HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 2013-10-31, Page 5THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, OCTOBER 31, 2013. PAGE 5.
Consider the breathtakingly ingenious
piece of bio-engineering that is the
common eyeball. It allows us to see
and identify everything from pockmarks on
the moon to the fine print on an Aspirin
bottle. It speckles our language with
irreplaceable phrases – we “see eye to eye”
or we can turn an eye that is blind, jaundiced,
kind or cold. We put eyes in our needles
and eyes in our hurricanes. We rate our own
ocular prowess on a spectrum that runs
from “eyes like a hawk” to “blind as
a bat”.
The human eye is a profoundly delicate
organ, so intricate and finely calibrated we
ought to go about with the upper part of our
heads encased in bubble wrap, but we don’t.
We junk them up with mascara and eyeliner;
we clutter them with contact lenses – plastic
vanity discs that ride the eyeball like miniature
manhole covers.
In Chengdu, China there is a barber who, for
a fee, will run a razor across the inside of your
eyelid, then “massage” the lids with a thin
metal prod. It’s reputed to relieve “dryness” in
the eye socket.
Pass me on that.
And South Korea? It is the cosmetic eye
surgery capital of the world. An astonishing
number of South Korean women want to have
“Western” eyes like Suzanne Somers, not
Asiatic ones like Suzie Wong. They go under
the knife to achieve it. In a recent competition
20 young female contestants vied for the title
of Miss South Korea. All 20 had
“westernized” eyes.
We’re into some pretty eye-popping
modifications on this side of the water, too.
Take the case of Rodrigo Fernando dos Santos
of Sao Paolo, Brazil. You’d recognize Rodrigo
from 20 feet away – he’s a walking tattoo.
Virtually every visible square inch of his body
is inked and needled.
And yes, that now includes his eyeballs.
Recently, Mister dos Santos engaged the
services of a tattoo artist Rafael Leao Dias to
ink in the last two areas of his body that were
tattoo-free.
It’s not easy to tattoo an eyeball. The
tattooist must inject the ink precisely between
the conjunctiva and sclera layers – one slip and
the patient is qualified to be fitted for a white
cane. It’s not a romp in the daisies for the
recipient either. “I cried ink for two days” says
dos Santos.
But hey...what price art?
Mister dos Santos now sports eyeballs that
have no white in them – just two dark pools of
ink.
Must be quite a turn-on.
I suppose I wouldn’t have to “black out” my
eyeballs if I got them tattooed. I could have
polka dots maybe, or tiny tattooed teardrops.
How about teensy weensy bumper sticker
sayings like “EYE HEART U” or “CRY ME A
RIVER”?
Could I see my way clear to do something
like that?
Yeah. In a pig’s eye.
Arthur
Black
Other Views
I say, leave the eyes alone Shawn
Loughlin
Shawn’s Sense
It’s always interesting to look back at the
kind of experiences that really stick with
you.
Just over three years ago, a few months
before I started working at The Citizen, I ran
into what I figured would be the most
memorable moment of my newspaper career: I
got to sit down and interview Doc Walker, a
country band from Manitoba.
I’d seen them live and had tickets to see
them at Blyth Memorial Hall and I even have
a picture that one of their tour aides took of me
with the group hanging up on the wall.
It’s doubtless that the moment that picture
was taken, the moment I got to sit down and
talk to them like they were anyone else, is
definitely one of my favourite moments, but,
looking back, it didn’t impact me as much as
some of the other stories I’ve experienced.
I’m sure that some people might expect me
to say that attending funerals like former Fire
Department of North Huron Fire Chief John
Black or Ontario Provincial Police Officer Vu
Pham are more momentous and, in a way, they
certainly are. Seeing people who served their
community so selflessly having their lives cut
short will always be a haunting reminder of
how frail life really is.
If I had to be completely honest, however,
I’d say that one of the most memorable
moments from my just-over-half-a-decade of
work was the day I sat down and interviewed
the recently deceased Cecil Raynard.
Cecil passed away after over 103 years on
this planet. He nearly shared his birth with that
of a new century, saw a millenia and
experienced things that few people get to, like
celebrating his 100th birthday.
More amazing was the fact that, when I
interviewed Cecil, in his 103rd year, just under
two years ago, he told me one of the stories
that, when people ask me what I’ve learned, is
always top of my mind.
Raynard, who claims he made it to 100 and
beyond through living healthy and walking,
was an amazing person.
He lived in his own home with his wife until
just six years ago. He moved to Huronlea
Home for the Aged in Brussels because is
wife, Lowella, needed help and he could use a
hand to take care of her.
He was a farmer, he built his own home,
except for the plumbing and the heating and
when it came time for him to share his stories
with me, Cecil told me about his 100th
birthday.
“One of the young ladies who works [at
Huronlea] told me I was eating too much salt
and that it wasn’t good for me,” he said
chuckling. “She looked like she was in her
20s, and I’m sitting here at 100 and she’s
telling me something is not healthy.”
Cecil Raynard lived beyond 100 only to
have a dietitian tell him he needed to cut down
on his salt intake.
When news of Cecil’s passing broke in The
Citizen, I felt as if I had lost an opportunity. I
had hoped to speak to him again at some point
but, every time I passed Huronlea, I was on my
way somewhere and, as usual, in a hurry.
Still, I believe it’s telling that, of all of the
experiences I’ve had as a reporter, of all the
stories I’ve read (and I don’t just mean non-
fiction, I mean every book I’ve ever picked
up), every movie I’ve seen, every television
show I’ve watched and every play I’ve seen,
the best story was just a few short lines from a
man who likely lived a good 20 years longer
than I could hope to.
I’m certainly not diminishing the other
lessons I’ve learned from people in my life.
My maternal grandparents have a wealth of
tales to share and I don’t take advantage of that
as often as I should. My paternal grandfather
likely could have saved me quite a few
hardships in my construction jobs given his
experience with electricity and I’m sure that,
given his time playing and being part of events
like the annual reunion of the Huron Pioneer
Thresher and Hobby Association and the Barn
Dance, he could tell me more about people
around Blyth than another 10 years of being a
reporter ever could.
A few years back a teacher who pointed me
in the direction of photography and writing
retired and I knew that the students at Central
Huron Secondary School would be far worse
for it. While in his classes, I figured I’d
remember the lessons about the technology the
most but what I really took from it was the
need to understand the purpose of the
technology and the need to get the skills before
you have the technology to do the work for
you. To do that, however, you have to meet the
challenges of the people who can teach you
that.
Over the weekend, at a party, I talked with
an old school friend about the shared
experiences we have, him reviewing books for
academia and me reviewing plays for The
Citizen and the pitfalls and pleasures of both,
and I realized that, after the first little bit
where we talked about the pressures of having
someone’s work in our hands to judge, we
were talking more about the experiences with
people than with the writing and reviewing
itself.
Even sitting down to lunch a few days past
with a former colleague of mine (who taught
me a lot more than I realized at the time) made
me think about the lessons that really stick
with me and the practices that people have
taught me.
In the end, it’s the people you connect with
that help you remember those great
experiences.
So while I sit here and imagine that the great
fire debate, school closures and the
redevelopment of the Grandview Restaurant
property south of Blyth are likely big news, I
have to remind myself that, while they’re
controversial and important to report on at the
time, in a decade they won’t likely mean as
much as I think they do know.
When I look back on interviewing Doc
Walker, I’ll remember how much of a hard
time my fiancee gave me because she wanted
to meet them as much as I did more than I’ll
remember the star-struck feeling of
interviewing them.
With all these experiences, however, I
remember it because of the person, not
because of the particular wisdom that was
imparted.
In a decade, though, whether I’m sitting at a
restaurant and deciding whether to sprinkle
salt on my meal or whether I’m recounting the
wisdom that’s been shared with me, I’ll
remember Cecil Raynard, the man who lived
past 100 only to be told he needed to cut back
on his salt intake.
It’s funny how memory works.
Denny
Scott
Denny’s Den
Experiences that really stick with you
A series to remember
With the announcement of the Blyth
Festival’s 40th season last week
came news of a new soon-to-be-
annual tradition: The Blyth Festival Memorial
Series.
The series will begin in 2014, the Festival’s
40th season, with the award-winning play Billy
Bishop Goes To War, written and composed by
John MacLachlan Gray in collaboration with
Eric Peterson.
New Artistic Director Marion de Vries,
whose first season at the helm will be next
year’s 40th season, said it was important to her
that the Festival reconnect with its home of
Memorial Hall, a building originally built as a
living cenotaph for the soldiers of The Great
War.
There, of course, has been no shortage of
such discussion around the Village of Blyth, as
plans for the ambitious 14/19 campaign
continue to roll out. Peter Smith, last year’s
artistic director and project manager for the
14/19 campaign, has staked the hall’s future on
its past, working closely with the Blyth Legion
and the Legion Ladies Auxiliary to bring plans
of renovation to the hall to fruition. He has
said, on multiple occasions, that the hall’s
importance runs far deeper than simply being a
stage for the Blyth Festival and that meaning is
rooted directly in the fertile ground that is this
area’s veterans.
Plays that celebrate this country’s bravest are
nothing new to the Festival, of course. In fact,
it was just a few years ago that Vern Thiessen’s
Vimy graced the Memorial Hall stage to great
acclaim.
The play ended with a touching moment,
cited by de Vries in my interview with her late
last week, where spotlights illuminated two
plaques, one on either side of the hall’s stage,
which list the names of veterans who fought,
and in some cases, died, for their country, all
from the Blyth area.
It was a bold move by then-Artistic Director,
and the play’s director, Eric Coates, de Vries
said, but a powerful one.
That moment, more than anything that took
place on the stage, reminds audiences that
while stage productions are often fictionalized,
dramatized accounts, they are rooted in real
situations that affect so many real people.
She cited seminal Festival plays like Another
Season’s Harvest, which tackled the farm
crisis head-on, right when so many where
feeling its affects. She expects Leanna Brodie’s
Turbulence, a work in progress about wind
turbines in rural Ontario, will have that same
effect.
With the Memorial Series, de Vries says
she’s already looking down the road with the
hopes that its plays will connect with local
audiences on a very personal level.
One of the plays in development, de Vries
says, is about Wingham’s Matthew Dinning,
who was killed in 2006 by an IED in
Afghanistan. Dinning’s story is in the hands of
playwright Christopher Morris, de Vries says,
who is more than capable of dramatizing such
an important life to this community.
Such a series is a perfect fit for a building
like Memorial Hall, which holds so many
memories for so many people.
So congratulations to the Blyth Festival and
to de Vries who have seen the importance of
the lives of soldiers. They have seen the role
they play in all of our lives, and specifically in
Blyth, where a hall built for this brave group of
men and women remains as the community’s
lifeblood, hosting plays about our way of life,
the very way of life made possible by their
bravery, hard work and sacrifice.
It is easier to fight for one's principles than
to live up to them.
– Alfred Adler
Final Thought