HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 2013-06-06, Page 5THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, JUNE 6, 2013. PAGE 5.
“They’ve just found a gene for shyness. They
would have found it earlier but it was hiding
behind a couple of other genes.”
– Jonathan Katz
Ah yes…shyness. It would be hilarious
if it wasn’t so…excruciating. I
speak as a certified Shy Guy. Sure,
I’m the clown who talks too loud, warbles off-
key and has been known to wear a lampshade
for a fedora. It’s all just an act to cover up
my basic shyness. Shy people are not
welcome in our society. Well-meaning friends
devise plots to ‘bring us out of our shells’ and
get us to ‘assert ourselves’. Type A
personalities call us wusses, chicken-bleeps,
even cowards.
T’ain’t true, but we’re too shy to correct our
detractors.
In China, shyness is seen as a welcome and
respected character trait. There, it bespeaks a
person who thinks before he/she acts;
someone who has control of their impulses
and behaves rationally, rather than
emotionally.
It’s a different story on this continent where
we don’t place much value on introspection.
Gasbags like Don Cherry get celebrity status;
thinkers like Michael Ignatieff get the boot.
The Bible claims the meek are blessed; try to
prove it at a hockey game or on the floor of the
Toronto Stock Exchange.
The worst thing about shyness?
Opportunities missed. Shy people don’t
go for the brass ring. And that’s a shame –
especially when the brass ring isn’t so far out
of reach. James Matthew Barrie, the man who
gave us Peter Pan, was pathologically shy.
Invited to a dinner with A.E. Housman he sat
mute beside him– even though he’d longed to
meet the famous poet for a long time.
Afterwards, Barrie wrote this letter: ‘Dear
Professor Houseman, I am sorry about last
night, when I sat next to you and did not say a
word. You must have thought I was a very
rude man: I am really a very shy man.
Sincerely yours, J.M. Barrie.
Housman wrote back: ‘Dear Sir, I am
sorry about last night, when I sat next to
you and did not say a word. You must
have thought I was a very rude man: I am
really a very shy man. Sincerely yours,
A.E. Housman.
P.S. And now you’ve made it worse for
you’ve spelled my name wrong.’
I’ll leave the last word to another man of
letters, Garrison Keillor, who had to overcome
painful shyness to become the best-selling
author and story-telling genius that he is. But
he never forgot (or vanquished) his shyness. In
the end, he decided he doesn’t want to: Keillor
wrote: “Shyness is not a disability or a disease
to be overcome. It is simply the way we are.
And in our own quiet way we are secretly
proud of it.”
Amen to that: I’m shy – wanna make
something of it?
Arthur
Black
Other Views
Say it loud; Say it proud; I’m shy
The news that the Blyth Festival has once
again been nominated for the Premier’s
Award for Excellence in the Arts for
Best Arts Organization shines a light on the
community that supports the Festival.
In an interview with The Citizen earlier this
week, interim Artistic Director Peter Smith
said that if the Festival was to win the award,
it would belong to all of the community,
above and beyond the Festival and its
supporters.
He said that while the Blyth Centre for the
Arts is a wide-ranging organization that united
performers, visual artists and musicians, some
of the most important support the Festival
receives comes from businesses and
community members up and down main street
throughout Huron County.
He said that if the Festival was to win the
award, it would belong as much to people like
Citizen Publisher Keith Roulston, Anne
Chislett and James Roy, who founded the
Festival, as it would to the businesses that have
supported the Festival year after year.
For this year’s guide to the Blyth Festival
which The Citizen compiles every year, which
will be on newsstands Thursday, June 27, the
majority of the artists I spoke with were blown
away with the generosity and openness that
community members displayed earlier this
year in the early stages of the production of
Beyond The Farm Show.
The show’s director Severn Thompson
organized approximately 25 different visits for
the cast with farmers and community members
during three one-week visits between March
and May. The show followed the lead of its
predecessor from 1972, The Farm Show, where
a group of Theatre Passe Muraille actors spent
a summer living and working on a handful of
farms near Clinton for the summer, eventually
creating The Farm Show out of their time in
Huron County.
After spending time with cast members and
interviewing many of them, one thing was
clear: this is a community that loves its theatre.
Cast members commented time and time
again about how welcoming people had been.
Families invited the actors into their homes for
coffee, for dinner and for conversations that
would last for hours.
Actress Catherine Fitch talked about the time
that touched her the most, spending time with
an Amish family and discussing topics very
close to the family’s heart, including the death
of a family member.
Actors Jamie Robinson and Tony Munch
talked about the hours they spent with RR3,
Blyth’s Cliff and Don Schultz, characters that
left a permanent imprint of them, so much so
when Cliff passed away late last month, both
Robinson and Munch attended his funeral at
Ball’s Cemetery.
The show’s cast, which began rehearsals this
week, has woven itself into the fabric of the
community and forged relationships that will
forever stay with them, as well as members of
the community.
It’s no surprise then, that Huron County was
the setting for The Farm Show. It’s a
community that opens its arms and its doors to
the theatre, and so too does the theatre open to
the community from its home community of
Blyth throughout the entire county.
So when Smith says that the community and
supporters share in the Festival’s success, he is
very correct, because this is a theatre
community where the community and the
theatre both know what they mean to one
another; probably more than they will ever
really know.
A theatre community
Shawn
Loughlin
Shawn’s Sense
I’ve got a vested interest in how this whole
Rob Ford/crack addict situation plays
out. My fiancée lives in Brampton which is
part of the Greater Toronto Area and,
therefore, directly affected by how this all
ends.
Now, from the get-go, there has been
no doubt in my mind that the video likely
exists and that it wasn’t likely doctored (I
mean, if you’re going to take the time to
properly doctor a video, you’re going to
need more than $200,000 to cover the
equipment, software and know-how alone)
and there is no doubt in my mind that
Ford is capable of participating in
drug use.
I mean, it’s not like it’s out of character.
Let’s not forget he has been caught with
marijuana, the so-called “gateway” drug.
There are a lot of angles from which to
approach this issue, but regardless of how you
feel about the video or recent stories that have
targeted both Ford and his brother Doug
(whether rightfully or not), there is still one
major issue that Torontonians need to deal
with when it comes to Mayor Ford.
I’m not talking about the late night talk show
hosts mocking Ford due to the incident and
I’m not even talking about how Ford seems to
have caught the attention of major media
outlets from our neighbour to the south, I’m
talking about something that goes beyond
validity: believability.
As I stated above, I have no problem
believing the video exists, I have no problem
believing it wasn’t faked and I have no
problem believing that Ford would participate
in using the drug. That’s the problem,
believability.
(I would also not be surprised to learn that
the disappearance of the people with the video
and the fact that the Ford’s office was told the
location of said people are somehow
connected.)
While many people are debating the validity
of the video and asking whether it’s been
doctored or not, I haven’t seen a single
argument say, “but doing crack-cocaine isn’t
part of Mayor Ford’s character,” or, “I just
can’t see him doing that.”
Even his denial, in which he says he
doesn’t use and is not addicted to crack-
cocaine does not state he hasn’t done crack-
cocaine. It only stated he doesn’t now and isn’t
addicted.
I’m not addicted to alcohol. I’m not drinking
as a I write this. That, however, certainly
doesn’t mean I’ve never had a drink.
Anyway, back to the issue. Regardless of
whether there are supporters out there or not,
no one is claiming that the tape can’t be
believed because of its content, only because
of its validity as a recording.
To me, whether Ford is innocent or guilty of
using a narcotic on the level of crack is
inconsequential at this point.
What matters, what is at the heart of this
issue, is would we be surprised if Rob Ford
smoked crack?
The answer to that question is one that I
think people need to think long and hard on
before they spend $200,000 obtaining proof of
him doing it.
School boards are firing him from volunteer
positions, which is enough of a damning
remark on its own. However, beyond that
fellow councillors are urging him to ‘get help’,
and none of them are saying, “You did drugs.”
The suggestion to get help comes just from his
out-of-control lifestyle and no specific relation
to this incident.
To me, each thing that happens and each
comment that is made from someone not in
“Ford Nation” could be prefaced by the
statement, “Whether you did drugs or not...”
and it would still make sense.
Of course, as I was taught in school,
I have to prove my thesis, so here are some
gems:
• “[Whether you did drugs or not] go away
and get help,” - Reportedly, the part outside of
the square brackets is what Chief of Staff
Mark Towhey said before he got fired.
• “[Whether Ford did drugs or not] this
decision was based on what is best for our
students, our school and the Don Bosco
community.” A quote taken from the Toronto
Catholic District School Board when
explaining Ford’s removal as a football coach
in the Don Bosco Eagles football program.
• “[Whether Ford did drugs or not] Rob has
not been the main activator of work at city hall
over the past few years. He’s been there from
time to time, but we’re not sure his main
attention has been at city hall,” Toronto
Councillor John Parker said.
There are many other examples, but the crux
of my point is: Whether Rob Ford did crack or
not, whether he was in possession of
marijuana or was smoking marijuana, whether
he was drunk when he was escorted from a
charity gala or not, one thing is clear: it
wouldn’t surprise anyone (except maybe Ford
himself, he always seems to have a half-
stunned look on his face) if one of the
aforementioned allegations turned out to be
true.
Canada’s most populous city, its most
famous city and the fourth largest city in North
American behind Mexico City, New York City
and Los Angeles is going to eventually reach
its apex, its high-point at which everything
goes downhill, and I can’t help but think that
Ford, or another of his ilk, will be at the helm
when that occurs.
Why do I think that? Well if you have a
leader like Ford, where the question isn’t “Did
he do it,” but “Did he actually get recorded
doing it,” you’ve already signed the death
certificate for your city.
I think of the area we live in. If someone said
they had video proof of a North Huron
councillor, or a Huron East councillor or a
Central Huron councillor participating in illicit
drugs, my first statement would be that the
video is a fake.
I know that some council members and
I don’t see eye to eye on issues. I know,
however, that the voters of Huron County
aren’t foolhardy enough to put a man like Ford
in any position of power. I would not believe
that any council member from any level of
government in Huron County would be
capable of being caught in half of the gaffes
that Ford has been.
In the end, however, I guess the only
opinion that matters is that of the public court.
I hope they find Ford guilty this time.
Denny
Scott
Denny’s Den
The crime or likelihood: what’s worse?
“One ought, every day at least, to hear a
little song, read a good poem, see a fine
picture and, if it were possible, speak a few
reasonable words.”
– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Final Thought