10-21-2016, 11:09 PM
senrab Wrote:https://www.thestar.com/news/world/2016/...oject.html
another one?!?!? you're killin' me!
Gord Downie - Secret Path
another one?!?!? you're killin' me!
10-21-2016, 11:10 PM
chagrinfalls Wrote:senrab Wrote:https://www.thestar.com/news/world/2016/...oject.html
another one?!?!? you're killin' me!
The Hip FB group is quick
10.26.07 Washington DC
10.19.09 Washington DC
7.30.11 Buffalo
11.10.12 NYC
7.19.13 Buffalo
4.18.15 Buffalo
8.12.16 TO
wish I had seen more
10-21-2016, 11:17 PM
senrab Wrote:https://www.thestar.com/news/world/2016/...oject.htmlBecause articles sometimes disappear:
Gord Downie closing the circle with Secret Path project
Gord Downie doesn’t know how much time he has left to live but he is wisely using what he has to teach Canada about 12-year-old Chanie Wenjack and the legacy of the residential school system.
Gord Downie is seen performing during 'Secret Path' at the National Arts Centre Tuesday October 18, 2016 in Ottawa.
OTTAWA—Gord Downie wears a worn, jean jacket, all buttoned up with a beaded Remembrance Day poppy pinned close to his heart. A black felt, wide-brimmed hat is tilted back on his head.
He has just walked off the stage at the National Arts Centre after playing all 10 songs of his Secret Path multimedia compilation and he is immediately enveloped by friends. He pauses and talks to everyone lined along the hall. Everyone gets a kiss and a big hug.
This is his first concert since his emotional farewell to Canada at the end of August at the conclusion of the Tragically Hip’s Man Machine Poem Tour.
Once the Hip finished that last show, Downie and his brothers, Mike and Patrick, threw themselves fully, completely into telling the story of 12-year-old Chanie Wenjack. This has been a difficult year for Downie and his family. Their father, Edgar, died Oct. 27, 2015. The day after Edgar’s funeral, Gord was walking with his mother, Lorna, when he suffered a massive seizure and soon after was diagnosed with glioblastoma, a devastating, terminal cancer of the brain.
Gord Downie, backstage at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa, says hello to a young fan after a smudging ceremony.
Gord Downie, backstage at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa, says hello to a young fan after a smudging ceremony. (TANYA TALAGA)
On stage, Downie’s voice was strong, filled with hope but also darkness as he told the story of the short life Chanie, an indigenous boy who fled Cecilia Jeffrey Indian Residential School near Kenora, Ont., and tried to walk nearly 600 kilometres to his home to Ogoki Post in Ontario’s far north. Animated images of Wenjack, drawn by artist Jeff Lemire, flashed by on a massive screen above the stage as Downie sang. Each stark illustration laid out Chanie’s last lonely days as he walked along the railway tracks, pelted by freezing rain, before he lay down and died.
Downie doesn’t know how much time he has left to live but he is wisely using what he has to teach Canada about Chanie and the legacy of the residential school system that sent 150,000 indigenous children to state-funded, church-run institutions for 130 years to “school the Indian out of them.”
For decades, Downie and the Hip gave a generation the soundtrack of their lives — from the music played at university dorm parties to songs played on the stereo during weekends at the cottage. Downie has always given all of himself on stage. He has never asked anything of his fans. But now, Downie is calling in a favour. He is using the power of his art and this precious moment in time while he has a nation’s attention, and he is compelling them to listen.
“How many people can you say sang the country into our consciousness, in one way, and then sang the country’s biggest failing back into our consciousness a second time?” asked Mike Downie.
OTTAWA—Gord Downie wears a worn, jean jacket, all buttoned up with a beaded Remembrance Day poppy pinned close to his heart. A black felt, wide-brimmed hat is tilted back on his head.
He has just walked off the stage at the National Arts Centre after playing all 10 songs of his Secret Path multimedia compilation and he is immediately enveloped by friends. He pauses and talks to everyone lined along the hall. Everyone gets a kiss and a big hug.
This is his first concert since his emotional farewell to Canada at the end of August at the conclusion of the Tragically Hip’s Man Machine Poem Tour.
Once the Hip finished that last show, Downie and his brothers, Mike and Patrick, threw themselves fully, completely into telling the story of 12-year-old Chanie Wenjack. This has been a difficult year for Downie and his family. Their father, Edgar, died Oct. 27, 2015. The day after Edgar’s funeral, Gord was walking with his mother, Lorna, when he suffered a massive seizure and soon after was diagnosed with glioblastoma, a devastating, terminal cancer of the brain.
Gord Downie, backstage at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa, says hello to a young fan after a smudging ceremony.
Gord Downie, backstage at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa, says hello to a young fan after a smudging ceremony. (TANYA TALAGA)
On stage, Downie’s voice was strong, filled with hope but also darkness as he told the story of the short life Chanie, an indigenous boy who fled Cecilia Jeffrey Indian Residential School near Kenora, Ont., and tried to walk nearly 600 kilometres to his home to Ogoki Post in Ontario’s far north. Animated images of Wenjack, drawn by artist Jeff Lemire, flashed by on a massive screen above the stage as Downie sang. Each stark illustration laid out Chanie’s last lonely days as he walked along the railway tracks, pelted by freezing rain, before he lay down and died.
Downie doesn’t know how much time he has left to live but he is wisely using what he has to teach Canada about Chanie and the legacy of the residential school system that sent 150,000 indigenous children to state-funded, church-run institutions for 130 years to “school the Indian out of them.”
For decades, Downie and the Hip gave a generation the soundtrack of their lives — from the music played at university dorm parties to songs played on the stereo during weekends at the cottage. Downie has always given all of himself on stage. He has never asked anything of his fans. But now, Downie is calling in a favour. He is using the power of his art and this precious moment in time while he has a nation’s attention, and he is compelling them to listen.
“How many people can you say sang the country into our consciousness, in one way, and then sang the country’s biggest failing back into our consciousness a second time?” asked Mike Downie.
***
Gord Downie with Pearl Achneepineskum, Chanie Wenjack's sister, at an Ottawa hotel on Monday night. Downie greeted Achneepineskum and her family after they flew in from Marten Falls First Nation.
Gord Downie with Pearl Achneepineskum, Chanie Wenjack's sister, at an Ottawa hotel on Monday night. Downie greeted Achneepineskum and her family after they flew in from Marten Falls First Nation. (COURTESY OF NAN)
The Downie brothers’ journey began three years ago after Mike heard a CBC radio documentary, by Thunder Bay-based journalist Jody Porter, about Chanie Wenjack’s flight.
Mike was riveted. He called Gord and they went for lunch. That day the brothers, both fathers, committed to telling Chanie’s story and to creating something that would open a dialogue about Canada’s troubled past.
Mike thought they would make a feature film, but then Gord started to write poems. Those poems would eventually turn into music. They researched and processed all the material on Chanie they could find, including Ian Adams powerful 1967 Maclean’s article, “The Lonely Death of Chanie Wenjack.”
They also tracked down Pearl Achneepineskum, Chanie’s older sister, in Ogoki and told her they were going to write about him. Mike asked if that was all right. Pearl said it was. Every six months, Mike would call to tell her about what they were up to.
In 2014, the brothers called up Lemire, the acclaimed graphic novelist and DC Comics writer, and met him for coffee. “Before we left the coffee shop, I knew I was going to do it. I had to. Chanie’s story is one that will not let you go once you hear it,” says Lemire in a statement on the SecretPath.ca website.
Lemire drew chapters to the songs and what he produced blew away the Downies.
Mike says he knows how lucky he is to be born in Canada but now, as we look toward Canada’s 150th birthday, truths need to be aired and told.
Since Confederation, Canada has put forward a beautiful idea of itself, like a gleaming, brand new house that is perfectly done and flawless, but take a harder look and you’ll see there is something not quite right.
“As Gord says,” recalls Mike, “‘we have this great new house built, but, we have got someone locked up on the third floor that no one is talking about. The attic is off limits. That is Canada now. Who is up in the attic but the person living on the property where you built the house.”
After Downie’s last Hip show, after he proclaimed on stage, as millions of Canadians watched, that they had all been trained to look away from 100 years of Canada’s indigenous history and now was the time to “do something,” the Downie brothers did.
They boarded a plane and travelled north with Nishnawbe Aski Nation Grand Chief Alvin Fiddler, Sheila North Wilson, grand chief of Manitoba Keewatinowi Okimakanak, and Ry Moran, director of the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation.
The Secret Path songs and the graphic novel were done, and the Downies wanted to share them and film the trip for a mini CBC doc.
The Downies had the music, already recorded with the help of Kevin Drew from Broken Social Scene and musician Dave Hamelin of the Stills. Lemire’s graphic novel was also done. But next they wanted to combine everything together into a movie. The CBC gave the brothers three months to come up with an animated film to be broadcast to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Chanie’s death on Oct. 22, 1966.
Mike Downie called animator Justin Stephenson. “I asked him, ‘Is it impossible to make a 43-minute film in less than three months?’ He said it wasn’t impossible but almost.”
Ogoki Post, part of Marten Falls First Nation, is a remote, fly-in community, 500 km northeast of Thunder Bay. Marten Falls traditional lands are in the Ring of Fire, one of the last, vast untouched boreal forests on Earth. While the community is mired in poverty, it is also home to one of the world’s richest deposits of chromite, the material used to make stainless steel.
There are five surviving Wenjack sisters. Four of the five — Evelyn, Pearl, Daisy and Annie — all came to meet Gord and his brothers.
“Our first meeting was really intense. Some were of the mind that they weren’t really sure their brother Charlie (Chanie) had become a public figure,” said Mike.
“Daisy spoke first, for awhile, and there was a long pause. For a long while, we just sat there . . . . Then Evelyn spoke. Everyone just spoke their truth. It wasn’t like how I would speak with my friends. It wasn’t adversarial; it was just getting to your truth. It was like a stack of pancakes. One sister speaks, the next one listens, without interruption,” described Mike.
Pearl spoke last and blew everyone away.
“Pearl is the one who said, ‘I will say why they have come. After Charlie died, I asked the Creator that his life not be in vain. That his life means something and that his story one day be told. But when you ask the Creator for something it doesn’t happen on your timeline. I had to wait for a very long time. Then the phone rang. And it was Mike, telling me that his brother was writing and recording songs and that they wanted to tell the story of Charlie,’ ” Pearl said.
“When I heard that I cried like a baby,” said Mike. “To think there was something she had been waiting for. I realized this was three years ago. It was really something to hear. It turned into such an emotional moment. She said, ‘That is why they are here. This is what I wanted.’ ”
Pearl asked everyone to hold hands and form a circle. The sisters sat with Gord as well as a niece. Beyond the cameras, there was another dozen Wenjack family members. They put down the cameras and microphone and stood in a circle and Pearl started to sing a traditional Anishinaabe song of prayer.
“It was absolutely unbelievable. I went up there with this idea. We were closing the circle on this project, which had been three years (in the making), a significant piece of time and we know how precious time is, also, Gord is closing a circle. This is a legacy project. We don’t know what he has left, for time,” said Mike.
“In that moment, the circle was so big. It was all of us.”
In the last year, since their father died of prostate cancer, and after Gord’s shattering diagnosis, the tight-knit Irish family of siblings Charlyn, Paula, Gord, Patrick, Mike and mother Lorna have all leaned on each other.
“We loved our Irish father. He was born on 86 Mortimer in Toronto. His parents came over on a boat from Ireland. My mom Lorna has had a terrible year, living alone without him, then Gord’s illness. We’ve all had a terrible year. But Gord, is the one, who has been our leader. We share the leadership but let’s face it, with Gord, he is such an important guy to all of us. He has made such a difference in my life,” said Mike.
Patrick Downie spoke to the circle, recalled Mike.
“Patrick spoke incredibly eloquently and said, ‘You talk about not wanting your brother’s tragedy to become public, why does it have to be shared? But I can tell you first hand, we have been through a public exercise of grief and pain and it doesn’t make things easier but it can make things better and it can help a lot of people, not just yourself’.”
Suddenly the two families were connected.
“I think about the people who care about my brother and it chokes me up. And I think of their grief and my grief and they are the same . . . . It is about sharing pain, not holding pain,” he said.
“As Gord says, being up there in that circle, you swear that Chanie died 15 minutes ago, not 50 years ago. That is what happens in a family. There will always be that empty chair.”
Back in Toronto, when Mike was out paddling on Lake Ontario, he conceived the idea of the Gord Downie Chanie Wenjack Fund, an indigenous-led initiative. It is part Wenjack family and part Downie. The Secret Path book, the album, it all flows to a trust inside the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation in Winnipeg.
“We’ll build a path of reconciliation.”
The Secret Path album and graphic novel was released on Oct. 18. On Sunday, Oct. 23, the CBC is broadcasting an hour-long commercial free TV special at 9 p.m.
Donations are being accepted at downiewenjack.ca
"We're forced to bed, but we're free to dream"
Dana
10-22-2016, 08:03 AM
senrab Wrote:http://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/musi...cmpid=rss1Great article, but it makes me more sad. And all the more grateful to have seen him.
Sarah
I was there
10-22-2016, 08:52 AM
still haven't heard the album so i went to itunes to buy it and can't get it. damn. i just want the album and don't need the book. looks like i'll head to chapters today
10-22-2016, 09:23 AM
Thanks for posting thise interviews/articles.
Powerful show last night. Incredible performance by Gord and the band.
The Stranger <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="https://youtu.be/esUclnflzb8">https://youtu.be/esUclnflzb8</a><!-- m -->
Swing Set <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="https://youtu.be/effTYzX6yOA">https://youtu.be/effTYzX6yOA</a><!-- m -->
Seven Matches <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="https://youtu.be/dkMSsZc4mB8">https://youtu.be/dkMSsZc4mB8</a><!-- m -->
I will not be struck <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="https://youtu.be/ZjEhqEq8fEs">https://youtu.be/ZjEhqEq8fEs</a><!-- m -->
Son <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="https://youtu.be/1DhY60hsAGI">https://youtu.be/1DhY60hsAGI</a><!-- m -->
Secret Path <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="https://youtu.be/luuS5LcfAPM">https://youtu.be/luuS5LcfAPM</a><!-- m -->
Dont let this touch you <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="https://youtu.be/zMczFQ-f0cU">https://youtu.be/zMczFQ-f0cU</a><!-- m -->
The rest are still uploading
Powerful show last night. Incredible performance by Gord and the band.
The Stranger <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="https://youtu.be/esUclnflzb8">https://youtu.be/esUclnflzb8</a><!-- m -->
Swing Set <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="https://youtu.be/effTYzX6yOA">https://youtu.be/effTYzX6yOA</a><!-- m -->
Seven Matches <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="https://youtu.be/dkMSsZc4mB8">https://youtu.be/dkMSsZc4mB8</a><!-- m -->
I will not be struck <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="https://youtu.be/ZjEhqEq8fEs">https://youtu.be/ZjEhqEq8fEs</a><!-- m -->
Son <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="https://youtu.be/1DhY60hsAGI">https://youtu.be/1DhY60hsAGI</a><!-- m -->
Secret Path <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="https://youtu.be/luuS5LcfAPM">https://youtu.be/luuS5LcfAPM</a><!-- m -->
Dont let this touch you <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="https://youtu.be/zMczFQ-f0cU">https://youtu.be/zMczFQ-f0cU</a><!-- m -->
The rest are still uploading
10-22-2016, 11:18 AM
Scotty12 Wrote:Thanks for posting thise interviews/articles.
Powerful show last night. Incredible performance by Gord and the band.
The Stranger <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="https://youtu.be/esUclnflzb8">https://youtu.be/esUclnflzb8</a><!-- m -->
Swing Set <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="https://youtu.be/effTYzX6yOA">https://youtu.be/effTYzX6yOA</a><!-- m -->
Seven Matches <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="https://youtu.be/dkMSsZc4mB8">https://youtu.be/dkMSsZc4mB8</a><!-- m -->
I will not be struck <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="https://youtu.be/ZjEhqEq8fEs">https://youtu.be/ZjEhqEq8fEs</a><!-- m -->
Son <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="https://youtu.be/1DhY60hsAGI">https://youtu.be/1DhY60hsAGI</a><!-- m -->
Secret Path <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="https://youtu.be/luuS5LcfAPM">https://youtu.be/luuS5LcfAPM</a><!-- m -->
Dont let this touch you <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="https://youtu.be/zMczFQ-f0cU">https://youtu.be/zMczFQ-f0cU</a><!-- m -->
The rest are still uploading
Thanks so much for posting these!
:thumb:
10-22-2016, 11:45 AM
Paul Langlois was in the orchestra, chatting with fans and taking photos for a good 45 minutes before the show started, all smiles. I let him be, but he seemed perfectly happy to take several photos with whoever came up to him. Nice guy.
10-22-2016, 12:37 PM
Tomacco Wrote:Paul Langlois was in the orchestra, chatting with fans and taking photos for a good 45 minutes before the show started, all smiles. I let him be, but he seemed perfectly happy to take several photos with whoever came up to him. Nice guy.Yeah, I was one of those guys.
Told him I was a huge fan, took a picture, told him to enjoy the show.
10-22-2016, 01:54 PM
Another thoughtful & thought-provoking review. Hayden King identifies as an "Anishinaabe writer, student & educator":
<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="https://biidwewidam.com/2016/10/19/the-secret-path-reconciliation-not-reconciliation/">https://biidwewidam.com/2016/10/19/the- ... ciliation/</a><!-- m -->
The Secret Path, Reconciliation & Not-Reconciliation
by Hayden King
Last night I watched Gord Downie perform The Secret Path in Ottawa. I was invited by one of the executive producers, and sat near the front with other guests. A Nēhiyaw senator sat ahead of me, an Inuk political leader in the seat behind. In fact the front rows seemed to be nearly exclusively Indigenous people, including the Wenjack family front and centre. Behind us, were predominately White Canadians.
Together we witnessed an event that was utterly devastating but at times also contrived.
There were three elements to the evening. There was the concert itself, the music written and performed by Downie, Kevin Drew, Kevin Hearne, among others. This took place against the backdrop of illustrator Jeff Lemire’s animated film. Finally, there was a post-concert epilogue lead by Mike Downie and including a short video from Marten Falls.
The music was typical jangle-rock-growl Gord Downie but also melodic, and poetically crafted into the story of Charlie Wenjack’s flight from Cecelia Jeffrey residential school in 1966. Each track worked together to describe a boy alone at the end of the world, cannibals on his heels. On more than one song Downie uses the phrase “this earth-like world”, evoking Charlie’s landscape. It is a facsimile of the original. Here, settlers have arrived, consumed, and transformed/destroyed the familiar. But Downie blows on the ashes and embers that remain. Performing “Haunt Them” he stares down the crowd at The National Arts Centre and I imagined him thinking: you, yes you, deserve to be haunted.
It was pain, though, that was the predictable and over-arching theme of the show. As the music began and before Downie even opened his mouth I wanted to cry. This is a story after all of an 12-year old boy escaping his captors and attempting, failing, to walk an impossible 600 kilometers in the northern Ontario winter to be with his family again. While the pain is captured in the poetry and music, the animation drives it home, often uncomfortably. From the very first scenes, Charlie’s humanity is stripped away. It is difficult to watch and I have to wonder about the result if taken on by an Indigenous artist.
Going into the show, a concern for me was the chronic re-victimization that accompanies most discussions of residential school. I, and many of my peers, have a very difficult time talking about or teaching them in class. The trauma is not something you can slip in and out of. And the story told over and over traps us in a narrative of powerlessness and hopelessness. The concert would have replicated this trend were it not for the Wenjack family.
Before the performance started, the large group at the front were loud, joking and laughing. Meanwhile the crowd behind them was stoic and serious. When Downie sang and wailed, they did, too. They moved to the music in their seats. They cried, at times. And after the musicians left the stage and a short video began, showing the tall birch trees among boreal forest of Marten Falls, they raised their arms, whistled, and celebrated home. They did what the concert was unable to: they showed that they are not merely victims. When the end of the world came, they persevered and they endure today in the most inexplicably vivid ways.
In that video, Charlie’s sisters meet with Downie and they discuss the music, the project, and his cancer. They take him to Charlie’s grave. Towards the end, Charlie’s sister Pearl speaks to Canadians about the need for reasonable access to education for First Nation children. She wants a high school in every community to save the students from being forced to leave, like Charlie was. And unlike Charlie, perhaps saved from a lonely death, an all too-common occurrence in contemporary Canada.
After the music and the film and the short video, Gord Downie’s brother Mike came on stage to introduce all the people who made the project possible (including an advertisement for the corporate sponsors, energy and rail companies among them). Recognizing the contributions gave way to an uncomfortable editorializing of the show. It was proclaimed that we all just took our first giant step towards genuine reconciliation. For me, this reflected a sense of self-importance, which betrayed the spirit of much that came before it. The decision to determine and articulate what is and is not reconciliation belongs to survivors.
When Pearl finally got to speak, and sing a healing song – and she did so on a level equalling Downie – she finished by telling the crowd: “my father died not knowing why Charlie died. My Mother still does not know why.” After a silence someone in the middle of the theatre, perhaps inspired by the reconciliatory theme of the postscript shouted, “to bring us together!” In that moment I could not imagine a more grotesque thing to say, shocking and predictable at the same time. Because I suspect that individual would not, for one second, sacrifice their son or daughter for our unity. The capacity of some Canadians for reconciliation is often so clearly shallow.
Finally, there was time for final words from Gord Downie, who hesitated at first and then leaned into the microphone, gifts from the community in his hands, and said, “it’s time to start, folks.” Its time for change, time to do the right things. There was never a greater understatement spoken in this country. Still, I believe it was genuine. For all the airy talk of national reconciliation, the concert ultimately felt singular to me. It was one man’s public apology. Or perhaps the Downie family’s, who are coming to terms with a different kind of of grief. But for their part, the Wenjacks accepted it with dignity.
<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="https://biidwewidam.com/2016/10/19/the-secret-path-reconciliation-not-reconciliation/">https://biidwewidam.com/2016/10/19/the- ... ciliation/</a><!-- m -->
The Secret Path, Reconciliation & Not-Reconciliation
by Hayden King
Last night I watched Gord Downie perform The Secret Path in Ottawa. I was invited by one of the executive producers, and sat near the front with other guests. A Nēhiyaw senator sat ahead of me, an Inuk political leader in the seat behind. In fact the front rows seemed to be nearly exclusively Indigenous people, including the Wenjack family front and centre. Behind us, were predominately White Canadians.
Together we witnessed an event that was utterly devastating but at times also contrived.
There were three elements to the evening. There was the concert itself, the music written and performed by Downie, Kevin Drew, Kevin Hearne, among others. This took place against the backdrop of illustrator Jeff Lemire’s animated film. Finally, there was a post-concert epilogue lead by Mike Downie and including a short video from Marten Falls.
The music was typical jangle-rock-growl Gord Downie but also melodic, and poetically crafted into the story of Charlie Wenjack’s flight from Cecelia Jeffrey residential school in 1966. Each track worked together to describe a boy alone at the end of the world, cannibals on his heels. On more than one song Downie uses the phrase “this earth-like world”, evoking Charlie’s landscape. It is a facsimile of the original. Here, settlers have arrived, consumed, and transformed/destroyed the familiar. But Downie blows on the ashes and embers that remain. Performing “Haunt Them” he stares down the crowd at The National Arts Centre and I imagined him thinking: you, yes you, deserve to be haunted.
It was pain, though, that was the predictable and over-arching theme of the show. As the music began and before Downie even opened his mouth I wanted to cry. This is a story after all of an 12-year old boy escaping his captors and attempting, failing, to walk an impossible 600 kilometers in the northern Ontario winter to be with his family again. While the pain is captured in the poetry and music, the animation drives it home, often uncomfortably. From the very first scenes, Charlie’s humanity is stripped away. It is difficult to watch and I have to wonder about the result if taken on by an Indigenous artist.
Going into the show, a concern for me was the chronic re-victimization that accompanies most discussions of residential school. I, and many of my peers, have a very difficult time talking about or teaching them in class. The trauma is not something you can slip in and out of. And the story told over and over traps us in a narrative of powerlessness and hopelessness. The concert would have replicated this trend were it not for the Wenjack family.
Before the performance started, the large group at the front were loud, joking and laughing. Meanwhile the crowd behind them was stoic and serious. When Downie sang and wailed, they did, too. They moved to the music in their seats. They cried, at times. And after the musicians left the stage and a short video began, showing the tall birch trees among boreal forest of Marten Falls, they raised their arms, whistled, and celebrated home. They did what the concert was unable to: they showed that they are not merely victims. When the end of the world came, they persevered and they endure today in the most inexplicably vivid ways.
In that video, Charlie’s sisters meet with Downie and they discuss the music, the project, and his cancer. They take him to Charlie’s grave. Towards the end, Charlie’s sister Pearl speaks to Canadians about the need for reasonable access to education for First Nation children. She wants a high school in every community to save the students from being forced to leave, like Charlie was. And unlike Charlie, perhaps saved from a lonely death, an all too-common occurrence in contemporary Canada.
After the music and the film and the short video, Gord Downie’s brother Mike came on stage to introduce all the people who made the project possible (including an advertisement for the corporate sponsors, energy and rail companies among them). Recognizing the contributions gave way to an uncomfortable editorializing of the show. It was proclaimed that we all just took our first giant step towards genuine reconciliation. For me, this reflected a sense of self-importance, which betrayed the spirit of much that came before it. The decision to determine and articulate what is and is not reconciliation belongs to survivors.
When Pearl finally got to speak, and sing a healing song – and she did so on a level equalling Downie – she finished by telling the crowd: “my father died not knowing why Charlie died. My Mother still does not know why.” After a silence someone in the middle of the theatre, perhaps inspired by the reconciliatory theme of the postscript shouted, “to bring us together!” In that moment I could not imagine a more grotesque thing to say, shocking and predictable at the same time. Because I suspect that individual would not, for one second, sacrifice their son or daughter for our unity. The capacity of some Canadians for reconciliation is often so clearly shallow.
Finally, there was time for final words from Gord Downie, who hesitated at first and then leaned into the microphone, gifts from the community in his hands, and said, “it’s time to start, folks.” Its time for change, time to do the right things. There was never a greater understatement spoken in this country. Still, I believe it was genuine. For all the airy talk of national reconciliation, the concert ultimately felt singular to me. It was one man’s public apology. Or perhaps the Downie family’s, who are coming to terms with a different kind of of grief. But for their part, the Wenjacks accepted it with dignity.
10-22-2016, 02:10 PM
I'm looking at the handwritten lyrics, and on the left hand side of Swing Set he writes about the paper clips that Johnny Fay gave him and how he's left them in a paper bag in his briefcase. I was thinking he was maybe comparing these to the seven matches? Though matches are much more necessary than paper clips.
Can anyone make out the full text?
I get:
This paper clip was one of 6 Johnny Fay gave me in font of ... hundreds of nice ... he laid on me ... our times together - they're old and ... (the paper clips) he gave them to me wrapped in a [frayed?] paper bag that I always kept (in my briefcase).
I love these notes.
Can anyone make out the full text?
I get:
This paper clip was one of 6 Johnny Fay gave me in font of ... hundreds of nice ... he laid on me ... our times together - they're old and ... (the paper clips) he gave them to me wrapped in a [frayed?] paper bag that I always kept (in my briefcase).
I love these notes.
Sarah
I was there
10-22-2016, 04:37 PM
Nice interview with Pearl Wenjack from The National. Also features a couple of clips with Mike Downie.
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<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.cbc.ca/news/thenational/gord-downie-s-secret-path-album-released-1.3811288">http://www.cbc.ca/news/thenational/gord ... -1.3811288</a><!-- m -->
10-22-2016, 07:28 PM
Apparently Gord is playing multiple songs at Massey Hall right now at Dream Serenade. Anyone know what songs?
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