Recent Uploads tagged flicktion, with geodata

Tremors

nobody@flickr.com (misskfujii) — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 20:41:01 -0700

misskfujii posted a photo:

The tiny museum stood by the side of the dusty dessert road like a lone piece of driftwood in the sand. Murals faded by the sizzling California sun depict moments that put this town on the map. Just five dollars and I too was transferred into the world of cowboys, Indians, stagecoaches and The Wild West. After using fifteen minutes of my life viewing a mediocre show of all of the films that were shot in The Sierra Nevada Mountains, I got to see costumes and props used by the actors that my grandfather and grandmother adored at the time of their courtship. Patiently I walked through the exhibits to see Roy Roger’s costumes, the saddle that John Wayne straddled and the leather Stetson Hats, stained with the sweat of these men. Then I followed my brother’s voice, turned a corner, and felt my heart start pounding in amazement in amazement.
The secret back room was the home to my favorite exhibit, and one of my favorite childhood movies, The Tremors. The model of the General Store looked just as it did when I visited there so many times in my childhood. The autographed posters of Kevin Bacon and Reba Mc Entire held my attention as I circled every inch of their autographs with my eyes, daydreaming about where they first signed. Did they know that it was now here, in this shack in the center of the dessert? Did they know that their low budget film would become a cult-classic, or at least a classic to me? The models of the human eating worms were painted with pristine strokes and gentle details. They did not seem treacherous in this back room like they did on the screen when I was young. Instead, they were pieces of art, pieces of movie history, and pieces of my youth.
To others who came into the corner of the museum, these gross worms with tentacles flaring out of their mouth were disgusting and not as important as the spurs that Val Kilmer ore in Tombstone. But to me, the life-size foam props actually used in the movie symbolized a special time of my life. Those gross blind worms were what my brother and I flocked to the TV at night to see, over and over. We would snuggle in under the covers munching on buttered microwave popcorn that my dad bought in bulk at Wal-Mart. We’d keep each other company, even scaring one another, while our parents worked next door. Those alien-like creatures were a bond between us, and helped build a base for the relationship today.
So you see, sometimes a place does not have to be grand or expensive to make a special memory. Sometimes the silliest or insignificant objects to other people may be the most important to you. Who would have thought that a crummy museum in the middle of no-where, that is a home to one of the most ridiculous stories ever made, could bring back so many heart-warming memories?

The Train Stopped Here

nobody@flickr.com (misskfujii) — Sat, 07 Apr 2012 23:10:39 -0700

misskfujii posted a photo:

Railroad Tracks. An everyday object in our lives. But these tracks are different.
The citizens of Danask, Poland did not have tracks in their town until World War II. These tracks were built for one purpose only: to bring the Jewish people and prisoners of Poland to Stutthof Concentration Camp.
Perhaps the most chilling part of my trip to Stutthof was seeing these tracks miles before we arrived the camp. The tracks are now overgrown with wild flowers in the resident’s front yards. Everyday, citizens drive or walk over them, but they are no longer used. They were built for one purpose only.
The thought of the innocent being transported, the thought of their fear as they huddled together in the cars, the thought of what panicked thoughts were running through their minds as the train finally stopped. All of those thought are more than what I will ever be capable of knowing; I can only assume that the people on the cars wished that that train would continue on and drop them off at their own homes. But these tracks were built for one purpose only.

Remember the Dead

nobody@flickr.com (misskfujii) — Sat, 07 Apr 2012 18:14:49 -0700

misskfujii posted a photo:

This cross is a memorial to all that were killed in this camp, especially around this area.

Train tracks into the camp

nobody@flickr.com (misskfujii) — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 02:12:06 -0700

misskfujii posted a photo:

No railroad was in this part of Poland at the beginning of the war. The tracks were built in order for prisoners to be transported.

Camels in Amsterdam

nobody@flickr.com (borkur.net) — Sat, 20 Jan 2007 01:34:48 -0800

borkur.net posted a photo:

On Rokin I turned left an walked up the narrow Langebrugsteeg. It had been relatively cold in Amsterdam for the past week. It had even snowed---a rare event in this city. On a normal day I would have gone to the university on my bicycle but with the arrival of the snow I decided it was safer to walk. I also liked walking in the snow. I loved the sound of snow cracking under the sole of my boot. I guess I felt homesick. I missed the snow back home in Iceland.

Langebrugsteeg turned into Grimburgwal and the street got wider. As I approached the Sleutelbrug bridge I saw an odd sight that had yet become familiar to me over the last few days. A junkie on the bridge with a bactrian camel.

When it started snowing a few days earlier I was surprised to see how quickly the native Amsterdammers replaced their bicycles with camels. In a matter of a few hours all bicycles had disappeared from the streets. Everywhere you looked you could see people going about their business on their camel.

It can be dangerous to ride a bicycle when the streets are covered with snow---it is too slippery. Camels are better suited for snow. They have an incredibly good grip and an excellent sense of direction.

As I crossed the bridge the junkie came up to me and whispered: "Camel kopen?". I ignored him and kept on walking. He realized I was not a native. He followed me and decided to make me another offer---now in English: "Want to buy a camel? It is only 10 euros." I shook my head and walked on---faster than before.

Camel thefts are very common in Amsterdam. Many junkies finance their addiction by stealing camels overnight and then sell them the following day. I was very surprised by the lack of care that some people show their camels. Everyone knows that one should always lock her camel with at least two good camel-locks and always make sure to lock it to something that is fixed to the ground. Yet some people do not. Their camels sometimes get stolen.

Before entering the university building on Binnengasthuisstraat, I looked over the camel stalls. Long rows of camels eating hay and waiting patiently for the return of their owners---preparing for the ride back home. The sight made me wonder if I should have taken the junkie's offer. I wanted my own camel.

I decided I would go to the camel rental on Dam after class and rent myself a camel. It would not make sense to buy one. The snow would not stay long and I would graduate and move away from Amsterdam before next winter.

For more stories see Urban Volcano.

Subway tunnel

nobody@flickr.com (borkur.net) — Sat, 20 Jan 2007 00:39:35 -0800

borkur.net posted a photo:

Jochum de Boer wanted his body to instantly sink into the sandy Amsterdam soil below him. He was so ashamed of himself. The building inspector had not responded positively to his suggestion. "Can we not flush away the sand from under the construction and sink it into the ground -- down to the appropriate depth," he had suggested. The building inspector had looked at him with burning fury in his eyes and responded, "You stupid idiot".

---

Jochum had woken up early this morning. He had not slept well. He felt both nervous and excited. He had a big day ahead of him. It was two months into Jochum's first project as a construction supervisor. Today, the Amsterdam building inspector would come around and check up on the progress. Jochum was quite sure that the inspection would go well. He had followed the blueprints in every detail and was sure that everything was going according to plan. Yet, he was a bit nervous. He did not know why. Could there be something that he had overlooked?

Jochum took a long shower. He liked taking long showers. It helped him relax. The time in the water helped him clear his mind as well as cleaning his body. After the shower the nervousness was gone but the excitement remained. No, there could not be anything he had overlooked. Everything was as good as it could be. He was going to pass his first inspection with a top grade.

When Jochum arrived to the construction site in Damrak and looked at his construction he felt the nervousness again. There was something odd about this construction. Yet, Jochum could not figure out what it was. It was just odd in some odd way.

While he waited for the arrival of the building inspector Jochum looked over the blueprints once again. Then he looked at the construction. As far as he could see there was a perfect match between the blueprints and the construction. He could find no sensible explanation of the oddness of the construction. It was probably just designed this way. It was an odd design.

Jochum looked out the window and saw the building inspector's car drive toward the construction site. Jochum rushed outside to greet the inspector. But as he approached he could see on the expression on the inspector's face that something was wrong -- terribly wrong. At the same instance Jochum realized what was wrong with his construction. He realized that he had made a terrible mistake.

"What on Earth is this construction?" shouted the building inspector. Jochum noticed the irony in the inspector's words. The construction should not be on the Earth -- but in the Earth. Before Jochum could even try to come up with an answer, the building inspector continued, shouting even higher: "Did it never cross your silly little mind that a subway tunnel should be a tunnel? -- underground?" It had not, but Jochum did not answer the inspector. He did not think that his answer would be heard -- even if he answered. How could he explain that he had accidentally built a subway tunnel above ground?

The building inspector stared at him in furious anger. Jochum had to think quick. He had think up a plan that would make up for his mistakes. Something clever. The only thing Jochum could think of was to suggest to the building inspector that they could perhaps flush the sand away from under the construction and sink it into the ground -- down to the appropriate depth.

---

Jochum broke down and started to cry. His tears fell down onto the sand around him. He cried harder and harder. The sand around him got wet from all the tears. Jochum started sinking into the wet sand. His wish had started to come true.

For more stories see Urban Volcano.

Remembering Jennifer Naglingniq (1989-2002)

nobody@flickr.com (ocean.flynn) — Wed, 06 Dec 2006 18:10:17 -0800

ocean.flynn posted a photo:

I don't remember when it started. But I know that after this it got worse. A few days after Jennifer was killed my class was canceled because the RCMP had shut down the entire capital of Nunavut --- well, they told the taxi service to no longer take calls. Later we found out that someone with a rifle on a snowmobile was riding around town shooting randomly in the air. We were told there was no danger. Jennifer's murderer was not found during my entire stay that term. When taxis were back in service we would sometimes drive close to her home surrounded by the police yellow tape. An RCMP officer came over to chat with the taxi driver. My route was no where near but taxis are shared in Iqaluit so you never know where you might find yourself. I was not afraid for myself since the violence in Nunavut is Inuit against Inuit. But I was afraid. The death as described by so many people was so violent. It was more like an unpaid drug dealer's cruel and cowardly threat to someone else. Jennifer was chosen as the victim. There was no explanation.
I began to understand why Inuit youth from Iqaluit listened to Tupak and related to the violence described in his rap music from the Hood.

We all sat there in the overcrowded auditorium in Inukshuk High School. We held candles, remembered the women victims of violence in Montreal but everyone thought of Jennifer. In the background was a stretched seal skin, a cultural symbol of the community. Paututiit, the Inuit Women's association used this as a symbol of unity where each peg serves the purpose of stretching the skin evenly. Each is needed. each has equal value. If Jennifer had not been so violently killed she would probably not be part of my everyday life years later. There are some images you cannot forget, at least I cannot.

Meda coverage: "On Friday, Dec. 6, 2002, 13-year-old Jennifer Naglingniq, of Iqaluit, Nunavut, helped her teacher hang Christmas decorations. A few hours later she was dead, xxx murdered in her home. Her mother, CBC Iqaluit program clerk Nicotye Naglingniq, found her body when she returned home shortly after midnight. Wende Tulk, Jennifer's home room teacher at Inuksuk high school, says Jennifer was a special student - bright, with high marks and a natural leader. "People listened to her. You know when she graduated she would be doing great things."; She was an enthusiastic soccer player and just bought new soccer shoes the day before she was killed. Tulk will be haunted by Jennifer's dyed-orange ponytail, her beautiful voice and her positive attitude. "She was always singing, always happy." She said that Jennifer - and her final act of helpfulness - won't be soon forgotten. " We're going to leave those Christmas decorations up all year now."
xxxx, 24, was charged with Jennifer's murder but was released from Baffin Correctional Centre a few days later, when the charge of first degree murder was stayed.. The Crown decided the case against xxxx wasn't strong enough to proceed at this time. The Crown has one year to reactivate the case. The RCMP say they are continuing the investigation. Police are not revealing how Jennifer was murdered, saying that only them and the murderer know how she died.
Please support the Jennifer Naglingniq Memorial Fund. A memorial fund has been set up to create an annual award in Jennifer’s name for a student at Inukshuk high school who contributes to making Iqaluit a better place. Donations can be made at the CBC Toronto Credit Union in the Jennifer Naglingniq Memorial Fund account 9879 or through the Bank of Montreal in Iqaluit, account 3635 8040 108. You can also send your donation to: The Jennifer Naglingniq Memorial Fund, P.O. Box 490, Iqaluit, NU X0A 0H0. Please give generously. The deadline for donations at the CBC Toronto Credit Union may be expired (Source 2002?."

Arctic Adventurer: a Flicktion

nobody@flickr.com (ocean.flynn) — Thu, 30 Nov 2006 20:15:16 -0800

ocean.flynn posted a photo:

In the few short months that I have spent in Nunavut, two mothers who had become my colleagues and friends, lost youthful sons to suicide. Within a brief period of two months, four youth in a community of less than 1,500 people committed suicide. Almost the entire community attended the funeral. The hall was filled with infants, toddlers, children, youth, adults and elders. The youngest children wove between chairs and family members comfortably a part of community life. Youth dressed in southern street-smart clothing respectfully gave their seats to elders. The shared pain in the room at the loss of their youth through suicide, was suffocating. At the graveside, it was cold and windy. It began to snow. As one mother witnessed the shovel-fulls of sand thudding onto her son's coffin, another walked quietly alone to another fresh grave nearby. I stood there helpless feeling so overwhelmed I couldn't move. I know many others felt the same paralysis. How many of us were mothers? How many of us had sons in their twenties?

The family of the young man, colleagues and friends provided support to the parents and to each other. On the return flight home, one man was unusually upbeat and talkative. Perhaps that is his way of dealing with the pain. I didn't know who he was. He sat behind me. As I left the plane I asked the woman next to me who this man was. To my astonishment it was the *** for Nunavut.

Following the suicides, friends and acquaintances attempted to find ways of absorbing yet another tragedy. Some felt anger at the youth who committed suicide. Many expressed feelings of numbness. Some regretted their own inability to know what to do. They felt guilty for not knowing how to prevent it. Like many others I feel a sense of powerlessness.

December 11, 2002: While waiting for my plane at the Iqaluit airport I met a physician-researcher who had just completed a report on the Nunavut Ministry of Health. She told me about a two-hour conversation she had with a man called TNC in a hotel bar in Rankin Inlet. TNC had lost a friend to suicide. He was deeply bothered by his loss. He went to see a nurse. The nurse became very uncomfortable when Tommy mentioned he was depressed and upset by this suicide. She sent him to a Social Worker. The Social Worker was also ill at ease. She called the police. TNC spent the night in jail. They were concerned he might hurt himself. Because the small hamlet had no counselling services, TNC was flown to Yellowknife. He was separated from the only real support system he had --- his mother and grandmother in Rankin Inlet. Later on the plane I sat beside a young man GRB. GRB worked for Baffin Correctional Centre. He started there in c.1996. He told me about a millionaire who made his fortune by buying high-end buildings in Iqaluit, then renting them at high rents to the Nunavut Government. GRB loved speed --- the speed of the snow machine. His best moments were out on the land with a half a dozen friends on powerful machines. His work bothered him. He felt surrounded by uneducated, untrained fellow-workers --- many of whom came from Halifax --- who cared little for the young offenders. Many were there because they could earn huge salaries --- especially with overtime. Some of them didn't even have high school education and in Iqaluit they were earning much more than they ever could in the Maritimes. It frustrated him to see how these untrained workers wanted to work by the book to earn points from the supervisors. Sometimes a situation could be diffused before it became violent and ugly. By rigidly following the book, a small incident could escalate into an ugly incident very quickly. GRB came to know the offenders so he knew how to calm things. Increasingly the workers who lacked experience but were older than him, made the situations worse. GRB noticed the most improvement in the youth came through the on-the-land program. Youth would spend a couple of months with the elders. They came back healthier and more confident. He commented on the work of the psychiatrist Dr. Q He said that Dr. Q tried to prevent the worst from happening but he was not really in control of the situation. He was not able to make all the decisions that would be beneficial to the youth. GRB said that Iqaluit youth threatening suicide would be sent to the Youth detention centre. He would be stripped down, showered and then given 'baby dolls' to wear before being locked in a safe cell where he could do himself no harm. (What a contrast to the treatment my friend's son received in Ottawa. )

June 2002: This text will change organically as the flicktion develops.

July 2009: This image was selected to be part of a phenomenal project entitled "We Feel Fine."

November 2009: The book launch of We Feel Fine

wefeelfine.org/book/#

Folksonomy II

nobody@flickr.com (ocean.flynn) — Wed, 25 Oct 2006 22:33:31 -0700

ocean.flynn posted a photo:

Using Adobe Photoshop I layered Friedrich's (1818) Voyageur au-dessus de la mer de nuages, a Google Earth generated image of Garibaldi Mountain region, British Columbia (49.51.20.64N - 122.57.18.09W elev 6026' eye alt 13964) and my del.icio.us/ocean.flynn.

Since I began exploring the cyberworld I have felt a similar vastation experience of infinity that terrified philosopher William James. We don't live in James' world of modernity anymore. In 2006 serious brilliant thinkers present compelling arguments stating that consciousness, including higher consciousness is merely a chemical reaction. Are moral and aesthetic judgments merely chemical?

When in 1818 Caspar David Friedrich (1774 - 1840) painted Voyageur au-dessus de la mer de nuages he was deeply influenced by Goethe and Runge's concepts of colour and Goethe's affirmation that nature was the new Bible. Friedrich rejected the art of Greek and Roman antiquity based on fables and fantasy which placed the gods in an unattainable sublime world. Friedrich preferred Nordic legends where humans retained their humanity in a natural world. Art could mediate between man and nature. He echoed Schelling's concept of the artist who could reveal the secrets of the universe that were hidden in nature. Art could bring the sublime to man by revealing the power of nature that was both beautiful and terrifying, familiar and strange. Confronted with the vastation of infinity revealed in nature man can lose himself in God. The belief in the omnipresence of God was adopted by the Romantics as a form of pantheism. God was present in a grain of sand. Nature itself was the New Bible, the Sacred Book through which the infinite could be known by man. Landscape painting was elevated by the Romantic artists to the highest order of painting. Through landscape painting the Romantic artist could present the Sublime. (It was considered to be among the lower forms of painting with the historical painting of the academics like Benjamin West being the highest.)

This is also uploaded to photoblog

Aflicktion: Letters to Cyberspace

nobody@flickr.com (ocean.flynn) — Tue, 10 Oct 2006 10:26:14 -0700

ocean.flynn posted a photo:

The fireplace is casting a blanket of warmth through our cottage home but I still feel chilled. The small lake is as clear as a mirror today, leaves reflected in and floating on the surface burn with rich colours but I can’t really enjoy them today.

It was October 2002 and the cottage was on Bell Lake in the Gatineau Hills of Quebec. I had just spent three weeks in Iqaluit, Nunavut getting the academic year's courses underway. Within a few days of my return to the Ottawa area the youth suicide epidemic struck again. I wrote this letter to cyberspace but I really did not expect any response.

Yesterday my urban Inuit students in their course on Inuit art, spoke of death --- too many deaths, too many funerals and fresh graves in small communities where almost no one is left untouched. Another youth, Jimmy took his life last weekend in Iqaluit, Nunavut. The suicide rate in North America’s far north has no equal anywhere on our globe. We couldn't just talk about sculpture, prints and drawings. I strained to hear not just to listen . . . to force time to slow down. I was out of sync with the cadence of their voices. These are supposed to be the learners but I am learning from them. They were grappling with the loss of someone who was a real embodied presence throughout their youth and childhood. I needed them to help me understand. I speak too fast with too many words.

Seventeen hours later after trying to watch brain candy or tranquilize my mind with the hues and saturations of the lake leaves, I am still unable to settle in to my real world obligations. So I am writing letters to cyberspace addressing them to journalists. We are connected. NYT journalists do not simply produce our news stories, they construct our communal archives. The political philosophies that appear in the Times columns inform conversations internationally. Decisions made, policies enacted, interventions, transactions and agreements undertaken in New York, California, Washington, Kyoto, Rio Janeiro, The Hague, Tel Aviv, Baghdad, Beijing, Winnipeg, Ottawa and Toronto have as much --- if not more --- impact than conversations and consultations held in Nunavut. Assumptions and debates about the market, big or small government, direct democracy, policing, racial profiling, drugs, welfare, poverty, taxes that are covered in the pages of the New York Times impact far beyond the space on the grid of a New York mile and the time contained in a New York minute.

This is not Jimmy’s story. Inuit have tried hard to teach me that I cannot tell their stories. I can only tell my story through my eyes and my experience. Jimmy used to live in Iqaluit, Nunavut. He had a good construction job and his friends knew him as a young man who had a lot to live for.

Construction in Nunavut is booming. Entrepreneurs come north for several years or decades and legally amass fortunes as they rush ahead to improve southern Canada’s GNP by building, renting and leasing northern dwellings at prices several times the cost of a similar dwelling in the south. This is a boon to government workers and the upper middle class both Inuit and non-Inuit. According to the logic of the marketplace, this will eventually trickle down to the Inuit who are the most disadvantaged in the North in regards to underemployment, access to education, health and housing. But the youth are dying so quickly I don’t know how many will be there to benefit when help finally does arrive. In the midst of this construction boom many Inuit are still living in overcrowding conditions shockingly comparable to the Third World. Nunavut is a conflicted region of great promise after negotiating a more equitable relationship to the rest of Canada but it is also a region of ever-deepening despair. Extremes of wealth and poverty co-exist with intimacy that is too close for comfort.

Last week Jimmy was part of the boom. He was one of the fortunate Inuit who had found a job. The friends who introduced me to Jimmy through their memories of him, described a young man full of promise. The cadence of the conversations yesterday, like many kitchen table conversations with First Nations, Inuit and Metis friends resonates with the dialogue and silences that narrate the ‘long take’ vistas of a Zach Kunuk video. One of the students from the Igloolik area --- where Atanarjuat was filmed --- spent yesterday afternoon tracing intricate trails in red on a university photocopy of a 1-125,000 map of the islands, waterways and mainland that he knew intimately from his years of traveling with his grandfather. As he traced the pathways, he meticulously wrote the names of familiar places in red syllabics. From time to time he would explain the meaning of these coded words. Each place name described the physical space so accurately it was as though he succeeded in breaking the code that unlocked Borges’ ‘Art of Cartography.’ As he spoke, Julia whispered warnings about imposed flag post place names like Fury Strait. He created a virtual image for me --- and anyone else in the room who strained to listen. The images, sounds and smells he evoked were themselves Hauntings. As he traced and retraced these red pathways that barely covered inches on the photocopied map --- I, the cyborg collector of digital archives, could take a Janet Cardiff’s Wanås Walk… three-hour hikes… seven-hour hikes to his favourite places… seeing panoramas vicariously through his eyes… hearing silence and the wind, tasting… smelling. The place names acknowledged the super natural market of food supplies available to travelers who had local knowledge. He indicated and word painted the tiny island called Tern Island where his father was born.

He fingered the miniscule unmarked place on the map haunted by the toxicity of the abandoned Dew Line site that is socially, historically, politically, emotionally and physically charged. These stories of these sites, like the stories of the many suicide martyrs, have been erased from communal memory. But the threat of their toxins is a constant reminder of the fragility of the micro ecosystem of this unique place.

The island of Igloolik --- the place of many dwellings --- is where the family of my guide on my vicarious journey, returned for generations. Centuries of overlapping circular trails could be traced on this map in sharp contrast to the grid-like pattern of modernity cut into a New York mile of urban architectural spaces. The layered trails would represent countless seasonal journeys from hunting camp to fishing camp traveling on foot, by dogsled, kayak, Peterhead, snow machine or by foot. Like so many isolated places in the North --- Igloolik --- has been inhabited by the semi-nomadic Inuit for centuries if not millennia. Travelers walking on the land still come across centuries-old natural museums, archives and caches that should have been forgotten. Because the archives are not written, there is an assumption that they do not exist. But the tundra itself has written the story of the early travelers in vivid colours on ancient abandoned sites. Tiny resistant plants that flourished on organic accumulative remains unlock the entrance to the site of ancient bones and tusks. Discarded objects and ancient bones tell stories of those who traveled before.

How far can you go in a New York minute? How many miles are encompassed in the Wall Street grid? How much widescreen and close-up geography can be covered in the longue duree, the ‘long take’, the extended view that echoes natural time. Jimmy’s identity was a personal geography he inhabited, composed of endlessly repeated everyday habits haunted by a communal history that resists the forced act of forgetting.

This week Jimmy’s life and story is beginning a process of being wiped out, completely erased, deleted from communal memory. In an everyday life process his image is beginning already to move from opacity to transparency in the painful but unspoken process of total erasure from a community’s memory. Once the local memory is completely gone, the tiny byte of time and place that he once occupied will be irretrievable from the meta files of data being processed in this the age of the great flood of the archives. If he had children they will never know their father’s story. His image will not be found in photo albums nor will laughter at his exploits be shared around kitchen tables. His name --- if it ever does come up again --- will be spoken only in whispers. Jimmy is not being cruelly punished for dying young. His memory, his life is doubly and triply erased in a desperate attempt to save the youth around him. In Iqaluit, Nunavut there is still nowhere for those youth-at-risk to go for help. They are living and dying through the worst epidemic of suicide on the planet.

When my granddaughters are reading the socio-economic, cultural and political histories of North America several decades from now, how will the story be told? How can and will the bones of this entire generation of our youth be explained and justified? These are our youth. They are not Canadian or American. They are North American.

Maureen Flynn-Burhoe
October, 2003
Bell Lake, Quebec, Canada

I had just returned from Iqaluit, Nunavut where I had set up two courses. I had developed a northern-centred course on Human Rights that was I was teaching along with the Introduction to Sociology I had taught from January to June in 2002. I didn't really want to return to Nunavut but the Director and administrators of the Centre for Initiatives in Education really wanted me to go again. Last term was such a success they had signed an agreement with Nunavut Arctic College President, McClenning. But the Inuit Art Foundation in Ottawa wanted me to teach their courses again as well. So I was commuting between Iqaluit and Ottawa. My own PhD was moving too slowly.

Email correspondence in response to letter

Date: Fri, 24 Oct 2003 16:01:08 -0400
Subject: Re: An Epidemic of Youth Suicide
To: Maureen Flynn-Burhoe

From a friend and mother who works in education in Iqaluit, Nunavut

Thank you for your for sensitive insights and for taking action. Your letter is very eloquent and persuasive. I am at my wits end with the number of deaths as it impacts so terribly on the youth left behind. I had to get my x out of town once again at the end of August after a friend died in a wasteful and tragic car accident. x stayed out visiting family and friends, then joined x and I for Thanksgiving in our x house. It was so peaceful and sane. We all returned on Sunday. The very first phone call to x was from a friend informing x of Jimmy's suicide. x had worked with Jimmy last summer at x. x just collapsed and all the healing seems for nought. Yet x went to the funeral yesterday, but today x hasn't really risen from bed. And at lunch today, I heard that x's step son (really her grand son) died last night, a possible suicide, but we won't know until the autopsy is completed. He was only 19. I think we may have to move away, just in order to keep our x healthy and optimistic about life and youth. Again, though you letter so beautifully articulated the problem. I hope they respond.

From a friend, an anthropologist in Israel working with an off-campus Social Work program for Bedouin women:

Your letter arrived just in the right time to strengthen my belief that, after all, we are connected by some sort of a great path leading us to the same places, meeting us at some crossroads. In two days I am about to start a new course named "Inter-cultural Training in Human Services". Your letter will certainly be shared with the students at the beginning of the course, used as a starting point. I thank you so much for letting me be part of your healing -I consider it as our mutual need for healing. I know from very close the feelings of self-devastation, just from hearing about the silent violence in their lives. But we need to heal ourselves so we can continue hearing the stories and expand the message as far as we can, to as many ears we can, especially to those who can make changes. The act of hearing itself is, I believe, a direct healing process, a humanizing process, we experience with the direct victims of the community, all hurt by the violence. Be strong and courageous to go on in this painful task and remember to take care of yourself. I am always here for you (despite the distance) very close to you in my thoughts and feelings. wish you all the best and warm hugs to x, x

From a university student

Your story was emotionally moving. It is truly unfortunate how there are not enough articles that try and explain the truth, that will attempt to reveal an alternate side to what is actually going on. The newspaper is a valuable source of information, however if we cannot rely on it to report factual accounts than how are we to remain informed? I find that in today’s society it is getting harder and harder to experience true reality. Organizations that are supposed to relay news to us (the individuals) such as CNN, The New York Times, The Ottawa Sun, etc… seem to always have an incredibly bias view on things. It is unfortunate that instances like these occur yet; it seems that if they were to print the truth they would have too much to lose thus, resulting in uninformed patrons, such as yourself and others like me. The account you heard about Jimmy, appears to be a common story in native life these days, and it makes me sore inside. This summer on my way to Vancouver I had the pleasure of being seated next to a lovely young girl named Suzie. She was a young lady from Coral harbor – a small island off the coast of Hudson Bay in Nunavut. As we flew I found out many interesting things about the life she lived. The way hers differed from mine was substantially significant. She told me about her life up north, how she witness first hand a good friend of hers commit suicide, she experienced her brother take his own life, and even her local high school, it seemed like there was another case of suicide every other week. She was flying back to Victoria where she attended a fashion design school. Talking to her really opened my eyes up as I am sure your students opened yours. It was wonderful to see how far she had come along; taking into account the experiences she had gone through.

I believe part of the problem these youth face is the way in which society “has” regarded them. In the past native people have always been looked down upon and have been pushed around physically and mentally. There have been many repercussions created to alleviate the Native community, however many of these things have come a little too late. Obviously the argument can be made stating that these repercussions are better than nothing, yet it still doesn’t account for the losses native youth will suffer.

In order to understand what is actually going on in places such as Iqaluit there needs to be a proper healing process. Having stories printed in newspapers about those who have suffered are only the beginning of the healing process. Marilyn Manson, a famous musician was asked what he would have done to prevent the shooting that occurred at Columbine High School. He said “I wouldn’t have said anything to them; I would have listened to them, and what they had to say.” This is an attitude that should be adopted by many more school officials that deal with students and stressful environments. The youth of Iqaulit not only deserve someone to direct them in correct directions they NEED someone who is willing to listen and to understand their problems. Peter Tenute

Labels: benign colonialism, inuit social history, RCAP, youth suicide

Dallas, Texas Skyline

nobody@flickr.com (garyhymes) — Tue, 18 Apr 2006 19:34:59 -0700

garyhymes posted a photo:

View from the Radisson Hotel, Dallas Texas. Awesome.

Aflicktion: Tempest in a Tea Pot

nobody@flickr.com (ocean.flynn) — Thu, 04 Jan 2007 00:20:23 -0800

ocean.flynn posted a photo:

I seemed to be disembodied, living through the digital images that appeared by magic on my Dell laptop screen. It was minus forty or fifty degrees. There was no taxi service so the town was shut down for me. Severe weather warnings were issued from Environment Canada. Suddenly a blinding sun broke through. I pulled on my army parka, leggings, mittens and Pangnirtung hat, grabbed my Kodak and headed outside to the breakwater. This image encapsulates the entire experience.

There were many painful things that I tried to forget but these images keep flashing into my mind and I am back there again. I am embarrassed that the loss of this silly lap top remains as such a crushing memory considering the suicides, the murder, the stories of everyday violences against human dignity. Having the laptop confiscated without warning is a metaphor for my inability to process the memories, a missing archives, a secret archives, an archives fever.

1999 Storm Lantern on Fireplace with Reflections

nobody@flickr.com (ocean.flynn) — Mon, 01 Jan 2007 20:57:31 -0800

ocean.flynn posted a photo:

After the devastation of the Ice Storm of 1998, our lake-side cottage in the Gatineau Hills seemed constantly starved for brightness and warmth. I sought out light mirrored in and on every surface. I found frames within frames, windows within windows. I would spend hours in the Baroque room of the National Gallery of Canada staring at the Jacob Jordaens' painting, one of my favourites. I wandered through the rooms of Escher's prints. In tiny sections of canvasses and prints artists left coded imagery. There was no more white noise. I could see miniaturized worlds everywhere. Worlds within worlds.

By this time I knew I would have enough for an exhibition. One painting alone seemed to spawn countless others as I zoomed in to reflections. This lantern was in PC invasion as was the glass of the fireplace itself. I am reflected in the centre of the lantern's glass mantel standing by my easel painting by the light of the window which extended along the entire wall. Tall spruce grew so close to the A-frame their branches seemed to protrude into the living room.

The tiny plastic framed photo on the mantle was a reminder of 126 King Street, Charlottetown. My mother's apartment is now Silsby Kindergarten. Her rose lantern and collection of family photos have been dispersed. But even reduced to a few brush strokes on a small canvas each of these remains as clear to me as the original photo. I can see hair blowing in the wind beside the Rideau River and details of the lace shawl from Brazil.

I was reading about reflexivity as a useful concept in the social sciences. It became the title for my exhibition. I decided to aim for my birthday as the opening night.

Fantasy Palace, Iqaluit, Nunavut June 27, 2002

nobody@flickr.com (ocean.flynn) — Sat, 02 Dec 2006 10:00:07 -0800

ocean.flynn posted a photo:

This is a partial truth, more like a flicktion, or a dream, or the virtual than the real. It's not science or art, more like an invention or innovation. Pieces of this a flicktion are scattered throughout my semi-nomadic cybercamps like tiny inukshuk on a global landscape. It mimics visual anthropology but isn't. It imitates ethnography but lacks the objectivity. There are words written, pictures taken of events, dates, settings, stages and characters without an author. Maybe it's the wrong venue in a photo album of beaming faces, stunning scenery, professional photographers, travelers, techies, retirees. But we can all choose to follow each others sign posts in this cyberspace or move on. This is the power of this new social space spun in CyberWeb 2.0.

Cultural ethnographers are supposed to return to their academic spaces, sharpen their methodological tools to a tip that almost cuts the paper they write on (and too often the culture, pop or otherwise they are writing about). You're not supposed to return from the field with their your mind numbed from the frosted words of those who were seduced by the gold mine of benign colonialism, their voices confident, mocking, paternalistic, jaded by years, or decades of northern experience (1970s-2002). Your were supposed to leave the field with the pace of your beating heart uninterrupted inside your embodied self. You weren't supposed to leave your a chunk of your soul in that graveyard in Pangnirtung on the Cumberland Sound. This is just lack of professionalism. Get a grip. Just write that comprehensive, proposal, dissertation. Move on. It's just the way it is.
In this coffee shop sipping a cup of freshly brewed French Roast, (better than a Vancouver Starbucks!), SWF listened with her eyes. She was compassionate but ever so slightly distant. She doesn't seem to realize how much others from the outside can perceive her knowledge. It is what at times makes her intimidating. Her three generation life story is the stuff of Inuit social history. She seems to almost be unaware of how important that story is. She was surprised that the First Nations cared about the creation of Nunavut. I remember our first class together. She spoke so softly but she was so firm, so insistent, modest and dignified. The wails I had heard by the open graves that still echo in my mind, were all too familiar to her. Slowly, insistently she explained to me as if I really needed to listen, remember, register this. "We do not need your tears. We have enough of our own. We do not need you to fix this. We need your respect. We need you to not make it worse. We need you to listen to us, really listen. Alone, with no resources an elder has been taking them out on the land. She gets no funding. What she has done works. The funding is going elsewhere on projects that are promoted by the insiders. Inuit like her are not insiders."

A Fliction: Dawn among the Hummocks, Iqaluit, NU

nobody@flickr.com (ocean.flynn) — Fri, 06 Oct 2006 17:22:33 -0700

ocean.flynn posted a photo:

Octavia Butler's science fiction unfolds in a post-nuclear world overtaken by an alien species. Lilith, a woman of colour, out of Africa, becomes the primal mother, the new Eve to a polymorphous species. It is a survival fiction about the "... resistance to the imperative to recreate the sacred image of the same (1989:378)."

Lilith talks about her feelings of being impregnated with something that is not human, a metamorphose:
"I had gone back to school." [Lilith] said. "I was majoring in anthropology." She laughed out bitterly. "I suppose I could think of this as fieldwork - but how the hell can I get out of the field? (1987: 262-3)?

I inserted this image of Lilith into my own photo taken during a sunburst in the middle of a blizzard in Iqaluit, Nunavut (2003). Lilith is protected by a sunburst parka using a third Adobe layer. I wish I could have found a similar protection for my own spirit. Images of Lilith's experiences flashed through my mind frequently as my own conflicted role as impassioned researcher crunched against the sea ice of academic 'professionalism' and detachment which came to resemble convenient apathy for inconvenient truths. When the ice pan is disturbed by currents under the ice, hummocks form in these dramatic shapes resonating with the emergence of mountain ranges --- not miniature but not the Rockies either. In parts of the frozen seas these hummocks impede winter travel. Dog sleds and snow machines navigate around them.

A flicktion - Aflicktion - Afflicktion are derived from the term Flicktion developed on Flickr by innovator Andrew Losowsky to describe his unique, creative response to non-linear aspects of blogging. On his photoblog Flickr he published a series of 'short stories' with photos entitledThe Doorbells of Florence.
"As more than 12,500 viewers (and counting) of the Flickr set can testify, The Doorbells of Florence is cult fiction at its least predictable. This book contains 36 real Italian doorbells (including some never before seen), each one with a strange story about the people and things that may, or may not, live inside. This first-ever volume of flicktion was written by Andrew Losowsky and lovingly put together by award-winning designer, Nuno Vargas as the mini coffee table book that espresso was invented for $27.99." Inspired by Andrew Losowsky I began my own work-in-progress series on Flickr and Speechless entitled Aflicktion on my afflictional misadventures with social and cultural institutions as a PhD candidate and contract lecturer --- and at times fly-in (Flynn) professor --- in remote northern communities. flicktionMore">

See also

Alone

nobody@flickr.com (Adski) — Wed, 27 Jul 2005 07:00:33 -0700

Adski posted a photo:

Discontent with his surroundings, Gerard makes a run for it.