This-is-not-a-blog

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12/31/2013

Fate Fête

For New Year's... proof that destiny exists.
Aren't these two photographs eerily similar? The one on the right is from 1953, the University Ball in Singapore. That's my father in the white dinner jacket and my mother in the middle. The photo on the left is from 1995, the Pink Trillium Awards dinner at La Cage in Toronto. I'm seated on the left (I was the Susan Lucci of the Pink Trillium Awards; nominated three times for my front-page column in Xtra, but never won), opposite Mama Dominatrix.
To repeat: On the right is my father and mother; on the left is me and Mama.... 40-plus years apart. My life is not my own.

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12/6/2013

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Waving a Batik Flag

A few thoughts on heritage, culture and our hybridized existence

When I was very young, I mistakenly thought I was quarter Chinese. Can you blame me? I mean, look at me (above; age seven, I think). Part of the confusion stemmed from being born in predominantly Chinese Singapore and being mixed-race; what my mother called Eurasian, her Rs rolling to the horizon. Currently Singapore is about 73 percent Chinese, 13 percent Malay and 9 percent Indian. My mother is Indian and her family goes back untold generations in what was formerly known as Malaya; my father is English. So I thought I was half Indian, half English and a quarter Chinese -- and math would later be my best subject. It was all those fractions and percentages. Plus I had Chinese aunts and half-Chinese cousins... and, well, look at me.

Ever since I was that mixed-up mixed-race kid, I've loved batik. It's my heritage. Even though my family moved to Winnipeg when I was still a baby, I must be wearing a batik shirt in a third of all my school photos. After my father died in 1999, I got a bunch of his batiks; most of the swatches above are from his shirts. (This sample doesn't even scratch the surface of the shirts I've owned over the years, let alone the sarongs and other items in my possession. There's a custom batik suit jacket that deserves its own post.) All but the satin shirt above date back to the early 1960s, from before we moved to Canada. I loved these older shirts most of all, so soft, such crazy patterns. I could never decide which was my favourite... though that spider, web and flower pattern with the Raffles label was something special. Sadly the shirts all fell apart from overuse. I gave the remnants to my friend, textile artist Grant Heaps, in the hope that they might live again in some other guise.

As most people know, traditionally, batik is made by a wax resist dyeing technique. Wax patterns are drawn or stamped onto the fabric before it's dyed; the dye won't show wherever there's wax. Complex patterns are built up by adding and removing layers of wax patterning before each colour bath. To me it's a perfect symbol of my syncretic heritage, how immigrants of all backgrounds cherry pick and discard various elements from our cultures of birth and adoption, building something new and whole by layering additions and subtractions. But that's what everyone does, not just immigrants and culturally hyphenated folks, especially in our increasingly connected world. No culture develops in isolation.

While the technique may have originally come from India, batik dates back to at least the 12th-century in Java where it reached its pinnacle; it may very well have developed indigenously in parts of what is now Indonesia. Today, it's made throughout southeast Asia. I've been to some amazing batik factories in northeast Malaysia. But the history is quite contested. When the UN added Indonesian batik to its list of the "Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity" in 2009 it flamed a culture war between Malaysia and Indonesia. Indonesians complained that Malaysians had "stolen" batik; that they had no claim to it. (It should be noted that the two countries share commonalities and rivalries much in the same way that Canada and the US do, though over a considerably much longer time frame; only siblings fight like this.) But claims to exclusivity are anathema to southeast Asia, a maritime region that, until fairly recently, enjoyed the free movement of people, trade goods and ideas. Exclusivity does not wear batik. As the UNESCO website notes, batik contains everything from Arabic calligraphy and European florals to Chinese phoenixes, Japanese cherry blossoms and Indo-Persian peacocks.

So my claim to batik does not stem from my Malaysianess, regardless of what some Indonesians might think, nor does it stem from some other unique racial or cultural connection. I strongly believe that everyone has equal claim to all cultures. There is no such thing as misappropriation -- there is such a thing as facile understanding or inept art, but that should never preclude the attempted connection. Like with music, like with food, mixing things up makes for beautiful, meaningful creations. World cultures are the heritage of us all. We all live under a batik flag.

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12/2/2013

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Profound Profane

Is there anything more insipid-sounding than a holiday gift guide? But when it's books... mundane concerns fall away, magical worlds open up. I reviewed four books recently -- three art books and one novel -- which offer an intoxicating mix of the profound and the profane.

I can't say enough lovely things about Will Munro: History, Glamour, Magic, the luxurious coffee-table book published as a follow-up to AGYU's 2012 retrospective exhibition. The folks at AGYU went all out, and Lisa Kiss's design is as beautiful as it is intelligent. It's a loving tribute to Will Munro, the artist, DJ, party promoter and community-builder who died in 2010. At only $40, I'm sure the 1,000 copies are going to sell out, so get one -- or three -- while you can.

That story, in the current/December of In Toronto magazine, also includes a review of A Little Gay History: Desire and Diversity across the World, a fascinating guide to roughly 40 objects from the British Museum, each opening a window on a particular moment or aspect of LGBT history around the world. "A powerful little book." I also tackle A Queer History of Fashion: From the Closet to the Catwalk, a heady, at times frustrating tome that accompanies an exhibition of the same name currently running at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York (until Jan 4, 2014).

And last month, I reviewed Greg Kearney's debut novel The Desperates. I open with the line: "Greg Kearney is a Tourette’s-addled savant. His deluded, narcissistic characters say and think every inappropriate comment that’s ever darkened your mind, and, I’m sure, quite a few that haven’t." The black humour, weird sex and failing characters may not be everyone's cup of tea... but if your tastes tend toward the macabre, this is an amazing read by one of Canada's must unique literary voices. The launch is Thu, Dec 5 at 6pm at the Black Eagle bar (457 Church St) in Toronto.

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This is not a (b)log

Gordon Bowness is a Toronto-based writer with more than 35 years' media and entertainment experience. Apparently, he still has a few more things to say.

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Fate Fête

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Waving a Batik Flag

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Profound Profane

This is not a (b)log

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