Montreal May 22, 2012

What does it mean to be a citizen?

Lately I've been really re-evaluting social media and how it pertains to citizen journalism. 

Today marks day 100 that Montreal students have been on strike, opposing massive tuition increases and student debt. I'm not 100% sure on all the details behind the rallies, but I've met many students who have been hit hard by this movement over the course of my first week here.  I remember how worried we were a while back when the professors at the U of W were planning to strike It was my graduating year.

Today I was lucky enough to stumble into the biggest protest march in Montreal to date on my walk home from work. Tensions are so high here, I can only wonder what it will take for either parties to form an agreement. Two nights ago, riot police unloaded by the bus-full and were walking the streets in formation, banging on their shields like the guys from 300. Yesterday a student threw a moltov cocktail. New laws are being passed every day, making this beautiful, cultural city look more and more like a war-torn police state.

The last two shots are from my bedroom window. The people are still marching by as I write this.

Boys and Girls

This website is a cool way of checking out the difference in gendered advertising. It's no secret that there is a formula to most toy commercials, and the mashup website lets you play around with the audio and video of some samples.  I see it as a reflection on the persisting gender norms that still exist today. The biggest one is probably that girls still like pink and boys still like blue.

The Don

  

<3

The Flip Side

 

Great new ad campaign by LG. Body copy in the corner says 

"Home theater 3D sound LG.
 Every side of the sound."

My Love Montage

Here is my montage.
There are many like it,
But this one is mine.

Assignment: Dionysus in Stony Mountain

I’m no stranger to the stage. Though I have rarely been on one, save for some high school plays many moons ago, I’ve been an avid pursuer of live theatre and musicals for a good chunk of my life.

 I have my parents to thank for this. Our family road trips of the past were serenaded by both Andrew Lloyd Webber’s collected works and the Phantom of the Paradise soundtrack. My mom and dad are long-time season ticket holders for the Manitoba Theatre Centre, and so whenever one of them couldn’t make it out, I was able to tag along. The productions that this venue holds are fortunate to have huge budgets, and so the pieces are usually spectacular. 

I think it’s safe to assume that the Rachel Brown Theatre’s production of “Dionysus in Stony Mountain” had a relatively low budget, and relied mostly on the content of the play to carry it forward. 

It began as a one-act production in Winnipeg’s 2009 Fringe Festival, which encompassed the first half of production that ran from March 29 to April 8. This time around the director, Steven Ratzlaff, added an intermission and a second act to further flesh out his characters.

The play deals with many loaded topics, some of which surely went over my head. They include, but aren’t limited to: Nietzche’s theories, drug culture, assimilation, slave morality, child criminals, the justice system, the subjectivity of sanity, religion and a search for meaning. These are all rushed over much too quickly by the two actors, Sarah Constible and Ross McMillan. 

I understand that plays are usually pretty exclusive; based on the price of tickets alone, most live productions are inaccessible to the majority of the population. In the case of “Dionysus in Stony Mountain”, the content also felt exclusionary. I’ve taken a few philosophy courses in university and I could barely keep up with the script. Nevertheless, the Wednesday night showing sold out, but the crowd was noticeably older. A lake of white hair was peppered only by the heads of my classmates.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve seen some great productions at the Rachel Brown Theatre. One that stands out the most in my mind is their 2009 production of “Age of Arousal”, which delved into the lives of suffragettes. In this production, the content was loaded, but it was explored in a more fun and engaging way. 

Clearly “Dionysus in Stony Mountain” had a specific intended audience. I commend the risk that Ratzlaff made in presenting this deep, philosophical play in a medium that is getting overshadowed by the Goliath that is the Winnipeg Jets. However, I think the rapid way in which the script fires off complex theories, and the fact that the first half is essentially a monologue, would be more convincing and engaging if it were unpacked in, say, a novel.  

But that’s just my opinion. I like my plays to be filled with cats, puppets, amazing technicolor dreamcoats, Jesus Christ superstars, sweet transvestites, Argentinean First Ladies, a boy who wants more, producers, Jets (but not the ones on ice) and Sharks (ditto), and of course, a disfigured musician who sells his soul to the devil for the woman he loves.  

Best/Most confusing musical ever

Journey for Justice Assignment

As a school assignment we were told to read the true crime book “Journey for Justice: How ‘Project Angel’ Cracked the Candace Derksen Case” by Mike McIntyre, which chronicles the last days of the young girl and the sentencing of her killer. This is the first true crime novel I’ve read, and my reaction to it was tentative, because it seemed to be presented as both fiction and non-fiction, but never defining itself as either. 

I felt that the placement of the events in the novel were smart. McIntyre revealed Mark Grant as the killer in the first chapter of the book, which I felt to be a good choice considering Grant’s recent sentencing. It’s no murder mystery. Then he outlines the aftermath of the deed and how the family navigated this traumatic event. In the third section of the book the reader discovers that Grant came from a very broken home and had mental health issues; but this is only revealed after the family finds Candace’s small, frozen body in an industrial area. We first come to hate the killer, but then find a way to somehow justify his actions. Candace’s parents grew to forgive the man who took the life of their daughter, acting as models for the reader.

In my opinion “Journey for Justice” was difficult to read through. The journalistic style, I think, is more impactful in short bursts, and the fact-based nature of the writing was dry after an extended period of time. McIntyre mentioned how he was frustrated with the limitations that newspapers offered, and that “so much of the story was being untold”, which is initially why he decided to write the book. I didn’t understand, though, why he insisted how hugely important the Mennonite faith was for the Derksens, to the degree that it felt like he had an agenda. I think if you’re going to write a non-fiction book, you shouldn’t include so many passages about faith. Even as a believer, I felt excluded.

The most important lesson that I learned from the book is that “nothing beats being there”. Wilma Derksen, Candace’s mom, wrote a book called “Have You Seen Candace?” where she chronicled her own experience with the murder and was able to capture minute details and sentences uttered 20 years in the past. McIntyre was able to take passages from Wilma’s book and convey these personal elements to the reader. During the presentations, he recounted how he drove 4 hours to Saskatchewan on a whim to try and get an exclusive interview, and ended up spending 10 hours with the family. I am trying to be fully present when I conduct interviews now, trying to notice things that I wouldn’t normally notice and focusing on more than just what’s being said.

The true crime book “Journey for Justice” can be comparable to a biography, but instead of chronicling someone’s life, it chronicles the aftermath of their death. To me, both of these genres of storytelling demonstrate the power and importance that one person can have onto others. The tangible qualities of a book- the paper, ink, and binding- live on after the subject is gone in the same way that the story of a person can continue to live on as tangibly as our minds allow.

I feel as though the book and the presentations were overshadowed by a big, looming figure... Mike McIntyre. In journalism we are told to report the facts, but this assignment opened my eyes to the subjectivity that journalists have access to. I mentioned previously how omnipresent the Mennonite faith was in the book, and so on presentation day I expected Wilma Derksen to be a crazy bible-thumper preaching the word of God at every turn. What I saw was a well-spoken, impossibly-cheery mother who has taken an extremely traumatic event and has tried to make some good happen.

What I found most surprising was Wilma’s definition of “faith”, which she defines to be a “comprehensive, well-rounded worldview”. Wilma first credited the communication skills she learned at Red River in helping her get through the trauma and make her initial on-camera plea for the safe return of her daughter. Perhaps she was toning down her spirituality to better connect with the crowd, but the Wilma that McIntyre portrays did not match the mother that I saw. McIntyre also inserted himself throughout the presentation by answering questions that were directed at Wilma and speaking over her. I’d like to have read her book and see her present without the Free Press reporter.

I told Wilma after her presentation that she gave us some really good quotes, you can tell that she’s a journalist. She left me with a very impactful idea, she said “everyone is writing a story, Mark Grant was writing a story, a novel filled with twists and turns. In this modern age, it sometimes feels as though “storytelling” is a thing of the past, but Wilma made me realize that the art form still exists but the parameters have shifted.