On Incompleteness & Missing Pieces

           Over the last few weeks I’ve amassed a number of drafts of pieces that never made it into my blog. They are all pieces I wanted to post, but which fell short is some way or another, most often because they are incomplete.

          Incompleteness, I’ve come to recognize, is one of the unavoidable – and annoyingly common – aspects of life. I’ve written here about my frustrations with time, how there never seems to be enough of it, my struggle with finding balance, so as to keep up on all the important commitments and interests in my life. But this focus on time and balance, as though there were some skill set that would eliminate incompleteness from my life, is a false hope, a distraction from the reality that nothing in life can simply be captured, contained or managed in a complete way.

          So much of the great literature is about this essential incompleteness, isn’t it? The Brothers Karamazov, Macbeth, The Foundation Trilogy all take a view on this. Perec's Life: A User’s Manual presents an achingly beautiful view of the incomplete jig-saw puzzle that life is. All of those books that present a character who has it all figured out, or with a vision of attaining “the perfect life”, such as The Mosquito Coast or Invisible Man, or Crime & Punishment end up exploring the failure to contain or control life, or incompleteness.

          At this point, I recognize that few if any of my ‘drafted’ blogs will make it to post. And so, rather than leave their content totally unexpressed, I’m aiming here for a kind of distillation, one I hope will manage to unite them thematically in some way, and thereby, take us almost in the opposite direction from incompleteness, toward gestalt, that other beautiful and inescapable characteristic of reality, namely, that a whole will amount to more than simply the sum of its parts.

          Among the things I’ve draft-blogged about are: the comical nightmare of political life in Toronto, under our bobble-head, buffoon king mayor, Rob Ford; the overzealous application of political correctness when a white school vice principal dared to costume himself as Mr. T., using blackface; and finally, the injustice faced by a young couple I work with, whose child is in the care of the Catholic Children’s Aide Society.

          But, before I try to concoct this mixture of themes, a final word on “Incompleteness”. I first came upon this quality as a subject for serious study in Douglas Hofstadter’s absolutely brilliant book, Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal, Golden Braid, written in 1979 and awarded a Pulitzer Prize. On one level, this is a book about something not even remotely hinted at by its title, that being artificial intelligence. On another level, it’s a philosophical game book, that pulls you inside of a wonderful medley of musical play, zen koans, Aesop’s fables, and surrealist art. But fundamentally, it’s an exploration of Kurt Gödel’s “Incompleteness Theorem”, which tells us that no system or science or tool that seeks to offer a complete explanation of the world will ever succeed. And further, that the place where this system or tool’s failure will be most evident is where it attempts to explain itself. Well...something like that. (I confess that the mathematical sections of this book lost me, but DON’T LET THAT DETER YOU FROM READING IT. Just skip over the hard parts, like I did!)

          There have always been arguments about the dangers of taking very precise, scientific notions and applying them broadly to social, cultural or political areas. Witness the ways that ‘social’ Darwinism has been used to justify racial hierarchies, or the way ‘relativity’ theory has been used to excuse all sorts of behaviors. So yes, apply with caution. But, for me, a recognition of life’s essential incompleteness has served, not unlike Solomon’s “I have seen everything under the sun...and all is vanity and striving after wind”, to comfort and reassure me. Yes, I am human, my reach is small, I will die...so don’t be so hung up about not finishingd that short story!

          Now onto my ‘draft blogs’. But I’ve spent so much time on this introduction, I now feel that I’ll have to be brief about it.

          What a bit of nonsense, suspending a vice-principal and initiating an investigation, because he appeared at a Halloween function dressed as Mr. T. and in blackface. Now, as a fifty-nine year old, Black, American male who grew up through the civil rights era, I can surely understand that the very mention of blackface will give one reason to pause and consider. But after considering, what then? Is some item or act, because once associated with a hateful system, always to be despised? I don’t think so. Dressing up as other people is what happens at Halloween. I don’t see that there’s anything offensive or embarrassing about Mr. T., such that masquerading as him is racist.

          Then you have Mayor Rob Ford, who, if a high school vice-principal would’ve been fired long ago, for any one of dozens of acts and statements, including his public drunkenness, admission to buying and using illegal drugs while in office, and any number of questionable comments. I wish Ford were gone. I’ve never felt that he was broad or deep enough in his understanding of social issues to be a good leader for this city. And as much as I fault Ford for his very selfish refusal to step down from office, there is a small degree to which I applaud the theoretical separation of a person’s human frailties from their ability to competently hold a representative position in government. The facts of him having addiction issues, being cartoonish, or making embarrassing, personal statements should not, in and of themselves, be grounds for removal from office. (And I actually find it as ridiculous as the overreaction to blackface, that some people referenced his comments about eating pussy as obscene or misogynist. Come ON, people!)

          The couple I work with, that is trying so hard to get its now 5 month old child away from Catholic Children’s Aide, is another instance of misapplied standards. These are such invaluable months in the bonding and development of a child. And this couple would likely never have come under scrutiny but for the SIDS death of their first child a year ago (for which they were deemed not responsible after investigation). Now, not only are they victim to the achingly slow legal process involved in demonstrating their worthiness to parent, they are also being held to standards far beyond any that can be considered reasonable in this day and age. Such as, that the father, a practicing Rastafarian, be tested as free from marijuana use for 3 and a half months, before they can have their son in their care. Were this standard to be applied to all parents, I suspect that we’d have more than 30% of kids in Children’s Aide custody.

          Threads that these items share are the ways in which we judge and are judged by others. And it relates to the broader theme of incompleteness in that few, if any of our judgements are rendered with complete knowledge. We try to stay on top of things, to make decisions and judgements that uphold our deepest values and that support health and respect and well-being. But so often, our judgements come down to guesses and feelings and biases. Referring back to the young couple again, it seems certain that the Catholic Children’s Aide Society is testing their readiness to parent with such fervor because it has been knocked severely in recent months for failing to identify abusive situations in which children suffered.

          I hope this isn’t a depressing piece. I didn’t intend it to be. But it does represent a kind of surrender. I’ll not manage to write here about all the things I’d like to write about, even if at times I feel my well has run dry. And what I do take on won’t be covered exhaustively. It will merely represent a pulling together of some of the thoughts and impressions (maybe even a fact or two) I have in a moment in time. And even that passing moment will defy any containing or explaining. I find this an almost liberating view. It points to the fullness and richness in things. This “incompleteness” isn’t something in the world, really. It’s just a reminder of how huge and wide and miraculous the world really is.

Wayne Shorter at Massey Hall

Wayne Shorter doesn't write songs anymore. I don't know if he writes jazz anymore either. Maybe the issue is whether or not you can call what he does 'writing'. What Wayne Shorter does, for sure, is create music.

Shorter turned 80 three months back, and he's been touring with what is being called his 80^th Birthday Celebration. But his is not the case of a recognized master merely regurgitating the treasures of his prime. Though the quartet he brought to Massey Hall on November 22^nd has been performing together for over a decade, Shorter’s music is as fresh and vibrant as at any time in his past. The music had the unmistakable immediacy, that forward-pulling energy of the freshly created. There's magic in such music. And it transcends easy categorization.

The concert at Toronto’s Massey Hall last Friday brought seven musicians to the stage. The opening act was ACS, a trio comprised of two veterans: Geri Allen on piano and Terry Lynn Carrington on drums, with the much younger, meteorically talented Esperanza Spalding on bass. The scarcity of female instrumentalists in jazz has long confounded me, but that's a subject for another time. Enough to say that this trio of women laid down a set with such power and mastery that I openly doubted that Shorter's follow-up could be anything but a come down. The three were a perfect demonstration of interplay, of the essential listening and responding aspects of jazz. They infused their playing with spontaneity and generosity. It was a spectacular set, raising the alertness and sensitivity of the audience to a high level of receptivity.

And somehow, impossibly, Shorter's band emerged and lifted the evening's fare to a level I could not have foreseen. In trying to come up with an adequate word for what Shorter does – and failing – the concept "impressionist" comes to mind. He is, I'm reminded, a visual artist as well as musician. He seems to – paraphrasing the words of a famous sculptor – take raw sound and shape it, mold it, sculpt it, until he has uncovered the primal, the universal within. These aren't mere songs that emerge. They are crystallizations of feeling, of ideas, of longing and searching, of finding and absorption, as in how one lover can absorb another, to the end of joining essence to essence. I was very moved by this quartet's performance. It wasn't just the brilliant musicianship, it was what they were able to evoke. My feelings were drawn out and taken for a ride. The music entered me and shook me and thrilled me.

About the four musicians. I've been listening to Wayne Shorter since I was a teenager trying to get my head inside the music of Miles Davis. Bitches Brew is the album that slammed into my musical awareness, shattered it, and forced me beyond my James Brown and Motown trained hearing. It was while listening to "Spanish Key" that I first started to get a sense of 'sound' as a quality, separate from melody and harmony, though obviously a component of them. It was then that I began to learn to listen without so much expectation, so that the music could draw me into something I didn't already know. Wayne Shorter, with his piercing, often minimalist soprano sax was a big part of that music. I probably saw him on stage with Miles during that period, but I didn't recognize him as more than one among many voices, flowing and layering one another.

A few years later, it was through the group Weather Report that I developed a deeper awareness of Shorter. On compelling tunes like "Sweetnighter" (a Joe Zawinul composition) I began to identify characteristics of Shorter's style. He’s not your typical soloist, claiming the spotlight with flurries of notes playing on top of a band. Rather, through a sparer approach, weaving his sound in and out of the voices of his collaborators, he enriches the body of a tune, shaping and flavoring its core. Then there was the Native Dancer album, with Milton Nascimento, and the Atlantis album, both of which took me deeper into Shorter's compositional style, which is both quirky and wide open. And there was his supportive collaboration with Joni Mitchell, backing her on most of her albums since the late seventies.

At Friday night's concert, Shorter flexed his horns just enough, adding accent and emphasis where required, but, as always, allowing lots of space. John Patitucci, who I first encountered as a member of Chick Corea’s quartet, was vibrant and fluid on the upright bass. Danilo Perez was similarly stellar on piano, using his palate to flavor tone and mood. But I have to say that, for me, the wizard on the stage was drummer Brian Blade.

Along with Shorter himself, and Esperanza Spalding, it was Brian Blade whom I attended this concert to see. I first became aware of him when I bought his Fellowship CD from a remainder bin many years ago, with no idea of who he was. I've been an admirer ever since, and have noted his play backing many other greats, including Herbie Hancock. But I'd never laid eyes on him before. And what a treat it was to watch him play.

Brian Blade interacts with his drum kit like an alchemist happily mixing potions in his cauldron, watching the heady elixir bubble away as it gives birth to strange, new life forms. His body language is mesmerizing. He seems almost possessed as he sends his drumsticks dancing across skins and cymbals like wands. His was the palpable magic that drove this brilliant set, that held together the virtuosity of the others.

The ovations at the end of the night were ecstatic. Shorter and company returned to deliver two short and sweet encore numbers. But the cheering didn’t let up. Finally, Shorter returned to the stage again to smilingly gesture that he had nothing left. At that point, I don’t think anyone really expected anything more. We were simply so full of appreciation of the magical, musical offering, that we didn’t want to stop saying Thank You!

Why I Still (and will ALWAYS) Hate Michael Leigh

Ponczka and I finally watched the last season of Breaking Bad. I am hugely relieved, because for the last month it's been pretty difficult remaining in ignorance about how the show concludes. I'm grateful for all the radio and television stations, and the print and internet media, that gave spoiler alerts when information was about to be divulged. There were a number of times when I had to dash to lower a volume, or stop reading an article part way in, due to fear of having it all spoiled for me.

Somehow, we made it through, and got to watch that brilliant television show right through to the end, while never knowing what was coming next.

The degree to which wonderful story arcs are ruined by so much spoiler information flying about remains a pet peeve of mine. So often, my anticipation of a film is ruined by watching a trailer in which the entire arc of the story is laid out. So, as a rule, I avoid trailers of films I want to see, and I never read the blurbs on book covers once I've decided to read the book. My failing memory often serves me in this respect. So that, by the time I finally got around to reading Life of Pi, for example, I had totally forgotten what I'd heard about it, so that I had the great privilege of learning the identity of Mr. Richard Parker only at the moment that the author, Yann Martel, reveals it to his readers. And when I attend the Toronto Film Festival every year, I'm able to take in films with virtually no sense of expectation, having only skimmed information about the filmmakers ahead of time.

Which brings me to Michael Leigh. He is probably the main reason I have such a sensitivity about spoilers. Michael was a classmate of mine in elementary and junior high in New York. He was a very decent kid, in every way. He was my friend. I have no idea what he's been up to these last forty something years, but I hope and trust that he's done well. And yet, I hold a grudge against Michael Leigh that I will never let go. Because Michael spoiled one of the greatest movie surprises of all time!

You see, one Saturday afternoon, Michael and I went to our local movie house to see the original Planet of the Apes. I was very excited about seeing it. All of us early teenaged guys were. And I was really enjoying it, all the way through. It was exciting, thought-provoking, even funny. And toward the end, it was building up to a nice, thrilling conclusion.

SPOILER ALERT!!!

 

Which is when Michael Leigh leaned over, nudged me, and whispered...

"This must be where they see the Statue of Liberty."

 

I think I'd have suffocated him by stuffing my empty popcorn bag down his throat if I hadn't been in shock. As it was, I was so distracted by outrage that the end of the film washed over me like a dim, faded rerun. And so, Michael Leigh remains for me the symbol of book and film ending spoilage!

 

Rage, Reason, Remedy, Remorse

I lost it.

Just a couple of hours ago, I lost it over a very trivial, verbal exchange of insults with a stranger. Surprised myself. I’m generally very calm and contained. Some folks who know me react with disbelief when I speak to them of losing it.

On those occasions when I do lose it, is has to do with a build up of tensions, of frustrations. So one factor in today’s explosion is a series of small disappointments (mostly with myself) around things not progressing, not getting things done. Another factor is that I haven’t been meditating regularly these last two weeks, and increasingly I see how meditation grounds me in a very powerful way.

A third factor has something to do with why I haven’t blogged lately (and blogging is another very grounding activity). I sometimes write about my clients or situations they find themselves in. There’s always a concern about maintaining confidentiality, so I customarily change all identifying details, so that even if the subject were to read the piece, they’d be unlikely to recognize themselves.

For the last month or so, a young couple I’m working with has been in the middle of an absolutely infuriating and emotionally debilitating situation that has them feeling powerless and vulnerable. The circumstances are unique, so there’s no way to write about them without identifying them. And changing the details would obscure the essence of their problem. I’m considering speaking to them about the matter, exploring whether they’d be interested in having their situation aired. That could bring attention to their plight, but all things considered, would it be helpful attention?

So I’ve not blogged, in part, because... well, how weighty is the final season of “Breaking Bad” in light of the burdens of real life?

A rhetorical question, that. In fact, such fictional metaphors for life’s struggles can be incredibly powerful. I’m just nearing the end of Margaret Atwood’s “Oryx and Crake”. I find it a brilliantly nightmarish speculation about where “we” are headed. And I attended a talk by author Lois Lowry last night, to hear her speak about how her books have grown out of the myriad circumstances of her life – big and small, the aches and the gifts. And how healing and freeing and illuminating such transmutations can be.

I may have strayed off topic. Not sure. This all connects somehow. One final strand of conscious connection, between my own angry flare up an hour ago, and the painful circumstances of my young couple:

Sometimes, not only can I understand the emotional buildup that generates the acts of outrage and violence that populate the media (not condone them, but understand), sometimes I’m amazed that the outburst of rage does not happen. Perhaps I can say this much: What do you do when your child has been taken from you, and the workings of the law and of civil institutions conspire to keep you from holding your child in your arms, while all you have done is yearned and loved?

Nuit Blanche, Toronto 2013

It's so amazing to walk through your city at 3:00am, to walk dozens of blocks winding all through the downtown, business district, entertainment district, main retail streets, and find thousands of your fellow citizens in the streets, observing and interacting with abstract art.



"Garden Tower in Toronto" by Tadashi Kawamata

Nuit Blance, which is french for White Night, is a sunset to sunrise event. I went out at midnight and meandered until almost four, when the crowds had finally thinned. I didn't cover very much territory, despite walking those hours. I stayed in the core, but Nuit Blanche Installations were spread far and wide throughout the city, covering many kilometers. This link contains a map and info about the event: http://www.scotiabanknuitblanche.ca/2013-event/

I LOVED the art this year, which hasn't always been the case. Maybe it was that I went out with no knowledge of what was out there, did no pre-planning. I just walked and wandered and took it all in.


"Mariner 9" by  Richardson

One of my favorite pieces was an interactive poetry exhibit from the organization Diaspora Dialogues and titled "Lexicon". It was designed by Camellia Koo as a series of stations running down the main aisle of the Metropolitan Church. At each stop was hung a word or phrase, and all comers were invited to write spontaneous poems relating to them, then to tack them up with other offerings. It was fun and interesting seeing what others had written. I wrote three.

Home

The place that flavors my air, creams my coffee, rubs my skin.

Night

the open window, with dark space on the other side.

Life

Walking. The scene always changing.

Something pulsing, popping.

Blinking, rediscovering

Getting dirty feet.



Another favorite was "Music Box", by John Dickson



http://youtu.be/JcPjkzoLdEM

It was a Great, Fun night! Nuit Blanche started in Paris in 2003. Ponczka and I experienced it the following year, when by pure chance we chose the right week to vacation there. It was magical, and we were so glad when it came to Toronto just a couple of years later. It now takes place in about 15 other cities as well and will surely continue to spread. It makes for such a beautiful and communal and unique way to experience the places we live.       



Memory Bytes

Strangest thing

As we were navigating the border into New York state last weekend, I had a memory of having gone to an area around Niagara, in search of an address. I recalled that it had something to do with my application for a Nexus Pass, and I felt that Ponczka had been along, and that she’d been equipped with maps.

Ponczka could remember no such thing, and said so. “Why were we looking for this place?” she kept asking. And all I could do was repeat that it had something to do with the border. But neither of us could recall any event that was border related that led us to anywhere than the border itself. Aside from occasionally being redirected by a border guard to go into the station for “further investigation” for something like having “foreign food” (that’s another story!) border crossings were pretty routine. They didn’t involve driving up and down a road alongside a business park searching for an address.

This memory of mine made no sense. I had clear visual images of this very specific place, of looking for the address and finally finding it. I could recall details, like an underpass, patches of grass on a broken sidewalk, and street signs. But I had no memory at all of entering the place, or of what took place there. And I recalled clearly that all this took place during the day, despite that almost all of our border crossings take place after dark!

Finally, it came to me. A couple of weeks ago, I scheduled my interview to obtain a Nexus pass. And because I wasn’t familiar with the location, I went on Google maps to find it and to plan my trip. I employed the little green man avatar to get a street level view. And that was my memory.

My interview is weeks away. I’ve yet to visit the place in the flesh. But via my computer, I have actual, visual memories of this place, and of having negotiated this environment, clicking my way back and forth at will, swivelling the view, panning in and out. I even had a vague sense of purpose in being there. All in all, this was enough that it settled in my memory as an actual bodily experience. I even attached my constant travel companion Ponczka to the memory – though abstractly; I didn’t actually place her in these images, or put the maps in her hands.

How surprising, these adjustments of memory. None of this should surprise me. I’ve kept journals since age twenty, and they’ve given me many lessons in the creative power of memory. How many times have I had a clear, multiple sense memory of something that my journal has corrected. I might, for instance, remember being with Joan at a movie in September in New York. But my notes will tell me that I last say Joan in August in Boston, and the movie in New York was with Leslie. Often, there’s a kind of compacting that happens. Story lines, people, sequences get merged, much as a film adaptation will treat a massive novel. I learned long ago not to believe just because someone insists in all sincerity, “But I was there! I saw it with my own eyes”.

This Google memory is a new one for me. But I bet it’s not unusual. It’s surely something that will become increasingly common. Soon, we’ll all have memories of places we’ve never been, accomplishments we’ve never attempted, and, bitter-sweetly, of “beautiful lovers we never got the chance to kiss”. (Joni Mitchell)

Joyful Process

I'm feeling extremely grateful today for the simple reality of how things happen! I mean by that the process that allows - no, compels! - each of us to be changing ourselves and the world, constantly, with our every choice and action.

Today, I am so very aware, that everything I do - that any of us does - has an immediate and lasting effect on us and our world. It's not big and complex things I'm thinking about. It's being aware that when I chose a direction, then take a single step, that it has an effect. If I think of someone, it changes me, and then to pick up the phone and call, or not call ... there is change, effect. If I want to lose weight and eat a little less, it has an effect. No, I don't become instantly fit, but my body responds in perfect proportions to my action. And when I read, that changes me, just a little bit, and when I read again the next day, I'm changed a little more.

In particular, I'm feeling the reality that, though it can sometimes seem and feel dauntingly difficult to produce the change we want, in fact, every little act has its effects. Every act reverberates through all the areas of our lives, a series of vibrations, mingling with, sometimes overwhelmed by others, but always there, part of that whole that is the ever-present moment we live in.

My walking and thinking change me. The choices I make while I work: the tasks I accomplish or don't, the calls I return and those I don't - they affect me and they affect those I work with, for good and bad. The person who lets me cut into traffic affects me, as does the one who blasts his horn. The smiles change me, and the glares and frowns.

Every day, everything about me, and about you and the rest of the world, changes under the influence of tiny choices, acts, movements, thoughts. These lead to horrors and they lead to wonderful things as well.

The changes aren't always discernible; mostly, they are not. It can take hundreds or millions of them, cumulatively, to create what we might recognize as a substantial, a significant change. But to me, today, that's all part of the wonder of it: that I inch in one direction one moment, and back again the next, that it's so constant and fluid, but so real. That I'm required to hold to a thing, or to come back to it, again and again, before it will rise to a threshold of ... of what? Tipping a balance, deciding a question, achieving a goal, concluding a thought ... being a friendship, standing for something, lasting, overcoming inertia, attaining weight and presence.

But, despite all this, each of these things is made up of those component moments and choices and of the tiniest acts. And so each one of those tiny things matters. And for some reason - today - this reality fills me with joy.

We are Change Agents, Change Machines, and isn't that miraculous and wonderful? Miraculous in the sense that it seems beyond comprehension to be such, to have such power. But also the antithesis of miraculous in that it defines our every moment of life.