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piizunn · 1 year

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fur, money, adventure: mechanisms of colonialism and survivance

riel ✰ | march, 2023

“Of all the things on earth, the motherland is the most important

and sacred to us because we inherited it from our ancestors,”

- Louis Riel

Fig. 1, Wilson. I. Former Jean Caron Sr. House, Batoche Saskatchewan. Image courtesy of I. Wilson and Parks Canada

I am Red River Métis, descending maternally from historic Métis families by the names of Berthelet, Caron, Ste. Germain, Larivière, Dazè, Dubois, and Boudreau; we come from the Red River Settlement in Manitoba and Batoche, Saskatchewan. My Berthelet family members were employees of the North-West Company and community leaders in the town of Pointe à Grouette, now Ste. Agathe (St. Onge). My fifth great uncle Jean Caron Sr. fought in the Battle of Duck Lake of the North-West Resistance of 1885, with his sons and under the command of Gabriel Dumont, Jean Caron Sr’s house still stands in Batoche to this day (fig. 1). I introduce myself in this way, the traditional way of the Métis to situate myself on this land and contextualise my knowledge and experiences.

My practice serves to counter the settler-colonial understanding of Métis people and our history and establish us as a people who have been practising survivance for generations. With the help of aesthetics of survivance I oppose mechanisms of colonialism; aesthetics including the Hudson’s Bay Company’s bloody legacy, the monuments and public art installed throughout Calgary, the suburban cowboys that come out of hiding in their McMansions on the outskirts of the city, riding their steel steeds, raised trucks, to the summer Stampede. The aesthetics of survivance are “[...]more than survival, more than endurance, or mere response, [...] stories of survivance are the creases of sovereignty,” (Vizenor, 15). In her 2019 book The North-West is Our Mother by Jean Teillet, the author compares the birth of the Métis Nation to human birth; messy, bloody, painful. Our history is vastly complex and controversial in the eyes of the average Canadian settler today. It is a history that makes settlers uncomfortable, confused, sometimes defensive and angry in response to lack of knowledge and this ignorance is often no fault of their own. Canada has a carefully curated canon of history that we are all spoon-fed in school until given the chance to learn the other sides of this history, to think critically and hear stories of survivance.

Fig. 2, The Bay “Shopping is Good” advertisement, 2000. Courtesy of the HBC History Foundation

Countering aesthetics of survivance, The Hudson’s Company has developed their own aesthetics of colonialism. “Fur! Money! Adventure! That [is] what the Hudson’s Bay Company territory had to offer Englishmen and Canadians three hundred years ago,” (Sealy, 1). From the very beginning of the point blanket, with its iconic stripes on white wool, traded for a single beaver pelt to an advertisement from the year 2000 (fig. 2). An image of a nuclear family wearing matching white outfits in a clean white room. Everything accented with green, red, yellow, and indigo stripes, down to the scarf that the grandmother is knitting, referencing the histories of trade and handmade goods long abandoned by the HBC in favour of their modern department store model and multiple aesthetic rebrands throughout the years after the industrial revolution (Toneguzzi). The advertisement simply states, “Shopping is Good, Toronto”. Pro pelle cuttem, a pelt for a skin, a skin for a skin.

Fig. 3, Starr, Riel. Image of the original HBC logo, downtown Calgary. Image courtesy of the artist.

The HBC shield on a building in downtown Calgary (fig. 3) is a grim reminder of the bloody birth of this country, laughing in my face. As Billy Ray Belcourt puts it: “Canada is still in the business of gunning down NDNs. […] Despite the stories of progress and equality at the core of Canada’s national identity, a long tradition of brutality and negligence is what constitutes kinship for the nation of citizens sat atop the lands of older, more storied ones. […] What I can do is love as though it will rupture the singularity of Canadian cruelty.” (Belcourt, 5)

Fig. 4, 5, Starr, Riel. Otipemisiwak Fantasy Husband, 2022. Courtesy of the artist.

A Spectacle of Me for You: Otipemisiwak Fantasy (2022-present) is an ongoing body of work that explores the Métis identity through a modern and Indigiqueer lens, and through humour and the NDN belly laugh (Whitehead). The work consists of a series of photographs of myself wearing a costume I created using a combination of found and handmade garments. In the photographs from 2022 titled Otipemisiwak Fantasy Husband, (figs. 4 and 5) which have been printed in the form of stickers and two different postcard designs, the character Otipemisiwak Fantasy Husband (OFH), the masked trickster, poses with wood leftover from building a Red River cart in 2022. The aesthetics of survivance often incorporate embodying the skewed image that settlers have of the savage Indian, over exaggerating it so that that the joke remains in our own hands, and we can laugh at the ignorant moniyaw. In these photographs OFH is wearing a red and black lumberjack flannel over a red shirt with a black graphic of Louis Riel’s Face and white text that reads “Keeping’ it Riel,”. Around his waist is a ceinture fléchée, and a beaded leather strap on harness worn over brown dress pants. On his head is a latex mask of Louis Riel, his skin is placid and his features cartoonish, in the style of the masks of American presidents used in the 1991 film Point Break (directed by Katherine Bigelow) (fig. 6).

Fig. 6, Patrick Swayze, James Le Gros, Bojesse Christopher, and John Philbin in Point Break (1991), dir. Katheryn Bigelow. Image courtesy of Twentieth-Century Fox.

This work explores the aestheticization of colonialism through these political figures and latex masks which can be attributed to the abstraction of the real person from their caricature in history and in the cultural zeitgeist. One postcard design contains a full body shot of the character in a comically dominant pose with a log positioned suggestively between his legs, standing in for the strap on harness’s missing toy. The second design is a close-up shot of the character’s pelvis, the strap on harness visible with his thumbs hooked casually on the straps.

Referencing other Indigenous artistic personas such as Adrian Stimson’s “Buffalo Boy” and Lori Blondeau’s “Belle Sauvage” (fig. 7), my artwork including OFH satirises the settler-colonial understandings of Louis Riel as a violent traitor to the government by pointing to the ways his story has grown into a mythology of sorts in the eyes of Canadians in a similar manner to other related figures like the former presidents represented in Point Break.

Fig. 7, Stimson, Adrian; Blondeau, Lori. Belle and Boy’s Savage Buffalo Happy Hour. Image courtesy of Adrian Stimson and Lori Blondeau.

Like Stimson’s Buffalo Boy, my character represents an exaggerated Métis identity in order to “[…] camp up colonialism, sexuality, and authenticity,” embodying the trickster archetype like Buffalo Boy in the words of Stimson, “he’s campy, ridiculous, and absurd, but he is also a storyteller, who exposes cultural and societal truths,” (Rice, Taunton, Stimson). OFH mimics the over-sexualized settler-colonial perception of Indigenous masculinity, sexuality, and queerness and is an exploration of the ways in which my identity is tokenized: sexually, spiritually, academically, and culturally.

A Spectacle of Me for You: Otipemisiwak Fantasy is a way of participating in the phenomenon within contemporary Métis art of Louis Riel related kitsch objects that flood markets across the Métis homeland. Alongside and juxtaposing red and white Canadian kitsch that litters tourists' traps and contemporary art galleries across this land, appears the stoic face Louis Riel, gazing out at the country that has developed since his murder in 1885. As Marilyn Dumont puts it: “Riel is dead, but he just keeps coming back,” (70) Contemporary artists like Jessie Ray Short embody Louis Riel by taking on his likeness as a costume. The short film Wake up! (2015) (fig. 8) is a queering of this popular trend.

Fig. 8, Short, Jessie Ray, still from Wake Up!, 2015, video with sound, 5:58 min. Courtesy of the Artist, via Mount Pleasant Community Art Screen

The artist, transforms herself into Louis Riel by applying facial hair, a wig, and clothing to mimic the most famous portrait of Riel in a drag-esque performance. The work asks, “How do you explain a culture in small talk?” and is an example of the “re-examining the cultural significance of Louis Riel [that] allows us to consider the ways in which we can question representation while still respecting the importance this history holds.” (Junker)

Fig. 9 (left), Danger, Dayna. Digital print of Adrienne Dagger, wearing one of Dayna Danger's fetish mask. Image courtesy of the artist and CBC news.

Fig. 10 (right), Danger, Dayna. Big’Uns: Adrienne, 2017. Courtesy of the artist’s website.

The beaded strap-on worn over the pants and the explicit nature of the posing is in reference to Dayna Danger’s Big’Uns (2017) (fig. 10) series, as well as their series of beaded fetish masks for their emphasis on material and process (fig. 9). The result is what Danger refers to as “the most Native BDSM thing ever,” to wrap yourself in beads. Like Danger’s beaded mask project, the Otipemisiwak Fantasy Husband persona came about partly out of a joke, the desire to make something humorous and sexy. Being queered by my Indigeneity, my sexuality, and gender, I consider Sara Ahmed’s words from the introduction of her book Queer Phenomenology: Orientations, Objects, Others,

“A queer phenomenology, perhaps, might start by redirecting our attention toward different objects, those that are “less proximate” or even those that deviate or are deviant. And yet, I would not say that a queer phenomenology would simply be a matter of generating queer objects,”

The emphasis on the strap-on harness points to a specific queer object with cultural associations within the concept of queer phenomenology and orientations. It functions not only as a deviant object or a queer object but also an Indigiqueer “orientation device,” (Ahmed, 3).

Fig. 11, Starr, Riel. Spread from Reading Marilyn Dumont to A Railway Berm, 2023. Image courtesy of the artist.

The most recent work in A Spectacle of Me for You: Otipemisiwak Fantasy is a performance titled Reading Marilyn Dumont to A Railway Berm (2023) in which OFH, sporting a new fringed leather jacket and matching tan suede Manitobah Mukluks reads poetry by Métis poet, author, and academic Marilyn Dumont to the dismantled railway that once entered the former Fort Calgary. The title of the poem is A Letter to John A. MacDonald and the author directly addresses the first prime minister and informs him of his failed railroad project. In addition to the Louis Riel mask, I had also begun the process of making a mask in the image of John A. MacDonald but had not found a use for it until reading the poem by Dumont. The performance is documented in the form of a hand-bound zine using imitation sinew, with photo documentation of the performance of reading to the railroad and John A. as well as the action of “scalping” the John A. mask to remove it from the base. This is contrasted with documentation of the site using both historical and modern images taken during the performance and sourced from the museum of Fort Calgary’s website (fig. 11).

Fig. 12, Starr, Riel. Prairie Vessel, 2022. Image courtesy of the artist.

Prairie Vessel (2022) (fig. 12) is an exploration of Métis aesthetics of survivance, specifically the Red River Cart and its material and physical qualities, as well as its history and symbolism in our culture. The Red River Cart is represented in the contemporary Métis Nation of Alberta and Manitoba Métis Federation logos, the cart being revered as an important symbol of survivance to our people. Historically the carts were built without the use of standardised measurement or plans, however there were two defining design features common to all Red River carts; their two wheels and lack of any metal joinery, only using wood and rawhide in their construction. The research for this piece included scouring online databases like the Louis Riel Institute and the Gabriel Dumont Institute in order to find any sort of construction plans for the carts. George Fayant is one of the few Métis makers with this skill, and has been building them for over two decades, since 1998 (Patterson). Prairie Vessel (2022) is a study of Métis material culture out of the need to preserve a lesser-known art form, and to practise survivance both personally and for my people so that I may keep knowledge and ways of making beyond alive, to keep them thriving in the spirits of my ancestors and all living Métis.

I am just one Halfbreed, but I am still Halfbreed. My ancestors' spiritual and genetic material makes up my personhood and part of that personhood is in all Métis. I do not yet know who I am to my people, but I carry an important name and an old spirit. I would like to be a trickster, “lotta raven in that one,” they’ll say (Maracle, 19). I would like to be like old James Bird Jr., trickster, trader, smart as a whip, a deadly sense of humour, and mean to missionaries. Wiisakayachack, Nanabush, Bluejay, Raven, Coyote, Li P’tchi Mond, Chi Jean, James Bird Jr., I long to be a chakapish.

Works Cited

Ahmed, Sara. Queer Phenomenology: Orientations, Objects, Others. Duke University Press, 2006.

Barkwell, Lawrence. Métis Mythology and Folklore: Mythological figures. Métis Museum, Louis Riel Institute.

Belcourt, Billy-Ray, et al. A History of My Brief Body. Two Dollar Radio, 2020.

Bigelow, Katheryn. Point Break. Twentieth Century Fox, 1991.

Danger, Dayna. “The most Native BDSM thing ever”: Dayna Danger’s Fetish Masks Challenge Indigenous Sexuality Taboos. CBC Radio, 2018.

Danger, Dayna. Big’Uns: Adrienne. The Resilience Project, 2017.

Dumont, Marilyn. A Really Good Brown Girl. Brick Books, 1996.

The Hudson’s Bay Company History Foundation. The Bay, “Shopping is Good” advertisement, 2000.

Junker, Jocelyn. Capture Photo Festival: Jessie Ray Short’s Wake Up! (2015), 2022.

Maracle, Lee. A Really Good Brown Girl: Introduction. Brick Books, 2019.

Patterson, Dayne. Red River cart unveiled at U of S celebrates Métis presence on campus. CBC News, 2022.

Rice, Ryan, and Carla Taunton. “Buffalo Boy: Then and Now.” Fuse Magazine, vol. 32, no. 2, 2009, pp. 18–25.

Sealey, D. Bruce. Stories of the Métis /. Manitoba Metis Federation Press, pg. 1, 1973.

Short, Jessie Ray. Wake Up!, 2015. Mount Pleasant Community Art Screen, 2022.

Stimson, Adrian, “Buffalo Boy: Then and Now.” Fuse Magazine, vol. 32, no. 2, 2009, pp. 18-25.

St-Onge, Nicole J.M. “The Dissolution of a Métis Community: Pointe à Grouette, 1860–1885.” Studies in Political Economy 18.1 (1985): 149–172. Web.

Toneguzzi, Mario. Hudson’s Bay Co. Launches Strategic Rebranding Amid Privatization. Retail Insider, 2020.

Vizenor, Gerald. Fugitive Poems: Native American Indian Scenes of Absence and Presence. Lincoln, Nebraska: First Bison Book 2000, p.15.

Whitehead, Joshua. Full Metal Indigiqueer: Poems. Talon Books, 2017.

Wilson, I. Former Jean Caron Sr. House, Parks Canada, 2002.

#this is my grad paper!!!!!#riel text #undergrad #art writing #contemporary art #indigenous #métis #michif #my work #writing #academia #academic writing #my practice #indigenous art #first nations art #please read or else!!!

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apocalypticavolition · 10 months

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Let's (re)Read The Eye of the World: Chapter 1: An Empty Road

Welcome back to my reread! As will always be the case but isn't usual yet because we're just getting started, this post has spoilers for everything ever and should not be looked at if you don't want to see those. In fact, just telling you that spoils this very post, so it's already too late!

The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again. In one Age, called the Third Age by some, an Age yet to come, an Age long past, a wind rose in the Mountains of Mist. The wind was not the beginning. There are neither beginnings nor endings to the turning of the Wheel of Time. But it was a beginning.

A comfy paragraph that feels like home. Someone could literally plagiarize this and I wouldn't care because it's such a good way to start! More book series should try and have very consistent beginnings, it really adds a lot.

Oh, and I should probably mention chapter headers. This guy has the "Wheel and Snake" motif, which is a generic Plot kind of deal.

Note that I am skipping over a second prologue that was added to these books when they were (for some reason) trying to make a YA version of the series that cut each book in half. That prologue, "Ravens", is one I've never read (or maybe I have but only once) and features Egwene al'Vere a few years before the series begins. Maybe I'll circle around to it someday, but I'm very big on only accepting works as they initially were (barring fixing typos or outright plot holes) and not with a whole bunch of doodads attached.

...the wind blew east, out across the Sand Hills, once the shore of a great ocean, before the Breaking of the World...

Interestingly, the most likely body of water for this to be is actually the Mediterranean, not any of the oceans proper.

Gusts plastered Rand al’Thor’s cloak to his back, whipped the earth-colored wool around his legs, then streamed it out behind him.

Rand has a lot of associations with wind (Loial even notes it in-universe) and also the land, so it's appropriate that we get both here with the wind blowing through the earth-colored wool. Note as well that while the earth is protecting him (though not especially well), the wind has been turned by the Shadow into something hostile.

He felt a little foolish about wanting to reassure himself that Tam was still there, but it was that kind of day.

Considering his later thoughts about wolves and bears, it doesn't even seem that foolish. Take it from someone who just a few weeks ago was dealing with being separated from family on a Canadian highway that definitely had bears.

Without thinking he touched the nock of the arrow; it was ready to draw to his cheek in one smooth movement, the way Tam had taught him.

Tam's influence on Rand looms large over the series, which does set up the reversal in TGS and the breakdown it causes quite well.

Wolves raided the sheep pens and chewed their way into barns to get the cattle and horses. Bears had been after the sheep, too, where a bear had not been seen in years.

It's rather interesting to imagine what might have happened to Perrin if Moiraine hadn't taken him away. The wolves would likely worm their way into his head by about the time he met Elyas in canon anyway, only he'd be in such a different context it's not hard to imagine him going really off the rails. Someone who actually finishes what they started should write a fic!

With his thick chest and broad face, he was a pillar of reality in that morning, like a stone in the middle of a drifting dream.

And Tam's being a metaphorical pillar of reality is of course set up for the fact that by the end of the series Rand himself will be a literal one. It's really impressive how clearly Jordan saw the ending of the series; the Slog in my opinion is likely a product of his uncertainty in how to get there.

[Rand's mother] had been an outlander, and Rand remembered little of her aside from a smiling face, though he did put flowers on her grave every year, at Bel Tine, in the spring, and at Sunday, in the summer.

It's terrible being a mom for a protagonist, even an adoptive mother. Death is the best you can hope for.

But Tam had given his word about the brandy and cider, even if he had waited to make delivery until the day before Festival. Keeping his word was important to Tam.

"Belief and order give strength." If Tam had accompanied Rand on this journey, the whole thing would have been over in five days tops.

As Rand watched his side of the road, the feeling grew in him that he was being watched. For a while he tried to shrug it off. Nothing moved or made a sound among the trees, except the wind. But the feeling not only persisted, it grew stronger. The hairs on his arms stirred; his skin prickled as if it itched on the inside.

This is of course Rand's channeler sense for Shadowspawn. Does this mean he's already channeled at some point this winter, or do sparks like him get the various gifts before they start because it's inevitable that they will anyway? I wonder if Nynaeve (and maybe Egwene if sparks do get the spidey sense before channeling) has spent the last few days being itchy as all hell and not having a clue why. It would add another reason to her bad temper over being asked about the weather.

Not more than twenty spans back down the road a cloaked figure on horseback followed them, horse and rider alike black, dull and ungleaming.

"You're in the wrong franchise! Hobbiton's on the other side of the shelf, between Rosewater and Sounis!"

I get that Jordan had to channel a bit of Tolkien because it was the 80s and that's how you got published, but I have to say that sometimes I think he leaned a little too far into it. At least Myrdraal get weirder as we go.

There was only shadow to see in the hood

If Sanderson had been writing the series from the start, he would have rationalized that a Fade being able to step out of any shadow means it could step out of the shadow of its hood and then repeat the process to gain altitude rapidly, allowing the Shadow to orbitally bombard its enemies when the Fades stopped and fell back to Earth.

Abruptly a stone caught his heel and he stumbled, breaking his eyes away from the dark horseman.

Rand was a shy, awkward, inwardly beautiful teenage girl, just like you.

(Seriously folks, plot-convenient clumsiness is not gender specific and we should call it out in our boy protagonists too!)

Tam shook his grizzled head. “If you say so, lad. Come on, then. A horse leaves hoofprints, even on this ground.”

More proof of Tam being a good dad that even though Rand's talking nonsense, he checks it out. Of course, it wouldn't be surprising if Tam had experience with Shadowspawn somehow. Probably not though, since he was mostly involved in Illian and the Aiel War.

The wind that beat at Tam and him had not so much as shifted a fold of that black cloak.

More on the earth/air duality, with air being the masculine half tainted by the Shadow.

once he had even gone to the very foot of the Mountains of Mist, him and his closest friends, Mat Cauthon and Perrin Aybara.

Two complete nobodies who we'll never hear about again, naturally.

Today, though, the Westwood was not the place he remembered. A man who could disappear so suddenly could reappear just as suddenly, maybe even right beside them.

Maybe even fall on you from orbit!

Though I suppose the earth half of things being unfamiliar now does cut against the symbolism I'm envisioning, but I'll leave resolving that as a Freudian exercise for the reader.

Rand managed a weak smile. Of all things he might want to think about right then, the Mayor’s daughter was far down the list. He did not need any more confusion. For the past year she had been making him increasingly jittery whenever they were together.

18 seems a little late to be hitting puberty, Rand. Seriously, if it weren't for the narration earlier calling him and Tam "two men", I'd assume he was supposed to be 14-16 at this point.

“Remember the flame, lad, and the void.”

This technique actually does kind of work! I've used it a lot during painful dentistry and stuff. Sadly, I'm no good at remembering it when I'm in an emotional state, which is when it would be most useful, but maybe someday I'll learn.

(Probably not.)

Some said the land was too rocky, as if there were not rocks everywhere in the Two Rivers, and others said it was hard-luck land. A few muttered that there was no point getting any closer to the mountains than needs be.

Having recently been exposed to the "The Two Rivers is contaminated with radioactive fallout from the Trolloc Wars" theory, I have to note that this feels a bit like evidence for it even though I don't believe it in general - in particular, the cats having a weird number of toes happens all over the place in real life when they start getting too inbred.

goodwife

This is an interesting word choice! Goodwife (masculine "goodman"; abbr. "goody", from which we get "goody two-shoes") is an archaic form of address that started in the 1300s and died by the 1800s, with the English and Scots using it first and the Puritans later. It referred to women of high social status but non-gentry in Europe and in America we have no clue what exactly the Puritans meant except that it was respectful. Here in EF, the term likely either descends from the days when there were gentry to talk about, or has arisen in the Puritan sense.

Whether or not leaves had appeared on the trees, no woman would let Bel Tine come before her spring cleaning was done.

And here we come to Jordan's worldview again. The Two Rivers folk are meant to be pretty gender egalitarian, but here we see that they have the exact division of labor that the idealized American town does, with women doing interior chores and men doing exterior ones. This is treated as being inevitable, even though of course it doesn't have to be and in most real societies gendered division of labor is only ever a sunny day ideal and abandoned in part or in whole in rougher times like we're supposed to be in now, with spring a month late. Hell, even in a culture with similar gender norms to the west, ("Women care about the house, men do rough work"), you could easily see them ending up dividing things the other way, with women expected to thatch the roofs to maintain their nes- I mean homes and men beating the shit out of carpets because their big manly muscles let them get it done faster. See how easy it is to use sexist logic to justify the exact opposite of what western sexism usually does? (Fun fact: That's because sexist logic is almost completely arbitrary.)

It would be rather nice to see a generic Arcadian farming village that has radically different expectations for men and women while still being superficially similiar to the ideal homestead, really. Jordan missed an opportunity.

Tam spoke of damage from winter storms, each one worse than the one before, and stillborn lambs, of brown fields where crops should be sprouting and pastures greening, of ravens flocking in where songbirds had come in years before.

As a big corvid fan, seeing them always be associated with evil when they're really quite social and intelligent makes me sad.

[Wit] never seemed ready to start over, or to finish what he started the first time. Most of the Coplins and Congars were like that, those who were not worse.

Kind of odd to transition from "Life is hard out here and people who aren't willing to work hard can't cut it" to "Meet the Shithead and Lazyfuck Clans, the inbred hicks." It's realistic to have shittier families in communities, but usually these families in the real world at least have something going for them.

“What are we going to do about Nynaeve, al’Thor?” Congar demanded. “We can’t have a Wisdom like that for Emond’s Field.”

Wait a few days and the problem will take care of itself, Wit. Ten whatever-kind-of-coins-are-legal-tender-here says that he was probably the first to bitch about their village not having a Wisdom the second Nynaeve crested a hill and disappeared from view.

“You try meddling in Women’s Circle business, and see how you like eating your own cooking. Which you won’t do in my kitchen. And washing your own clothes and making your own bed. Which won’t be under my roof.”

Guess Daise married from outside the clan, since she seems like a relatively decent sort. Also note again the 1950s division of labor; plenty of dudes knew how to do "women's work" across history because even if you were lucky enough to always have a mommy-wife (yes that's exactly how icky 1950s-lovers are) on hand and never had to go to war or a logging camp or spend a few years in early adulthood fending for yourself, sometimes Mrs. Mommy would be bedridden from all the exhaustion of being a brood mare with unrealized aspirations and then you'd have to learn how to keep the household going anyway because hiring (or enslaving) a dark-skinned maid to do everything for you wasn't an option.

When they saw Tam, the goodwives of Emond’s Field went on point like hounds spotting a rabbit.

I feel like this is another bit of Jordan's local culture being mistaken for human nature. There's definitely gals who will try to set you up if they know you're single, but there's guys who'll pull the same stunt and neither gender has a 100% attempt rate unless compelled to by their society. Then again, for all of it being presented as the ideal, the Two Rivers community is definitely all about meddling in each other's business and assuming you're too stupid to breathe because you don't have the right kind of genitals, so I suppose it makes sense the women feel like they have to.

Worst of all were those who paused thoughtfully at about that point, then asked with elaborate casualness exactly how old he was now.

Based on later books, Egwene would have been pissed to hear about this. It's probably not canonical in later books though, since the exact details of their relationship change quite a bit in the first three.

Outsiders sometimes found it funny that the road had one name to the north and another to the south, but that was the way it had always been, as far as anyone in Emond’s Field knew, and that was that.

I struggle to think what rock these outsiders must have been living under to find the idea of a road changing names funny. It's the sort of thing that happens when two separate roads are brought together, and I know that the west is slowly decaying, but still.

No one knew when the custom began or why—it was another thing that was the way it had always been—but it was an excuse to sing and dance, and nobody in the Two Rivers needed much excuse for that.

It's a dick joke, ya hicks!

Or possibly a reference to the queen blowing herself up. That seems more dignified.

And to top everything, if the rumors could be believed, a grand display of fireworks was planned for the Green—if the first peddler of the year appeared in time, of course.

Another moment that feels a bit too Tolkien, with the book opening on a celebration graced with fireworks, but hey at least the Illuminators end up having a lot of plot relevance in this story, so it builds well.

At the south end of the inn, away from the stream, stretched the remains of a much larger stone foundation, once part of the inn—or so it was said.

I would guess that the foundation was once the local garrison in Manetheren, or at least a more prominent building for the village mayor. Maybe even a place where Andorians of import might stay, since it would have to be relatively recently ruined to have not been torn apart by the tree roots in the last few hundred years.

“An ill omen,” a scratchy voice announced, “no storks nesting on the rooftops at Bel Tine.” Cenn Buie, as gnarled and dark as an old root, marched up to Tam and Bran and leaned on his walking staff, near as tall as he was and just as gnarled.

Narrative doesn't treat Buie kindly either (and not unfairly), but he's not wrong here. Things are only going to get worse, especially here in the Two Rivers.

Ask the Wisdom when the winter will end, and she walks away. Maybe she doesn’t want to tell us what she hears on the wind. Maybe what she hears is that the winter won’t end. Maybe it’s just going to go on being winter until the Wheel turns and the Age ends. There’s your point.

It's interesting that while Cenn thinks Nynaeve is too young, his fearmongering here is based on the assumption that she is perfectly competent. This double think is quite distressingly common in certain circles.

Rand’s smile broadened; it did not sound as much like fun to him as it would have a year or two back, but Mat never seemed to grow up.

Again, this sequence feels like it works better with Rand and Mat being 14-16, with badger pranks seeming like something more fun at 12-14. I wonder if, a bit like GRRM, Jordan assumed he'd have some time skips in his story that would get Rand into his 20s from a younger age, and then abandoned the concept as the plot continued to demand immediate action.

“Funny how being scared takes you. You think strange things. I actually thought—just for a minute, mind—it might be the Dark One.”

Mat's not too far off!

“The Dark One and all of the Forsaken are bound in Shayol Ghul, beyond the Great Blight, bound by the Creator at the moment of Creation, bound until the end of time. The hand of the Creator shelters the world, and the Light shines on us all.”

Note that it's not quite true: not all of the Forsaken are bound, none of them were bound by the Creator (arguably not even the Dark One), and the Forsaken are all about to break free. Over the past few millennia the Forsaken have really had a glow-up.

“My mother always said the Forsaken would come for me if I didn’t mend my ways. If I ever saw anybody who looked like Ishamael, or Aginor, it was him.”

Considering that Ish is currently serving flaming looks and Aginor is decayed as all hell, this is again not all that wrong.

Now his name came up whenever a washline dropped the laundry in the dirt or a loose saddle girth deposited a farmer in the road. Mat did not even have to be anywhere around. His support might be worse than none.

While I do think Nynaeve and Egwene are too hard on the boy, it's important to remember that this is Mat's reputation at the start of the series: his own best friend doesn't want his public support on a major issue.

Rand stared wonderingly. No one traveled beyond the village by night, not these days, certainly not alone.

Why did Thom come in the dead of night? Taren Ferry should have been a perfectly good place to stop, and with things being like they are you wouldn't think him in much of a hurry to wander among the wolves even though he can take care of himself. Do we get an answer to this?

That alone is worth the expense of bringing him down from Baerlon.

Oh and Thom's been close enough that he'd know all the environmental dangers quite well, so that really just makes me all the more curious.

“You have a head on your shoulders when you choose to use it,” Bran said. “He’ll follow you on the Village Council one day, Tam. Mark my words. He couldn’t do much worse right now than someone I could name.”

We can see here that Rand really is a political thinker, though of course he's going to rise far beyond a simple village council.

“Oh, why not?” Mat said resignedly. “Like your da said, the quicker it’s in the cellar. . . .” Picking up one of the casks of cider in both arms, he hurried toward the inn in a half trot.

And we can see here that Mat really is good to his friends, even if he is a rogue.

And that's pretty much chapter one! Rand and dad walk down a road, Rand sees an incarnation of evil, dad gossips throughout the village, local crotchety old man and scheming youth spread rumors. Like the prologue, this sequence wasn't really particularly adapted by the show. We instead have:

Moiraine giving us a really awkward summary of the plot thanks to executive meddling.

And it's here I should point out how many different reasons season 1 needed to make changes from the book. There's executive meddling, there's plague, there's the inevitable changes from page to screen, there's stuff that is clearly about appealing to the director, there's stuff that seems to be about keeping Rosamund Pike onboard, there's... a lot. And Rafe gets the blame for all of it which is really unfair because properly speaking we should only blame him for the stuff that's about appealing to himself. Blame Jeff Bezos for this one, folks. Anyway then we get:

Liandrin (who isn't even in this book!) and her posse of Rad Red Bad Bitches hunting down... let's pretend it's Gorin Rogad even though the timeline doesn't line up at all, and also Gorin's imaginary best friend. Moiraine and Lan watch from above and decide to go to Two Rivers.

Lots of people who want to make everything about culture wars complain about Obviously Evil Witch Liandrin being Horribly Misandrist In Ways That Sexism Has Never Been Done Before in this scene and I don't have patience for that kind of nonsense either. The scene's kinda rushed I think, and I am even more flummoxed by there being rumors of anything out of the Two Rivers, let alone four ta'veren, but whatever, plot's happening.

Egwene gets her hair braided for the first time (a practice mentioned in this chapter) and then Nynaeve tries to kill her to prep us for the saidar metaphor.

Frankly this is also rushed - a real problem in this episode because they wanted extra time for the premiere but were told to go feed their mothers to the Myrdraal while Jeff Bezos swam in a bathtub filled with 50 dollar bills - and because of all the cuts this episode had for time it feels a bit weirdly out there, but again we really needed to make surrender as literal and visual for TV watchers as possible so I know what's up.

Our closest scene to the books is Rand and Tam taking the old road to town and Rand freaking out about something that he assumes is wolves.

It's very abrupt and Rand is kinda douchey with his "I used to be a sap" line. It also used to be the first scene in the episode (I remember the outrage when people found out they were skipping the prologue) but the execs clearly forced it to be shuffled around. Probably would have been longer too.

Cut to town. People are setting up for Bel Tine and the air is generally happy instead of nervous like the books. Rand and Tam unload in the tavern and then Rand drinks with his friends, Mat, Perrin, and somebody else! She beats Mat at dice, Mat begs his friends for cash to keep carousing while bitching that Perrin is a good husband and accusing Rand of being a sheepfucker, and Egwene arrives with everyone very happy that she lived after the murder attempt.

Generally I think it's smart to trim down the parts of this chapter after the rider even in an episode that isn't desperately trying to fit into an hour, and introducing Perrin alongside Mat is something that works well for TV because it's easier to have interweaving conversations in real time. It also isn't a bad idea to age the characters up some (Rand and crew have to be about 20 now, per Moiraine's comments while watching Gorin get gentled) and abandon kiddie activities like badger pranks.

That said, the generic wholesomeness of the town is gone and that one lady who has spilled booze all over herself needs to slow down, like geez, you don't even know if Egwene is alive yet so why are you clearly already sauced? Hell, why is Rand carousing if he should be worrying whether or not his girlfriend was dashed against the rocks? Why is the mayor just chatting with Tam like nothing is up? That river initiation ceremony cannot possibly have a 100% survival rate and I suspect very strongly that its initial placement in the script was very different and only patched together like this because they didn't have time because seriously.

Oh and this is as good a place as any to talk about the elephant in the room to clear out the wrong sort of people before they get any ideas: no, the Two Rivers is not the bastion of Racial Purity it is in the books (we'll discuss that more in the reread when it starts coming up beyond a single acknowledgement that Rand doesn't look like most other folk here), and fuck no that is not remotely a problem. Even ignoring the sheer difficulty of getting enough extras of any ethnic group (and guess what people, "white" is too broad a group in this context and does not constitute a distinct "look" like the Two Rivers people have, you'd have to do "Polish" or "Irish" or something and then you're still making casting everything else a pain in the arse), the simple fact of the matter is that Zoë Robins is perfect as Nynaeve, Madeleine Madden is perfect as Egwene, Barney Harris was perfect as Mat, and maybe someday Marcus Rutherford will grow on me as an actor or at least get a subplot that isn't stupid or both! Together they cover a very broad range of human ethnicity and getting rid of any of them (let alone *most* of them) for racial reasons would be pathetic and would hobble the show even more than Amazon and COVID already managed to do. Shame on you for suggesting it and good day - good here being a word meaning "I hope you achieve some semblance of enlightenment about how wrong you are, which would be very good indeed, now begone!".

And on that note, I really want to go and play video games now, so I'm off as well. See you next time with chapter two: Strangers!

#wheel of time #robert jordan #let's read #rand al'thor #tam al'thor #mat cauthon #wot spoilers #wheel of time spoilers #wot on prime #racism is stupid and you should feel bad

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neenajaydon · 2 years

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#gcwal2022 I bought a fleece from local Cotswold ewe Sweetie in December. It’s my first raw fleece and I have been intimidated by it, but I am using the Great Canadian Wool-a-long as motivation. Today I attempted skirting. It’s interesting to see a bit of crimp in there with the adorable curly locks 🐑 https://www.instagram.com/p/CgutcI3vb3U/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

#gcwal2022

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dollycas · 7 months

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Special Guest - Victoria Hamilton- Author of Sieve and Let Die: A Vintage Kitchen Mystery #Interview / #Giveaway - Great Escapes Book Tour @MysteryVictoria

Sieve and Let Die: A Vintage Kitchen Mystery by Victoria Hamilton

It is my pleasure to welcome Victoria Hamilton to Escape With Dollycas today!

Hi Victoria, Please tell us a little bit about yourself. I’m a writer of mysteries. That’s probably the main way I would describe myself. But of course there is more. I love reading, naturally, mysteries, of course. But also memoirs, history non—fiction, true crime. I like tea and wine and brownies. I love autumn. I love cats, especially my own two, Poodle and Jimmy. What are three things most people don’t know about you? Well, I’m not sure, so this is just a guess. 1 – I’m Canadian, born and raised, and live in southwestern Ontario. 2 – I’ve never had children, so my characters (as far as I can say now) never will give birth to children either. I don’t think I could do the experience justice. BTW, I think parenthood is the most difficult job in the world. 3 – I took most of a university degree in English (never did finish it!) by correspondence BEFORE there was an ‘online’! I thought it would be the best way to learn the discipline writing for a living would require. I think I was right and it has done me well throughout my career. Now, if I could just get those last five credits. What books/authors have most inspired you? I am a dyed-in-the-wool Sue Grafton fan. Her approach to mystery writing – not too hard, not too soft, never gruesome, with real insight into the characters – inspired me in so very many ways. But I think my early love for Jane Austen (I mean, P&P and Persuasion? Come on! Best character interaction ever.) gave me a grounding in how to write about people of any time or place. What kind of research do you do, and how long do you spend researching before beginning a book?

It varies depending on whether I am writing a historical or contemporary, and whether there is any specific field of knowledge required of a character. For Sieve and Let Die I had to do research on what it takes to get a pharmacy degree, and some random information about zoning laws in Michigan, as well as how construction companies can cheat. But that was all easily accomplished as I wrote.

For my next historical, Lady Anne and the Haunted Schoolgirl, I have researched the lives of real historical figures, authors/playwrights sisters Sophia and Harriet Lee, who ran a girl’s school in Bath England from 1781 on. I started that research a year ago, but only started writing this summer. I love research! The trick is, to know when to stop. Do you ever suffer from Writer’s Block? It’s hard to suffer from something you don’t believe in. What people think of as ‘writer’s block’ is one of several things: a) a problem in the plot that you can’t move forward from b) you’re writing the wrong book or c) real-life problems are getting in the way and you perhaps need a break. What advice do you have for someone who would like to become a published writer? Find a genre or style you’re passionate about, and pour yourself into it. Be honest with yourself about the writing. Recognize your limitations and get help when you need it. When you are not writing what do you like to do? I love to read, so that, and TV (I have a guilty secret; I love so-called reality TV!). I have always done crafts – cross stitch, crochet, etc - but I’m finding more and more in the last few years that writing takes a lot out of me. At the end of the day, a book or TV accompanied by a cup of tea and a cookie is more relaxing. But fall is more my time for crafts anyway, so maybe I’ll get back into crafting! If you could travel anywhere in the world where would you go and why? It’s more anywhere and anywhen! I have been so fascinated by Bath, England in 1786, I wish I could see it from then! What is next on the horizon for you? As always, I have plans! I am writing three books right now, but focusing mainly on Lady Anne and the Haunted Schoolgirl, which is proving to be great fun! Lady Anne Addison is preparing for her wedding in Bath, England, to the man she loves (and lusts!) the delicious Marquess of Darkefell. Needing a distraction, she answers a friend’s plea to help Miss Sophia Lee, playwright, author and school owner, to help one of their students with her frightening experience of seeing a ghost. The girl almost died as she followed its commands and climbed out onto the roof. When the poor young lady is murdered, Anne goes all in to find out who did it, while also navigating the treacherous waters of her estranged parents and her developmentally challenged brother all coming together in Bath for the wedding. Thank you, Victoria for visiting today! Please keep reading for information about Victoria's latest release.

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#BeyondthePage #cozymystery #VictoriaHamilton

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rielstarr · 1 year

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fur, money, adventure: mechanisms of colonialism and survivance

riel ✰ | march, 2023

“Of all the things on earth, the motherland is the most important

and sacred to us because we inherited it from our ancestors,”

- Louis Riel

Fig. 1, Wilson. I. Former Jean Caron Sr. House, Batoche Saskatchewan. Image courtesy of I. Wilson and Parks Canada

Fig. 2, The Bay “Shopping is Good” advertisement, 2000. Courtesy of the HBC History Foundation

Fig. 3, Starr, Riel. Image of the original HBC logo, downtown Calgary. Image courtesy of the artist.

Fig. 4, 5, Starr, Riel. Otipemisiwak Fantasy Husband, 2022. Courtesy of the artist.

Fig. 6, Patrick Swayze, James Le Gros, Bojesse Christopher, and John Philbin in Point Break (1991), dir. Katheryn Bigelow. Image courtesy of Twentieth-Century Fox.

Fig. 7, Stimson, Adrian; Blondeau, Lori. Belle and Boy’s Savage Buffalo Happy Hour. Image courtesy of Adrian Stimson and Lori Blondeau.

Fig. 8 (left), Danger, Dayna. Digital print of Adrienne Dagger, wearing one of Dayna Danger's fetish mask. Image courtesy of the artist and CBC news.

Fig. 9 (right), Danger, Dayna. Big’Uns: Adrienne, 2017. Courtesy of the artist’s website.

A Spectacle of Me for You: Otipemisiwak Fantasy is a way of participating in the phenomenon within contemporary Métis art of Louis Riel related kitsch objects that flood markets across the Métis homeland. Alongside and juxtaposing red and white Canadian kitsch that litters tourists' traps and art galleries across this land, appears the stoic face Louis Riel, gazing out at the country that has developed since his murder in 1885. As Marilyn Dumont puts it: “Riel is dead, but he just keeps coming back,” (70) Contemporary artists like Jessie Ray Short embody Louis Riel by taking on his likeness as a costume. The short film Wake up! (2015) (fig. 8) is a queering of this popular trend.

Fig. 10, Short, Jessie Ray, still from Wake Up!, 2015, video with sound, 5:58 min. Courtesy of the Artist, via Mount Pleasant Community Art Screen

The artist, transforms herself into Louis Riel by applying facial hair, a wig, and clothing to mimic the most famous portrait of Riel in a drag-esque performance. The work asks, “how do you explain a culture in small talk?” and is an example of the “re-examining the cultural significance of Louis Riel [that] allows us to consider the ways in which we can question representation while still respecting the importance this history holds.” (Junker)

Fig. 11, Starr, Riel. Spread from Reading Marilyn Dumont to A Railway Berm, 2023. Image courtesy of the artist.

Fig. 12, Starr, Riel. Prairie Vessel, 2022. Image courtesy of the artist.

I am just one Otipemisiw, but I am one of many. My ancestors' spiritual and genetic material makes up my personhood and part of that personhood is in all Métis. I do not yet know who I am to my people, but I carry an important name and an old spirit. I would like to be a trickster, “lotta raven in that one,” they’ll say (Maracle, 19). I would like to be like old James Bird Jr., trickster, trader, smart as a whip, a deadly sense of humour, and mean to missionaries. Wiisakayachack, Nanabush, Bluejay, Raven, Coyote, Li P’tchi Mond, Chi Jean, James Bird Jr., I long to be a chakapish.

Works Cited

Ahmed, Sara. Queer Phenomenology: Orientations, Objects, Others. Duke University Press, 2006.

Barkwell, Lawrence. Métis Mythology and Folklore: Mythological figures. Métis Museum, Louis Riel Institute.

Belcourt, Billy-Ray, et al. A History of My Brief Body. Two Dollar Radio, 2020.

Bigelow, Katheryn. Point Break. Twentieth Century Fox, 1991.

Danger, Dayna. “The most Native BDSM thing ever”: Dayna Danger’s Fetish Masks

Challenge Indigenous Sexuality Taboos. CBC Radio, 2018.