Greg Blee

B-au naturel

A rediscovered post from last August, when i was travelling:

Those who know me won’t be surprised by the true confession that i don’t use deodorant. Apart from a brief stint in my impressionable teens, when my parents tried to convence me that deodorant is the very glue that holds civil society together, i could never get past the idea that smearing or spraying chemical gunk on a fairly permeable area of one’s skin was a smart thing to do. I also didn’t buy that human odour was necessarily offensive to we creatures who have been smelling it, presumably, since we dropped from the trees.

Sure, there’s a point at which. But given basic hygiene, the occasional shower and the odd load of laundry, we should be able to put up with each other au naturel, no?

However, it has been a long, hot summer. And i’ve been travelling by Greyhound bus, spending much time in close proximity with strangers And i’m living out of a small backpack, with just three shirts to my name, in hostels and other accomm’s with limited laundry facilities. Sometimes — i admit it — i stink.

Last week i decided to see what i could do about it, and went into a drugstore while my clothes were drying in the laundromat, to check out … gulp … the deodorant aisle. There were dozens of products, arrayed in colourful packaging along multiple feet of shelves, that one could roll, wipe or spray on, in tantalizing scents from none through floral or spicy straight into industrial. They all cost in the $3-4 range, except for the frightening “extra strength” products, which were up around $8. But a quick check of the ingredients list was sobering. Here’s the formula for Old Spice Classic Antiperspirant & Deodorant Stick (from this link):

Active ingredient: aluminum zirconium tetrachlorohydrex gly (16%) (anhydrous)

Inactive ingredients: cyclopentasiloxane, stearyl alcohol, talc, dimethicone, hydrogenated castor oil, fragrance, polyethylene, silica, dipropylene glycol, behenyl alcohol

Gak! I don’t know about you, but none of that sounds like stuff I want to smear on my skin on a regular basis, never mind wash all that crap down the drain into the water system (an aspect of product use we don’t generally think about).

A quick Google search for “toxic deodorant ingredients” yields a thousand reasons to stay away from all of the above.

But the invisible hand of the market being the thoroughgoing extremity it is, there’s usually a “green” alternative to most everything these days. Exploring further on the drugstore shelves, i noticed a small “natural” deodorant section, with about half a dozen choices. I finally settled on one that is, basically, just a stick of salt — not table salt (sodium chloride) but ammonium alum, a mineral salt. The chemical name for its lone ingredient is aluminium ammonium sulfate — something i can actually pronounce — and its chemical formula is [Al(NH4)](SO4)2 (Wikipedia entry for chem nerds).

What you do is wet the top of the salt stick with water, then rub it on your pits, kind of like you might season a turkey. You’ve gotta do the scarecrow thing with your arms for a minute until it dries, but then … protected!

Did it work? Bearing in mind that i have no baseline to compare it to, yes. Pretty well. Nobody ever moved to another seat in disgust. I’ve still got the stick, and use it before any potentially high-stress, nervewracking situation. Although my first line of defense against such annoyances is to avoid them in the first place.

Electioneering

First published on the WestCoaster.ca (link) in May 2009, the day after the provincial election. I’ve been meaning to get it up here since then….

I am hardly an hour back from today’s stint as voting clerk in the provincial election, and i must say it was an enlightening little adventure.

First off, it was clear that, while we may lack for female candidates in front of the cameras, the bulk of our electoral burden is borne by women. Of the 14 of us serving up ballots hot and fresh to Tofino voters on Tuesday, but one was male. (Me, in case that needs pointing out). This made for some uneasy self-questioning during the tranquil early hours, but fortunately none of my co-workers seemed to notice or care, and once the action hotted up toward noon, gender fell off the radar.

Second, it’s quite a trick to put together an airtight voting system. I was boggled by the complexity of the exercise, Continue reading “Electioneering”

LIFE for Betty K?!?

After a long break away from blogging, i’ve decided to start posting a few things again. Here’s my letter to the topmost legal captains of B.C. on a matter of some import. First, the situation, excerpted from an excellent post on the rather blunderbuss The Galloping Beaver blog, called Life sentence for Betty K? (well worth the quick read):

. . . Betty Krawczyk was 65 years old when she went to jail for Clayoquot Sound. . . . She went to jail again at age 78 for standing in front of bulldozers in 2006 to protest the building of the Sea-to-Sky Highway. . . . She . . . went back to prison for another 10 months. . . .

After serving out her last sentence in full, Betty appealed it on the grounds that the squelching of protest inconvenient to corporations and governments is an illegitimate use of the legal system.

The Attorney General’s response to her appeal has been to recommend the court re-sentence her under the rules of “accumulated convictions”, designate her a chronic offender, and lock her up for life!

So, my letter:

TO: Michael de Jong, Attorney General <AG.Minister@gov.bc.ca>
Michael Brundrett, prosecutor: <mike.brundrett@gov.bc.ca>

CC: Gordon Campbell <premier@gov.bc.ca>

Dear Attorney General,

However much Ms. Krawczyk is a thorn in your side, your current stratagem of using some far-removed and distasteful precedent to propose locking her up for years is highly repugnant to this lover of free society. To equate having a strong environmental consicence with having a pathological disease insulting, absurd, and a serious undermining of democratic principles. Who’s next on your hit list — advocates for the homeless? Opposition party members? Because with this line of thinking, you can pretty much get rid of anybody you want.

Find some perspective, gentlemen. Murderers go away for life. Kidnappers. Unrepentant, hard-core criminals. Not old ladies who stand in the road, struggling to protect what’s left of our ever-diminishing environment. As unconventional as she is, Ms Krawczyk is a hero to many; notwithstanding that, she deserves reasonable treatment at the hands of our so-called system of justice. I predict that locking the lady away for many-to-life will bring down a firestorm of protest and controversy from properly thinking people throughout this province (and the world) — something you would come quickly to regret.

Sincerely yours,

greg blanchette
Tofino, BC

Art, head on

I had an interesting conversation the other day. Two young women came into the office to ask some questions and make a donation. One of them looked at me closely and said, “Are you the guy who wrote that piece about art in Tofino Time a while ago?”

I knew what she was referring to — a locally infamous rant about the Tofino art scene that sparked discussion, and dissention, among local artists and art lovers. (See some reaction in the blog post below.) I said yes, sheepishly, stunned that anyone after five months would remember it and bring it up again. I wondered why she asked.

“I’m an art student and i’m staging a show in a month,” she said. “I want to invite you to come and see it … and slam it.”

This startled me on a couple of fronts. First (because, after all, it’s all about me) that i seemed to now have an enduring rep as (a) an art critic and (b) some kind of art-eating carnivore.

Second, it was the audacity of the gal to spontaneously invite such a “slamming.”

“Now wait a minute–,” her companion said, protectively, probably thinking she was doing something impulsive and crazy.

“No,” the artist interrupted, “the critical process is an important part of the art scene.”

“Wow,” i said, “that’s pretty … not ballsy, let’s say gonad-y.” She laughed.

I explained that i would not automatically slam anything, that my art rant in Tofino Time was as much fiction as critique. But i couldn’t help being impressed that she was actually hungry for a reaction — even a lambasting — from what she seemed to think was the fiercest (or maybe just the most outspoken) critic in town.

On reflection, that nervy request seems to me one of the most genuine expression of artistic integrity i’ve come across. The sentiment that I’ve done my best, now do your worst speaks strongly of the her view of art and its place in her world.

She said her work was “just student quality” — she’s a first-year student at a cross-island art college. The phrase “student work” fell harshly on my ears, but i wasn’t quite sure why. Afterwards, it occurred to me there are two aspects to visual art: the skill with which it is executed, and the (harder to articulate) content of the art — what it says, or means, or invokes. And i thought, to label something “student quality” is to do it an injustice from the outset. Skill of execution is a continuous spectrum, that starts with a child’s first crude scrawl with a crayon and evolves from there; there’s no “arrival” at professional quality, there’s just a gradual and ideally continuous increase in competence.

So “student quality” doesn’t bother me, because i think most of us can look beyond the quality of execution of a work to get at least an inkling of its content — whether it’s merely trying to be an attractive picture, or there’s something more underlying the effort. Which is, in a nutshell, what my Toff Time article was about.

Without cue from me, she pointed out that one of her techniques is to re-use her old paint chips in new works, because she didn’t like the thought of just sending them to the landfill. This interested me immediately, because one of my concerns about art is its environmental impact — all the plastic and chemicals it uses, the consequences of which most artists, in their ecstasy of creation, seem oblivious to.

I look forward to seeing this woman’s painting and drawing, and trying to give her an honest reaction. This will be near impossible, i fear. She is well liked in the community and, i think, senses she will get little but unqualified support from the public. I doubt i’m going to find much to “slam,” if only because she already has the confidence to stand up and invite it.

Art is hard, even in its simplest incarnation. As anybody who’s sat down with a pencil and a piece of paper knows, it’s damn difficult to produce something that’s even just passably pleasing to the eye, never mind embodying something deeper. I don’t want to set up impossible expectations here, but that’s what i’ll be looking for come July 24th (an approximate date, i think).

Action/reaction to a-a-art

I’m getting some interesting feedback to my January article in Tofino Time magazine, titled Art of the Soapbox (read it here). It’s a tongue-in-cheek but pointed critique of the Tofino art scene — a circle that, like many insular groups everywhere, tends to thrive on self-congratulation, mutual support, and denial. That’s my rough take, anyway; others differ.

People took it more seriously that i’d expected, and i had more email responses than i’ve ever had to a Tofino Time article. Only half a dozen or so, but for Tofino that’s a lot.

Artists in most places, but particularly here, often work in isolation, and a good discussion about the worth and quality of local art will hopefully provide a little tonic stimulation.

The following were posted with permission. Comments are also welcome on this post.

Date: Jan. 4
From: A—
Hi Greg.
Last night I was at The Common Loaf and as I sat down by myself to eat I grabbed a Tofino Time mag. Put the mag down, and looked up as I pulled off my coat and noticed an oil painting above a window. A purple-ish sunset over a beach. And I thought to myself Geez, is that all there ever fucking is around here for paintings? Tired of it.
Then I read your piece and had a good chuckle. Thanks. Hope no one throws anything larger than a brussel sprout however….
A —

Subject: B—’s challenge!
Date: Jan. 18
From: B—
B—‘s message is personal and not to be reproduced here. However, s/he brings up a very salient point about the West Coast art scene. To paraphrase:
There is room for growth here, but there is no structured outlet for it. My fellow artists are courageous people who, I feel, need an outlet for their ‘descriptions.’ I think a lot of us provide to the established venues — galleries, cafés, etc. — and the venues all want what sells. And they think Frank Island sells, so Frank Island gets painted and photographed … over and over.

Subject: A-a-art??????????
Date: Jan. 18
From: C—
Hello Greg,
My name is C— and I’m responding to your “art of the soapbox” in the Tofino Time. We don’t know each other which is probably a good thing, even though you seem to have everyone in town pegged. I actually don’t know anything about you besides what you look like, that you are an apparent writer and also quite the critic.
I had no idea we had such an authority on art and music living amongst us in this misty little town of ours. I don’t completely disagree with you about the art scene in Tofino and I like your idea of “challenging” the art community here, but your pompous delivery was disgusting. The fact that you singled out and tried to humiliate individuals by using there first name is as shameless as it gets, it’s actually fucked up. I’m guessing you might of been drunk while writing the article and that Adam and Baku just don’t give a shit anymore.
Either way, you were trying to single out and make examples of people who are honestly trying to make a living from there art instead of following the mainstream. You may not like X–‘s art, fair enough, some people might not like Abe Lincoln beards. What I see is a bitter older man living in a town full of younger people trying to incorporate art into there lives one way or another, the older, “wiser” man obviously doesn’t approve and needs some attention, whether positive or negative.
I think personal taste is what keeps art and everything else in this world interesting. Well I would love to see what you bring to the table “sweetheart” besides shitting all over it. I might add that you will find your genius theory on too many guitars is unfortunately common throughout North America. Nice work on stirring the pot but I think you missed the mark completely.
Sincerely,
C—

PARTIAL RESPONSE: Far from “not giving a shit,” Adam and Baku are very cognisant of what they publish in Tofino Time, and of how much the magazine both mirrors Tofino to itself and presents the town to the larger world. My piece would never have made it into a high-season issue, i feel certain, and i would not have submitted it. In the depths of winter, though, Tofino Time becomes “our” magazine. My kudos to the two of them for having the nerve to publish something controversial in a town that usually shies away from such.

Subject: artist rant
Date: Jan. 18
From: D—
Um, who the hell is X—, and since when did you care what people think? And since when did this person speak for “Tofino artists” en masse? NO, I haven’t heard anything. If I had, wouldn’t that mean you are doing something right?

Subject: To Greg: Love E—
Date: Jan. 20
From: E—
E—’s email was long and personal and heartfelt. It was good to hear from a passionate young Tofino artist, one who loves what s/he does and pursues it boldly. E— took my “attack” personally, for which i am sorry — it was not intended as such against anybody. And for the record: i am not even close to giving up on him/her.

Subject: tofino time
Date: Jan. 20
From: F—
Great piece of writing Greg! Shake it up.