Floral Journey

I found this book at the Mount Pleasant library branch:



I couldn't believe it existed. What a thing. Flowers + adornment + indigenous people's post-contact history.



The author Lois S Dubin describes how indigenous people across North America adapted floral beadwork–taught to them by Ursuline nuns, but quickly improved upon with their own techniques, materials, and styles–to convey and maintain private, spiritual, and wisdom knowledge.

I thought of kilims–the flat-weave carpets made by women across the Middle East, in which a lot of information is woven.

I thought of suzanis that I have seen in Turkey, made in Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, and other countries in Central Asia.



The pomegranates really jump out at me (I think that's what the round things are). And perhaps those are pomegranate flowers?



Here are drawings of pomegranate flowers, from a book Andy found for me at the book shop in Kerrisdale.

I have always been drawn to flowers. Recently I have been leaning harder into the interest, and looking and feeling around for the source and shape and theory around flowers' appeal to me and to others. Spring is of course a wonderful time for it.

Book report from more than an organizer

Guys, it’s like when I had to say aloud: I am more than an English teacher.

Now: I am more than an organizer.

I read and think and don’t just send reminder emails about upcoming events.

Finally today I'm carving out the time to share passages from recent books read. Admittedly, are somewhat topical in terms of environmental campaigning, burnout, politicians, and elections.

My Year Without Matches

An Australian forest campaigner, burnt-out from the work, lives in the bush for a year seeking connection and inner stability.

Everything changed once I was on the payroll. Gone were the spirited bush missions, the tribe, the magic. This was city campaigning by computer, sensible and sedate. The goals grew hairier as the ground crew grew thinner. Until it was just me. I tried to bring the magic back, upping the pace, working longer hours, telling myself what a privilege it was to have this job. I owed it to the members paying my meagre wage. I owed it to my parents, to the forests, to Daniel. To myself. 

But the truth was I didn’t feel passionate anymore. I just felt employed.

I’m not that bad (yet)! And it sounds like Claire Dunn, the author, hadn’t had enough grounding training in organizing to remember the importance of relationships. But, still… a touch hauntingly recognizable.

Gnarr! How I became the mayor of a large city in Iceland and changed the world

Jón Gnarr reflects on his punk past, the joke campaign, and how his life changed when he actually won.

When Gnarr has to negotiate a coalition with a leftist party to form government:

“Sjón and Óttarr had a conversation wth Dagur earlier today,” Heida announced. 

“Has he seen The Wire?” I asked. 

“We did briefly mention it,” Óttarr said. “No, he’s never seen it. And he wanted to know if we would make that a precondition for cooperation.” 

“He must watch The Wire,” I insisted. “What am I supposed to talk to him about otherwise–socialism?”

Gnarr is the first politician to make me want to go into politics. At the same time, the psychic resilience he must practice (using training from Judo) and the deep tiredness that he endures do make one think twice.

Changing My Mind: Occasional Essays

Zadie Smith applies her mega-intellect to books, family, politics, race, and the whole bit.

I re-read the essay “Speaking in Tongues” in which she points out that Obama is the first multidialectal American president. This time I noticed her praise for other politicians with far-ranging minds and linguistic capacity, in particular to a man named Halifax, who mediated between Parliament and the Crown in London.

His intellect was fertile, subtle, and capacious.

Don’t you wish we talked about current political candidates that way? 

The Tutor of History

An election in Nepal affects almost everyone in the village of Khaireni Tar.

And off the workers would go to spread word of the People’s Party in a haphazard way. 

It worried Om. True, the nature of electioneering work was like this: constant, strenuous and completely disorganized.

Hahaha.

Unrelated, but a great passage:

How surprising to be cut free. Rishi felt a peculiar strength amassing inside him. He felt capable of moving in any direction and doing anything. He felt light. Things that hurt him earlier now slid past him with hardly any impact… And there were options he saw.

Wiki Friday: Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu

Or, Why I spent the morning watching UFC videos on YouTube

Yesterday a friend showed me some Jiu-Jitsu moves on the grass at Douglas Park. She told me about the history of Japanese Judo masters passing knowledge on to Brazilians,  the Gracie family in particular, who then adapted the practice to focus more on the a defensive ground game.

Wikipedia:

Brazilian jiu-jitsu emphasizes getting an opponent to the ground in order to use ground fighting techniques and submission holds involving joint-locks and chokeholds.

Apparently competitions often ban certain joint-locks­, namely the ones that can permanently damage knees and spines.

And about those chokeholds:

In BJJ, the chokes that are used put pressure on the carotid arteries, and may also apply pressure to the nerve baroreceptors in the neck. This kind of choke is very fast acting (if done properly) with victims typically losing consciousness in around 3–5 seconds. In contrast, an air choke (involving constriction of the windpipe) can take up to two minutes, depending on how long the person can hold their breath, and may cause serious damage to the throat.

There is definitely something about understanding a sport that makes it more enjoyable to watch. I would never expect to be enthralled by a 13-minute YouTube video about the role of Jiu-Jitsu inthe first Ultimate Fighting Championship, November 12, 1993 in Denver Colorado. But I was.

Ken Shamrock, who fights in an amazing red Speedo, describes his first fight in the ring with an undefeated bare-knuckle boxer:

“I crank his heel. I break his leg. He taps out.”

“They [the audience] were mad. No one understood what submission was.”

But Shamrock’s submission moves failed to match those of Royce Gracie, the smallest of the famous family, who beat Shamrock in the final round of that first UFC.

“There’s the tap. There’s the tap.”

Seeing Shamrock tap the mat, with pretty intense urgency, is meaningful when I know that he may well be 3 seconds away from unconsciousness, because of these crazy chokeholds.

“I’m sitting there on the ground, wondering ‘How in the world did he do that?’”

Cool.