despair.
I've decided to concentrate on these paths. Standing on the street corner with a group of commmitted women in black, I listened while others who shared our basic convictions were unable to stand silently, but spent the hour arguing about which way the Left should go - what actions should be taken, who was right and who was wrong - on and on. Local meetings of the peace and justice coalition dissolved into shouting matches. What we're seeing now is just as fragmented, and it doesn't bode well for organized resistance to the powers that be.
Personally, I've decided to step back for a while, to try to discern where I can be of the most service.
David Brook's article on Exurbia, from the New York Times, is a start: even if it doesn't tell us how to talk to this "other" America - it points out why and where it exists - and that Karl Rove got there long before us.
Sunday, November 07, 2004
This morning was brighter, warmer, and not raining, so after an early breakfast of pancakes, made with a wonderful Quebec mix of quatre farines – four flours (wheat, buckwheat, rice, and corn) we rode our bikes to the cathedral in the center of the downtown. I had thought today was the Festival of All Saints’, but that was celebrated here last week; instead it was Remembrance Day, the Canadian equivalent of Veteran's Day conflated with Memorial Day. On the steps of the cathedral were several Canadian guardsmen in green camouflage fatigues and black berets, sporting bright red poppies on their lapels – if fatigues can be said to have lapels. “A woman has fallen on the steps inside, and we’re waiting for an ambulance,” one apologized. “If you wouldn’t mind, could you please go in the side entrance?”
We entered the church and were surprised to see all the central pews filled with Canadian troops, seated by regiment, wearing various uniforms. We gathered our service leaflet and Book of Alternative Services and hymnals, and found a seat. The altar was bedecked with a sea of paper poppies. After the first hymn and the procession of clergy and choir, three grenadier guardsmen in red uniforms and tall black bearskin hats came up the aisle in silence with flags which were then taken up onto the altar, and the service began. Church attendance in Canada is nothing like what it is in America; the entire regular cathedral congregation in this huge city is smaller than my home parish. We got the impression that many of the young service men and women present were not accustomed to being in church, but being Canadian, they were patient, and extremely polite, joining in the hymns, following the service, and most of them – having been warmly invited by the Dean of the cathedral – took communion.
The service was long, solemn, quite beautiful, and to my surprise not at all a glorification of heroic military service, or an attempt to somehow justify a connection between religion and war - although connections were being made by the service's very existence - but a moving time of remembrance of the dead and what those deaths might mean to us today. The sermon, by the head of the theological school, was delivered curiously and effectively in French and English, but not repetitively – there were sort of two parallel stories, with an occasional restatement of an idea in the other language. He talked first about the ancient Greek ideal of the heroic fallen warrior who in literature and myth becomes a symbol for the nobility and suffering of all our human lives, and then stated that whether or not we think a war – such as the Second World War – is just, nothing – not even the freedom we enjoy today – can compensate for the tragedy of the death of an individual soldier who has forfeited their life. He suggested that by looking at Christ’s death on the cross – a military device used as, he said, “a shock and awe technique” by the Romans – and considering the possibility of eternal life that is given to us through that death – we can in fact find some solace in the deaths of the fallen.
I had two thoughts, hearing that. One was that an American military audience might well have walked out of the church; this one didn’t seem to have a problem with what was being said at all. The other was that I was enormously grateful that the Canadian government had refused to send these bright-eyed young people to Iraq, and just as sad to think of all the young Americans who are there, facing such an uncertain future. The Canadian army, at this point, is a true defensive force – these troops are trained, as one of the commanders told us at the lunch buffet afterwards, to defend the Canadian borders, "in all types of terrain and weather conditions”, but some, I’m sure, are also assigned to international peacekeeping forces. He said that you simply study the history and traditions of the various regiments and choose one that appeals to you. He was one of the grenadier guards in the red coats who had carried the flags – “but we’re infantry soldiers too,” he said.
The formerly American priest who I had met last time (he had immigrated in the 1960s and been a counselor for draft resisters during Vietnam) came up to us after the service, eager to meet my husband and to commiserate with us about the election (as have all our Canadian friends and neighbors). I asked about an announcement in the bulletin that next week there would be a discussion of the Windsor Report. Would I be welcome? “Of course!" he said. "I think the Dean is in charge of that - have you met him?” The Dean was at the reception – a large spread put on by the Grenadier Guards - and when we saw him eating alone, we went over to introduce ourselves. I mentioned that we were Americans, from the Diocese of New Hampshire, and that I was working on a book about Gene Robinson. “Ah-ha!” he said, again to my surprise. “Joyce told me about you!” (Joyce Sanchez is the assistant priest, who I had met two weeks ago.) “And Gene, of course, is one of our heros!” I said we had enjoyed the service; he replied bluntly that it wasn’t one of his favorite occasions – that he had been raised “in the pacifist tradition of the Church” and was uncomfortable with any combination of religion and patriotism.
So we proceeded to have a fascinating talk; he is British, a former Anglican priest who served with British diplomatic missions in Dunkirk and later in Finland and Sweden before moving to Canada fifteen years ago. And when we began to talk about the Windor Report, I was stunned - I thought I was progressive. He was not only extremely liberal and ready to cut ties with the Anglican Communion – “after all, it’s a vestige of the British Empire” but he was comfortably outspoken about his views in a way that seems very foreign to me, reminding me again how restrained and careful we tend to be in the American church about expressing potentially controversial opinions. He invited us up to his office and gave us a photocopy of a humorous cartoon reaction to the Report, and suggested a book that we immediately bought this afternoon: Fire and Ice, by Michael Adams, about the ways in which, despite Canadian fears of convergence, Canada and America are actually moving in different directions. It's based on a study of trends in values expressed by a cross-section of people in the two societies. I can’t wait to read it. And I hope I can be here next week to hear the Dean’s presentation on the history of the Anglican Communion, and how this history is reflected in the Windsor Report.
Then we had a late lunch at the Iraqi café, and stopped at a grocery store nearby, where I noticed a stack of today’s La Presse. On the cover, under the headline “Avant de donner l’assault a Falluja, les Americains jouent les gladiateurs” (“before the assault on Falluja, Americans play as gladiators”) was a shocking picture of American marines dressed up as gladiators, a la Ben Hur, cheered on by troops, getting them worked up for the assault on Falluja. How bizarrely, amazingly ignorant: this "Christian" army donning the garb of the Roman legions who crucified Christ. I’d like to know if anyone has seen this photo reproduced anywhere else. I’m sure it’s in the Arab media, working up others who also think they have God on their side.
