andrewfrank.ca

This is an older piece I wrote when I was about nineteen and freshly moved from Oliver B.C. (pop. < 5000) to downtown Toronto for school. I was being exposed for the first time to theories of mass media and reading hand-me-down copies of Adbusters from my cousin Paul.

That’s My Boy

With your savings plan and farmers tan,
you remind me of that guy.

The one with all the money,
the one who swats the fly.

Let them eat steak and mushroom caps,
stuffed with champagne dreams and heart attacks.

You kill me…no you really do,
I’m bloated for all the wrong reasons, and I’m only two.

Where’s my T.V. SUV, can I borrow your GPS?
It’s not that I’m going anywhere, it’s just that my life’s a mess.

Dear Mercedes, I’ve got the bends,
I can’t make the ends meet.

Let me suckle from your tail pipe,
your carbon dioxide teat.

Oh give me a home, where the anorexics trip,
and the deep fryers never cool.

24/7 at 7/11,
my bank card’s my only tool.

All for one, and one for one,
the numbers are force-fed.

Where every ticket’s a winner,
and every day 25,000 are dead.

That’s my boy.

This is a documentary on Bill Reid, master Haida carver and “maker of things.” The documentary is from the National Film Board, which allows anyone to embed NFB content for free on their own website. Pretty darn cool.

Another poem from my nana’s 1942 book of poetry, “Wood Fires.”

Okanagan Winter

If I were painting a picture of winter
I’d paint
A hillside of white,
With an old snake fence
Zig-zagging its grey pole length along

To a group of pines.
(And a snow bird’s song,
And little grey gusts of the fitful breeze
To show me the outstretched arms of the trees
Cradling the snow).

And then I’d paint
Some dappled horses,
Plodding one by one,
In eager line

To where the tufted
Brunch grass shows
Gold-brown and rusty
Through the snow.

(And a snow bird’s song,
And little grey gusts of the fitful breeze
To show me the outstretched arms of the trees
Cradling the snow).

I decided to cut together a short demo reel to visually demonstrate some of the work I do. Not many people know that I come from a radio & television background. It makes a difference for how I approach communication projects. It was also a good excuse to listen to the Beastie Boys’ ‘Sabotage’ over and over again.

I love that song.

Trail Gold

He who has walked a mountain trail
In happiness or sorrow,
Has ease for hurts of yesterday
And courage for the morrow.

And truth it is that mountain trails
All carry joy for lending;
And mountain trails all carry gold
That souls can have for spending.

The mountain magic is a thing
You cannot be denying.
Who walks a mountain trail has that
You’ll never find for buying.

This is the second poem in my running “Wood Fires” series of posts. I’m posting poems by Isabel Christie MacNaughton (my nana) from her 1942 book of poetry, “Wood Fires.”

A Grace For Loveliness

A grace for lovely things we bring,
For shining bluebirds on the wing;

For tinkling waters, clear and cold,
For daffodils of yellow gold;

For fish hawks sailing high and lone,
For little winds through pine woods blown;

For far blue mountains, dim with haze,
For starlit nights, for sunny days;

For lilac time, for hills of brown,
For apple blossoms floating down.

From hearts that with their beauty sing,
A grace for lovely things we bring.

Between advancements in camera technology and CGI, we are now a civilization capable of creating life-like renderings of anything we can imagine. As we’ve approached this reality, on more than one occasion I’ve found myself asking about the power, ethics and social advocacy potential of such images – if we can visually create anything, is there the potential to depict more just or sustainable visions of the future that might compel citizens to make them real? Can we harness that so-called post-Avatar “depression” into a force for good? Is it all just entertainment or is there also a new collective meaning that audiences are buying into?

When we reflect on our viewing experience, the meaning that seems paramount, at least in this first round of hyper real images, is immersive reality itself. Word of mouth goes something like, “you have to SEE it!” It’s about the visual spectacle. When I first left the theater I felt a disconnect between the immersive power of the images and the relatively straight-forward story, after all, as many folks have pointed out (usually derisively), ‘Avatar’ is essentially a re-telling of Pocahontas or Fern Gully. With such original landscapes why wasn’t the story more original? After chewing this over a bit, and appreciating the fact that I didn’t question the story once during my viewing experience, I realized the story didn’t need to be revolutionary because it already was, and even if we had seen it before, we’d never really SEEN it before. Every re-telling is richer, more vivid, more emotional, getting closer and closer to making us feel and accept the story’s lessons on a visceral level.

It seems to me that certain human stories have been refined, distilled and in short, fine-tuned to a point where their morals and understandings are taught and reinforced in a fashion that resonates with audiences deeply and efficiently. True, there is plenty to criticize in the movie (particularly from a feminist POV) but I also think the bees in the bonnets of critics like David Brooks and his “white messiah complex” are overwrought and a typical knee-jerk, conservative “white men can’t jump,” reaction to a story they never liked. Can the story be classified (as Brooks’ does) as a “white messiah fable?” Definitely. Is that (or the fact that we’ve seen this story before) such a bad thing? No. How many people were exposed to the basic story of Pocahontas for the first time because of this film? How many people felt and took in that same story (even if they had experienced it before) more strongly because of this film?

In his list of stereotypes he feels the film perpetuates, Brooks’ first and foremost criticism is that the story, “…rests on the stereotype that white people are rationalist and technocratic while colonial victims are spiritual and athletic.” On reflection, that statement (problematic because of his own totalizing formulation and Brooks’ decision to strangely focus on “athleticism”), is not far off the mark if we recall the real historical examples of colonial domination the movie is meant to emulate: the decimation of indigenous peoples in North and South America (yes, “Pocohontas in space” for the cynical) and the rationalist and technocratic extraction of resources that followed that domination, not to mention rationalist and technocratic institutions of human domination like slavery or more recently, residential schools. Does Brooks think we’ve already learned the moral antidotes to these recent and disturbing chapters in Western civilization? All evidence is that this is a story and set of morals we haven’t learned yet, and given our present course (present human and environmental destruction) there’s nothing to say we aren’t capable of making the same mistakes hundreds of years from today (minus some of the evil marine play acting).

The power and allure of the “white messiah fable” is the fantasy of turning on one’s own morally bankrupt culture and seeking redemption in the culture of the oppressed. I agree that messages suggesting that indigenous people can only rise-up with the help of a “white messiah” are problematic, however I don’t think that’s the key lesson learned or even the point of the story – the real focus is on showing (sugar-coated in over the top heroics and girl-getting) that it is possible to go against the grain and to adopt new ways of being. I don’t think that’s such a bad thing…there’s a reason the story of Pocahontas still resonates strongly today, and there’s a reason Mr. Cameron’s movie is shattering box-office records (it’s very possible that a similar movie with just as immersive images but less primal storytelling would flop).

From conversations I’ve had with young adults, it was movies like Pocahontas and Fern Gully that first stoked their social and environmental awareness.

What’s wrong with telling the “same story?”

I read this essay in the New York Times recently (actually one very similar to it…this one popped up when I looked for the original). Francis Fukuyama’s review of the book from which the essay is distilled (“Shop Class as Soulcraft”) is good too. There has been ample criticism of the author, including his privileged position as someone with training both as a knowledge worker and skilled trades person who has the luxury of romanticizing the latter, but I like what he relates about working with your hands…it’s true that anytime I’ve faced “knowledge worker” burnout the cure has been something manual, either farming for a summer or making something with my hands.

Ever since a sunburn-induced desire to create my own sunglasses (something that happened last summer), I’ve felt pulled to look at everyday objects we take for granted, how they’re made, and to learn something about the production process for myself. My latest project (and first real wood working experience, beyond creating a bunk bed/desk combination for myself in university) was a rocking chair I made over the holidays for my girlfriend. There is something meditative about connecting a series of tangible steps into the creation of a final form or product.

Making the chair required driving around my hometown, looking for salvageable wood in the orchards and woods (I went with cherry and pine), buying second hand tools I knew nothing about, and suddenly looking very closely at the shape of every chair I came across. My approach was without plans or measurement and so the final product was very organic…but that to me was part of the beauty of the exercise, deciding how pieces of wood would fit together by feel…in that respect making this chair reminded me of the writing process I undertake in my job as a writer and communications strategist, playing with words and fashioning symbols to convey meaning

Another special thing that happened along the way in producing this chair was the new body of knowledge and interest that suddenly allowed me to relate with my 60+ year old neighbor in ways I hadn’t previously. Turns out he has an amazing wood working shop in his basement…something I wouldn’t have known about or appreciated previously, and he lent me some clamps when it came time to glue the chair.

Friends and family were happy to lend their opinions and ideas as the form began to materialize and I also had a great conversation with my Boppa who’s father (my great grandfather) was the town blacksmith in a small prairie town in Saskatchewan. As the man responsible for fixing wagon wheels, he also worked with wood and used some of the same tools I bought to make the chair, including a drawknife. Was neat to feel connected to tools and crafts my ancestors used “way back when.”

Long story short, I definitely recommend “Hobby Holidays,” and I’ve since acquired a 4.5 foot chunk of beautiful cedar (found it washed ashore on Denman Island over New Years), as well as some arbutus wood that looks perfect for legs, I’m hoping to carve and make a nice solid bench. Let me know if you hear about any good wood working co-ops in Vancouver.

What kind of work do you do with your hands?