Wow. I didn't not expect to have to post in chapters. What was supposed to be Another Duff Night at the Trap and Gill is going to be at least three separate posts.

I gave that Facebook event planner a try this week and invited 32 Facebook friends to Edmonton's best Newfie bar, The Atlantic Trap and Gill, for another party night with the one-man band, Duff Robinson. Five of thirty-two isn't a bad response rate, I think, given less than 48 hours notice for a Saturday night.

So it was that Donna-lee and two of her travel friends, Ed and Mary, joined up with Beatrice and I in the stage-right alcove at the T&G to hear Duff run through his musical repertoire of classic rock songs and Celtic pop.

I was expecting to have fun last night, or was at least hoping to. And wound up having way more fun than I was expecting.

Then again, I'm very easy to amuse.

I think I have at least three story-lines to capture from last night at the Trap and Gill.
Ed and Beatrice's Mysterious Relationship
Mary's Lecter-phile Daughter
Living Like a Musical
and maybe, I had no idea Myles was so competitive...

Oh, that trouble you’ve been looking for
Came looking for you
Shouldn’t open doors you don’t plan to walk through
If I were you I’d pay my dues before I lose
That trouble you’ve been looking for
Came looking for you
Shouldn’t open doors you don’t plan to walk through
If I were you I’d pay my dues…

You’ve got a lot of long answers
To a lot of short questions
You’ve had a lot of last chances
A run of lucky guesses
Say your nerves can stand it
You bet it all and then step back
But if you’re steady handed
Then that glass is shaking, babe
I think you’re gonna find out
That you wore your luck out
That your word’s not worth much here
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In 2006, I was seized by the idea that... no. This starts before 2006.

In 1985, Edmonton's Princess Theatre screened Paul Schraeder's semi- documentary film about the Japanese novelist, playwrite, poet, actor, director, and socialite, Yukio Mishima. Mishima: a life in four chapters.

The box jacket writer for the Criterion DVD of the film knows of which he speaks. That anonymous scribe wrote that Mishima was a writer who "attempted an impossible harmony between self, art, and society." It can't be said any better, except to cap this description with the movie's tag line: On November 25, 1970, his life became the ultimate expression of his art. This final sentence not only captured the essence of the film and the man, but they also gave me the closest thing to an artistic vision that I have ever had.

Mishima surely did attempt an impossible harmony between self, art, and society. He wrote 34 novels and 50 plays. Acted and directed films. Lectured and wrote essays. And he organized his own private army, The Shield Society. Mishima was obsessed with perfect beauty in art and the impossibility of such perfection in life. His philosophy was "harmony of the pen and the sword" that is, our words should create beauty and inspire honour, and we should live our personal and collective lives according to our words.

Despite his fame and critical acclaim, Mishima was disappointed both in his life and in Japanese society which he believed, in the aftermath of World War II, had shed its codes of honour and existed as an occupied territory of the United States. Mishima's final solution was use the Shield Society to seize control of a Japanese military base-commander's office, take the commander hostage, then deliver a speech to the assembled base personnel intended to inspire the troops to a coup de etat for the purpose of restoring the emperor to power.

The plan was implemented to the stage of assembling and addressing the base-troops, but Mishima was shouted down minutes into his speech and he did not finish it. He then concluded this effort with the Japanese ritual suicide seppuku, opening up his bowels by cutting across his abdomen with a sword, and then was decapitated by his second lieutenant.

“His life became the ultimate expression of his art.”

I had always wanted to adopt that as my motto. But I never did because I was afraid that I’d be decapitated at the end. There is also the fact that I don't eroticize death like Mishima did either, so I just kept muddling on my own way without an artistic motto.

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K6.0 at the Pampas Brazilian Barbeque elevated K to artistic vision status for me. Generally speaking, that evening Kaylyn and I were discussing the ambiguities and risks that arise when personal relationships are not named, and it was proposed that we could name the relationship between the two of us through our writing and then living into the words. There was a nimble elegance to it: the way there seemed to be a problem at hand, a barrier to be overcome, and in resolving it, we made the artistic vision seemed even more real.

Living into the words.

That's a motto for writers who love life. Who are searching for a harmony of self and art that creates happiness and joy.

I feel kind of like an Anti-Mishima. An Anti-Phillip Roth. I am obsessed with the same issues as they, but from the opposite directions. Like Mishima, I want life to match our words, but I want to write about possible happiness, not impossible beauty. Like Roth, I think that, yes, other people are fundamentally unknowable and we are wrong and wrong and wrong about them, but when two people want it and work at it, they can create a visions of each other that are true enough to be a wonder.

Remembering is one of my main preoccupations. And I am astounded at the amount I have forgotten.

The first precisely dated journal entry that I have is for September 4, 1983, though I can recall at least one lost notebook that precedes Volume 1:Marsha Mason Keeps a Journal. Nonetheless, relying on the evidence that is actually on the record, this fall will be the official 30th anniversary of this graphophillic hobby of mine.

I’ve spent parts of last night and this Good Friday today organizing the room that once served as my home office. It still looks like a disorganized storage room of mis-matched eclectica ~ but really ~ it is more organized. Stashed in the corner of a closet, I found a poster-mailing tube filled with assorted maps, a poster of the band Painting Daisies, one of Marilyn Monroe cracking open an egg, and this one:



I recognized the model as someone who worked for me when I was Director of Greenpeace Edmonton in 1990, but relying solely on the weakness of my own memory, I couldn’t recall her name.
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Joining the Strategic Priorities and Innovations Section has offered interesting insights into my use of my own social history. After sharing with my colleagues only a few of my primary stories, it became pretty clear that these anecdotes also begged other secondary explanations. A primary story would be the The $131,000 Cigarette story, for example. And the secondary story is the explanation about how it could be that I was in Las Vegas with a woman who wasn’t my wife.

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A tradition in my Branch of Strategy Division is “breakfast for lunch” which occurs spontaneously when a critical mass of Branch members have not brought a packed lunch to work with them. Next door to the Baker Centre is a Days Inn which includes an Uncle Albert’s Restaurant and on breakfast-for-lunch-days we will dine there, usually ordering from the breakfast menu.

Only Angela Ahm, Amanda Kohl and I participated in the most recent B4L Day, and in the course of the conversation I told the BivouacTango story.

BivouacTango is the okcupid.com account name of a single girl in Edmonton who has written the best dating website profile page you can imagine. It’s engaging, surprising, and funny. I read it three times and I laughed every time. According to the profile section on “favourites” there is a great deal of overlap between our pop culture selections of books and movies, in particular, Terry Gilliam’s Brazil and Bladerunner. Taken all together, and despite the warning that BivouacTango “replies very selectively”, I felt compelled to dispatch my first and only contact message on an internet dating site.

My okcupid profile page is poorly maintained and I’m sure my message was awkwardly composed, so it was no surprise that BivouacTango did not reply to me. This did nothing to diminish my enjoyment of her profile though, and I told the story of “first-contact” to Beatrice Cassady Adams who naturally wanted to read it for herself and asked for a link.

The next time Beatrice and I got together, she dropped into the conversation, either playfully or sheepishly (it was hard for me to tell), I contacted her.

“Who? BivouacTango?” I exclaimed.

“Yup.”

“Did she reply to you?”

"Yup. We're going to meet for coffee next week."

"What?!?!"
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Some people are hard to name. bullfrog_hawker doesn't seem like a bullfrog_hawker to me. But neither does he seem like the half-dozen other Ephemeral Tourist fake-names that I've tried to apply to him. March 2, 2013 was a rare event though in that bullfrog_hawker's wife had agreed to mind their two children, and he, Gil, Beatrice Cassady Adams, and I got to spend the night out on Whyte Avenue drinking beers.

We started out at the relatively up-scale Pourhouse, and ended at the relatively down-scale Tilted Kilt. Scale is influenced in part by the amount of visible underwear that makes up the waitresses' uniforms.

I knew the moment it happened at the Tilted Kilt that I'd been infected. It was like there was an HO-scale South American Indian standing on the bar that had fired a blow-gun into the back of my throat. I felt pierced by the tickle that had became a sore-throat by Sunday morning, and a sick-day level head-cold by Monday. I took a sick-day Tuesday as well.

And while I haven't taken any other sick-days since, today is March 16 and I'm still coughing, going to bed as soon as I can after work, and not doing much else of anything. I hate being sick.

I work for a Section of Strategy Division called Priorities and Innovations. Amanda Kohl is my Section Head. I like it that I work in a Section with a Section Head. It makes me feel like I work for the CIA.

My Section is part of a Branch and one of the Branch traditions is Friday Morning Snack Day where each week one Branch member is responsible for bringing a snack for all the available members to gather around for a regular team-building and social event. Conversation is always friendly and, for the most part, not work related.

Today was my snack day. Angela Ahm noted this afternoon that the fact that I have invariably brought puffed wheat squares every time it has been my turn has established snack day's first tradition. Half the Branch members were otherwise occupied this morning, so around the lunch lounge table gathered two members of Marion Fox's Strategy Development Section, along with Kate St. John, Amanda Kohl, Nicole Bocce, Pam Brinkley, and myself.

One of the things Amanda and I have discovered that we have in common is a love of musicals, and in particular, a cappella musicals, so she mentioned last week that she has thrice watched a movie about the American intercollegiate a cappella competition, Pitch Perfect.

"I watched Pitch Perfect last weekend," I told the assembled snack day crew this morning. Amanda asked how I liked it. "I like a cappella music, so I enjoyed it. But I don't think it was a realistic depiction of life on the intercollegiate a cappella circuit."

"Well, that kind of movie is supposed to just be brain-candy," she replied.

"I loved the end though," I continued. "During the movie's big number finale, the male lead is in the theatre audience of the intercollegiate finals and the girl he's in love with is on stage with her band, and she's singing a song that he recognises is meant for him. I could just imagine being him and feeling blindingly happy." And as I said the words "blindingly happy" I closed my eyes and hovered my hands around my cerebral cortex, imagining what that would feel like.

"I loved the beginning," Amanda said, "when that girl barfed all over the stage."

"And right there," Nicole Bocce observed, "that's the difference between Myles and Amanda."

In addition to the weblog I linked to in Groundhog Day Weekend, Nicole Bocce also blogs at Informed Passionate Discourse on any topic that makes her sufficiently mad that she has to write about it. A couple of the posts at IPD reflect her vegetarian practise and reference the "animal ethics" perspective. Animal ethics distinguishes itself from mere "animal welfare" in that it argues beyond the positions that domesticated species in agriculture should be treated humanely and that it is wrong to drive any species to extinction. Rather, the animal ethics view says that no species should be commodified at all, and every animal specimen should enjoy individual rights.

I think there is a distinction between sentience, which is the capacity to perceive through the senses and react to signals and conditions in the environment, and sapience, which is the self-awareness and capacity for abstract thought that leads to the ability to create meaning. Sentient species should be viewed ecologically, by which I mean that they have a vital role to play in the ecosystem and their population should be maintained at a viable level. Or put another way, driving a species to extinction is a sin. But individuals who make up the species do not have individual rights. Sardines are the first example that springs to my mind.

In contrast, sapient beings can distinguish themselves individually and are able to carry out abstract thought, foresight, and make idiosyncratic connections. Another marine example are dolphins whose behaviour is more than simple operant conditioning and environmental adaptation. I read once about four dolphins at a marine park where a trainer tired of having to pick litter out of the tank, so he trained the cetaceans to fetch wind-blown trash out of the tank in exchange for fish. This sounds like simple operant conditioning, but someone noticed how one of the four consistently found more trash than the others.

A diver inspected the tank and found that the well-fed dolphin had found a large cardboard box and hidden it under the tank stage. It would tear off small, litter-sized pieces and exchange them for fish. This preparation and foresight suggests to me that, unlike sardines, dolphins have the distinctive capacity to attribute abstract value to things. They are sapient beings and warrent individual consideration.

My proposition arising from this is that if the purpose of sentient species is to play an ecological role in the web of life, then eating individual specimens is what they are actually for, with the proviso that their populations not be eaten into extinction.

In contrast, the life of a sapient individual should be regarded individually. Articulating what I think they are for is another post.

Update: here is a link to a relevant petition:
http://www.causes.com/actions/1673824-recognise-dolphins-as-non-human-persons?fb_action_ids=409024582521594&fb_action_types=causes%3Asign&fb_source=other_multiline&action_object_map=%7B%22409024582521594%22%3A412928532120257%7D&action_type_map=%7B%22409024582521594%22%3A%22causes%3Asign%22%7D&action_ref_map=[]#utm_campaign=og_other_multiline

Beatrice refers to Nicole Bocce as my "work twin" because we were both hired into Kate St. Johns' Branch of the provincial government at the same time. In August 2012 though, Nicole was debilitated by a meningoencephalitis infection which kept her house-bound for months. She's much better now, back at the office, but because we were unable to celebrate her August birthday when it happened, most of our Section went out last Friday night.

We started at the Central Social Club where Angela Ahm introduced us to Guinness and Amaretto, and Marion Fox and I got to re-tell our story when Nicole expressed her impression that we might have known each other from before I joined the government. Angela and Nicole monitored the story carefully to ensure that it didn't swerve into argument over the correct interpretation of the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution.

Not long after Nicole's husband arrived, we moved the party to The Atlantic Trap & Gill on the unfounded rumour (which I helped perpetuate) that it was his absolute favourite bar in the whole world even though at one point he didn't seem to be able to recall if he'd actually been there before.

Sarah Scott-Leo, Nicole and her husband, Angela, and I settled into the Maritimes-themed pub at a long, giant cribbage board-table that could accommodate a stream of extra partiers. Beatrice Cassady Adams showed up for a while. Nicole's Section Head joined. Angela and Sarah departed. Griz joined! Griz and Beatrice departed. Sam Gunsch* joined! Nicole and her husband and Section Head departed.

So now it's just Sam and me, and we are quickly descending into our standing argument about whether or not we should assume that a sufficient proportion of Alberta society is going to transform into Noam Chomsky-type citizenry and restore democracy to the province, or if we should accept that the majority will simply behave according the behavioural economics of Homo Economicus.

---

The Atlantic Trap & Gill, as alluded to earlier, is Edmonton's best Newfoundland-themed pub. Nets, floaters, and lobster traps hang from the ceiling. The walls are painted billiard-felt green and adorned with all manner of coastal paraphernalia. Flags of Canada's Atlantic provinces form the proscenium of the stage where the band, Dirty Seas, was playing.

The bar was about two-thirds full of a casually-dressed University crowd. Sam's rural Alberta wear made him look like an outfitter. And I was dressed for the Central Social Club: grey pants, black shoes, black shirt, black suit jacket.

Sam and I argued with the usual passion of people who argue for a living.

---

I haven't posted on a night out at the Central Social Club in mid-December where I was schooled in the strategies of bar interactions and learned that people do things for reasons different from what they seem on the surface.

---

Caylee was a dazzlingly cute, saxaphone-blonde girl who might've been 5 feet tall. Maybe. She carried herself with all the brassy, flirty confidence that many pretty but short girls have, when they have gotten used to standing up for themselves or having to command attention.

She sat down at our end of the giant cribbage board table and said, "When I saw you dressed like you are," pointing to my clothes, "and you dressed like you are" pointing to Sam, "arguing about something, I had to come over to find out what it is."

---

Eventually, I will learn to do this: to separate my reactions from my observations. Or more truthfully, I will learn to both observe and react. Because this "just reacting" is going to get humiliating.

---

Caylee sat down with Sam and I around the end of the Trap & Gill's giant cribbage board table, forming this tiny triangle of people, and Sam and I did exactly what two men do when they are alone with a dazzlingly cute girl: we began to compete for her attention. Each of us tried to swing Caylee to our perspective, and Caylee did a fine job of keeping the pot stirred.

And then Caylee's plainer-shyer-but-still-nice girlfriend sat down with us. We welcomed Nikki to our friendly now-square of male competition.

And then, after a short while of this, Caylee dropped what Beatrice Cassady Adams refers to as the oh-by-the-way-I'm-married-non-sequiter where, despite not fitting at all into the content-flow of the conversation, someone has the irrepressible need to announce that they have a spouse. At which point the square collapses again into a triangle, only now Nikki is at the apex. And it's only at this point that the slow laggard, Observer Myles decides to join the party, and he was laughing disparagingly at Reacting Myles for being a dimwit and never wondering why these girls would join two men in a bar in the first place.

To be generous with Reacting Myles though, the girls' execution of the bait-and-switch gambit was masterful. The other effort back at the Central Social Club seemed downright dangerous due to the fact that the target of the play was coming out expressly to meet with the bait, and the breadth of differences between the bait and the switch in that case was too wide to be tolerated.

---

Dirty Seas third set started up, and Sam had already complained that he found the band too loud. I'd been in bars since the end of the work-day, nearly 8 hours earlier, so followed Sam's lead when he shook the girls' hands and departed.

But I find myself lamenting the missed opportunity to confirm this analysis by asking for Nikki's number and then suggesting a debrief.