De mascottes et de stéréotypes

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La région d'Ottawa est une des régions les plus bilingues du Canada. Elle est aussi l'un des endroits où la résistance au fait français est très intense. Depuis quelques mois, on remarque aussi que la région d'Ottawa est bien dotée en personnes (surtout, mais pas inclusivement, des hommes) qui aiment associer leurs équipes sportives préférées avec des mascottes à fortes connotations ethniques négatives. Après les Amérindiens, on s'en prend aux Canadiens-français. L'équipe d'expansion de la CFL de la ville, les Redblacks (en principe aussi Le Rouge et Noir), s'est donné "Jos Mufferaw" comme mascotte, un gros "lumberjack" à la mâchoire carrée, à la chemise carreautée et à la tuque fière.

Joe Mufferaw dans toute sa splendeur...

Joe Mufferaw dans toute sa splendeur...

Le problème, majeur, est que ce personnage est basé sur une chanson folk de Stompin' Tom, elle-même inspirée de la chanson "Jos Monferrand" de Gilles Vigneault, chanson basée sur l'histoire vraie de Jos Montferrand, alias Jos Favre, qui s'est battu contre la discrimination envers des Canadiens française dans l'industrie du bois en Outaouais. Sans surprise, les Franco-Ontariens et les Québécois de la région sont plutôt outrés. Pour leur part, les supporters de l'équipe choisissent de n'y rien comprendre. Je dis "choisissent" en raison des conversations (comme celle incluse au bas de cette entrée) qui pourrissent les médias anglophones depuis deux jours. En somme, les médias et autres anglophones estiment que Jos Mufferaw n'est pas un symbole canadien-français, mais une légende locale basée sur le passé bûcheron de toute la région et que toutes les ethnicités de la région ont produit des bûcherons et que donc un bûcheron ne peut pas être un stéréotype canadien-français. Cette affirmation est répétée ad nauseam, malgré l'abondance de preuves du contraire, non seulement sur Montferrand lui-même, mais sur le stéréotype du gros bûcheron mal dégrossi canadien-français, comme le "lumberjack" dans Bugs Bunny, par exemple.

Il s'appelle Blacque Jacque Shellacque

Il s'appelle Blacque Jacque Shellacque

Bien sûr, le problème majeur avec l'argument que Mufferaw n'est pas Montferrand et que ce premier n'est qu'une légende même si le second fut un personnage historique, est que la mascotte s'appelle "Jos Montferrand" en français. Donc, malgré l'égosillage des Anglos qui tentent d'expliquer aux Francos qu'ils ont tort de s'offusquer, le fait est que la mascotte est encore une fois un stéréotype canadien-français et une usurpation historique.

Ce serait comme si une équipe de sport américaine se choisissait une mascotte d'allure amérindienne stéréotypique inspirée de Crazy Horse, l'appeler "Curly" (parce que Crazy Horse avait les cheveux frisés) mais appeler cela un hommage. Comme si Chief Wahoo des Indiens de Cleveland est un hommage. Comme si Aunt Jemima est un hommage, ou Uncle Ben. Ce n'est pas parce que cette fois-ci, la mascotte est blanche que cela n'est pas moins insultant. Je fulmine contre les Braves d'Atlanta, les Indiens de Cleveland, je ne suis battu contre les Redskins de Nepean. Je vais me battre contre l'usage insultant de "Joe Mufferraw".

Thoughts on _The Thackery T. Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities: Exhibits, Oddities, Images, and Stories from Top Authors and Artists_, Jeff and Ann Vandermeer, eds.

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Promised as a sequel of sorts to The Thackery T. Lambshead Pocket Guide to Eccentric & Discredited Diseases, edited in 2003 by Mark Roberts and Jeff Vandermeer, The Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities (2011) is a collection of disjointed writings by a host of well-known Anglophone genre authors. I was very much looking forward to reading it, having loved the first volume and kept it in my library since. Nevertheless, I had not heard of the publication of the volume until I noticed the cover during one of my regular Amazon perusal sessions. I bought it and quickly realised why it had not made the splash the first volume had.

Thre book is, unfortunately, a disappointment. Where the first volume was coherent in format, presenting the histologies of vastly divergeant (and very imaginative) mock ailments; this collection is anything but. I used the word "disjointed" earlier and it is a apt description for the ensemble of texts that can be found here. After a humourous introduction, presenting the biography of Dr. Lambshead's subsequent years since the original 1922's publication of the Pocket Guide, we are presented with a sequence of descriptions of objects that were once part of Lambshead's collection. These descriptions follow a familiar catalogue format: artefact name, author of description, date of artifact creation, creator, provenance(s) and current location, accession number, followed by the object's history, uses and effects, usually illustrated. Unfortunately, after a few of those very enjoyable segments, follows several short stories, very loosely related to Dr. Lambshead (who is mostly inferred, not seen), short stories of very unequal quality. Then the catalogue format returns, followed more or less strictly, and other artifacts are introduced.

Were it not for the short stories, this book might have been, at least, coherent and more enjoyable. The Pocket Guide's entries had not been of equal quality, far from it, but the ensemble was what had made the book into such an interesting literary creature. Here, however, the Vandermeer failed in creating something of equal value. Even if both volumes share many of the same authors, the feeling is much different.

The most striking of these differences is in tone. In The Cabinet, it was clear from the introduction that I was missing entire levels of humour that are really just a bunch of inside jokes, mostly at the expense of Michael Moorcook, Naomi Novik and especially Caitlin R. Kiernan. I am certain that these passages are extremely funny to those who personally know these authors and the others mentioned, but I do not (even if I do know a whole bunch), neither do most of the book's readership. One recognizes there is humour. One cannot share it.

I purchased the epub version of The Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities. If I find a used or highly discounted dead tree copy of the book, I may purchase it, so that The Pocket Guide won't be alone on my shelf. I will not, however, ever buy a full price copy. That would be a waste of money.

Lus récemment/read recently

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Encore quelques lectures pour le plaisir.

Veronica Schanoes, Burning Girls (Tor.com Original). This is one of the best things I have read in years. I am not exagerating. I am not kidding. This is how Urban Fantasy should be. Jewish women, immigrants in New York, demons and witches, and labour unrest in the 1920s. So good. You'll cry at the end. This novella is free on Kindle. Go read.

Derek Landy. The Mystery of the Haunted Cottage (Doctor Who Digital, Puffin). The Tenth Doctor and Martha land on a planet than didn't exist before and somehow find themselves in the middle of one of Martha's favourite childhood book, a riff on The Famous Five series called The Troublemakers. Trouble ensues. Since this series of novellas were written by children's writers, it made sense, somewhat, that one of them would play up on the children's books theme, but it makes the story very simplistic, as simplistic as the Famous Five novels were. I remember those; I read a bunch of them in French as Le Club des Cinq and I watched the tv series.

Charles Carpentier. Une ville souterraine. Histoire merveilleuse (collection ArchéoSF, Publie.net). Un historien amateur (un "antiquaire"), se promenant dans la campagne du Département de la Manche, découvre qu'une ville romaine habitée existe sous un plateau près de d’Avranches. Le texte est didactique et descriptif, l'action se passe presque entièrement hors champs et la belle meurt à la fin. Publié à l'origine en 1885, ce court roman du genre "civilisation perdue" est, franchement, très ennuyant. Je ne le recommanderais qu'à ceux qui, comme moi, étudient les littératures de l'imaginaire du 19e siècle et de l'Âge de Radium de la SFF (1900-1939).

Read recently

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• Suw Charman-Anderson, Queen of the May (Chocolate and Vodka). A well-known analyst and journalist, she is also an interesting blogger and a very good author. As with her previous novella Argleton (which is great, go read it), Queen of the May starts by taking you to what might seem like a familiar journey and then slips sideways. Argleton took a very prosaic trek to find the eponymous copyright-trap shadow-town inserted in Google Maps (for real) and tipped into science fiction. Queen of the May starts with a English-Indian botanist taking a walk in a neighbourhood park but then marches in to Fairyland. Ultimately, this novella is about female autonomy and feminism. Loved it.

• Darren Naish, Cryptozoologicon: Volume I (Irregular Books). I like cryptozoology. It's amusing to me. All these creatures that some people want so much to exist, all the legends of both supernatural and pseudo-natural animals that live in our collective imaginings and traditional lore! I just love them. I love to read about them. So when a blog I read suggested this book would "change the way we look at cryptozoology" (and because the Kindle edition was very cheap), I bought it. I was very dissapointed. Not by the creatures and the lore, but by the tone. Naish claims to aim at presenting what is actually known about cryptids based on what is purported about them, and to do so in good humour. Unfortunately, the text quickly becomes a laughing fest at the expense of all those who believe in cryptids. Even the sections where Naish tries to construct hypotheses to support the possibility of each animal fall into nasty snark. Naish could have very easily kept a neutral tone (cryptozoologists' beliefs are ridiculous all on their own) and the book would have been better for it.

• Philip Reeve. The Roots of Evil. (Doctor Who Digital, Puffin). This, this! This is what classic Doctor Who was about! The Fourth Doctor and Leela (whose dress we don't have to see, because there are no images!) land on a Heligan Structure, a type of tree that grows in a planet's atmosphere to terraform it. But this one is different, for one it is enormous. Together, they must battle the tree's inhabitants hell bent on enacting generational vengance on him but also the tree itself, that has suddenly come to life and seems willing to kill everyone. Reeve writes in a style that echoes the campiness of Tom Baker-era DW. The tone is perfect.

• Patrick Ness. Tip of the Tongue. (Doctor Who Digital, Puffin). The Fifth Doctor and Nyssa arrive in a small Massachussetts twon in 1945 when a new gadget has become all the rage. Truth Tellers are a device one attaches to one's mouth that always tells inconveniant and untold truths. The town is falling appart because of it. The Doctor, Nyssa and two of the town's most marginalized kids discover the sinister (and extra-terrestrial) plot behind what all the cool kids are doing. An interesting read, but it need not have been a Doctor Who story to make sense.

• Richelle Mead. Something Borrowed. (Doctor Who Digital, Puffin). The Sixth Doctor and Peri (whose accent we cannot hear, thankfully) land on the resort planet Koturia and are immidiately attacked by tiny pterodactyls. As expected, the Rani is involved. There is a wedding, double-crossing, Las Vegas-size hotels and a lot of running up and down stairs. Cute.

• Malorie Blackman. The Ripple Effect. (Doctor Who Digital, Puffin). The entire universe has been completely rewritten. Hundreds of races that used to exist no longer do and hundreds that were once destroyed exist again. Oh, and the Daleks are a gentle, benevolent, philosopher race. The Doctor and Ace go to Skaro to visit the Dalek Academy and try to figure out what happened. An interesting conceit, even if Ace does not get to blow anything up. Yes, of course, it's all the Doctor's fault.

• Alex Scarrow. Spore. (Doctor Who Digital, Puffin). The Eighth Doctor, in action mode, lands in Nevada tracking a bio-engineered spore, designed to convert organic-matter to geo-form planets. Can he save Earth before everyone is turned into black goo? Of course he can, but it's the adventure that counts.

• Charlie Higson. The Beast of Babylon. (Doctor Who Digital, Puffin). The Ninth Doctor, in action mode, physically fights mysterious dual creature, while a young girl called Ali watches on. She decides that the big-eared stranger is her key to outer-space adventure. I particularly like how Higson introduces the fact this is not taking place on Earth.

I only have one of the Doctor Who 50th Anniversary novella to read yet. After, on to something in French I think.

Iminent storytelling and incipient shinies

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I have had the pleasure of meeting Elise Matthesen on several occasions and I have been an admirer of her textual and jewelry art ever since. Not only is she an fabulous writer and poet, she is an extraodinary jeweler. Every one of her pieces has a story within. Some are soft and sweet, some are whimsical, some are as subtle as a fist to the gut. I love all of it, even those pieces I would never wear.

What it extraordinary about all her jewelry is that authors, almost exclusively women, have writter the stories and the poems within them. Jo Walton wrote Tooth and Claw from a necklace called The Crowded Minds of Dragons. Sarah Monette's incredible short story "After the Dragon" was written from the necklace After the Dragon she learned to love her body. And then there was the pendant Nine Things about Oracles that fueled more than a hundred responses, including my own watercolour work. There are dozens of other examples like this. No exageration. She is that good.

Unnamed Elise Matthesen pendant, 2006

Unnamed Elise Matthesen pendant, 2006

Years ago, I think 2006, she made a host of small improvised pieces at Farthing Party, calling out "Who wants a story" and flinging them to the responding members of the audience. I got one. This unnamed piece, as Elise meant it, was full of wind. You can hear it when you hold it in your hand. Still, to me, it is also full of anger, turmoil and movement.

From it, I wrote the last chapter of half of my WIP novel 18 jours en juillet. The novel tells the story of a young construction worker that discovers that rooms and buildings are more malleable than what they should be. The last chapter, the last eponymous July day, is when he is finally confronted with those who wield this power over built space. The scene is full of wind, rain, sleet and screams.

Unfortunately, after his eighteen July days, I got stuck. I knew there was something missing from the story. I was not sure what exactly and it took me a long time, a few years in fact, to figure it out. My main character's story needed a counterpoint. A few months yet brought me to realize that this counterpoint needed to be a elderly woman. Even more reflexion led me to realize that this woman was a urbanized Innu born and rejected from her community from a hostg of personal reasons after a long stay in a residential school. I knew then that she was to have a parallel story during those same 18 days. But I did not know what that story would be.

Then late last year, Elise had a "Shinies Sale" as she has regularly. Among the pieces were this:

Where the Story Was, Elise Matthesen, 2013.

Where the Story Was, Elise Matthesen, 2013.

As is always the case with her jewelry, I am either delighted by it and happy to look at it, or I feel the rug pulled from under my feet. In the latter cases, I have to fight the urge to buy it. It has not happened often, but those of you who know me well know that I wear so little jewely that buying any is almost always a waste of money. In the case of Where the Story Was, I could not resist. I had to buy it. I had to hold it in my hands.

I have had it for nearly 8 weeks now and I think I know where the story of 18 jours is going. I think I have found the story that was in the pendant and that was waiting for me to flesh out. It might take a couple years for me to do that, mostly because my next sabbatical is in 2015-16, but the story of my Innu elder is in it. I know it is. I can feel it there.

Funny story: when I wore the pendant the first time, Chaton, who is almost four years old, asked me what it was. I said it was jewelry made by me friend Elise (she will forgive the shortcut). I told him it was called Where the Story Was. He immediately understood it. He pointed to the unpolished area, called it a hole from which the story emerged and settled into the book below. He then pulled on the chain, hard, to show it to my husdand and explain to him where the story was and where it is now. A couple days ago, I wore it again and Chaton once again pulled on it and asked me to tell him what the story was that used to be there. I told him I was not sure yet. I was looking to find out. He asked me to remember to tell him when I figure it out.

This brings me to alternate worldview. I think this is what I need for SNOD, the other WIP I'm working on. And I don't know what to do about it. I don't know if I should buy it, or simply work from it from the pictures Elise has put online. Then again, I just got a royalties check and I could use part of that to purchase it. Oh world, help me!