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Carnegle .. NEW S LE TT.E. R ,
Index carnegienewsletter.org Website carnnews@shaw.ca email 401 MainStreet, Vancouver V6A2T7 604-665.2289~rnnews@vcn.bc.ca
Harold David (1940 - 2015)
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"Can you help carry some chairs? "Oh yeah. "Let's go do that right now. "Do it? Now?!" This little exchange was the first time Harold David came into my life. It was one of the first meetings for the anti-"free" trade agreement coalition held in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside, at the Four Sisters Housing Co-op to be exact. Harold was always right up front with little nonsense, game-playing (silly or dead-serious) and with a dry wit that always broke me up. That was his nature. As to the brief back-n-forth above, it was just so cool that he rocked this guy right into here & now by giving him no chance to waffle or try and obfuscate his initial 'sure, anything ('and I'll be elsewhere when it actually comes time to do whatever you just asked about')'. Barbara Morrison got Lisa David to fill out an application for housing at Four Sisters and another guy &. I. were scheduled to do the interview. Being a Co-op the idea is always to recommend individuals or families based on their general demeanor, community-mindedness, attitude and so on. The underlying question is always "Would I want to live next door to ?" Afterwards Tim commented, "She sure likes purple (virtually every piece of her attire was a shade of that colour) doesn't she"!" Barbara asked nervously the next day, "How did Lisa do?" Tim & I both laughed - Lisa's nefariousness included her teaching Sunday school, being a Brownie Leader, having habits (sorry, hobbies) like crocheting and (gasp!) folding paper into funny shapes ... A few weeks after Lisa moved in I was walking on the sidewalk in front of the highrise building when both Lisa & Harold approached from the other direction. Again, for the first time, it occurred to me that they were related!"! "Hi," said Lisa, "this is my father Harold." We both kind of grinned in recognition. A couple of years passed wherein Lisa & I developed our relationship through shared meetings and activities in the co-op. Harold and I got to know each other and he was 'happy as a pig in mud' when I asked Lisa to marry me and she, to my astonishment, said, "Yes." Harold was born on the 4th of July and retired in 2005. Both Lisa & I were ready though: "We have a great volunteer opportunity for Y-O-U!!" He didn't bat an eye and began taking Carnegie Newsletters to the more than two dozen places in the neighbourhood where people go to hang out or do stuff that doesn't involve drugs or alcohol. He had a vehicle 0) As time went on he began to assist in the collation/stapling/folding and the humourous back 'n forth inherent in mostly senior social justice activists' repartee. With Harold such witticisms included threatening to quit when he ran out of staples, when he'd stop to exchange a story with another curmudgeon and demand to be "retrained" before wearing his fingers to the bone stapling one more time ... He'd also use all his volunteer tickets (2/hour, exchanged for food, drink ... at the kitchen's concession) plus whatever extra was need- . ed in cash to get a round for the entire crew. He also got a serious jones for Carnegie's date squares, but that's a shared habit with me and a few score others ... The photo shown is Harold in his signature Tarn o'shanter holding the one that didn't get away. He and his little brother Gary got together for a few days on the coast for fishing and the bullshitting that goes with it. He's grinning so the flow must have been especially heavy that day Gary tells of snagging a 9-foot 1200 POUND sturgeon somewhere on the Fraser River. .. ! Harolds collection of only the best single-malt Scotches available anywhere kept him from getting bent on these fishing trips. Once you've had the best, everything else tastes like ifs cut with gasoline. Harold was also one of the best at 'finding stuff.' At End Legislated Poverty, where I first made the acquaintance of Jean Swanson, her mention that a filing cabinet is needed for this or that, a table or chair, paper for signs or banners or simply office supplies and there he'd be in a day or two bringing whatever was (almost) wished for or begged for from various unions. Sam Snobelen, part of this coalition of over 20 groups working to educate people on the real causes and some solutions to enforced poverty, called him "Elp's sugar daddy!" He'd get videos, rare tools, measuring gizmos galore and more and a few days later there he'd be, from wherever to whoever with whatever in pretty good shape for free. The Heart of the Community: The Best of the Carnegie Newsletter, published in 2003 by New Star Books, was a 256-page book containing some of the best articles, poetry and graphic art from the first IS years of the paper. It is dedicated to Harold David. As far as I'm capable of it, I both loved and respected this great man. Go well. PaulR Taylor
HEAR YE, HEAR YE!!! THE CARNEGIE BOARD ELECTIONS
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WILL BE HELD IN THE CARNEGIE THEATRE ON THURSDAY, JUNE 4TH 2015 @ 5:30 PM
Nominations will be held on Thursday May 7t\ 2015 in the Theatre To nominate someone at this meeting you must have a membership card dated no later than APRIL 5th, 2015 To run for the Camegie Board a person must: • Have a membership card dated no later than April 5th, 2015 • Be over 16 • Live or work (paid or unpaid) in the area • Be an active member of the Centre •. . Have contributed 30 hours of volunteer work to the Carnegie Community Centre or the Association in the previous year to the election
To vote at the AGM on June 4t\ 2015 •
Your membership card should have a date no later than MAY 5TH 2015
'TLE
CARNEGIE
HISTORV
Societal Murder So on it goes, people die because they are homeless. A mother and her 30-year-old son screamed as they perished in an abandoned building they were forced to squat in. In a caring society this building should have been turned into housing, but Capitalism does not recognize the unprofitable concept of social concern for these deemed undesirable by the powers of wealth. ' Once again we've failed to unplug the ears of our leaders. It makes me understand why Native American women approached the dead body of General George Custer at Little Big Horn, and pocked sticks into his ears so that he might better listen in his next life. But, of course, we are more 'civilized' now. Right? Garry Gust
JUST CAN'T MAKE THIS UP I've lost sight of the back of my hand 'I knew' it so well can I still stand I am one completely lost soul, no, compass will help me no answers can sway me from : the predetermined path I must foolishly go, Monster Monty Robinson gets a perjury charge for helping kill 2 people but as pigs do he walks away & smiles cuz he hit the jackpot of trials & is a free man no prison but just maybe hell will take him, so many are rotten as another takes his automatic rifle home to settle some petty score & it gets stolen his neighbours hate him even more Saint Minus will erase fuckheads like him, The city he walks over collapses upward into' dust clubs, bear spray & body bags are his armour sanity isn't really a must why not send these murderers to the Syrian war. .. Insidious to the human eye they take your possessions for a sunny day there will always be a need for those -Sc other killer supplies as you know this plastique & metal city is a joke though no one laughs anymore, they use a facade to make extortion look like advice but when you don't pay they destroy your lives like a lost & profound department classifying me as insane,
transit cops need new bullets every week while shouting through their bulletproof teeth - if they kill you they send the bill to the family who can most definitely consume more misery & pain, Monstrous strategy it's the only way to go as beheaded fare evaders add to that pool of blood that always overflows where are Gregor, Christy or Harper who say nothing & accomplish even less, When lives are4 tom apart where the hell in hell can these figureheads be found maybe golfing or betting our money on the homeless count my how financially sound - the blind leading the near dead to the ocean so they can blame anybody like Japan's nuclear mess, like a bunch of has-been actors forcing a hostile make -over Send 15,000 teenage girls to Iraq & ISIL be a 2week/takeover (excuse me a strong current of vomit is about to exit my mouth) -how can we believe this generation is living to die even god has lost his appeal like an armoured cash-laden truck with a 9 year-old at the wheel ransom notes are as popular as postcards but most deny they were ever received, like good Samaritans finding rotting bodies in the trunks of their cars how long before we colonise then begin to kill every spaceship due to arrive on Mars these are lessens to all to keep all business to themselves, like a human sewage supervisor of the year my how so swell.. or a stenographer with writer's block some would kill to get rid of their sense of smell, bludgeoned pigs are always & forever top-drawer highest shelves when science creates the Perfect Children Lottery every cent owned & stolen will be spent on Madonnas'Biebers'Reagans in short individuals will not receive a single cent someone with their own ideas will be outcast of this cesspool of humanity flushed right down the drain, , Liberties shall always be taken because corrections in no way mean someone was ever mistaken but Saint Minus shall continue his vigil 'til time itself is down to a single sandgrain, time winding down as the truths remain buried underground Saint Minus has every location in his sight, like how many poor people does it take to put a lightbulb in - none, they'd rather east in the dark than starve in the light. .. Is consumption a sin it is time to shoot out the night. , By ROBERT McGILLIVRA Y "More people would learn from their mistakes if they weren't so busy denying them." -H.J.Smith
Gallery Gachet - May 2015
*Un Quiet Bodies* Un Quiet Bodies features the work of Aja Rose Bond and Chandra Melting Tallow. This work delves into the complex realities of the physiology of trauma, self-awareness, and levels of ability impacting one's capacity to survive in a society designed for the "able-bodied". Bond's work emphasizes the relationship between work, self-care & leisure when accounting for physical & mental limitations. Melting Tallow explores the implications of ability through the lens of colonial & intergenerational trauma & its physical manifestations in the body. *Additional programming:*
*Zine Reading & Discussion Group - May 17, 1-3pm* when language runs dry: a zine for people with chronic pain and their allies facilitated by Aja Rose Bond *Closing Performance - May 31st, 7pm * Shrouded Forms - Sound by Chandra Melting Tallow *limited audience of IS please, RSVP by email programming@gachet.org or in person at the gallery Salon Shop exhibition
- *TheTransience Of Value featuring work by Lena Tan* Lena Tan carries forward forgotten traditions into a contemporary society, leaving a trail of increasingly obvious destruction behind it. Hand worked lace, based on the pattern work of Irish Women crocheting for survival through the Great Famine of the mid 19th century, melds with the flotsam of the daily commuter. Repurposed bus tickets and crochet become micro meditations on transit and transformation: permanence fused to transience. Can the invalidated be made valid again through art?
"The Downtown Eastside: Sun always behind the clouds ... " It is seductively easy to begin making a mental-list of all the issues and grievances that predominate the majority-opinion of the D.T.E.S. One could observe all day the indignities of poverty, the perils of substance-abuse, the inaccessibility to society or the un-
responsiveness of the provincial and federal government, a long list of miseries and an old tired record that has been playing for far too long ... We can pound away at the external circumstances of the situation, yet all structures, whether they are political, social or economic, are unstable and prone to constant oscillation and fluctuation. Or we can address the individual dysfunction that perpetuates the ongoing struggle of this area. We can acknowledge how faulty our developing education-system was in preparing us for life in this dysfunctional world of greed, cessation and madness. Within each resident there is an accessible peace whose brightness can dissolve the external negativity. The disease in our society is excessive & compulsive thinking & the addiction to it. We think about money, relationships, personal history and drama, our losses, our fears and all things that originate in our thoughts. This is easy to do, and it is also quite endless, condemning many to a miserable end ... We can begin by living in the moment (not in our streams of negative thought or emotions!). We can reconnect with life by giving our attention to the Here and Now, seeing the mental-drama for what it is (an addictive illusion) and accepting and surrender to Life itself, finding peace within which will radiate to the • world beyond. By Tyler Dunlop- DTES Resident
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Call for Submissions ...
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for an anthology that showcases the strengths, beauty, community building, compassion & other reasons to celebrate the Downtown Eastside. Writers and poets, please consider contributing. Selected pieces will be edited, photographs of contributors will be taken and will be used in the anthology. In addition photos & writings will be enlarged for an exhibit showcasing positive interactions in the DTES Please note: Although this is a limited budget project all efforts will be made to provide each writer with some books as an honourarium. EmaiJ Harreson at <iamshanti@nilL.ca>
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Humanities
101 Community
We hope to see you at the last Steering Committee meeting of the calendar year on Friday (May 1st). The路 meeting will take place in the top floor room of the Camegie Centre, from 3.00 - 4.30 p.m. We'll be reflecting on this year's courses and looking forward to what's to come over the summer. Your ideas and feedback are important in helping to guide all aspects of the Programme. All current participants and alumni are welcome. As always there are some fantastic study groups to get involved with. A Taste of the Middle East at the Gathering Place, Very Close Reading, Aloud! in the top floor seminar room at the Carnegie Centre, docu路mentaries for thinkers every 2nd and 3rd Saturday of 路the month, and the Hum speaker series will return on 路the fourth Wednesday of May. See below for details. A TiSieOf The Middle ~ast . When: Every Monday from 6 - 7.30 p.m Where: Gathering Place, Helmcken and Seymour Facilitator: Shahla Masoumnejad Middle Eastern countries have a rich culture, & although they are frequently identified as one region, each country represents a distinguished culture that is rooted in ancient traditions. In this ongoing study group, we enjoy the beauty ofthese cultures and explore the differences that make each country unique. Snacks and light refreshments are provided. Very Close Reading, Aloud! When: Every Saturday from 12.00 - 2.00 p.m Where: Camegie Centre third floor classroom Facilitator: Steve Wexler Readings: Available at the group This group meets every Saturday to read (aloud!), interpret and discuss classic texts. May Ist will introduce a new text, Oscar Wilde's De Profundis-a 50,000 word letter written by Oscar Wilde during his imprisonment in Reading Gaol, to Lord Alfred Douglas, his lover. Wilde wrote the letter between January and March 1897; he was not allowed to send it, but took it with him upon release. In it he repudiates Lord Alfred for what Wilde finally sees as his arrogance and vanity; he had not forgotten Douglas's remark, when he was ill, "When you are not on your pedestal you are not interesting." He also felt redemption and fulfillment in his ordeal, realizing that his hardship had filled the soul with the fruit of experience, however bitter it tasted at the time.
Documentaries for Thinkers When: Every 2nd and 3rd Saturday of the month from .6.00 p.m Where: Camegie Centre Auditorium Curator: Wil Steele Hum has been screening thought provoking documentaries at the Carnegie Community Centre since 2006. Snacks and beverages are provided. Monthly Speaker Series When: Wednesday, May 27 from 7 - 9 pm Where: Camegie Center third floor gallery Speaker: TBA (check website for updates, humanities 10 l.arts.ubc.ca) Join us on the fourth Wednesday of the month for a stimulating presentation and discussion from a guest professor. Humanities 101 Community Programme [the usual suspects include] Or. Margot Leigh Butler, Academic Director Paul Woodhouse, Programme Coordinator Maureen Phillips, Writing Coordinator Wil Steele, Reuben Jentink & Doreen Ong, Programme Assistants te!. 604-822-0028 fax. 604-822-6096 Website: http://humanitieslOl.arts.ubc.ca/
FEEL-GOOD WORDS Feel-good words are words that people like to say, because after having said them - they make people feel good. Say after me: FREEDOM,DEMOCRACY See? You're starting to feel better already, aren't you LIBERTY, JUSTICE, EQUALITY That's right, you're smiling now! PEACE, BROTHERHOOD, FRATERNITY Try not to laugh too loudly, though FAITH, HOPE, CHARITY Well ...we could always' try this again some other time ... Ken Morrison
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Hope in Shadows is a project of Pivot Legal Society, and for the last 12 years Pivot has worked with the community to hold a photo contest and produce a calendar annually that features the beautiful images captured during the contest. Each year, vendors have sold the calendar across the city. â&#x20AC;˘ Pivot has worked closely with Megaphone Magazine for several years on Hope in Shadows. The partnership grew out of a shared mission to provide a voice and economic opportunity for this community. They share an office space, and together run the vendor program that supports those who sell the calendar and the magazine. Recently, Pivot has been re-evaluating its role with Hope in Shadows and how it can continue to coordinate this incredibly valuable community project. During this re-evaluation, it became clear that despite Pivot's long history running Hope in Shadows, they were not the best organization to carry it forward and ensure its long-term impact in the community. When Carolyn Wong, the long-time Hope in Shadows project coordinator, announced that she would be leaving the organization, Pivot decided the time was right to approach Megaphone and propose a partnership to produce the upcoming calendar. Pivot recognized that Megaphone is the best organization to take Hope in Shadows to the next level-they know . the vendors, they know the community, and they share the same values. This year, Pivot and Megaphone will work together on Hope in Shadows. Starting in 2016, it will be a Megaphone project. Creating the Hope in Shadows calendar takes a lot of work. The good news is that the partnership between Pivot and Megaphone means that that a new calendar will be launched this October; For vendors, very little changes. There will still be training session and depots. The calendar will still cost $10 and sell for $20. Unfortunately, it won't be possible to organize a photo contest this year. In place of a contest, winning photos from the last 12 years will be selected for the 2016 calendar. This time of transition for the project is an opportunity to look back on the past 12 years of Hope in Shadows and show important stories about the Downtown Eastside community. More information about how the photos will be selected and when the community vote will happen will be announced soon.
The Self.Maklng ofa Control Freak (i.e. a Dictator) The current Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, prorogued (prematurely shut down) Parliament on December 4, 2008 to block and prevent a vote of nonconfidence by the Liberal, NDP & PQ opposition & then again on December 30, 2009 to prevent an inquiry & questions in Parliament concerning the torture of Afghan detainees. Then from April 29 to May 2,2011 (Election Day) the NEoCons made phone calls to Liberals in the middle of the night, pretending to be from another party & telling those called when their polling station had been changed, when it hadn't. [Conservatives were found Guilty in court but the judge said it wasn't egregious enough to invalidate the results of the Election (! !)] On November 3,2014 Bill C-44 was passed. It expands CSIS's surveillance reach, removes legal hurdles to agents operating abroad (in contravention of International Law), grants anonymity to CSIS informants and alters the conditions under which a person's Canadian citizenship can be revoked. Now being debated, and raising alarms everywhere, is Bill C-51, which 1) Expands the definition of'security' from being 'safe from physical danger' to preventing interference with aspects of public life or the economic or financial stability of Canada such as obstructing a pipeline route or an indigenous community's blockade ofa logging or mining/fracking road; 2) Gives the Government the discretionary ability or power to designate an extraordinarily broad range of activities as potential security threats; 3) Criminalises speech & other actions which have no connection to a terrorist act of violence; 4) Leaves undefine what kind of speech & protest activity may be seen as threats to national security; 5) Would create a No-Fly List based on secret evidence and, if challenged, would be reviewed through court proceedings that may also be secret; 6) Would allow government institutions such as Health Canada & the Canada Revenue Agency to share an individual's information with the RCMP; 7) Allow the police to arrest, detain & impose restrictions n an individual who hypothetically might carry out a terrorist activity; 8) Gives CSIS the ability to act on, rather than merely collect, security intelligence such as the KGB or the Gestapo did in the Soviet Union or Nazi Germany.
The Oxford Concise Dictionary of Politics defines a dictator as the man in ancient Italian cities (including Rome) who was allocated Absolute power during a period of emergency. Their power was neither arbitrary nor unaccountable, being subject to law and require retrospective justification. In its modem usage a dictatorship is absolute rule unrestrained by law, constitutions or other political or social factors within the State. If totalitarianism is defined as the dictator's control of people's thought, speech and action then Canada will become a capitalist totalitarian state. And when "terrorism" is the utilisation of fear to achieve a desired result, whether it be political, religious, economic or social, it will be in this way that suicide bombers, eternal damnation, threatened job loss and domestic violence are one and the same in kind. Add to this any kind of protest or civil disobedience and anything seen as 'anti-establishment' is criminal. Harper has effectively hindered or stopped the functioning of the democratically House for his own purposes. He has also criminally interfered with the democratic election process by sanctioning so-called robocalls. In addition he has created a period of emergency because of the perceived threat posed by ISIS and others and allocated powers to himself which are arbitrary, unaccountable, no longer subject to traditional (having made new laws) and not requiring retrospective justification. If the definition of a dictatorship in its modern usage is applied, his rule is unrestricted by the Canadian Constitution or the Charter of Rights & Freedoms (or other political parties, since the NeoCons have a majority) or social movements since the greater part of Canadians do not understand what Harper is trying.to do. In conclusion, Harper is a terrorist who is utilising the created fear of ISIS for a political result - the passage of Bill C-51 and the forming of a capitalist totalitarian state - with Harper and the wealthy one percent as absolute rulers ... He has also built up the Canadian Armed Forces, much as the military in the USA has been built up while armed domestic forces are being unleashed to 'defend freedom & democracy' ... It will be the underemployed, unemployed, underprivileged and poor - but mostly the uninformed who will die defending Harper and his plutocrats. Taken from a submission by HENRY SCHORNEK
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No matter how Vicious the sYStem is the War on Terror this system of war War on Drugs against 'terror' and the poor War on the Poor bearing down where I live are affiictions I makes me a target and affiiction means for business causing pain and suffering for governments and shadow governments and I am a human being for news media like so many I for free trade and economic warfare who have known affiiction 1the system has pierced my heart in my family with lies in my nerves and my voice and my anguish and my loneliness in my thoughts become as nothing in my heart I become a laughingstock to this system and in the community of the poor it mocks me in entertainment all day long indeed this global economy turns its hand against me I it mocks me in newspapers magazines television movies again and again and advertising all day long I it has filled me with self-contempt and it has besieged and surrounded me I and stuffed me with resentment with bitterness and hardship it has broken my teeth with indifference with isolation and self-destruction and self-centredness and crushed me into fantasies this global economy has made me live in powerlessness and I have no idea what true relationship is like those long dead the system reduces me it has walled me in so that I can ~ot esc~pe it reduces my imagination my ?opes m~ dreams it has weighed my heart down with chams reduces me to the size of a disappearing welfare cheque and with thoughts it has inflicted into me reduces me to a consumer of death so that I become this system of oppression but I remember my affiiction I make scapegoats of others I remember with bitterness and fear I hate and I resent and I fear and I am greedy I well remember and even when I have called out or cried for help and my soul is knifed within me my voice and my wounds are managed by the system yet I also bring something else to mind this system of development and theft and therefore I have hope has blocked my life with meetings and techniques because our deep and hidden and oppressed of exclusion and control love for one another it has made all my paths hopeless deeper than any economics of greed and madness and like a rapist hiding in the shadows no we are not completely dehumanized like a serial killer offering a hand and a smile or entirely turned against each other this system drags me from the path of real life for true compassion never fails and mangles me compassion is new every morning and leaves me without help compassion means suffering with for my heart the one who is different than us for my life the one who is most like us for my soul and from compassion comes hope this system of tourism and globalization . and life is good if we seek to be compassionate
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if we seek to understand the other person and life is good if we live to help each other without conditions and life is good no matter how vicious the system is if we use our own suffering to understand others who are in pain and life is good if we live to defend others who ar~ weaker & more powerless & more afflicted than ourselves and compassion suffers together not in isolation as this system would make us behave and life is good if we become for others the brother or sister we may never have had and life is good if we realize that our lives are not all right if the lives of others whom we fear are distressed or degraded and life is good if we can see beyond the reach of the system that our lives depend on the lives of others so perhaps it is not the worst thing that this system strips us of everything except what we have in our hearts for we are not to be without what our hearts most deeply desire love and care though we now live grief-stricken & terrorized so powerful is compassion that it will overcome this global system this system denying us our full lives we will overcome because we live differently . than the system intends for us we live in cooperation and compassion and we have arisen and we have come alive and we are resisting Bud Osbom
What they used to do to thieves (even if it was a loaf of bread) Remember, an actual Judge said:
"The Law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread."
WORDS WORTH
SAVING
Language, with these words modest and few, I honor you With this poem You, fount of my life, constant lover, stalwart friend How I struggled to master you! But, I vanquished you . Or did you surrender and thus conquer me? We are comrades now, language and me Or should I say language is me? These words unravel my thoughts while I fqllow along And untangle the knots These-words silence all pains, confusions, and do~bts These words that I choose Or do they choose me?
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We falsely believe that our thoughts determine our words When our words determine our thoughts I'm fond of this poem, this gift of my words It makes me feel good And this, despite knowing that eventually, inevitably, I too will run out of words But, by then I'll be dead Another dead poet ... Sad Save these words!
May 8: Mother's Day Pajama Party Spm-8pm, drop-in, ladies only Join us to celebrate mother's day in pajarnasl May 13: 5th Anniversary Unhirthday Party 1:30pm-4pm, everyone is welcome Celebrate Oppenheimer Park's Sth year Anniversary after the renovation! . New: Our Open Mic Music Program is back! Wednesdays, 1pm - 4pm Our weekly programs offer diverse activities - e.g, Karaoke, art workshops and open studios, soup, coffee, bingo, and movie For more information, please visit
The Oppenheimer
Park Totem Pole
It seems to me that when someone dies it is the responsibility of those of us who are left to offer caring for that life for that death in the intensity of the love that reaches out from the unendurable loneliness of our separation. So did First Nations people, with their friends and allies, raise a totem pole in Oppenheimer Park on June 6, 1998, to remember the community of those who have died in the Downtown Eastside, and so did they rededicate themselves to the struggle for hope and for justice from one generation to another. SANDY CAMERON
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;,': We acknowledge that Carnegie Community Centre, and ~~ this Newsletter, are occurring on Coast Salish Territory.
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THIS NEWSLETTER IS A PUBLICATION OF THE CARNEGIE COMMUNITY CENTRE ASSOCIATION Articles represent the views of individual contributors and not of the Association.
"Never doubt that a' small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has." -Margaret Meade Next issue: SUBMISSION
WANTEO Artwork for the Carnegie Newsletter • • • • • • • • • •
Small illustrations to accompany articles and poetry. Cover art - Max size: 17cm(6 :y.")wide x 15cm(6")high. Subject matter pertaining to issues relevant to the Downtown Eastside, but all work considered. Black & White printing only. Size restrictions apply (i.e. if your piece is too large, it will be reduced and/or cropped to fit). All artists will receive credit for their work. Originals will be returned to the artist after being copied for publication. Remuneration: Camegie Volunteer Tickets Please make submissions to Paul Taylor, Editor. The editor can edit for clarity, format & brevity, but not at the expense of the writer's message.
COMPUTER ADVICE Vancouver Community Network Cost-effective computer & IT support for non-profits VCN Tech Team http://techteam.vcn.bc.ca Call 778-724-0826 ext2. 705-333 Terminal Ave, Van.
DEADLINE
TUESDAY MAY 12TH
Jenny Wai Ching Kwan MLA Working for You 1070 - 1641 Commercial Dr, VSL 3Y3 Phone: 604-77S-0790
WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION • ~ • •
AIDS POVERTY HOMELESSNESS VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN ABORIGINAL GENOCIDE TOT AUT ARIAN CAPIT AUSM IGNORANCE and SUSTAINED FEAR
(Publication is possible only with now-necessary donations.) DONATIONS
2015
Terry & Savannah -$150 Michele C.-$100 Leslie S.-$125 Bob & Muggs -$100 Leslie K -$50 •......... J-~~ Catherine C.-$100 Glenn B.-$200 Sheila B.$50 Vancouver Moving Theatre -$200 Pat 0.$50 Harold & Sharron 0.-$100 Michael C.-$100 Eleanor B.-$25 Elaine & Oavid -$40 Margaret M.-$50 Ruth McG -$50 . Jenny K -$100 Jacqueline L -$75 Or Kevm -$50 Robert McG.-$110 Christopher R.-$100 Penny C.-$50 in mernory of Miriam Stuafi" Skateboarders -$50 Wilhelmina M.-$25 Jackie W.-$50 George H.$60 Ruth L.-$100 In Memory of Harold David - WiII/Sharon C.-$50 Barbara M.-$200 Gina F.-$100 Lori BBL -$100 Roger C.-$100 Oenise 0.-$60 Lydia McK.-$100---Barry M.-$250 Anonymous -$110
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VANCOUVER INFECTIOUS DISEASES CENTRE
HEPATITIS TESTING FAIR DID YOU KNOW THERE IS CURE FOR HEPATITIS C? GET TESTED WITHOUT BLOOD COLLECTION RESULTS ARE READY IN MINUTES
Friday, May 15, 1:30 - 3:30 PM Classroom 11, 3rd Floor
CU1:
Flowers
Taken from the Garden, Your beauty confined, against your nature, indoors. Under glass, on display for any passerby to see, Every part visible to the world. Yet open to each new day, Heads turning to follow the passage of the sun. Closing only when the light fades, At the end. Life sustaining water drawn through severed stems, Unaware they are already dead. Christine David
CALL FOR NOMINATIONS BOARD OF DIRECTORS Full details at dtesnhouse.ca
Or adrnin@dtesnhouse.ca Deadline Noon
~onday,Junel,2015
Sing Out for your Rights! Sing Out For Your Rights! will be a hootenanny in honour of Pete Seeger and Gil Levine, on May 2nd at the Unitarian Church - Vancouver BC, 49th at Oak. This will be a huge singalong of songs about people's rights to live in Canada, to work for a fair wage, to organize, to have access to housing, education, and health-care, and clean air and water as well as free speech and freedom from discrimination .It will also be a benefit for Raise the Rates and UNITE HERE Local 40. Tickets are $0-$20, available at Spartacus books or at the door. Songs will be presented by different individual musicians and groups, with words and images projected on a screen at the front. All the songs will be either familiar or easily learnable by a casual audience. It's a great way to celebrate the legacy both of Pete Seeger, known to all, and the somewhat less known union organizer Gil Levine, former director of research for CUPE and a great lover of folk music, who lived in Ottawa. Since his death in 2009 there has been an annual hootenanny in his honour in Ottawa around Mayday, and this tradition is spreading across the country. This event is also a rejoining of the very successful hootenanny held last year here in 'honour of Pete Seeger, w~ich drew an audience of350. For more information, please contact Earle Peach at earlepeach@yahoo.ca.
. 'What is death? Buddhists ignore it Christians tolerate it Arms manufacturers love it Slumlords use it, raise rents again Insurance brokers shrink from it Animals use it sensibly Generals decorate it eventually Poets foretaste it Clerics rationalise it Chefs morph it into banquets Stand-up comics laugh til happens to them Actors portray it til it portrays them Politicians tax it Spiritualists fax it Suicides embrace it Lovers temporarily erase it I say debt is a crook! John Alan Douglas
From -ene Library Spring is upon us, and recently many of you contributed favourite authors and books for our book draw! Thanks so much to those who entered, and congratulations to the winner of the book pack. Here are a few of the Carnegie patron recommendations: Blink: the power a/thinking without thinking by Malcolm Gladwell Thi's book looks at how humans make decisions, with some people following their intuition, while others make a studied review of their options. Gladwell is a well-known writer of social psychology making for an amusing read full of anecdotes and case studies. Fall on Your Knees by Ann-Marie MacDonald. A Canadian novel, set in a Cape Breton coal mining town, this book is described as "insightful and hilarious." MacDonald follows four generations of the family from the 20th Century onwards, covering a variety of themes (racial tension, isolation, passion, forbidden love, murder, etc.). A very impressive first novel. The Bone Bed by Patricia Cornwell Cornwell is a prolific and successful Mystery writer, and this one (which is part of the Scarpetta Series) is set in Alberta on an archaeological dinosaur site. A paleontologist goes missing, leading to a body and connections with unsolved cases that suggest a powerful and manipulative enemy. Inspector Imanishi Investigates by Seicho Matsumoto. On the other side of the world, another mystery writer was recommended from Japan ..Matsumoto is regarded as "Japan's foremost master of mystery" and his Inspector Imanishi is a typical Japanese detective who enjoys gardening, haiku, and tracking down a killer's trail. Dreaming the Eagle by Manda Scott. Our Carnegie patron explains that the whole series is awesome, and the reviewers state that this is the first part of the "gloriously imagined epic trilogy of the life of Boudica." Boudica is a woman warrior who defends Celtic culture by leading her warriors into a battle against Imperial Rome. It sounds like an amazing visioning of tribal history with druids, war, & magic. Thanks again Carnegie folks for the reader's advice! Your librarian, Natalie
[Reply] And thanks for all the stuff you've given to the Newsletter. My wife said q thanks shoul& have gone in the pqper qft:er or at the end of my response to yours but there WqSno room when it came to &oing the layout and it WqSaround 4qm. The above words are very ironical, Paul. If it wasn't for your encouragement to just write, I would have spent my decades in the DTES walking around with bottled up thoughts that might have driven me mad. But, I was given the opportunity by CNL to express and expel my maddening thoughts. So, let there be no mistake, the thanks is mine to give ... I just swiveled & moused my way through the latest edition of the CNL. When I came to your article that mentioned Bud Osborn was dead .. for almost a year now, it came as a complete shock to me that Bud was gone. On our infrequent encounters, Bud was always a gentle soul in our conversations. I would safely assume that Bud and Sandy Cameron are at the top of your prestigious writers at the Carnegie Newsletter. You Sir, have sustained such literary on goings for a long number of years in a special place where there is no purpose of thanks for doing what we might do, and were we enabled to do by your encouragement. Respectfully, Garry Gust
[Poem for Colleen G.]
Carnegie's Volunteers 'For many a year they have spent their time,
Working for the community they all call mine. They work throughout the Camegie, here and there, In fact you do find them everywhere. They are in the kitchen producing our food. Helping a lot to keep our tummies full & in a good mood. They are in the pool room watching those at the table; They all find something to do in spite of carrying a label. Not minding if others have declared them to be disabled. They are in the learning centre, as kind as can be, Coaching with patience the likes of you and me. i They are found cutting hair with such skill and care, Or just about in the Camegie anywhere .
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Carnegie Theatre Workshop
I
..â&#x20AC;˘ Spring classes ..â&#x20AC;˘
Movement, Gesture, Voice
ACTING BASICS
Your talents abound and your kindness is all around to be true. This community has no idea what without you they would do. You are honoured today, in this special week and way. We all like to salute you and to you do say. Thank you for all you do, here to build the best community, To make the Carnegie and the DTES a wonderful place to stay.
Fridays 1pm-3pm May 1,8 & 15 in the Carnegie Theatre Breath, body, speech Imagination, action, curiosity. Improv, energy, text. Workshops Ledby Teresa Vandertuin. No experience necessary Free, everyone welcome! For more info: 604-255-9401 thirteenofhearts@hotmail.com _______________
i Kindness, and building community is what they're all about. Makes one so happy and wanting to shout. You build the community and live in it too. What you contribute is what you can do.
--1
I Thank you for your time, and giving all you've got.
In order that a finer neighbourhood won't ever need to be sought. We' are the finest there is in human capital to be sure. Sharing it gives loneliness a great cure. For hospitality, caring and community there is no finer place a-shone And because of you, our volunteers, all are grateful to the last one. Our 'hood is supreme in caring for one's fellow woman or man. In this we seem to be of humanity a very special clan. Other communities are fine and that is to be sure, But one with the strong attachment is thisit is a rare jewel in humanities crown to behold. One that will never be replaced with a great heap of gold. This community has heart, and humanity as varied as ever could be. With its problems and personalities for all driving past to see. Yet it is ruled by heart & caring & friendship for and of you and me. It is made up of people who are timid or bold. It is made up of people down and out, But that is not what they are all about.
It is the heart and the helping and the how are you today? It's the people in this community built on helping & kindness this way. You don't realize how special it is, until you go away. You can travel the earth I am sure & look kindly in every spot. But the community people have down here, is where it is & what it's got. To be away and return another day. Shouts out, here it is different and special in every way. The kinship and caring is what things here are all about. Keep it! Preserve it! I want to shout. We need to keep the humanity here that rules. The caring and love should be taught in schools.
That makes it hard to contemplate
moving away.
~
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To Carnegie volunteers the pride of the Down Town East Side let's all shout. Building, keeping and enjoying community is what they are-all about. Go as you will and go as you may. You won't find better than what's here gathered today. by, Colle"n Carroll May you all continue to build this community
keeping it healthy and strong.
The last issue had a feature on Volunteer Recognition Week. In between the listing of specially-arranged outings & activities to honour the hundreds of volunteers, I placed a CRUNCH cartoon done by the illustrious Jim Dewar Tongue-in-cheek, it depicted a fictitious "Volunteer Strike" with caricatures holding signs demanding 'Larger Volunteer Tickets' & other fun things. I got Jim's weird humour - 'larger' was literal so we wouldn't lose them among other scraps ofpaper(!) I wrote some words along the side & printed the final product. Well SHIT!! Staff, both volunteer coordinators & kitchen & admin took it as serious stuff demeaning their constant efforts to recognise & show deep appreciation for the volunteers and their efforts to keep practically every program/activity/event here going. I was almost shocked, not getting how making fun of a never-to-be thing like a volunteer 'strike' was bad?! To everyone (both paid and unpaid) who works so hard, PLEASE keep working. [And thanks to Diane who, even after this, made the moistest date squares ever!] Paul Taylor
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