Tuesday, November 16, 2004

 
Thinking of emigrating to any country not bushland? I was, I think I was serious, but I seem to have settled down. Funny, because exile always appealed to me (how many American young artists want to follow Joyce in denouncing their country as a "sow eating her own farrow?" I did!) as an artistic stance. I guess if I had anywhere else to call home, I might. But I can't really say that things are so bad I'm willing to try and get citizenship etc elsewhere (plus I'm not really employable as yet, so I imagine I'd face additional difficulties), though in the long run Vancouver looks good (and has, honestly, since the first Gulf War). But having a kid and being near family is not a small thing.

And then, if civic worth and nobility is your pursuit, then this is worth reading, too.

Comments:
Thanks much for the post and the link. Interesting thoughts on exile as an artistic stance; I've been fighting my every canary-in-a-coalmine instinct not to look into moving elsewhere. But I'd have to leave my partner (who would refuse to move with me, at least until he finishes school) . . . and maybe the artistic stance part of it does have something do with what may (or may not -- only time will tell) be an hysterical overreaction.

The piece (link) on Mississippi as a police state for African Americans was quite sobering; perhaps this is the time to remind ourselves that if we think things are bad now, we're not thinking with our own history (and such recent history at that!) in mind.
 
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