As the tundra thaws.

Can it be that it was all so simple then,
or has time rewritten every line ...

That couplet query from the classic tune "The Way We Were" has been crooned by everyone from Doris Day to Gladys Knight, Bassey to Beyoncé - even sampled by Wu Tang, but originally featured in Barbara Streisand's 1973 film of the same title.

Undoubtedly intended for wistful romanticism in the context of the screenplay, the universality of sentiment lends itself to broader interpretation, in the tradition of the greatest song lyrics.

A chilly mid-March trip to Ottawa, the stoic capital of Canada, and a foray to its impressive Museum of Civilization, stirred some misty watercolor memories in the corners of my mind, which I've parlayed into a dot-to-dot, didactic dispatch from the diaspora.



Images of imperial impetus, implicit on London's festooned Coronation Arch, surpass largesse and God's love for King.

This was in fact, brilliant billboard marketing strategy by Canadian politico Sir Clifford Sifton, in encouragement of immigration en masse from Britain, amid the euphoria of Edward VII's crowning.

Invite them and they will come. All so simple then, in 1902.

However, just as each successive singer re-interprets a familiar standard, so too is history, in time, rewritten ... every line.

Sifton's Conservative immigration policies expressly discouraged such "undesirables" as Asians, Jews and Blacks, while millions of Continental Europeans were seduced and settled. Still, post-war, and particularly post-Expo '67, patterns of immigration ensure what's too painful to remember, we can't simply choose to forget.

 

 As my scattered pictures can attest to, the social fabric of Canada is sewn with imported memories from disparate realities and far-flung motherlands. We are a populated, yet sparse Precambrian template where tropic meets temperate, turning tundra into hybrid identity.

Don't tell me Jerk Poutine doesn't make sense in this melange.

Back in the sanctuary of my venerable copper-roofed refuge, the Lord Elgin Hotel (on, you guessed it, Elgin Street - after James Bruce 8th Earl of Elgin who became Governor General of Canada in 1847), I mine for more insight into the way we were.

And I find gold.

It turns out that our good peer, was deployed northward after four challenging years as Governor of Jamaica. From one territory reeling from profit-loss after the end of four hundred years of enforced agricultural labor, to another where farms were selectively granted gratis.

Both lands requiring responsible structural self-governance. A cooling Carib-cauldron, for flux of a frigid frontier, warming up.



But, as I've discovered during this throwback winter-of-old, it can't have been easy as a pioneer, regardless of circumstance. So much so, that even when the weather improves it's advisable to keep looking above, as the thaw presents a discrete set of issues.

This is testimony that nothing is ever truly simple, answering one question in the song - the one about simplicity and time, yet highlighting the next conundrum therein.

If we had the chance to do it all again
Tell me, would we? could we?

A Bigga Ford.

By now you might have heard of the delightful Tessanne Chin. She's that Jamaican songstress and media-darling who recently swept all before her on the way to triumph on "The Voice" USA. Charming, centred, adroit and demure, our Tess rode da riddims of her native wordsong into the hearts and souls of millions.

Well, for every Tessanne, it seems there's an anti-Tessanne.

In a turn of events, closely resembling a Maury Povich premise, Toronto Mayor Rob Ford has become the latest flashpoint Jamaican dialectician. Boombastic epithets, viral memes and all.

A nuh Missis Chin likkle girl dis ... it's the bumboclaat antithesis.

Loyal bro, Doug, stumps for Rob's political survival just like sis Tami pulls for Tessi's rising star. Comparisons end there. Y'see, Tessanne is a goodaz gyal, while our Mayor makes uncool copy and has running beef wit' da local sheriff - Police Chief Bill Blair.

"Babylon newspaper seh so, I and I seh so, so what more the people want to reveal?," mused the Rasta prophet. Now, if everyone's commenting on the same thing, it's that much harder to be original.
Enter those easy-to-reach cultural signifiers for Jamaica, add a dash of reticence to appear culturally adrift - cue tricolour Marley memes.

As Rob rhymes with Bob - bobsled down this linguistic luge with me. Paraphrasing Rastafari dread style and pattern is its own cottage industry. Broadsheets, blogs and twitter parody accounts, like @MayorRobMarley, leap enthusiastically at typical Marley-brand imagery to feed Toronto City Hall's Tuff Gong-show.

 

 

"Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging: and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise." (Proverbs 20:1).

 

Rob Ford's synapses, inebriated and along for the ride, default to bad words in the face of Bacchanal. Not unusual by itself, until incongruity rears its ugly head in a too-cute performance of base guff, communicating on more levels than he likely understands.

And the hits just keep on coming. Wheel up selecta!

  

 Jamaican language is a dynamic mix-up-mix-up of English and Patwa. Perpetually evolving. It is confident and coolly captivating in cadence. Together with its kin, Reggae, we have a contagious combo. Only the uptight are genuinely immune, but the case of  Mr. Mayor shows signs of advanced Yardie-mylitis.

 

Despite being as good a bloodclaat Ja-fake-an mimic as rassclaat Snoop Lion, Natty Rob is no Mystic Man like Peter Tosh, who once scandalized polite society by releasing a song entitled ... yes, "Oh Bumboclaat!"

 

 

My Tessanne Chin references are admittedly a tad gratuitous, but the piece was desperately seeking beautification, y'nahmean?

 

In realworld Jamaica, politicians often flex like rockstars, and cops too. I crack up - no pun intended - visualizing the unseemly outcome if this played out on the public scene there. Rob Ford clashing with a top cop and cussing him all kine a claat! 

 

If, after a storied career, he wasn't approaching retirement I'd have just the match-up. Robamuffin vs. Legendary Supercop (and coincidental namesake), Cornwall "Bigga" Ford. Then again, they're both facing impending retirement, so why not?

 

#Readytorumble meets #Mannersanddiscipline Uptown.

Ringside sell off.

  

Home is where the heat is.

Wintertime must be the mightiest of seasons. During this season few non-arctic organisms can function to full potential without compromising to the elements. This alone suggests mankind and short haired mammals weren't intended to inhabit regions where winter is so powerful. People who do, have adapted in order to do so. The remainder of us prefer to ... er, hang back on that strategy.

Even winters in the Caribbean can be noticeably cooler, but I can't think of a single tropical animal that has to hibernate.

Since there's an exception to every rule, I expect some bright spark to find a South American Singing Tree Sloth that takes long naps, and hype it to counter my argument. Namely, said hypothesis that we ain't supposed to be dealin' wit' environments which make hard, brittle things, out of soft, pliable ones.

Today was so cold I witnessed a traffic signal go from red, to yellow, then not to green, but to blue! Of course that could've been due to an optical illusion that occurs when your cornea freezes, but it's a minor quibble. It sure looked BLUE!

And this is after I saw what happened to that water inside my shut car. Which was inside my closed garage. Yep, you guessed it - frozed up real good, inside the plastic bottle.

That's, like, triple insulation, is it not?

Regional News is reporting loud, unusual subterranean noises. And ground shaking. Frost quakes they're calling them.

Whatchootalkin'boutWillis?

I ran this by the likable local limnologist who lives down the lane. This is Canada. Here, everybody has one of these.
"It makes complete sense," was his confirmation that we are dealing with cryoseisms resulting from the current deep freeze.

If I was a lawyer I'd feel I could rest my case at this point.
Clearly, beyond a reasonable doubt, we need to reassert our national entitlement to the Turks and Caicos Islands.

It's gonna be a long, long winter, for me.

Up around the bend.

Before snow settles on Great White North,

a sunny day pictured, may flatter warm. 

Bright perspective. Ambitious roadside grass,

could too, in the heat of your car,

trade winter-weary wonderment for arrid solstice.

It's good to throw evocative image at the soul,

keep blood flow to tropics of imagination.

Temperate lobes need massage too.  

Leaves on the ground.

Spent verdancy. Can't see forest for bare trees.

Carpet-floor, mossy-rock green. Anticipate a layering blanket.

Then. Remembrance Day scene. Normandy newsreel.

Alice In Wonderland snowball bauble.

Foreboding, even to look outside.

It's gonna be a long, long winter, you see,

as Wailers homage Impressions in

select soundtrack this season. Cold, and dreary, and blue.

 

A longer longtime coming. Simply safe and secure.

Roofs cave in winter without a strong heart.

But turnaround is still fair play,

and full lives continue to grow,

through rotating deep freeze. Long.

Just long enough, 'til time for Tamarack to rewake. 

... moose on da loose ...

... yeah, we all know living out here can be quite harsh,

despite free food aplenty in the rat-pond marsh,

but who doesn't love summers in Algonquin Park,

just don't try to cross highways, especially after dark ...

... I love bucolic lunchtimes on the Canadian Shield,

doin' what I do makes me outstanding in my field,
heh, heh ... stock-still I'm like a picture in a book,
or, I can turn my neck to assume a typical look ...

... of course you guys will stop - stay long as you want,

see my young antlers? ... I'm healthy, not gaunt.

is it such a thrill to watch me graze on tall grass?

hang on a minute ... must you point that lens at my ass? ...

... alright folks, look, I'll turn around, I'll co-operate,

cos' there's one pet-peeve I simply won't tolerate,
too many photos, with none of my good side,

so wait, I'll move closer since it's too late to hide ...

 

... okay, no sudden movements, one line, single file,

just so you know, I only pose once-in-a-while,

there's this cool backdrop, framed by some trees,

take some shots snaps, then on your way ..."cheeese" ...

  

... I'm the main attraction, so I'll flash my best smile,

yep, this mug's got 'em all beat - by a country mile.

 'round here there's the odd beaver and goose, nothin' more,

y'all actin' like y'never seen a loose moose before! ...

... Canucks go burnin' and lootin' ...

... as the joke goes, there was this lighthearted chit-chat on the historic Arsenio Hall show some decades past ... the unforgettable Jamaican DJ Shabba Ranks responds to the host's hockey lead-in by stating, "in Jamaica we don't play hockey, we (h)eat hockey" ... pronunciation being everything, ackee becomes "hockey" and the punchline is complete ...

... well, there was a high-stakes hockey clash last Wednesday and although I was in downtown Toronto for this fateful final game of the NHL season, there were clear sightlines all the way across the prairies, over the snowy mountains and on to the sea ... the coveted Stanley Cup, Holy Grail of the sport, was to be awarded in Vancouver ... perhaps even to Vancouver ...

... having lived in B.C. for many years, the recently concluded playoffs and Stanley Cup run were too "close to home" for me to be unaffected by the hype, in spite of the fact that a hard, slippery puck (oh, for want of a single letter) is essentially foreign to my soul ... as a sporting spectacle, the contest between the American based team from Boston and the Vancouver Canucks was a gripping, bi-coastal, international affair warranting the spotlight it commanded ... both teams had more than the requisite need to triumph, having seen others win for forty years, but one franchise was always going to have to wait for another day ...

... gravitating instinctively to the roundness of a football (soccer) for my sporting kicks, the emotional stakes were less than if I had grown up on skates, but enough to get me to pause face-to-face with a sporty mannequin in the Eaton Centre shortly before the first-period face-off ... he told me all of Canada had co-opted Vancouver's team as flag bearers for this moment in time ... as I mused with the steely-faced "fannequin" in the rolled up sleeves behind the incognito eyewear, I felt myself willing Vancouver to win ... for the sake of a city which has been to this juncture before, with precedent setting consequences ...

... while I wasn't there, images I've seen of riotous fan behaviour, following the decisive Boston victory, can be considered anachronistic, despite the 1994 destruction following a similar last-hurdle disappointment ... this because Van-sterdam has too many positive aspects and accolades to be occluded by comparatively isolated mischief ... repeatedly hailed as one of the world's premier cities and flush with recent Olympic exposure, Van-city can lay claim to having transformed into metropolitan Van-opolis, if not quite the realm of any team-sport elite ...

... increasingly, it seems to be accepted that civic greatness is a function not only of glittering achievements, but also how a city transitions through adversity and challenge ... post-mortems will reveal more about the social complexities of contemporary Canada and value systems bred into future generations, than they will reveal about the contest itself ... my 100% Canuck bredrin-by-the-wall-in-da-mall looks serious, but the marauding feature-creatures on Georgia Street, laughing and dancing, petulantly taunting and camera whoring, were enacting modern rituals ... martyrdom for the uncaring cause of anarchy ...

... it's unclear how some of these guys 'n' gals benefit ... y'see, even if you can successfully jack some Louis Vuitton swag from a shattered storefront, move it all online at irresistable prices for beer-money or next-year season-tickets, who y'gonna tell it to? ... moreso, how y'gonna deny that's you on youtube and facebook with that souvenir tuxedo ecstatically embraced in your grasp? ...

... this Red Bull fed flare-up was no sneak-up ... on the bright side, the authorities gain the sort of experience that should make the next imbroglio less destructive, punishment awaits those who will be identified and those who have oafishly self-identified via digital media ... and then there is the redemptive outpouring of public consciousness regarding anti-social foolishness ...

... "the 'couve" now stands to gain, having added a blemish against which to measure its own greatness ... in big-city terms this is called maturity, which ironically could prove to be the missing intangible when the Canucks do win at a future destiny ...

... (my own) Private Canada ...

... a funny thing happened to Canada during my time away, when I returned the whole place was blue ... which isn't unthinkable considering this is a land that can conjure up the ol' igloo imagery ... please don't tell me you haven't heard the urban-myth/joke-tenet which holds that Canadians are all bilingual ice-dwellers ... ice, like water, being blue ... kinda ... but I digress ...

... having "fast-forwarded" to a time when political conservatism doesn't necessarily mean hardening of the arteries and Liberalism laments it's loss of lustre, the blue I'm observing is a sang-froid PC blue ... worthy of comment, not only because 1993 was the last time Canada had a Conservative majority government, but because, in recent years, inexorable political blue-ing has been tempered by a liberal touch of rouge ...

... embedded in the "blueprint" and original nomenclature of this regrouped party is the instinctively seductive oxymoron Progressive Conservative ... a term which reaches for a middling territory that if we're all honest we'd like to think we can inhabit ... the "progressive" prefix psychologically loosens the reins of conservatism and sets up a rocking abbreviation - catchy, multi-purpose initials ... PC! ...

... but just as easily, as seen south of the border, the script can flip ...

... allow me to represent for the word "liberal" - from the Latin root "liberalis"(another freedom) which somehow acquired a sheen of shame when right-wing pop culture set the context ...

... consider too the mixed (up) shadings within the term Politically Correct - to be correct is good, yeah? ... yet, the words flatter to deceive, proving far too subjective to deliver either correctness or even the promised connotation ...

... in Pan-Canadian terms, there is still per-capita nostalgia for Trudeau style liberalism despite the slipped Grit grip on parliamentary control ... but with tories twiddling the pitch-control knob in virtually every postal-code and owning up to their lack of a rockstar Prince Charming leader, there's probable cause to expect Canada to strut some staid stability for years ... until the pendulum corrects ... meantime, Brigette DePape has decided, braveheart pagegirl princesses can be rockstars too ...

... for more of my favorite things about Canada, see another urban-myth/joke-tenet which casts us as polite pedestrian crossing users, members of a Peace Corps who have Police Constables instead of Po-Po ... a place where the Pacific Coast (and everything east) is just that, Pa-cific, as in peaceful ... and "up there in the beaver-belt" your playboy clubs are littered with pussy-cats eh? ...

... the thing is, it's all true, Canadian flava is served on ice, pretty cool, but we do hold proficiency certificates in some regular "found-all-over-the-world" type stuff as well ...

... private citizens get prostate cancer "up here" too ... Lotto and Petro-Canada make a lotta money! ... pre-natal and palliative care is just about free, but, too many of those who can find jobs punch cards or sort paper-clips to eke-a-living (beware, oblique reggae reference) ...

... the previous century loomed Canada's proto-cultural cloth into is its own kind of blended fabric and we've become our very own parent company, a feat which happened on the Liberal watch, in the interest of keepin' it real ... Prince Charles gets to keep his Kingdom and Privy Counsellors who once lorded, get new peers ... a genteel momentum spins Canada away from empire, but with enough rotation to run a young realm and bring balance to old allegiances ...

... the trick now is to reconcile the concoction of red and blue essences that gives Canada soul, and to season the stew with some-o'-dat Latin liberalis, as provided by Canadians of exotic origin ("exotic" - used the literal way, not any PC one) ... the Maple Leaf flag may only have red on it, but the white spaces, if taken for snow and ice, make frigid blue inescapable and implicit...

... conservative Canada can afford to allow itself to lead, but "Progressive" must preface PC regardless of what PC stands for ... ... except for the, um ... prostate cancer ...

... my kingdom for a newspaper ...

... aah, the curse of the conflicted ... it's a strange feeling to be pining for Canada in February, and doubly incongruent to do it from sunny Caribbean shores, but it's been a long time since a full edition of the Globe And Mail broadsheet landed on my seaside lap ... so try to look past the gentle surf and beckoning turquoise with me, to see this single-day time capsule from my removed island vantage ...

... there I read, warm in my geographic region-of-origin, wistful over that frozen-but-thawing adopted homeland and generally rapt at current events through yankee-eye-view media out of the influential U.S. confederation 'twixt right-here and up-there ... synchronicity with Canada is elusive despite television, fibre-optic cables and wireless internet signals delivering the world to me, but it's pleasantly surprising to approach it via the tactile immediacy of a traditional print format ...

... yeah, I know it's just a newspaper but it's as if the Globe editors did my web-surfing for me ... page one News spoke to a stereotype, or reflected a truth, depending on your interpretation, by reporting on the concussive prerogative that is hockey at home ... inside, the Editorial opined on the persistent immigration discourse, unsurprisingly perhaps, since this is a nation where a full third of the population was born elsewhere ... Op-Ed gave equal ink to domestic and foreign, reflecting a Maple Leaf penchant for collective equanimity ...

... advertising provides a familiar constant, with full-margin plugs for Dodge Caravans or a new Toyota Corolla, and the "field tested" alternate Canadian national emblem, "Rootsy LaBeaver" (my coinage - bilingual pronunciations encouraged), anchors the full-color back page ...

... de rigeur anticipation of a newlywed Royal Couple offsets palpably mid-Atlantic coverage of Arab popular uprisings and gives way to Books, Berlin Filmfest and Bieber in the Arts section ... before the extra-crisp white stock of the Life pullout offers up opulence and a snowy snapshot that teases the winter polarity dormant in my sense memory ...

... from here, Canada sits like a reassuring beret on the head of a rakish sentry ... swag and intemperance can manifest above the US/Canada border too, but y'know 'ow it go, perception precedes truth in most cases ... just like the Caribbean is supposedly about sand, coconuts and snorkeling instructors who also DJ, so too is The Great White North pegged as a land of glaciers, polite mounties and the migratory Canada Goose ...

... this newspaper confirms some truth about Canada but other realities spilleth over ... continuing, Toronto sports reporters tell of mega-gates for Mixed Martial Arts events, a b-ball boo-bird return for ex-Raptor Chris Bosh and a detailed half-page report on Europe's Arsenal vs Barcelona soccer fixture to feed my footie fetish ... the closing of Spadina's Magder fur outlet, champion of Ontario Sunday shopping, was a local footnote signalling a passage of time rather than doomsday, if the tone of "structural realignment" in the Business section is anything to go by ...

... I'm going to presume there wasn't much news fit to print west of the Alberta oil sands and leave that void for another day, or whenever a Vancouver Sun falls on my head ... meanwhile, in this part of the world scarce newspapers serve on as incubatory wrapping for ripening mangoes and papayas ... the subtext is implicit, Canada can be cold and icy but also nurturing at heart ...

... Pierre: une nouvelle famille Canadienne ...

... "Trudeau was like havin' an extra uncle," comes the sound of social worker Gene's voice rising off-screen over grainy film images of metropolitan Toronto in the poignant Canadian feature-film A Winter Tale ...

... I play the character Gene in the scene which involves reminiscence of a time when Canada opened up to an immigration increase from hitherto non-traditional feeder regions, including the island nations of the West Indies ...

... these substantial waves of immigration are commonly attributed to the leadership and vision of the late Pierre Elliott Trudeau, who passed away a decade ago, leading many to pin the hot-button topic of Canadian multiculturalism squarely on his often rose-adorned lapel ...

... the movie scene unfolds and my voice-over segues seamlessly from Gene's wistful memoir into a rallying manifesto from the man himself ..."Canada must be one, Canada must be progressive, and Canada must be a just society!" ... that particular speech being only one of the many memorable legacies of Canada's fifteenth Prime Minister ...

... Canada first came into my Jamaican consciousness in 1967 when my irrepressibly itinerant maternal grandmother felt the urge to get a window on the world by visiting Expo'67 in Montreal ... from then on Canada was on my radar ...

... this timing coincided with the emergence of Trudeau in national politics and pre-figured that fascinating union with the junior Margaret who boosted his fame and bore him three sons ...














... throughout the seventies that same consciousness was fed by a relationship between Jamaican Prime Minister Michael Manley and Pierre Trudeau who had developed a mutual respect at the influential London School of Economics ...

... both charismatic leaders managed to stake out middle-ground in the Cold War and were less confrontational with Cuban jefe Fidel Castro than the regional giant U.S.A. tended to be ...














... Canada's sense-of-self as a nation has always been linked, like the tides are to the moon, to the prevailing winds in America ...

... there's inevitability to that for multiple reasons, but Trudeau always felt strongly that differences between the two close friends should be as honored as the similarities ...

... many of us who became (new) Canadians during Trudeau's tenure understood and agreed, especially when, at times, interests seemed to conflict ...














... one of the enduring/endearing attributes Trudeau radiated was his moral certitude, he could never be called directionless ...

... that spirit, needless to say, is priceless in a politician ...

... when John Lennon (who'd be seventy today) said, "if all politicians were like Pierre Trudeau there would be world peace," one could appreciate the thinking behind this admittedly utopian pronouncement from the peacenik crusader ...













... Lennon himself, famous Beatle that he was, had his moments of fun-loving frivolity while simultaneously harboring keen social conscience ... Pierre too could play court-jester, adding levity to his day job in the serious world ...

... pirhouetting behind the Queen of England, sliding down bannisters, flashing mischievous middle-fingers or coining phrases like "fuddle duddle" are but a few examples ...

... to her credit, that same English monarch, not readily associated with  shenanigans or even amusement, didn't take the Pierre pirhouette as any sort of slight when she inked what was Trudeau's piece de resistance - the hard-fought-for 1982 patriation of The Canadian Constitution ...

... from London to Ottawa, with love ...

... it must be noted in any retrospective on Trudeau that there are those who bristle at the very mention of his name ... as with any politico there's the factor of polarisation to consider ...

... throughout Western Canada for instance, where there is deep-seated resentment at federal expenditure required to maintain official bilingualism, it's easy to spark a barroom brawl by defending Trudeau-era liberalism, and even the concept of hyphenated-nationality and multiculturalism ...

... additionally, in some quarters of Quebec, there is lingering distrust of the part of the Trudeau bloodline that is Anglo ...

... hmmm, maybe there's a lesson in this for Barack Obama ...

... or perhaps the lesson is for eldest son Justin (b. Xmas Day, 1971) now carving his own path in the world of Party Politics ...

... today's landscape is different from his father's so he'll do well to recognize that Pierre-style insouciance may read differently to the contemporary electorate ...

... on the other hand, I suspect he'll also benefit from residual effects of name-association among those who thought fondly of his father and the generations of Canadian voters who are descended from them ...

... after all, if Pierre was like an "extra uncle," then by extension, that makes this guy "cousin" Justin ...

... maple magic ... and music ...

... even though I periodically take a break from caffeine by giving up coffee for months at a time I count myself among those addicted to the brown brew ... medium-strong with a little honey for sweetener is how I take it ... no milk, mochas or macchiato to alter the experience for me ... then the unthinkable happened ... I tried a Canadian grind called Muskoka Maple which hails from Huntsville, Ontario ... there's something about maple sweetness that warms those of us who have spent significant time in this cold country on the edge of the habitable world ...

... the maple leaf imprimateur was everywhere when I got off the plane in Vancouver ... a cultural identifier amplified by the Winter Olympics roadshow which just blew through town ... my American-Airlines itinerary routed me through Miami and Dallas so it felt pleasantly drama-free to meet a receptive Canadian welcome and a freestanding, bar-code reading dalek machine that accepted my declarations at face-value ... admitting me readily to the country of my citizenship ...














... the Swiss-effect passport and experiences like that civil re-entry are big deals to people from other countries and those who have travelled to other countries ... call me naive but I believe that's most of us ... then ... give a thought to the folks who have yet to travel beyond their own borders ... their relationships with home soil are naturally ... colloidal ... where prejudice, pride and protectiveness may feature but ... make no mistake ... the national identity of contemporary Canada is maple-sweetened and strikingly nuanced with complex diversity at the same time ...

... I was here in Hollywood North on business ... usually more than enough reason to do my thing without pausing to smell the cherry blossoms or to regard the grander signs sent to ease the preoccupied mind ... but as fate would have it ... I was about to be treated to some maple magic without actively seeking it out ...













... "so you're an actor ... what restaurant do you work at?..." goes the joke which came to mind when I was approached backstage by Mark Burgess (Dr. Jeremy Franklin on Stargate Universe) ... we worked together in a restaurant a lifetime ago ... it had been many moons since we last saw each other and ... coincidentally ... our former co-worker Jowi Taylor was also in town ...

... Uganda-born Jowi (a Luo name meaning "buffalo") shared mix-tapes with me back in the day before we went in different directions ... I persist as an actor and he has become an alchemist of sorts ... a manufacturer of sacred relics ... a Canadian consciousness-raiser-on-a-mission ... an honorary Buffalo Soldier fighting the good fight with his media-art ... he's most famous perhaps for a guitar made up of sixty-plus pieces of Canadiana which has come to symbolize the national DNA to the extent that it tirelessly tours the country to be experienced, posed with and played by many ... the Canadian Mint even honored the effort with a commemorative coin shaped like a guitar pick ...









... nuff respec' Jowi ... only the passion of a person inspired by the sometimes ill-defined chromosomal weave of Canada could have conceptualised such disparate components into a whole greater than the sum of its parts ... the six string nation guitar ...

... a canoe paddle belonging to Pierre Trudeau ... the only piece ever taken from the three hundred year old Golden Spruce of Haida Gwaii ... Great Bear Lake rock, whale bone, antlers, iconic hockey keepsakes ... pieces of a prairie grain-elevator and the Newfoundland lighthouse that recieved the Titanic distress signal ... black cowboy John Ware, Metis rebel Louis Riel and author Lucy Maud Montgomery are represented, as are Acadian, Doukhobor, Africville artifacts, Montreal club memorabilia and plenty more ... comprising this tangible living history ... I felt compelled to imbue this comprehensive statement with my energy ... and get something intangible in return ...













... Gordon Lightfoot, Colin James, Steven Fearing ... the list of talented players making music on this labour-of-love is long ... I like to think each one finds extra inspiration in the instrument and leaves a bit of soul in the hallowed hollow of Voyageur ... as the six-string-nation guitar is now known ...

... maybe the next strummer will vibe the noodling two-string Jamaica Farewell/Linstead Market melody I plucked out of it ...













... as if the reassuring emotional comfort in making Jamaican sounds on this Canadian guitar, with renewed friendships, over a pint at a popular spot on a spring day in Vancouver wasn't enough ... I could also rest assured in the knowledge that friends in Ontario had sent me a large bag of Muskoka Maple coffee ... effectively bridging the width of this expansive country ... magic! ...

... big up y'self Canada!

... Miss Ivy first son ... and grandson ...

... I carried the photo around with me the whole time we were filming Catwoman in Vancouver ... convinced I would get a chance to show it to Halle Berry who was in town taking her turn as the feline fury... she had not yet wedded her settlin' down man, which added a touch of spice to the possibility ...

... in the black and white posed shot was a boy, of around five, and his doe eyed mother ... looking at the image it strikes me that both of them have so much life ahead of them ... such is the benefit of hindsight ... the Jamaica this woman had returned to serve after post-graduate study abroad was embracing independence and had turned a page in the annals of its history as a jewel of the colonial British Empire ... for that boy it was the early stages of a journey through changing times ... a journey that now features his blogging in this space, almost half a century later, in honor of the woman who raised him ...

















... her face looks for all it's worth like Dorothy Dandridge, the American actress whose own browning black beauty represented a standard of the day ... inevitably portrayed by Halle ... our Miss Ivy was often mistaken for the screen idol around the Columbia University campus in 50's New York ... these were Pete Seeger times, Stokely Carmichael, Belafonte, Lena Horne and optimism ...

... back home, mento was giving way to ska, Oxford english was yielding to more dynamic patois and urban areas developed new ways to project their kinetic energies ... Kingston needed teachers, and with both parents in that profession it was unsurprising that this mother-of-two also taught ... a teacher of teachers at Mico College (est.1835), the oldest teacher-training institution in the Western Hemisphere ...

... Ivy-league you might say ...

... church and hospital committees, volunteer endeavours, raising two boys in a rapidly growing society .... wife, mother, daughter, sister, nation-builder ... complete the picture of selfless service to God, kin and country ...

... there are indelible memories of the heady Michael Manley era which transformed the minds of the nation before and after the landmark 1972 election ... the political maelstrom was at once exciting and promising as it was foreboding and fractious, resulting in new realities of greater self-awareness, devalued currency and passionate pride in the ever-expanding global footprint some now call Brand Jamaica ... warts and all ... the memories of the same period for Miss Ivy carry adjectives more suited to her perspective which by this point had become more focussed on futures for her sons than collective infrastructures ...














... by the time the seventies had blown by the photos were boasting color, bigger hair and our maturing-yet-ageless protagonists were on the move ... part of the destiny of a small place is to look beyond its borders and spread out ... this is not a phenomenon that can be linked solely to political weather or a single generation ... the common binding factor has to be a search for betterment, an umbrella phrase that encompasses all reasons for emigration ... and like her mother before her, another Miss Ivy, the Dominion of Canada, warts and all, was chosen as a new frontier with new opportunities ...












... how you approach challenges is part of the legacy you leave ... Ivy senior was as unflappable as the Dalai Lama and just as jovial ... while Ivy junior proved to be resilient, resourceful and intrepid enough to start anew as an overqualified clerical temp en-route to an almost year-long Swiss-appointed mental health consultancy in Namibia at the behest of the United Nations ...

... the countdown to the millenium was speeding up and no-one knew definitively what the year 2000 would look like ... Ivy senior went to meet her maker before the big party and the rest of us will forever be trying to match her spirit and sense of humor ... she herself, as a music fan and popular-culture afficionado, would have gotten a huge kick out of pre-eminent dancehall personality Rodney Price a.k.a. Bounty Killer, Warlord or ... Miss Ivy Last Son ... and his mother, you guessed it ... Miss Ivy ...

... for my mother the millennium brought a well earned retirement within which all her talents from classroom and workplace still work in tandem with her spiritual strength in service of community and her sons and their children ...

... in retrospect, this is the chat that would probably have spewed forth if I met Halle and she had seemed remotely interested ... the description of the matriarchy that nurtured me ... the tale of the Dandridge look-alike and her mother ... the men with whom they made homes ... the life stories that informed rock-solid faith, strength to raise families while aging gracefully and productively ... Halle might have called for security ...

... I can hear the mama-mantra ... "the Lord works in mysterious ways my son" ... perhaps it's a good thing I never met Halle Berry then, falling as I do, somewhere on the spectrum between her two ex-husbands in appearance ... our characters never crossed paths in the movie, I didn't even go to the wrap party when filming was over ... but if I meet her now, preferably on another project, I'd still show her the old photo and for added inspiration, update it with an image of a real superhero who continues to live the full life ...