Banksy or Home as a Shark

Just a rumination about what’s going on in the world. The news this morning started with the plight of asylum seekers, reminding me of the poem, “Home” by Warsan Shire. Powerful. Read it.

Which led me to think about a stencil I saw in a park recently.

My thoughts then meandered to the art of Banksy.

• Wikipedia article on “Balloon Girl”
• Toronto’s Hidden Banksy
• Unauthorized Banksy Show Strips Street Art of Its Power While Cashing In On Its Fame

#WithRefugees

Autumn by Ali Smith

Autumn by Ali Smith
My rating: 5 of 5 stars  View all my reviews

Read Autumn the way you would a collage painting: What’s the big picture? What’s in the details? How does the story all hang together, and what do we imagine happens next? Autumn is a painting made up of words, as Daniel shows Elisabeth when he asks her to close her eyes and imagine as he describes a collage by Pauline Boty. Elisabeth is able to recognize the painting when she actually sees it.

Sixties icons play a central role in the novel: Pauline Boty, as well as Christine Keeler (who was the subject of one of Boty’s paintings), serve as totems for us to examine our present time. In an article by Ali Smith herself, she describes the work of Pauline Boty as dropping “us head-first into a dream, and when the dream turns into a nightmare she slaps it in the face, wakes up into what’s now a multilayered narrative of dreamworld and mundanity” [1]. Quite often in the book, when things seem to be quite grim for Elisabeth (and the world), Daniel shows how art can lift you out of the darkness.

Ali Smith, writer, signing books at the Edinburgh International Book Festival. By Tim Duncan. From Wikimedia Commons.

Christine Keeler’s role seems to guide us to the question, “What happens culturally when something is built on a lie?” [2]. The fallout from Brexit is definitely in the book, from the comically absurd task of applying for a passport, the fences around common land, and the spray painting of “GO HOME” on people’s houses. Ali Smith uses fiction and painting to remind us “to read the world as a construct. And if you can read the world as a construct, you can ask questions of the construct and you can suggest ways to change the construct. You understand that things aren’t fixed” [2].

Initially, I thought about giving the book a four star rating because of its lack of resolution. But you have to stare at the novel, dissect it, make connections,  and do research. By God, did Smith do a lot of research - which is not immediately apparent, especially considering the speed with which this book was written and published: “Maybe an accelerated news cycle requires accelerated art” [2].

We live in the era that comes after Rule Britannia (political empire) and Cool Britannia (the resurgence of the cultural empire). Does Europe and the rest of the world ask what happens Post-Britannia? What has the empire stood for, for us? Smith looks to the art of Pauline Boty and her final testament: A “message of undying hope, of solidarity with the oppressed, and of certainty about the future that gave all us us more than courage. Determination” [1].

Works considered while writing this wee review:

[1] Ali Smith on the prime of pop artist Pauline Boty

[2] Ali Smith: ‘a question of what happens culturally when something is built on a lie’

[3] Ali Smith’s Autumn Is a Post-Brexit Masterpiece

Reading List for a Trumpish America

Some context, after the election. Five new books and one oldie, but a goodie. 

The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood

“Offred is a Handmaid in the Republic of Gilead, once the United States of America” (back cover).

Safekeeping by Karen Hesse

“America is on the verge of anarchy. Survival is all that matters now” (front cover).

We Gon’ Be Alright: Notes on Race and Resegregation by Jeff Chang

“Trump, the silver spoon-fed child who, as a second grader, punched his music teacher in the eye, aspired ‘to be the toughest kid in the neighborhood’” (5).

The Return of History: Conflict, Migration, and Geopolitics in the Twenty-First Century by Jennifer Welsh

“The public utterances of almost every populist politician today include the refrain ‘Take back control’” (31).

The Black Presidency: Barack Obama and the Politics of Race in America by Michael Eric Dyson

“The birthers cut straight to the chase and argued that Obama’s birth certificate was phony and that he was not born in America, a claim amplified by billionaire political huckster...Donald Trump” (135).

Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race by Margot Lee Shetterly

“During World War II, America’s fledgling aeronautics industry hired black female mathematicians to fill a labor shortage. These ‘human computers’ stayed on to work to NASA and made sure America won the Space Race. They fought for their country’s future, and for their share of the American dream. This is their untold story” (front cover).

The Return of History

The Return of History: Conflict, Migration, and Geopolitics in the Twenty-First Century by Jennifer Welsh
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Four and a half stars

I have to admit, I had some trouble getting into the first two essays, but the book picks up power and speed with the last three: The Return of Mass Flight; The Return of the Cold War; and The Return of Inequality. Jennifer Welsh clearly explains the times we are living in. Scary. The coming American election has become all that more important in my eyes.

Vital reading to fix the cracks in our liberal democracies.

Listen to the Massey Lectures on CBC Radio's Ideas from Mon Oct 31 to Fri Nov 4.

View all my reviews

Page 110

In light of recent events, page 110 got me thinking...

And then page 352 came along

The Context

What's Wrong With "All Lives Matter"? (2015)

Baby Storm Five Years Later (2016)

Why you should stop saying "all lives matter," explained in 9 different ways (2016)

LGBTQ activists call for scrapping sex markers on ID cards (2016)