Fri Jun 17 16:10:43 2011 This isn't finished, it's too long and scrambled, but it's two years
later and I haven't really added to it since I actually sat down and wrote
most of this back in February.
How to be Invisible
for 51 Years
So last year Carmen Ruiz performed at the MAI and in an article
in Hour, there were my words about political art. The Zoofest
festival within the comedy festival had flyers that called itself
a "festival of discoveries", which is traceable to something I
wrote some years back about the Fringe Festival; it's traceable
because last year and this year, the Fringe declared itself a "festival
of discovery" (following a year or two of being a "performing
arts festival" that is likewise traceable to something I wrote).
I practically wrote an article in the Gazette when I commented
on one story that had gotten a lot of travel as a language issue;
the article very much resembles a comment I made somewhere about
it being a newspaper war, something nobody picked up before I said it.
It's traceable to me because of fine detail that mimics what I wrote.
The PR guy from the Fringe used my words somewhere, and when one of the end
of term university dance shows was listed in the Gazette in December, there
was a line that echoed a line in a letter of mine some years ago about how
those shows are part of a continuum of dance in Montreal. But of course, it's just coincidence since I don't even have a sense
that anyone has read any of what I wrote, let alone be the cause of
what they are copying. I don't exist except in the written word, and that makes it way too
easy for people to ignore me. For me to be invisible. The oldest thing I have that I wrote (and I can think of only two
older things that I wish I had) dates from the fall of 1976, when I
was about to turn 17: And then I proceeded to write about the actual purpose of
demonstrations. I didn't get it out of a book, I looked at the situation and knew
better. But that's the foundation of the rest of my life. I see something, I
write, and it's ignored. The kids, whether they are younger or older,
rush in, "we have to act" but since they aren't listening to the
situation, they can only reinforce the status quo. It's also surely the
origin of how I don't want a pavlovian response, I want people to
change. That's when I was cast out. If what I'm saying isn't even worth
responding to, then why even try to participate? But then I was never in
enough to be cast out. I don't know why I'm ignored, since there is no response. I am
completely disabled by the lack of response. I can't fix things because
there is no response, I can't get better at explaining things since I have
no idea where I went wrong, I can't fix things if I'm talking over their
heads because I don't know that that is the issue. It becomes
territorial, people ignoring the written word "it's only real if you come
to the meetings" or because as an outsider I dare to speak (though oddly I
usually am more of an insider than most). How can I move forward when I'm waiting for a response? Two years later, another defining point was when I knew there was a
demonstration, but didn't know the time or place. It took effort on
my part to find out, and when I got there I said to someone how much
trouble it was to find out. They said "well you can sign up for
our mailing list", which ignored the issue. All groups by definition
want new people coming in, and even if there were limitations back
then, unless one acknowledges the limitations, there won't be change. The most important thing anyone new coming into a group may bring is
the route they had to take to get in there, because that helps to
build the route for others. Instead, too many just assimilate, picking
up the buzz words without understanding. Once they are in a group
that shares a common vision, the group becomes blind to the world beyond.
Everyone in their circle shares the same interest, so they perceive
the world the same, that everyone shares that interest. They may be aware
of low turnout, but they don't know how to fix it. I did civil disobedience in 1979 and 1980. We had to take training,
and one of the things was "the anarchists fought in the Spanish Civil
War in affinity groups". Yes, it made a lot of sense, an existing group
doesn't have to work anything out, the people are more than one
dimension. But the theory went over everyone's head, since it turned
out everyone at the training session would be in an affinity group,
when the only thing in common was an opposition to nuclear power. I
barely said something, it went over everyone's heads. One can't be
powerful if there is no power base to come from. So they had all kinds of group process and training games to make up
for real affinity between the members. (Ironically, the second year
I went in with Greenpeace Toronto, because I liked them, and I don't
remember having any real meetings. Our zodiac didn't even get a ticket for
a boating violation.) That's when I stopped eating meat, in jail for a weekend, mystery meat
in gravy and hollow french fries, someone said "I'm not eating that, I'm a
vegetarian" and that's all I needed. I never particularly liked meat,
could have given it up at least four years before, but changing was the
problem, not giving up meat. Change is about balance, not dragging
someone into a different space. There is some point where change is easy,
and it's about finding that point. It's about giving something to change
the balance so change can happen. Since I really changed, I've never had
any desire for meat in all these decades, I knew it was a change forever.
I've seen people not even born when I stopped eating meat jump in and make
a big deal about not eating meat, then go back to meat. The next year, scanning the papers I saw that the trespassing laws in
Ontario had changed, it became a lesser crime. It was likely to
impact on things, I mention it to the head of Greenpeace Montreal
and he shrugs it off. That year we were again taken to a police
station, but only to be processed, we got the equivalent of traffic
tickets. Unlike the year before, no conditions placed on our release,
we could have gone right back as soon as we were released. Maybe it
didn't matter, but maybe we could have gotten a bigger turnout if
people were aware that the crime was no longer as big a deal. Or,
since the year before they were pulling people off the fence who
wanted to join us on a whim, one could have gathered those people
into a second wave the next day. That's what people do, they wait
for some "reliable" source to tell them something, never thinking of
how those somethings come into being. A few years later, I critiqued civil disobedience as it was practiced,
no response. Too many merely thought of nonviolence as a tactic,
so they just treated it all as rules to follow blindly (merely a
different set of rules), rather than something to change into.
It was an initial broadside, based on what I'd seen (and the limited
number of participants), it could never be improved until there
was response. Another group came along, I sent them the critique,
someone phoned that time and said "we're afraid of trying things
differently in case we make mistakes". My mental response was "well how
do you know the book is right?" They are merely trusting it. Even if
it's right, it may not apply in all situations, which is why groups
were constantly being disappointed by the turnout they got, "but
we followed the rules". Had they come to my space, the written word, they
might have learned, but they demanded it be kept in their space, the verbal.
About that time, and I'm still trying to find where I wrote it down,
I decided that instead of all the "Question Authority" tshirts and
buttons everyone was spouting, it should be "Question Assumptions".
Here were people willing to break the law, yet they were unable to
question the "rules" of the game. They were often inhibited not by
authority, but by their view. Just before they tested the cruise missile for the first time in 1985,
I wrote one group and pointed out something they were doing elsewhere,
setting a time and location ahead of time for a demonstration when the
missile was tested. Someone called and said I should come to a meeting.
Well I could go to the meetings, but I'd say nothing. Nothing happened.
When the missile was tested, someone locally was quoted in the paper
explaining the low turnout as "bad weather, and we had short notice".
No, they could have arranged things to anticipate the problem of short
notice. It wasn't even my idea, yet they ignored common sense. The second
time they tested the cruise missile, it was obvious to me the plan, they
legally had to give 48 hours notice and thus would always have it on
Tuesday, since Sunday was pretty empty back then news wise. And except
when they scheduled two tests right after the other, they always tested on
Tuesday. So much for "short notice". I stopped going to demonstrations in 1985 when it was clear that what I
had to say wasn't important, yet they so badly wanted large numbers that
they'd have us go through a chute at one point at one demonstration in
order to count us like cattle. Yet in 1986, when they were doing civil disobedience against South
African apartheid, one of the participants was asked why no blacks
participated. Their quote showed they had no clue. I wrote that group
saying something about it, somewhere on those floppy disks, but of course
got no response. Yet the next time they did it, there were my words in the
newspaper, suddenly they had an explanation though it was never clear if
the person quoted really understood. I'd become aware of the issue some years before, when someone at a
meeting said "we're egalitarian" and I looked around and there were a
handful of people, and all were basically the same, and the best they
could pull in for an actual demonstration was a ten-fold increase. It
doesn't matter what you hope to be, it matters how you are perceived by
the outsiders. When the anti-globalization movement was in its prime,
there was one article in the paper about how the groups were using the
internet (they got lots of press about that, even today old media is
terribly smitten about the internet), and someone was asked "why are most
people white?", and the answer was "umm, they don't have internet?". It
never was merely that the posters didn't get up, it requires work to reach
the crowd, it requires bringing the crowd into the equation to adapt
what's being said to reach them. The in crowd knows the buzz words, it's
easy to bring them in, it takes far more work to reach and change
others. When one group in 1986 was talking about setting up a computer network
for political groups, I wrote "the usefulness of a computer network is
negated if available to only a few". That too was a foundation for a
decade later, since my expectation was networking, a broad swatch rather
than the Dorothy Smorgasbord networks of old where one person controlled
it all. What a great place it would be if everyone had to write instead
of speak, I'd suddenly be in a very different situation. What a great
place it would be if what you said mattered more than whether or not you
went to a meeting or mattered more than what status you held. In 1989, I chastized a women's group in a letter to the Mirror, because
they were looking for "Santa and Mrs. Claus" to help out. "Why can't women
be Santa? It wasn't even a new idea, I'd thought of it about five
years before when someone was going campaigning against war toys, and she
told me she was going to dress up as "Mrs. Claus". "Why can't you be
Santa?", I ask. She never had much of an answer. I wasn't expecting women
to dress in drag, merely that the notion of Santa Claus doesn't have
to be male. Anyway, that letter appeared the day after the Polytechnique
murders. Everyone else scrambling to make a statement, to denounce
the killings, but there was my letter suggested something radical like
how women could be Santa Claus too. It was merely luck that it was in
the paper that day, but it's easy to react, harder to be thinking a
different way anyway. (And in an odd intersect, years later I pulled out
the page I'd pulled out of the paper, and there on the back was a picture
of Marie, who sold tickets at Studio 303 when I first started coming. She
was doing some concert recital.) In 1996, the Montreal Freenet started up, "access for all", it lasted
four months after we waited three years. The people behind the scenes
were just like any other small group, working hard and having trouble
involving people. Yet once they were online, they acted just like all
small groups before, the written word a place to advertise but nothing
counted unless you went to the meetings. I put a lot of effort into
making a space there, and yet the people behind the scenes were absent.
People thought I was a "volunteer" since they couldn't imagine a user
being a leader. I post about an open house at one of the libraries, they
post about their own open house. I reply and say something about how
everyone could print up that post and use a marker to title it, and stick
it up on their nearby bulletin boards. I even said that too often
centralized postering doesn't work, and the posters remain afterwards. No
response. (When things closed down, we saw a big pile of posters, never
put up.) Oh wait, they did tell me I could come to a meeting. It was clear
things weren't going well. I didn't say anything outright, any time in the
past I'd written up nothing happened. Finally in November I issue a
broadside, and their response a few days later was to announce they were
closing (via a press release, they couldn't even speak to us then). They made big plans early on, and stuck with those big plans even
though things changed. They wanted a big system, thus needed government
money, and they had to wait for that, while things changed. When they
finally came online, they couldn't change, they couldn't imagine a network
where everyone interacted, they couldn't imagine information being a
lever. The minute they announced the closing, there was all kinds of
reaction and activity, which was wasted since it was too late. Had they
informed earlier, that activity might have had some effect because it
could reinforce what was there. By definition, every member had
communication at hand, something no previous group had, yet they barely
used the website for information (certainly no news, and the need for
volunteers was buried deep), they had email, they had the newsgroup, they
had the login message, and they barely said anything. The group only saw the system, they never really understood the
networking. I was quite vocal after the closing announcement, since they did indeed
fail badly. I get email from the general manager telling me it's not a
game, but that was the point. A game has rules well defined before it
starts, you don't know who will win but you will know how they get to the
win. But this wasn't like that, even though they made "rules" very early
on. They expected people to come to meetings and volunteer, they didn't
change when that didn't happen much. They expected large numbers, but by
the time they were online they weren't the only game in town. The early
adopters that they were counting on had already gotten access, the
riff-raff remained that generally require a lot more effort (such as
convincing them what they could make of the internet, convicing them that
they could use the system with simple equipment). They couldn't make a
leap to computer networks, where information might not activate people,
but lack of it likely would limit them. They couldn't adapt to the
changes. They seemed to think of the internet as a passive experience, sit
back and consume information, rather than a revolutionary space where
everyone had power because they had the printing press. Even before the system closed down, a bunch of people started a second
group, that lasted for about 3 years but never got as far. They just
followed what had happened before, they had no real handle on what had
gone wrong and they couldn't imagine doing things differently. But the
previous attempt had shown that it hadn't worked, they needed to be
different to succeed. I was visible because it had been the written word, and I was outraged
that they went to meeting mode almost instantly. They could never do
things differently if they were stuck in the old. I was visible because
it was the written word, I had power, and they took it away when they
decided computer networking didn't work, they had to have meetings. I get lectured by email by someone who had been unable to attend the
previous group's meetings, about why internet access was so important, so
they had to go to meetings. But they took away my power, they could only
think in terms of information as power (to the user who consumed it)
rather than a chance for those without a voice to speak. Here was someone
who couldn't go to the previous meetings because they conflicted with
something he was doing, yet he couldn't see that maybe that is the problem,
that computer networking would get around things like not being able to
attend meetings. If people could participate without having to be
present, whole new viewpoints might come in. It was all the same as I'd seen before, a handful of people not
reaching out to the larger population. They just rushed ahead and tried
to act when they should have been listening very carefully and thinking
about how to do things differently. When they were whining after the
announcement of the closing, I was out spreading the word, which may or
many not have caused a computer being made available to the second group.
Like a lot of things, I never know, but they could only imagine a world
where everything was done by meetings and by status, not by some unbadged
guy saying the right thing in the right place. One thing the Freenet hyped was getting groups online. They had some,
but never really the groups that required a lot of interaction. But I
looked at every webpage they hosted, and they were horrible. They all fit
the form of a "proper webpage", but they were static. They were like
markers, as if someone would get on the internet in order to find out
about some group, rather than through older means. The page was
organized, but layered wrong. Nobody comes to a website by passing by,
they come through some direction, whether a link or a websearch. Thus what
the group is about is likely the least important information. What they
are doing Right Now may be the most important thing. But instead, the
front page would be about the group, often with large graphics that took
forever to load. Some would say "newsletter coming soon" as if they
should be doing things the same as before. In 1995, what drew me into the Fringe wasn't just the acts out there
promoting their shows, something any small group I'd seen could learn
from, it was that there was an online forum. Suddenly I could participate,
and I did. The first thing I ever wrote about the Fringe
was about how we should be using the online world to bring people in.
Another classic post from that year was when I pointed out that two
of the dance pieces had already been at Tangente, which really negates
all the later commentary about "dance not being up to snuff". Weirdest thing, I bump into Louise, and Sara Porter (she wearing her
large skirt) that year, and I say something and they realize I'd written
something about the show. So Louise actually saw more of the real me before
I talked to her, when so much of the time people ignore me because they
think I have nothing to say (and then use that to justify not reading
what I say). In 1996, I went home from the Fringe and most days posted about what
I'd seen. Not so much reviews, but about the activity, bring it
home to people to try to lure then in. Few were reading it, but
the point was to show what we could be doing with the internet.
It wa a deliberate style, trying to convey the spontaneity and
intimacy of the acts doing the promotion. Jeremy wasn't even in charge then, that's how far back it was.
Since the year before there had been some snags about getting
buzz online, I made a point of printing out what was posted
each day and giving it to the Fringe boss, "Gruff". It wasn't
about how great I was, it was about how we could be using
the internet, an intimate place that deserved more than
what used to be. Since I was ignored in the past every time
I wrote something, I figured I'd try to convince by deed. I wasn't rushing to the internet because it was the latest
thing, I had 20 to 25 years of seeing small groups and how bad
they were about getting their message out. Why should I have
to work to find out what was going on? I've always seen small
groups whine about lack of turnout, yet they expect me to do the
work to find them? At the end of the Fringe in 1996, Gaetan Charlebois acknowledged
my posts, and the next year he moved to Hour and was doing
a daily thing on the web, getting around the problem of writing
for a weekly during a week long festival. I never did know whether
I caused that or not. Oddly, when Hour started online coverage
again two years ago, they completely ignored what had come
before. Not only am I invisible, but the history of just a decade
ago has been made invisible by those who came later, louder in their
sense of entitlement due to their mass. In 1997, I posted something about the Fringe in a place about
"community networking" which was being talked about at the time,
it was still a time when "local" was a new thing since previously
there hadn't been enough density in any location to have much
local. That year, CAM Internet was a sponsor of the Fringe,
something I may have caused since I know someone at CAM had
read what I wrote. But so typically, if I was responsible,
nobody told me, so by the time the program came out with the list
of sponsors, it was too late to set up something. It would
have been so easy that year to have a public terminal, with
CAM as a sponsor and many of the venues at the student union
building at McGill. But that too is typical, small groups when
they ask for help don't keep the public in the loop with information
that may help them search for help. The forum went away in 1997, though the Mirror had something
on the web that year. I've posted something online about
the Fringe every year since 1995. I kept expecting someone
to come and say something, but that never happened. I thought
the Fringe would be easy to do new things online with,
and then I'd have an example to point other groups to. I thought artists, so often invisible, would jump at the change, so I
used that as example. I was posting about all kinds of activity,
at a time when many groups were either not online, or barely online. The joke was, it was artists that had shown me how to use the internet.
Reading decades ago about the early days of science fiction, I was
impressed by the whole nature of fanzines, and then a group in 1967
in San Francisco using a Gestetner machine for instant printing,
deeply influential during the Summer of Love. I always look deeper
so I had those models, waiting for when I got a printing press, and
I finally got the printing press when the internet became accessible. The point was to build up a cluster, just like a newspaper, so
if someone was coming for the announcement of free ice cream
at Ben & Jerry's, they'd also find out about upcoming used
booksales or a show at Studio 303 or bike repair or the Fringe.
I was hoping others would follow, I was hoping the groups would
come and interact, so one minute they could be printing a "broadcast"
about some upcoming event, the next minute answering a question
about worm composting, another asking a question about where to find
something. A place not only to tell people about what
was going on, but to learn. I thought if everything was the
written word, then I could push things like decentralized postering. The groups never came. The best that happened was QPIRG at ConU
dumped their mailing list on the newsgroup, instead of interacting.
And of course, one learned a lot from that mess, since they were
talking to insiders with their mailing list, when it requires a
different language to talk to outsiders to bring them in. That's how
most groups see the internet, advertising space, rather than to learn,
rather than to interact with the public. They didn't make a decision
15 years ago, so all I see now if they are changing is jumping on a trend.
Paul was representative of it all, when he told me something
about how it was too technical in 1997. No, and I can't remember
if I spoke it or thought it, it was a social space. The groups
thought it was too technical so they held back, and then later they
thought it needed to be glossy (another impediment to simplicity), and they
failed at homesteading the internet, they waited
till commerce decided things. Most groups slowly had webpages, but
they were merely markers. Not dynamic, not a source of news, and
nobody questioning how to make a layout a webpage, except in terms
of gloss (and gloss gets in the way of getting the word out). When
they did change, they followed commerce, not the culture that was
once the internet. I was posting and then printing them out and handing them to
the relevant parties. But nobody came to my space to ask. In 1999 I practically got tossed out of the Fringe office for
showing up and wanting to know something. They had obvious reason
to do that, but I was trying to get information because they
sure weren't using the internet. However badly I was doing it,
I was doing it, which they either ignored or were oblivious to.
Again it was territorial, so I fax them telling (Jeremy had
admitted a year or wo before that he knew nothing of the internet)
them of what I'd been doing. Patrick's response was of the problem
telling us what was happening, as if I was a mere audience member,
he admitted he didn't know how. But he never asked me what they
should be doing. They had lots of time in the off season to
ask me, before that or after that. Every single person who's had a job at the Fringe since 1996 has had
more of the ear of the Fringe than I have. The next year I wrote some of this down, and that was ignored.
I turned around and turned that "memo" into a webpage, it took
longer to write than to to turn into a webpage. It was a proof
of concept page, trying to show what we could be doing. It had
no graphics at all, deliberate, because I was much more interested
in making it easy to change things. I had content up every day
during the Fringe that year, 2000, I had various notices up as
they became pertinent (including one about a cancelled show
and its replacement, something I don't think the Fringe had up
that year). I tried to break the form that everyone had for
a webpage, so instead of news, I'd put the "headlines" right on
the front page. Like the cover of National Geographic up until 1959, where
the cover was the index. I very deliberately measured the importance
of those "headlines" (ie links to other pages) so the most important
were at the top of the page, so you'd see them without having to
wait for the whole page to laod. I'd put something up one night,
and remove it the next, or move it lower on the page. Instead
of a static page, if something was announced to happen that
day, I'd stick it up (and take it down after it was over). It
was like a test bed, I'd search for stories about the Fringe (either
local or relevant to our Fringe), I'd try with searches to find out
who was coming to perform (the Fringe didn't put that information up
till later), then tried to find URLs for the groups. One year I
was fixing the blurbs for the groups, adding relevant URLs to their
websites, and that seen as an intrusion rather than a fix. I went
through a few years of emailing troupes when I discovered them, telling
them they should get the Fringe to slap up their website URL. It
was a guerilla war, something that shouldn't have happened because
they should have early on took me in for advice and help. They had
ample reason to dislike me later, but no great reason to not
bring me in earlier. I never promoted the page because the point was trying to
influence the Fringe, something I'd failed at when I wrote up that
report. I didn't have all that much insider information to post,
and I wasn't going to promote a site that had so much criticism
of the Fringe. Even in 1996, I didn't think so much that I
was doing much, but that I was trying to show the Fringe what could
be done. I felt like a sort of insider trying to lead, not some
"reporter" on the outside. Eventually I did sometimes promote the page,
because I just got tired of the Fringe continuing to not let loose
information. Nobody at Studio 303 came and asked about that work. The Fringe's website was merely the program online, nothing more. One
of the points I'd made was that the Fringe had grown because it was
constant, growing on what had happened the year before, but the website
started fresh each year. That's when I realized I'd been around the
Fringe longer than most. That was the year one "family value" group spoke out against the
government giving the Fringe some funding, because of some of the titles
of the shows. I'd found out about it because I was doing regular searches,
at a time when there wasn't that much online about the Fringe. I emailed
the Fringe, Patrick shrugged. I emailed Skidmore, and she wrote a column
about it. I slapped something up on my webpage. I wasn't worried of the
group, but I thought it was a great way to turn it into some publicity
about the Fringe. It certainly made me aware that one has to be more
revolutionary about funding, rather than reactionary (everything can teach
something). Some months later, I'm suddenly getting email from the Fringe,
but it's part of a mass emailing, they a worried ( or want people to
worry) about funding cuts, so with hyperbole they spread the story.
Another case of being ignored. It's like I never said anything. Groups do that, they treat the population at large as a masse, rather
than participants. The groups want something, but they don't offer
information that pulls people in, or allows them to act. Groups just
dictate to the masses, hoping they will blindly follow. That was typical of arts groups. They weren't using the internet much,
but they did have email lists where they could pump their announcements
into the end user. That was a need back in 1978 when there was no easy
access to a "broadcast" medium and the cost of mailing was so high
that it had to be limited to "insiders", but it was different with
the internet. The woman who played "Mrs. Claus" had her own mailing list,
like everyone else, and when I asked her "why not post in a more
public place?" she replied "I don't know". (One reason is likely that
if you face the unknown, you face criticism and such, so better to
only talk to people you know where it's safe, but that doesn't change
a thing). And all the arts groups spammed, I'd email suggesting something,
what I thought the internet was for, interaction, and I'd land on their
email list. They didn't realize things had changed, that if they put
information on their website it was available for all, instead they
stuck to 1978 and mailed information to people already in the know. "We don't care what you think, we don't even care about you, but
come to our shows". SInce I'd already been posting things to the internet going back
to 1995, in 2001 when someone was critical of the Fringe's
call for submissions (someone missed out, it wasn't well publicized)
I had a letter in the Mirror both defending the Fringe and
criticising it. They didn't do a good job of publicizing it,
they still don't. My letter was right under the Fringe's defensive
letter, but mine had the dates of the Fringe that year and that
they'd likely be wanting volunteers soon. I even said "I am bugged that
Jeremy and Patrick can't see the point of keeping the world informed".
That didn't get a response either. For a few years after that I had letters in the Mirror about the
call for submisions, something the Fringe sure wasn't doing. And
when it was time to collect volunteers, I put up endless bootleg
volunteer posters, because they barely did it, but because the bootleg
posters had information about the Fringe, so it was advertising for that,
getting into a broader area than the Fringe did. The point about advertising/outreach/promotion isn't merely to fill
seats, it's to change people, whether it's to change their views about
something or to change them so they'll come to a demonstration or
even to come to a show. That doesn't happen if you merely tell
"insiders" what's going on. Even if something doesn't draw the
crowd, it may help for the next time (I know I knew about Studio
303's shows before I finally came to one.) Out of sight, out of mind,
if arts groups want funding they have to be visible, because the
funding will come from people disinterested in their art. I waste so much effort, and it devolves to that demonstration a few
years ago where Harper is equated with hitler because of cuts to arts
funding? Outsiders are not the enemy, don't alienate them. In 2001, the Fringe made some inroads, yet since I was never
acknowledged, was it me or something else that caused the changes? Yet they
were more interested in hype. That was probably the year
of "Internet Wrestling" at the Fringe, while they weren't really
using the internet. "Buzz from the internet" was merely old media's
reviews online, instead of seeking out online only material (it existed
at that point). That was the year of a meltdown, the Gazette not
reviewing for a few days. The Fringe didn't tell its story as
things developed, but once the full meltdown did happen, they
did put something up, telling peole to go to Gaetan Charlebois'
page to get the details (still acting like you needed someone
to tell your story, but that goes away when you have direct
access). One troupe won the Centaur prize that year, but never
got a review at the Gazette. When they restaged at the Centaur,
they brought along a review from a web only reviewer, which should
have been a clue. One guy did wonderful reviews for a few years starting in 1999. "Good"
in the sense that they weren't a few paragraphs, and they told us
something about the art. The Fringe never linked to his reviews until
about the last year he did it. They seemed terrified of linking to
other pages. Yet years later, they had Indyish on staff while they
were reviewing shows. They'd let one website doing reviews advertise on the
buzz sheets, they'd start giving out free tickets to websites that
did reviews. I was tempted a decade ago to organize someone to review dance at the
Fringe, but why should I spend more money (I was already spending on
the cookies) when I was ignored? Why do it when "some guy" doesn't get
access to the press releases that the vaunted media (that often wasn't
reviewing dance at the Fringe) did? They treated media like king, when they
should have used the ease of releasing information to make
everyone a potential reviewer. To this day, it's still not common
for Fringe troupes to put their press release online. They don't
create a space for people to properly review if they don't provide
the same information to all that they provide to old media. But by then, the days of the amateur were gone. When the internet was
a small subset of the population, people did things because they
wanted to change things, talking about things that often didn't get
coverage in old media. Just like I tried to work around old media
with all my work. Once the masses came, it was different. No longer
ideas being discussed with people they didn't know, the focus became
being in contact with people you already know, the same people that
were already phoning each other on a constant basis. Even though
some adapt it, the notion of facebook is about "friends". Emailing
lists are still about "friends". The review websites that have
risen up emulate old media, often reviewing because of a perceived
notion of what the audience wants, it covers the same territory. And
serious review websites never reach the general public, because they
by definition are for the "insiders". Over a decade ago, in trying to build up a cluster, I posted a reply to
someone when they asked "I don't see why the homeless would need
cellphones". and my post was completely about the homeless as people. The
internet today doesn't have that diversity, since everyone is hanging out
with their friends. Facebook, mailing lists, all that, does nothing to
reach new people because it's too much about keeping in contact with people
you already know. There's a whole string of things that I may have been the cause of at
the Fringe, but never sure since they never even acknowledge what I've
written. I didn't like the coverage at the Gazette, especially about
dance, and for a few years I had an annual letter related to this, never
published (initially they'd phone to verify I'd written the letters, so I
thought I'd see publication, but that never happened, and they stopped
phoning after a few years). But there always seemed hints in the paper of
what I'd written, as if I was writing press releases for the Fringe (and
sometimes I wondered if they thought I was a plant, and thus wouldn't
print my letters). There'd be the ridiculous situation where I'd write
about how the Fringe is not a theatre festival, and the Gazette theatre
critic would use that as a hook for his introduction to the Fringe.
Jeremy would be quoted as saying "no, we go out of our way to not call it
a theatre festival", but the program says otherwise, Once he got in
charge, that's how the introduction called the festival. It never changed
until I called it a "performing arts festival" and then later a "Festival
of Discovery". There were other times when Jeremy was quoted somewhere
that seemed like a soundbite response to something i wrote, but who knows.
The quotes seem to come out of nowhere, as if addressing something that
isn't brought up in the news story. I may be the lazy Fringe volunteer, but I'm one of the longest running
ones, just a handful still around from before me. Yet that doesn't
elevate me. I bring certain tools and bandaids when we put up the Fringe,
the next year the Fringe has those tools and a first aid kit. I've done
the cookies for as many years as I've volunteered, yet there was one
volunteer coordinator who'd come screeming out at the volunteer party when
I'd put the cookies on the table. Nobody moves me up, they don't even ask if I want to help arrange food
for the volunteer party. One year one venue manager said the last day that
the cookies were the best part of the Fringe, he revealed that he had no
money and hadn't eaten much that week (and he had a long shift, unlike the
other managers). Had I known, I would have done something, but I'm the
outsider. Another time I bumped into a venue manager later and she said
she'd had a horrible time as a volunteer, and she'd never go near it
again. That should never happen, I even apologized to her in my letter to
the Mirror that year about the call for submissions (they didn't print
that one). Instead, someone volunteers one year and the next they are on staff.
Or they do a show and next year they are on staff. I've seen them bring
people in from Minnesota to do the webpage, they put Indyish on the payroll,
but they never in all this time ask me about what I'm writing about. I wasted a lot of effort on the Fringe, with no growth. I'm the lazy
volunteer, but nobody has put as much wasted effort into the Fringe
as I have. Even when they do something that seems a result of something
I've said, it's often badly implemented since I'm not there to oversee
things. There's little point in decentralzied postering if they issue
an official poster that is heavily black (think of the printing cost for
the home user), if it doesn't provide general information useful to
all. Meanwhile over at Studio 303, we get that influx of new seats and
equipment some years back, but i'm expected to follow, rather than be seen
as part of it all. I was there reliably for years, for the shows. I
started putting away the chairs with the first Project Projo when Suzanne
said "aren't you staying to put things away?", as if I belonged there,
rather than the whining of so many groups "we have lots to do, we need
help". But just because I was there shouldn't have been an excuse to not
move me along with the changes. "Why don't you say something?" Huh? I've
spoken all my life, often saying things deeper than those rushing to do
things, yet I'm ignored, so there's no incentive to try on anything so
trivial as being seen as a mere volunteer. My stake in Studio 303 and the
Fringe are my longevity, but that doesn't count. Studio 303 has changed, and just like the Fringe, I was still around
but not seen as valuable enough to be brought with those changes. Nobody
told me that the snack bar was moving elsewhere. I represent what was once
there, I did the mailings and then it seemed like I was the only
actual volunteer, the artists who once were key players no longer
helping out. That's not a good thing, yes artists move on, but where
was the younger generation to take their place? Lost to a group that
focused more on paid staff? People get to decide that it should be
a fancier venue, nobody asks me what I think? We should never have
made those changes, since the need for a place to try things out,
for new artists, is just as strong as it was when Studio 303 started
those Vernissages. If funding was an issue, then it's time to campaign for
proper funding for things as it was, since a place to start out is as
important to the advancement of dance as a need for more venues to perform
at. Paul had the decency years ago to tell us he didn't want people to
feel rushed after the show, so we'd wait to put the chairs away. A valid
reason, I was willing to wait. Then we have people rushing in, as if
they can't wait one minute, people who came much later than I, except
that I'd already been worn down by the changes. I wait till the crowd
thins out, but that means nothing since others rush in and move the chairs.
I have no authority to stop them, even though I was the one
who had been there the longest two years ago. I'm still as invisible as I was fifteen years ago, as invisible as I
was when I was sixteen. Nobody asks me about bike paths, but I invented them in 1970 when I was
ten years old. Westmount had a temporary bike path in 1970, nobody
knows about it (and nobody remembers that Westmount had a permanent
bike path for a few years in the late seventies). Maybe an obvious
invention, but I was unaware of the concept at the time. Everyone since,
including Bicycle Bob, have come after. There is a difference between
seeing a situation and a solution, and doing something because someone else
has thought of it. It's been over a quarter century since I decided bike
paths were not the answer, because they don't change things. But I realized
then that the one reason I continued believing in them was because they
acknowledged me. And that's what bike paths
are, cyclists seeking acknowledgement rather than real change,
municipalities providing bike paths to acknowledge the cyclists (all
those lines painted on the road that cities "give" cyclists). I remember
when Cicely Yalden was killed while riding her bike at the corner of
Clark and Rachel in June of 1990 (either someone was parked on the bike
path, causing her to leave it, or someone was parked at the intersection,
blocking the view of a turning car), since six weeks to the day before she
was killed, I found a delivery truck parked at that corner, on the bike
path and sticking out into the intersection. And yes, I complained. That's
exactly where accidents happen, at intersections, and there's no
way to fix that. And all this time wasted seeking bike paths, when the
issue should be the careless driving that causes accidents. In 1996, I thought arts groups should be like small political groups,
with the caveat that I don't think much of many small political groups
at this point. Instead, I see it devolve to that demonstration a few
years ago about arts funding where someone equated the government
with nazis. Not only does it water down what really happened, but
it shows that artists aren't really thinking about the point of
the demonstration in the first place. One year I had a letter in the Mirror chastizing them about giving
publicity to the ConU killer. Ame was the only one who acknowledged seeing
it. But it was also about how the murderer was able to get his message
out while in prison, and all kinds of other groups were not even trying.
Then sometime later, some victims right's group made a big fuss, when they
sudeenly discovered that the murderer messages from prison were appearing
on the internet, as if it was a new thing. It wasn't. That group never
looked further, they just reacted to some perceived outrage. If they'd
not said anything, the murderer would have been as fairly invisible as he
was just on the internet. The group didn't ask those of us who had
experience with the killer, didn't ask about my theory that the one who
was doing the posting, supposedly his son, was being bullied into it,
didn't realize that on the internet we could at lest post about those
murdered every time the killer posted I walked out of Suzanne's En Masse training because it reminded me of
an incident where I actually understood mob mentality. And maybe that was
the point, but I'm surrounded by people who just blindly follow, it
crushes me, so why would I want to perform it on stage. I reacted, I
tried to follow, and fell out of sync, realizing I don't follow just
because everyone else is doing it. If you fall out of the norm at a young age, the why doesn't really
matter. Because you've lost that common time, everyone is in a different
place when you try to resubmerge, and they expect you to be in the same
place. Yet you aren't in the same space either. I didn't get to write a history of Studio 303 in 1999, I didn't get to
do it for the 20th anniversary. People coming later got to do that,
nobody even thought of asking me about it. Nobody asked me to write a
history of the Fringe, even though Hour had Jeremy and Patrick doing bits
about history last year. I'm nobody, but I can write a better history of
the Fringe than virtually anyone, indeed I've always written something
about some Fringe history each year for almost a decade. I'll never sit
on the board of directors of Studio 303, or the Fringe, and obviously I
shouldn't. But hey, if I'd not been ignored every time I had something to
say, albeit in writing, where would I have gone? Miriam said the first
year of the 303 Prize that I should be on the jury (something I'd shrug
off because if you're invisible it's too much of a leap) yet it was never
mentioned again. Ironically, for the first few years, I probably did see
the same pieces as being important as the jury. Without a badge, I am
capable but ignored, the suggestion of a badge scares me. Nobody asked me to do a chapter on the internet for Lys's book, when I
was talking about the social aspect of the internet rather than technical
details. Ironically, Marilyn once asked me something about computers, but
it was phrased as if she was seeking technical expertise rather than
interpretation of how to use the internet effectively. People ignore me, and then I make a fuss, and then sometimes they react
to the fuss. But they control things, by ignoring me, and then later when
they feel sorry for me. They still aren't listening to what I've said.
I have a lifetime superpass to the fringe, big deal. I'll never be
allowed to control the areas that I think need it most, I get listed as
"mere volunteer", valued not what I could do but am prevented from, but
valued on the little that I do. I can't move forward because what I write is ignored. So I can either
drift along, being pulled along, or then finally realize nothing is
happening and stop. That's how you can get to be 51 and still invisible. Michael
From: Michael Black
To: miriam.ginestier @studio303.ca
Subject: How to Be Invisible
"Carrying signs saying 'Honk your Horns for the Teachers', while
giving a fast return for the investment of carrying a sign, is
not very helpful to the cause. I feel that while many drivers will
honk while carrying such a sign carried by students, they do so not
in support of the teachers, but in response to the command of the sign.
Most people unless prodded will not offer a further response."