i heart...

Last week, I watched a really sweet film called No Heart Feelings. While the film is very much about relationships and friendship - specifically a break up, and the post break up tribulations we all face - it is also an ode to Toronto. The film is shot in the city, and unapologetically so. This is not Toronto masquerading as an American city. Spots like Aunties & Uncles, OCAD and 401 Richmond are shown, as are galleries, parks and familiar streetscapes. It's so pleasant to watch a film set in this city, about this city. (Another such film is This Movie is Broken, which has a requisite great soundtrack given that a free BSS concert held during last summer's City strike is central to the movie.)

Asheville, NC

Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will.

                                                                                                                                  - Mahatma Gandhi

Today, I watched the documentary Prom Night in Mississippi - with the apt tag line "nothing changes until you do". I had been wanting to watch it since hearing an interview with the filmmaker on the radio last year. It's hard to believe that in this day and age, a high school in Mississippi was having separate proms for its students. It seems that it took Morgan Freeman and a documentary crew for the students, school, and school board to recognize that this was an archaic notion - and still some parents wouldn't let their children attend. The idea that prom ought to be integrated was too much for some of the parents to take. Some parts of this documentary were eye opening for me.  In theory, I understood that there are some attitudes that remain prevalent in parts of the southern US. But, I couldn't quite wrap my head around the reality.  This doc is definitely worth watching. 


Next up on my list: The Bodybuilder and I. This was a very compelling doc about a 59-year-old bodybuilder competing to be the top of his age category. The person documenting this quest is his 26-year-old son.  While this is indeed a documentary about bodybuilding, this is secondary to the filmmaker's own narrative, as he tries to come to terms with the fact that his father abandoned him when his parents divorced. Through the process of making the doc, he strives to come to terms with his anger, to know his father, and to find a way to forgive, and move forward. 

let the vision of art heal

When I was in London in 2007, I discovered this Ben Okri poem at City Hall. The words resonated with me, and I continue to think about the phrase "let the vision of art heal". What would we do without poets and storytellers - visual and otherwise? This art, found on the streets of NYC, appealed to me. What better place than a wall, to start a dialogue?

One of the magic centres
Of the world;
One of the world's
Dreaming places.
Ought to point the way
To the world.
Here lives the great music
Of humanity
The harmonisation of different
Histories, cultures, geniuses,
And dreams.
Ought to shine to the world
And tell everyone
That history, though unjust,
Can yield wiser outcomes.
And out of bloodiness
Can come love
Out of slave-trading
Can come a dance of souls,
Out of division, unity;
Out of chaos, fiestas.
City of tradition, conquests,
And variety;
City of commerce and the famous river,
Tell everyone that the future
Is yet unmade.
Many possibilities live in your cellars.
Nightmares and illuminations.
Boredom and brilliance.
Tomorrow's music sleeps
In undiscovered orchestras,
In unmade violins,
In coiled strings.
Spring waits by the lakes,
Listening to the unfurling daffodils.
Summer lingers with the hyperborean worms,
Awaiting an astonishing command
From the all-seeing eye of Ra.
Tomorrow's music sleeps
In our fingers,
In our awakening souls,
The blossom of our spirit,
The suggestive buds of our hearts.
Tell everyone the idea
Is to function together,
As good musicians would
In undefined future orchestras.
Let the energy of commerce flow.
Let the vision of art heal.
Technology, provide the tools.
Workers of the world
Re-make the world
Under the guidance of inspiration
And wise laws.
Create the beautiful music
Our innermost happiness suggests.
Delight the future.
Create happy outcomes.
And while Autumn dallies
With the West wind
And the weeping nightingales
And while Winter clears its sonorous throat
At the Antipodean banquets
Preparing for a speech of hoarfrost
And icicles conjured from living breath,
I want you to tell everyone
Through trumpets played with
The fragrance of roses
That a mysterious reason
Has brought us all together,
Here, now, under the all-seeing eye of the sun.


                             - Ben Okri, Lines in potentis