WALK THE PLANCK: Did You Wake Up Like This Or Was It A Gradual Process

As stated before, although I focus more on music here at BtTtF, I do associate with many different types of artists in Toronto, including writer Matt Lennox. Mr. Lennox has been kind enough to write a continuing series of observations for us, and we love him for it. So here is the 3rd edition of Walk The Planck with Matt Lennox. Oh, check back here tomorrow, for a collection of show reviews including Wilderness of Manitoba, The Weather Station, Brooke Manning, and a surprise appearance by Sebastien Grainger!



Recently I had some beers with a friend I hadn’t seen in a long time – since well before I’d gone overseas – and the reunion was a reminder as to why I’d stopped hanging around with this person in the first place, my long departure from the city I love notwithstanding. In honour of anonymity, let us henceforth call my friend Ethel. Ethel is a smart hipster. She once DJed a party I hosted, and she spun records until the fuses blew, and the whole thing perseveres in my memory as one of the most legendary nights I’d ever witnessed. Ethel reads, watches the right films, and has an outstanding knowledge of science fiction. Add to all of that the fact that she is sexy, in that cool and self-contained manner that sexy hipster women possess. So, Lennox, what’s the goddamn problem with hanging around with her?
The goddamn problem, friendo, can be reduced at first study to a difference of opinion. I say at first study because the problem is much more systemic than that. Differences of opinion abound. Differences of opinion with the people closest to me are not uncommon and are probably quite foundational. I think my beliefs and the actions I’ve carried out in the name of my beliefs does not represent the common denominator amongst my friends. Yet we carry on. When it comes to Ethel, however, differences of opinion are insurmountable.
We were having beers, Ethel and I. We were catching up on the events of our lives over the past eighteen months or two years since we had last seen each other. We both were drinking Mill Street Organic Lager (if you haven’t had it, turn off your fucking computer this instant, get out of your house or your loft or your probable basement apartment, and award no quarter in your pursuit of the beer I’ve just described) and all things were affable. Did you see this movie? Are you still in touch with that person? You went where, you did what, you read this, you thought that: the ordinary and banal and almost necessary components of a conversation between two people who are catching up.
Soon enough Ethel asked me a little bit about Afghanistan and I told her. She nodded. She seemed interested in what I had to say. The conversation evolved from there and shortly took a turn for the worse. After we’d talked about Afghanistan, Ethel asked me, with almost lethal casualness: But you don’t really believe all that bullshit about 9/11, do you?
I found myself starting to have flashbacks. Years before. Ethel and I. The lethal amicability with which she might ask, You don’t really think Aliens is a better film than Alien, do you? I started to form an augur of what was to come, and I was much dismayed.
So I told her I did not really know what bullshit about 9/11 she was referring to. I was already seeking to deescalate the situation.
Ethel supplied me with a quick piece of backstory to contextualize the bullshit in question. She’d seen the Loose Change documentary ...
My dismay was becoming a tangible thing: a sour, acidic taste in my beer and an unreachable itch between my shoulderblades. Still I demurred and sought to deescalate, but I did tell her that I did not believe the content of Loose Change.
Ohmigod, what?
I don’t believe it. I think 9/11 is like a lot of things, you know, where the most apparent explanation is probably the likeliest.
I could see her pupils dilating and I could see her head starting to climb, as if she had an extendable neck. Ohmigod, she said again. She was slightly breathless. She told me she thought I was a smart fellow, how could I ... How could I ... ?
How could I not believe the conspiracy theory?
Fuck! Yes!
Well, I told her, based on the apparent facts that I knew – and I don’t pretend to know them all – but based on the apparent facts that I knew, the most logical conclusion that I could draw was that it was exactly how it appeared. The US got caught with its pants down, so to speak. Based on the corollary effects, I did not believe it could happen again.
Ethel, meanwhile, was becoming frantic. Her voice was peaking. As she put it, there was simply no way, no possible way, that any person with any measure of learning or of reason could believe that that was so – namely, the facts as they were presented. In this movie, Loose Change ... !
I’m not interested in relating the further dialogue that took place, because it was ludicrous. I kept my voice even throughout and simply disagreed with her, and tried my best to explain what sequence I followed from one apparent fact to the next. Ethel on the other hand seemed to have achieved a kind of furious and outraged nirvana at the fact that not so much that I didn’t agree with her point of view but that I seemed to simply and fundamentally lack the intellectual capacity to agree with it. Her climaxing rage appeared almost to be on my behalf – that I had been mentally robbed somehow, for what other explanation could there be for my inability to agree with the conspiracy theory posited in Loose Change and wholeheartedly subscribed to by Ethel herself?
Right. In this case, it’s not really the content of the point of view that matters. I think that Loose Change is nonsense. I think that it attempts to answer a deeper need that people seem to have when contemplating an event of such proportions ... proportions and ramifications that have had a direct effect on the world as it is today. People seem to harbour a need to ascribe a certain logic to the event that is perhaps closer to home, more sinister, and therefore, somehow, more accessible than what I believe the reality is. I’ll say it again: I think Loose Change is garbage. I think conspiracy theories are as guilty of contributing to our overall societal fear of the dark as is the mainstream media. The mainstream media tells you to be afraid of terrorists. Conspiracy theories tell you to be afraid of the guy with the suit and the sunglasses and the earpiece. One kind of fearmongering you see on the news and the other kind you see on shady websites that link to penis enlargement ads. So which one is right? I will also say again that the content of my point of view, or Ethel’s, matters not. It’s more about the dialogue. There is nothing wrong with having a strong point of view, but if you argue it with the stridency she did, you end up sounding more than slightly like a fanatic.
The trick is to be able to debate a strong point of view but not to beseech it. That might even require you to admit that there may be a counterpoint or two that you have not considered. Right wing, left of centre, pro-life, pro-choice, anti-evolution, anti-gravity, treehugger, whatever. The next time you hear yourself espousing what it is you stand for, maybe just give yourself a little listen. Do you sound like an Ethel? Because if you do, drink your own goddamn beer. I’m going home.
Until next time, I’ll be selling crazy some other place, or else I’ll be walking the Planck with the subversives.

WALK THE PLANCK: Lifting heavy things, putting them back down …

Here is the next installment of writer Matt Lennox's Walk the Planck:

I dig travelling. I like getting to a new place where I don’t know the language or at least not the custom of the land. Where signs by the side of the road look a little strange from what I’m used to – if I can read them at all – and the way traffic works is enigmatic and perhaps a little frightening. I like the different food and I like the beer, even if after I’ve gone home I find the same beer as a unique import and when I drink it there is something irrevocably lost and uninteresting about it. I like being out of my element. I like putting music on my iPod in the same way that I like packing my backpack ahead of time: identifying what seems to be critical to survival and secondarily as comfort while on the road. I like figuring out how the different currency works. I dig everything about travelling. I even dig how it feels to come home, because at the end of a good adventure it feels as if you’ve sort of earned the right to do so.

People who travel will probably agree that it’s akin to a drug, that it’s hard to go without once you’ve started. Going to a place you inevitably find out about other places, fractionally similar to where you are, maybe part of the same country, whatever it is. Sometimes these other places are fabled in their revelation to you. Mentioned speculatively by other travellers you meet – even more so if it’s a place they’ve never been to but of course know someone who has been there. And so you might find yourself rearranging your itinerary to get to wherever this new place is. You might even fall in with other travellers trying to find it. You pool your resources and you have company for what might turn out to be a strange and uncertain journey within a journey.

Falling in with other travellers when you’re on the road is part of the drug. You’re brought together by unique circumstances, and that engenders a certain camaraderie that is hard to develop otherwise. Maybe impossible. Camaraderie needs unique stressors to strengthen its foundation. So the companions you gain along the road may be completely different from people you’d ordinarily go about with. And road companionship has a built-in expiry date to it, but at the time that doesn’t matter much. One time I was trying to make my way from The Corn Islands to Granada. I had to take a number of different boats, varying in size, and then trust my luck to get the last bus going inwards from the outermost town on the mainland. Otherwise I would be stuck for a few days at least – it was the Thursday before Easter Weekend and everything was shutting down. That was a very long day. I fell in with a number of people going in the same direction. A few groups, a few couples, a ragged band of individual travellers like me. I spent much of the time with a Brit and an Aussie. The closer we got to Granada, the more people we lost to their destinations along the way. Altogether it took seventeen hours to get there, and along the way there was a great deal of doubt. At least by then I knew if I ended up marooned for Easter Weekend in some shithole frontier town, I would have a few companions to play cards with. But we did make it to Granada. It was one oclock in the morning. We found a hostel and ditched our bags and made straightaway for a place to get some beers and some food. Sitting out on a patio in Granada, even that time of night there were streetside musicians. I was still with the Brit and the Aussie. We’d covered the whole distance together and were getting on very well. Rounds of beers helped. It was around then that I realized none of the three of us had any idea what the others’ names were. But it worked. We were effective drinking buddies for a few more days.

I can’t recommend travelling enough. All the plebeians will give you a thousand reasons why you shouldn’t do it, but I think it’s just because it’s not a normal thing to do. The plebeians get nervous when confronted when things that are out of the ordinary, so they’ll do their best to discourage you. They are ignorant and they’ve gotten fat on reality TV – ignore their foolishness. Put a little bit of money aside, pack up your hobo bindle, and hit the road. On that note, resorts don’t count. Resorts are nice but that’s exactly what they are. Nice. You take a nice slice of North America and you supplant it in the developing world, somewhere hot and beachy, and you surround your nice slice of North America with walls and maybe armed guards, and you go their to have a nice vacation. Your daytrip to the local village or market is a well-entrenched routine for the locals and they’ve gotten used to currying tips from the awestruck foreigners. I am not condemning resorts. If you’ve been slugging through your nine-to-five for a few months, and it’s the witch’s tit depth of February, and you only have a week, and all you want to do is shut your brain off and drink on a beach and count how many European speedos go by in an hour – and most certainly if you want to watch a bunch of sunburned white people try to learn how to salsa dance, while screaming Ole! until their larynxes break – then by all means go to a resort, and God speed you. But now hear this: resorts are not really travelling. Resorts are for vacation and not stimulation. You will gain no wisdom or experience points at a resort. One final exhortation on the subject of resort vacationing: six thousand close-up photographs of all the toes on both of your feet against the opal backdrop of the resort pool, or six thousand photographs of poolside chairs, or six thousand photographs of the same umbrella at the beach, or six thousand photographs of the lizard on your balcony … These things do you no credit, friendo.

You are really travelling if you’ve jumped in with both feet. If your method of road-bound problem solving consists of saying, Fuck it, we’ll figure it out when we get there. You are really travelling if you come home and you can’t really explain any of it. You can tell the individual stories, yes, but you have no lexicon to explain the whole. Something remains in your head and heart about the whole experience that defies any words you know.

My latent voyeur has prominently come forth in some of the different places I’ve been to. Which is to say travelling has afforded me a lot of outstanding people-watching opportunities. And as is my wont to do, I have noticed and attempted to classify some patterns amongst foreigners. I am not talking about the well-known stereotypes: All European dudes wear speedos in Thailand, or, American girls in Panama like to party hard, or, At some point the food in India is going to rob you of all dignity. I am not dwelling on these stereotypes. I am thinking more of three main types that the wandering foreigner can be classified according to.

The Tourist. Easily identifiable. Crocs on the feet, or Teva sandals with socks. Pleated cargo shorts, quite likely a fanny pack, a tee shirt boldly proclaiming the name of the country they’re visiting – or that country’s national beer, and some kind of full-brim hat to help them withstand the merciless sun of a savage land. Am I judging too much by appearance? The Tourist is just as easily identifiable by how they interact with the locals. They adhere to that ancient rule of language barriers, by which, if the person you are speaking to doesn’t understand the language in which you are speaking, simply slow down your speech and yell it in their face. Sheer acoustic volume should be enough to transmit your meaning, right? The Tourist is the one who gets loudly aggravated when the food in some local restaurant takes too long to arrive, or the order is incorrect. The Tourist not only expects but demands the same standard of service you would find on a resort or back home, and the overriding justification for this is always, Well my goddamn tourist dollars are supporting this economy, don’t these people understand that? That being said, the Tourist will at least tip fairly extravagantly. You’ll seldom encounter a lone Tourist. They move in Croc- and Tilley- and fanny pack-bound groups. Probably because they inherently understand what kind of a target they would be if they wandered alone.

The Totaller. This foreigner stands at the extreme opposite end of the spectrum as does The Tourist. The Totaller has not only jumped in with both feet, but with all parts of the body and mind and heart. The Totaller has taken a year off in the middle of their Master’s Degree in International Diplomacy to go traipsing barefoot about the developing world in a pair of ragged hemp pants, reading the Motorcycle Diaries, learning yoga, and generally stinking of patchouli. The Totaller never tips, ever, because: Well, that’s an economic trapping of capitalism, and I don’t want to introduce that to these people. Yet, curiously, there is always money for beer. I find it difficult to openly revile the Totaller as much as I do the Tourist, until I think of how, sure, the Totaller can come down and wander the earth like Cain, getting into adventures and shit, shaving neither leg nor beard, raising his or her fist in league with the other downtrodden and meek of the earth. But then when the money runs out, which it inevitably will, the Totaller makes that call home to get a plane ticket from mom and dad.

That leaves one more type.

The Traveller.

The Traveller is a foreigner and accepts it, which is the critical first step. The Traveller accepts that he or she will never be able to understand what it’s like to be a fisherman out of Puerto Sandino or a beggar in Chennai but is not ashamed to exchange a word and maybe a few moments. The Traveller has learned how to haggle over a price with mutual respect and not condescension. The Traveller does not bitch when the food at the restaurant comes late, but nor does the Traveller insist on loving the food (though he or she may very well love the food), just because that’s what the locals eat. In some ways, maybe, the Traveller is the truest iteration of self, because the Traveller has neither the sense of entitlement of the Tourist nor the grating and ludicrous pretension of the Totaller. The Traveller is just going from place to place, stopping to check out interesting things along the way. The Traveller simply is. I guess the question is, then, does the road demand the Traveller or does the Traveller demand the road? Because if we were all Travellers no matter where we were – if we all went about with that mindset by which you can wander all day with the other and watch out for the other and finally share a beer, only then to realize you don’t even know the other’s name, but all is well because you’re in it together – maybe we’d get along better.

Until next time, comrades: down the road is where I’ll always be, or else I’ll be walking the Planck with the other sybarites.

WALK THE PLANCK: Lifting heavy things, putting them back down …

When I originally conceived of this blog, I wanted it to be the full spectrum of arts in Toronto. The problem was, that I really only know about the music scene (and a little bit about film). To remedy that, I've opened up the floor to other artists. Hopefully in what will be come a recurring segment, I give you the very gifted writer Matt Lennox. Tomorrow I'll be back with This Week in Toronto.

Matt Lennox

I have a membership at a gym. It’s a franchise gym, it’s one you’ve seen. Maybe you’re a member there too. I’ve been going to the gym for a long time. I’m a relentless creature of habit and going to the gym is a critical part of the routine. It’s almost a ritual. It’s like some kind of act of contrition, some physical mortification of the flesh in order to atone for the pizza I ate past eleven oclock the other night, the potato chips, the beer. I genuflect by way of the bench press or the deadlift, the minutes spent on the elliptical trainer. Motion without forward movement. Now that’s a funny thing. I’m aware that the whole thing is kind of absurd. Everything in our society is geared to cradle and foster the inactive among us, so why try to be otherwise? But ultimately I like it, so that’s why I go. I like the way it makes me feel. I like lifting heavier objects than the fellow next to me. It appeals to my inner hunter-gatherer. It helps prepare me for the physical demands of survival in the post-apocalyptic wasteland I am certain we are moving towards.

I also like the observational opportunities presented to me when I go to the gym. I’m not talking about the female of the species clad in tight-fitting lycra or spandex, the way the female of the species has beads of sweat on her forehead or on her chest, and how if you’re working out close to her, you might just hear the quiet groans and grunts of exertion. Okay. That’s not so bad. But it’s not the observational opportunities I’m really talking about. I’m talking about the microcosm at work in the weight room. The snapshot of who we are. If I accept that I am a relentless voyeur – which I do – then I allow that the gym is an unparalleled chance for people-watching. There are patterns and tropes common to gymgoers that edge into absurdity. These fascinate me. But whilst lifting heavy objects, sometimes over my head, I must be vigilant not to become too engaged in the people-watching, lest I become distracted and drop subject heavy object onto some unfortunate and altogether vulnerable part of my person. Perhaps that would be a kind of cosmic justice, though: he was killed when the bench press crushed his trachea – he appeared to be laughing.

Tropes and patterns common to gymgoers. I’d like to itemize some of my favourites.

I give you The Noisemaker. Typically male. This is the gymgoer who feels it necessary to broadcast to all and sundry just how hard he is working, how focused on his task he is. He verbalizes his exertion. He does not do so quietly. You may not even be paying attention to him at first. You may be going about your own exercises, thinking about your groceries, thinking about your rent, and suddenly your reverie is fractured by a holler. Not beside you, but from across the weight room. You are quite certain that someone has been horribly injured and you look. There he is, perhaps on the shoulder press, not injured at all, but bellowing out with each repetition. Sometimes the shouts actually take the form of words – I remember one fellow in particular who used to shout Yep! with each repetition. One … Yep! Two … Yep! He’d shout it in a clipped, drill square fashion, and when he’d finish the set he’d follow his series of Yeps with a kind of high-pitched Whooo! I could never get any work done when he was around. I should add that somewhat rarer but equally as precious is a pairing of Noisemakers. One who hollers with exertion and one who hollers encouragement. Noisemaker One, lifting: Yeaaaaah! Noisemaker Two, spotting: Come on bro! Push it! Yeaaaah! Push it! I suppose the premise is, the louder you are, the more you’re accomplishing, but I don’t have the fortitude to put it to the test, myself.

I give you The Advisor. As with The Noisemaker, The Advisor is typically male. The Advisor is an authority on all things pertaining to physical training, and his creed, apparently, is to go forth amid his fellow gymgoers and spread the gospel of how to do this better or what’s wrong with your form. You do a set of exercises and you take your well-earned rest before repeating. Time to catch your breath, have a sip of water, daub the sweat off your face, and … who is this standing beside you, smiling affably, expectantly, also looking just a little concerned – the concern is for you, mind – waiting to get a word in? This is not someone you know. No. This is The Advisor, and almost without fail, The Advisor will give his preamble: Can I just give you some advice. Note that I have not employed a question mark in The Advisor’s preamble, for much as the preamble bears the assembly of an interrogative, it is not, in fact, an interrogative. The preamble is a concrete assumption on The Advisor’s part. It’s something in his solicitous, helpful nature, he’s likely not even thinking about, for as soon as he has finished Can I just give you some advice, he’s launching forth with his gospel. This is what you’re doing wrong with your squats. You should do them like this. I’ve yet to know an Advisor who cited his sources, but perhaps I underestimate. If The Advisor is true to his creed, he will then stand back and observe you judiciously whilst you carry out the exercise according to the form he has so helpfully described to you. And thus when you really see your gains start to skyrocket, as he has prophesied that you shall, you are forever indebted to this stranger. A word of caution – there are phoney Advisors out there, so beware. The easiest way to spot a phoney Advisor is to watch to whom he gives his advice. The phoney Advisor will restrict his advice-giving usually to a female gymgoer, and perhaps he will illustrate his advice with the maximum amount of physical contact the nature of the advice might demand. Hands on her shoulders, perhaps, or his loins closely tracking hers in the up and down motion as he spots her in the squat he has just helped her improve upon. That’s almost certainly a phoney Advisor. A true Advisor makes no distinction in who he ministers to. No distinction.

I give you The Contemplator. Whenever I should have the good fortune to spot a Contemplator at the gym, I am envious of the great mind at work. Surely The Contemplator is contemplating the great mysteries well beyond you or me: the nature of morality, the relativistic consequences of time, pure reason, theories to unify physics. These subjects are so awesome and almost deified in their reckoning that the mind of The Contemplator is in itself a thing to behold. For what other thoughts could possibly be at work when The Contemplator sits upon the machine or the bench you are waiting for, utterly unmoving, transfixed by some point on the wall, for fifteen minutes at a time? What but the greatest of mysteries could The Contemplator be trying to unravel? Certainly not the prosaic and mortal concern of exercising, for whilst The Contemplator may occupy the machine or bench you are waiting for, you may never actually witness The Contemplator using the piece of equipment in its intended function, or using it as anything other than a place to sit whilst casting his or her considerable intellect upon such enigmas as would reduce you or me to gibbering idiocy. Certainly not to lift heavy things and put them back down again. Don’t be fooled by that blank stare at the wall or the unmoving body – that is brilliance at work. You dare not – I say again, you dare not –interrupt The Contemplator to ask him or her how long they might be sitting there. Show some respect for genius, you lowly ignoramus.

I give you The Socialite. If I’ve been so bold as to make stereotypical the gender of The Noisemaker and The Advisor, I will continue to be so bold and posit that the majority of The Socialites I’ve observed in the gym are female. Not every case, but most. Her social activities may include her fellow gymgoers, but the scope of her socializing goes well beyond the mirrored walls. For she has been sure to bring her mobile telephone into the gym with her. We may conclude, through observation of The Socialite, that the demands put upon her schedule are of such primacy that she may not be divorced of communication with the world outside of the gym for even an instant. I can only speculate how exhausting it must be to be in such high demand, but The Socialite bears her burden with bright garrulousness and aplomb. Exercise will not prevent her from taking the call when it comes – often heralded with a custom ringtone she has downloaded, perhaps the latest musical offering from the likes of Lady Ga Ga or one of her contemporaries. No, The Socialite is sure to bring to a dead halt whatever she is doing to answer the call and excitedly finalize the details for what they are doing that night, ohmigod ohmigod ohmigod. Her dedication is so fixed that she will ensure she has never raised her breathing to a threshold in which she cannot form words and sentences. Even if she is on the exercise bike when the call comes, The Socialite can immediately speak with the easy respiration and verbal pacing of one who has exerting nothing more than a languorous stretch on the couch. As I suck breath into my own burning lungs, I wonder how The Socialite has evolved to achieve that.

The Noisemaker. The Advisor. The Contemplator. The Socialite. These are but a few of those archetypes that add variety to the milieu of the gym. There are others. God, there are others. There is The Relic: that ancient man or woman, wizened and bent, who despite the sweatpants pulled chest-high and despite the physical delicacy foisted upon them by advanced age, persevere in their exercises nevertheless – that is something that truly demands respect. There is The Dangler. There is The Frowner. There is The Across-The-Room-Nodder: that person you may have spoken to or spotted once – you scarcely remember it – and now who you infrequently spy across the gym, looking straight back at you, and when eye contact is made, The Across-The-Room-Nodder gives you a very solemn and possibly mysterious dip of the chin to the chest, as if to say, Carry on, comrade, we’re in this together. There is the poor awkward person who is always two or more steps behind everybody else in the aerobics classes.

The most interesting aspect of the gym is how almost everybody seems to sequester themselves from everybody else. Social observation is a major part of going to the gym – and I believe that everybody is watching everybody else very carefully – but social interaction itself remains for the most part limited. We hide between our headphones and yet we posture to each other, we express. The Noisemaker is expressing something that underlies his bellows. The Advisor is expressing something more complex than his advice. What underthing is at work in the gym? What subvocal language? Who are all these people, and how did I get here?

Until next time, comrades: I’ll be lifting heavy things and putting them back down, or I’ll be walking the Planck with the other philistines.