Journal articles on the topic 'Shiro (Dog)'

This article discusses the original1984 publication of ‘Replacement of the anterior cruciate ligament using an allogeneic tendon graft. An experimental study in the dog’. The original classic study discovered the revascularisation and remodelling of an allograft for anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction (ACLR) using microangiographic, histological and biomechanical methods. The original classic study suggested that a transplanted allogeneic tendon can substitute for an autograft in ACLR. The original classic study suggested this new option to the orthopaedic medical community. Currently, an allograft is one of the main alternatives used for ACLR. This article begins with a detailed summary of the original classic study. Second, this article reviews the historical perspectives, the scientific and societal effect and the effect of the original classic study on present practices. Finally, the ultimate goal of this article is to validate the use of allogeneic tendon grafts in ACLR with the current evidence of clinical studies and animal experiments and to elucidate any remaining questions regarding allogeneic tendon grafts, which could then be resolved through studies in the near future.

ABSTRACTNottingham is one of 23 local authorities designated as ‘programme authorities’ under the Inner Urban Areas Act 1978. Between 1983 and 1985 the authors carried out research into the formulation of inner city policy, its application to the Radford area in particular and the opinions of residents there about its impact. Interviews with a wide range of those involved with policy including local authority officers and members and representatives of the police, the health authority and regional Department of the Environment (DoE) revealed considerable institutional and political barriers to a joint inner city strategy in a shire district, even where the same party holds political control. Structures set up to liaise are cordial but clumsy, slow and very much removed from daily service delivery. As elsewhere, the local authorities are critical of lack of central government commitment to this part of the Urban Programme, but nevertheless work well with regional DoE. Paradoxically, however, despite their criticisms of a lack of central funds and of inappropriate spatial and other parameters, the local authority and health authority respondents are anxious for the Programme to continue as it provides both the resources and the justification for innovatory and redistributive projects which would otherwise have been financially and politically impossible.

Abstract Emerging data from early phase clinical studies of AAV gene therapy for hemophilia B (HB) (factor IX [FIX] deficiency) show sustained expression of therapeutic levels of FIX and phenotypic improvement. However, the safety and efficacy of in vivo gene therapy is limited by the vector dose. Recently, we reported a naturally occurring, hyperfunctional FIX (FIX Padua) caused by a single amino acid change of arginine 338 to leucine that exhibits an 8-fold increase in specific activity in humans (N Engl J Med 2009), making it a potential candidate for HB gene therapy with reduced vector doses. However, to take advantage of FIX Padua for HB gene therapy, it is critical to first define the risk of immunogenicity of this variant in preclinical models of severe HB. We have previously shown that delivery of AAV-cFIX-Padua to skeletal muscle in HB dogs with a missense mutation in the canine (c) F9 gene resulted in no anti-FIX neutralizing antibodies (inhibitors), non-neutralizing antibodies (IgG) or FIX-specific T-cell response (Blood 2012). While promising, these dogs express FIX RNA and have a pre-existing tolerance to cFIX due to the nature of their mutation, and so do not represent the most rigorous model for immunogenicity studies. Here, we tested the efficacy and immunogenicity of cFIX Padua in a severe HB dog colony with an early stop codon mutation. This mutation results in no FIX RNA transcript, and the dogs are prone to develop cFIX inhibitors upon exposure to protein concentrates. Three dogs were infused peripherally with a liver-specific AAV8-cFIX-Padua at two different doses, and monitored for cFIX antigen and activity levels and inhibitors. The first dog, which received 3 x 1012 vg/kg, showed average plateaued expression levels of 3.98 ± 1.44% antigen and 24.5 ± 4.1% activity, with no development of anti-cFIX inhibitors or IgG antibodies. Whole blood clotting time (WBCT) and aPTTs returned to normal by day 3 post-vector administration and have remained stable for >20 months (ongoing observations). A second dog was treated with a lower dose of 1 x 1012 vg/kg and showed average plateaued expression levels of 2.41 ± 0.05% antigen and 22.0 ± 0.4% activity, with no development of anti-cFIX inhibitors or IgG antibodies. WBCT and aPTTs returned to normal by day 3 post-vector administration and have remained stable for >3 months. An additional dog, upon previous exposure to recombinant human (h) FIX protein, had developed inhibitors that cross-reacted with cFIX. This immune response was ongoing at the time of vector administration (3 x 1012 vg/kg). Anti-cFIX antibodies peaked at day 14 post-AAV, with 4.7 BUs and 3643 ng/mL IgG2, but dropped to undetectable levels by day 70. There was a concurrent rise in cFIX Padua expression levels, suggesting successful tolerization to the cFIX Padua. Antigen levels plateaued at 14.6 ± 4.3% and activity at 51.7 ± 23.5%, with ongoing normalization of WBCT and aPTTs for >18 months. In all three dogs, cholesterol, albumin and total protein were within normal limits with no clinical or laboratory evidence of nephrotic syndrome (a potential complication in FIX inhibitor patients that have undergone immune tolerance induction with frequent FIX protein injections). The safety of FIX Padua was further confirmed using a mouse model of HB. Mice (n=8-12/group) were treated with 5 x 1010 vg/kg liver-directed AAV8-hFIX-WT or AAV8-hFIX-Padua, resulting in expression levels of 1076 ± 343 ng/mL (21.5 ± 6.9% antigen, 67.5 ± 10.1% activity) and 797 ± 255 ng/mL (15.9 ± 5.1% antigen, 274.8 ± 73.8% activity), respectively. In cross-over experiments, the mice were then were immunologically challenged 10-15 weeks after gene delivery with 100 ug/kg of the reciprocal recombinant protein (ie mice expressing hFIX Padua were challenged with hFIX WT, and visa versa). Challenges were administered subcutaneously alone or with adjuvant (CFA) weekly for 4 weeks. In no instance did mice develop antibodies to either FIX, suggesting that tolerance was successfully induced in all cases. Together, these date show that FIX Padua shows no increase in immunogenicity compared to FIX WT and is capable not only of preventing inhibitor formation, but also of eradicating pre-existing inhibitory antibodies to FIX in an inhibitor-prone HB dog model. Thus, FIX Padua is an attractive transgene that will allow for decreased vector doses in human HB gene therapy, improving the safety profile of AAV liver gene therapy without increased immunogenicity. Disclosures: High: Alnylam Pharmaceuticals: Consultancy; BioMarin: Consultancy; bluebirdbio, Inc.: Consultancy, Equity Ownership, Membership on an entity’s Board of Directors or advisory committees; BristolMyersSquibb: Consultancy, membership on a Data Safety and Monitoring Board, membership on a Data Safety and Monitoring Board Other; Elsevier, Inc.: royalties from textbook, royalties from textbook Patents & Royalties; Genzyme, Inc.: Membership on an entity’s Board of Directors or advisory committees; Intrexon: Consultancy; Novo Nordisk: Consultancy, Member of a grant review committee, Member of a grant review committee Other; Shire : Consultancy; Benitec: Consultancy.

Abstract Introduction Hemarthrosis in patients with hemophilia (PWH) leads to local inflammation and vascular changes in the joint, but little is known about the extent and nature of systemic responses to joint bleeding. Since the spleen is a major systemic immune-modulatory organ, we quantified changes in splenic gene expression profiles in FVIII-deficient mice at baseline and after induced hemarthrosis, and in the presence and absence of FVIII replacement therapy. Methods Hemarthrosis was induced in FVIII-deficient mice by sub-patellar needle puncture +/- 100 IU/kg recombinant human FVIII (rhFVIII) intravenously 2 hours before and 6 hours after injury. Spleens were harvested on day 3 or 2 weeks post-injury (n=3-5). Spleens from uninjured mice +/- rhFVIII treatment served as controls. RNA libraries were prepared using the NEBNext Ultra II Directional RNA Library Prep Kit and sequenced on an Illumina NextSeq500 platform (single-end; 75bp reads). The limma-voom method (R Bioconductor) was used for differential expression analyses. The criteria for differential expression were: i) a log fold-change (logFC) >1 or <-1, and ii) an adjusted p value <0.05. Functional enrichment was performed using Signaling Pathway Impact Analysis and the STRING database of protein-protein interactions. Results Knee injury in FVIII-deficient mice caused gross hemarthrosis that was largely prevented with rhFVIII prophylaxis (day 2 hematocrit: 26.4% and 46.3%). Pronounced alterations in splenic gene expression profiles occurred in vehicle-treated mice on day 3 post-injury, with 4227 differentially expressed genes (DEG) and 41 perturbed pathways. This response was markedly improved with rhFVIII treatment (386 DEG; 5 pathways), and almost entirely corrected by 2 weeks. Multiple pathways relating to immune processes, inflammation, and cell survival were highly perturbed on day 3 post-injury, including cytokine-cytokine receptor interactions (pNDE=1.4x10-6) and cell cycle (pNDE=5.3x10-5). The cell cycle pathway remained significantly altered despite rhFVIII treatment (pNDE=3.5x10-6), while other pathways were comparable to uninjured mice. Analysis of the top 50 DEG that are mutual to both treatment groups revealed a striking difference in directionality, with up-regulation in the vehicle group, and down-regulation in the rhFVIII group. Together, these findings demonstrate a significant effect of rhFVIII treatment on systemic transcriptional responses to joint bleeding. Treatment with rhFVIII in the absence of hemarthrosis resulted in only 97 DEG on day 3 by the same criteria, and 233 DEG after lowering the logFC threshold from (-)1 to (-)0.5. Of these 233 genes, STRING analysis revealed perturbation of the platelet activation pathway (FDR: 7.7x10-10) for up-regulated genes (93 DEG) and the T cell receptor signaling pathway (FDR: 1.3x10-8) for down-regulated genes (140 DEG), which may corroborate a role of T cell responses to rhFVIII treatment in the development of inhibitors. These responses to rhFVIII were unique to uninjured mice and did not occur in mice with induced hemarthrosis and rhFVIII treatment. Conclusions Joint bleeding in hemophilic mice leads to acute, profound changes in multiple systemic pathways, including immune and inflammatory processes, as shown by gene expression profiling. Prophylactic treatment with rhFVIII largely corrects this response to hemarthrosis. Interestingly, in the absence of hemarthrosis, rhFVIII treatment affects platelet activation and T cell receptor signaling, whereby further analyses are required to determine if these effects stimulate or dampen immune responses. This approach can be used to explore the systemic mechanisms contributing to progressive hemophilic arthropathy in PWH, elucidate immune responses that may facilitate inhibitor formation, and lead to development of novel therapeutic strategies. Disclosures von Drygalski: UniQure BV, Bayer, Bioverativ/Sanofi, Pfizer, Novo Nordisk, Biomarin, Shire, CSL Behring: Consultancy.

Totals of 32 female and 53 male Perameles gunnii were caught 241 and 330 times, respectively, during 4340 trap-nights at Hamilton, Victoria. Residents comprised 75.3% (n = 64) of the sample. Morphometric comparison indicates that P. gunnii is sexually dimorphic. Sex ratios (expressed in percentage of females) of 55% (dependent juvenile), 45% (independent juvenile) and 37.9% (adult) were determined. The age structure of the live-trapped population changed substantially between July 1989 (42.9% juvenile, 9.5% subadult and 47.6% adult) and August 1990 (46.2% juvenile, 15.4% subadult and 34.6% adult). The mean age of captured female bandicoots increased during the study, from 9.8 months in July 1989 to 15.8 months in August 1990. In all, 24 of 32 females produced 145 pouch young in 66 litters, with a mean W e . ) litter size of 2.2+/-0.1 (n = 66). The number of females that were lactating each month was high throughout the study (85%) and peaked during spring and autumn when all captured females were lactating. Sexual maturity for males and females occurred at about 5 and 3.5 months of age, respectively. The causes of mortality of P. gunnii between 1980 and 1990 included road death (63%, n = 85), cat predation (17.8%, n = 24), disease (8.1%, n = 11), trap death (5.2%, n = 7), machinery (3.7%, n = 5) and dog predation (2.2%, n = 3). A total of 25 P. gunnii died from unknown causes. Cat predation of P. gunnii may be high amongst juveniles and subadults but low for adults. A net emigration rate of 18% of individuals known to be alive indicates that the Hamilton Municipal Tip is a source for dispersal to other subpopulations. The 1990 distribution of the population was about 169 ha, within the City of Hamilton and adjacent Shire of Dundas, Victoria. There has been a decline in distribution and some local extinctions of P. gunnii in several areas between 1988 and 1990.

Background:Patients with immunity mediated inflammatory diseases (IMID) often have clinical manifestations and comorbidity in the field of various medical specialties. A center has been created in our hospital for the comprehensive care of patients with IMID who are being treated with biological therapies (BT) or targeted synthetic molecules (TSM). It is an innovative healthcare model, that incorporate patients into its governance. Physicians, pharmacists and advanced practice nurses (APN), collaborates in consultation or in the day hospital (DH).Objectives:To analyze the activity developed during the first year of operation of the center, with special attention to effectiveness, efficiency, interdisciplinary relationships and patient satisfaction.Methods:Observational analysis with indicators of management and monitoring of patients, care activity, effectiveness, adverse effects, resource consumption and patient satisfaction using the hospital’s own information systems.Results:Center staff during 2019: two admission assistants, one nursing assistant, six nurses, seven part-time doctors and three pharmacists. 1,490 patients were included: 694 (46.6%) Rheumatology (Rheu), 585 (39.3%) Digestive (Dig) and 211 (14.1%) Dermatology (Der) generated 11,363 medical consultations, 14,850 APN consultations and 3,920 treatment sessions in the DH. IV treatment 529/1490 (35.5%) patients (45.0% Reu, 53.9% Dig, 1.1% Der). Patients with rheumatic diseases: rheumatoid arthritis: 339/694, 48.8%; Spondyloarthritis: 226/694, 32.6%; psoriatic arthritis: 117/694, 16.9%; and juvenile idiopathic arthritis: 12/694, 1.7%. 217/1490 (14.6%) patients needed multidisciplinary consultations.Table 1. shows the most relevant indicators and table 2 shows the patient satisfaction survey for 2019.Table 1.relevant indicatorsRHEUDIGDEROn demand consultations 2019 %21.0%34.2%14.3%Teleconsultations 2019 %17.8%41.9%0.0%BT, TSM tapering. %201931.9%0.2%45,5%201818.9%0.2%13.4%BT, TSM intensification. %20195.8%35.2%0.5%20182.6%36.5%0.5%Biosimilars %201943.1%48.5%15.9%201830.4%4.0%12.1%Adherence>90% 2019 %89.4%91.7%86.4%Remission 2019 %47.8%67.3%78.5%hospital admission, any cause pat-years20191.41.70.120181.51.50.04emergency admission, any cause pat-years20192.12.11.620182.12.01.5Table 2.patient satisfaction surveyCategoríaMean and (DS) 1-5General aspects of the center4.3 (0.9)Physicians4.5 (1.1)DH and APN4.5 (1.2)Pharmacy4.6 (0.9)Health proffesional coordinaton4.4 (0.9)Hospital global satisfaction4.3 (0.8)Conclusion:From previous situation there is an increase in interdisciplinary consultations and HD activity maintenance without an increase in human resources. Efficiency (tapering, biosimilars) and patient and staff satisfaction have improved. However, no improvement in adverse effects has been observed, which is an area of improvement. Effectiveness is good, waiting to compare with the previous year. Nutrition and preventive medicine consultations has not been evaluated because have been recently established. Other indicators are being analyzed at the end of the submission deadline.The impact of this pioneering management model, with a holistic approach and incorporating patients into its governance, is difficult to measure until its implementation is completed. Uveitis and psychology consultations and patient school starting in 2020 will improve the quality of IMID patient care, as well as their satisfaction and that of their relatives.Disclosure of Interests:Carlos Gonzalez Consultant of: Gilead, Janssen, Novartis,, Speakers bureau: Abbvie, Celgene, Gilead, Janssen, Novartis, Pfizer, Roche, Luis Alberto Menchén Viso Grant/research support from: Abbvie, Janssen, MSD, Takeda, Consultant of: Abbvie, Janssen, Takeda, MSD, Medtronic, Tillotts, Pfizer, Dr. Falk Pharma, Speakers bureau: Abbvie, Janssen, Takeda, MSD, General Electric, Tillotts, Pfizer, Ferring, General Electric, Fresenius, Ofelia Baniandrés Rodríguez: None declared, Ignacio Marín-Jiménez Consultant of: AbbVie,Chiesi,FAES Farma,Falk-Pharma,Ferring,Gebro Pharma, Hospira,Janssen,MSD,Otsuka Pharmaceutical,Pfizer,Shire,Takeda,Tillots and UCB Pharma, Speakers bureau: AbbVie,Chiesi,FAES Farma,FalkPharma,Ferring,Gebro Pharma,Hospira,Janssen,MSD,Otsuka Pharmaceutical,Pfizer,Shire,Takeda,Tillots and UCB Pharma, Juan Carlos Nieto Speakers bureau: Pfizer, Abbvie, MSD, Novartis, Janssen, Lilly, Nordic Pharma, BMS, Gebro, FAES Farma, Roche, Sanofi, Indalecio Monteagudo: None declared, Arantza Ais Larisgoitia: None declared, Esther Chamorro de Vega: None declared, Elena Lobato Matilla: None declared, Rosa Romero Jiménez: None declared, Ana Herranz Alonso: None declared, Carmen Lobo Rodríguez: None declared, María Prado Simón Moreno: None declared, Jose-Maria Alvaro-Gracia Grant/research support from: Abbvie, Elli-Lilly, MSD, Novartis, Pfizer, Consultant of: Abbvie, BMS, Janssen-Cilag, Elli-Lilly, MSD, Novartis, Pfizer, Sanofi, Tigenix, Roche, UCB, Paid instructor for: Elli-Lilly, Pfizer, Roche, Speakers bureau: Abbvie, BMS, Janssen-Cilag, Elli-Lilly, Gedeon Richter, MSD, Novartis, Pfizer, Sanofi, Tigenix, Roche, UCB, Sonia García de San José: None declared

Abstract Neurovascular sequalae are a common occurrence in Sickle Cell Anemia (SCA), with 11% of patients suffering cerebral vascular accident (CVA), or overt stroke by their twentieth birthday and 40% of patients developing silent cerebral infarcts (SCI) by age 14. Elevated transcranial Doppler (TCD) velocity of the middle cerebral artery identifies patients at risk for stroke, and this risk can be reduced by chronic transfusion therapy. However, the specificity of TCD is low causing many patients to be transfused unnecessarily. To further refine cerebrovascular risk stratification, we are studying factors responsible for normal and pathophysiologic cerebral blood flow (CBF) in SCD patients. Cerebral blood flow is increased in SCA patients compared to controls, but is believed to be a compensatory mechanism for chronic anemia and systemic desaturation. In order to test this hypothesis, we studied whole CBF and oxygen delivery (DO2) at rest and in response to hyperoxia in subjects with SCA and sickle cell trait (SCT). All patients were recruited at Children's Hospital Los Angeles through an IRB approved protocol. Informed consent was obtained for all patients. Exclusion criteria included pregnancy, previous stroke, acute chest or pain crisis hospitalization within one month. EKG, peripheral arterial oxygen saturation (SaO2), and fractional inspired oxygen (fiO2) were measured continuously throughout the study. Imaging consisted of a survey, reference scan, angiography localization, and nine axial phase contrast (PC) images. PC slices were placed inferior to the Circle of Willis, perpendicular to the carotids and basilar arteries. Participants received room air and 100% O2 through a non rebreathing respiratory circuit at 10 L/m. Room air exposure 20 minutes with six PC images collected throughout. Oxygen was delivered for 5 minutes followed by three more PC images. Blood for hemoglobin (HGB) and hematocrit (HCT) were drawn prior to MRI testing. No adverse events were reported upon follow up. Nine patients with SCA (5 male, 22.5 ± 6.7 yo p<0.05) and 3 with sickle cell trait (2 male, 36.7 ± 8.7 yo p<0.05) were studied. Baseline HGB was 25% lower (9.7 ± 1.3 versus 12.9 ± 0.1) and baseline HCT was 41% lower (28.0 ± 3.6 versus 47.3 ± 0.14 SCT) in SCA patients (p<0.05). Baseline whole brain CBF was elevated in SCA (1398 ± 400 ml/min versus 700 ± 172 ml/min). After correcting for HGB and SaO2, DO2 remained higher in SCA (192 ± 75 ml/min versus 105 ± 1.4 ml/min, p<0.05). During hyperoxia, whole brain CBF decreased by 10-15%, but the change was proportional to increased oxygen carrying capacity such that there was no change in DO2 in either populations. The increase in CBF we observed in SCA patients has been described using other modalities. However, we are the first to demonstrate that the increased flow observed is almost double what can be explained by their anemia and arterial desaturation alone. There are several possibilities for this observation. 1) SCA patients could have increased cerebral metabolic rate. If so, their mixed cerebral venous saturation will be normal and the flow is appropriate; 2) SCA patients have a mismatch between cerebral perfusion and metabolic demand, whether much of the increased flow does not effectively unload oxygen. If so, cerebral venous saturation would be high. We are currently optimizing MRI and NIR's technologies to estimate cerebrovascular metabolic rate, mixed cerebral venous saturation, and local supply-demand balance. Figure 1 Baseline CBF and O2 delivery in SCA and control group. ** statically significant population difference Figure 1. Baseline CBF and O2 delivery in SCA and control group. ** statically significant population difference Figure 2 Responce to 100% oxygen exposure. *statistically significant change from baseline Figure 2. Responce to 100% oxygen exposure. *statistically significant change from baseline Disclosures: Coates: Novartis Inc.: Honoraria, Speakers Bureau; Apopharma: Honoraria, Speakers Bureau; Shire: Speakers Bureau. Wood:Shire: Consultancy, Research Funding; Apopharma: Honoraria, Patents & Royalties; Novartis: Honoraria.

Abstract Introduction Repeated joint bleeding in patients with hemophilia leads to hemophilic arthropathy (HA), which cannot be entirely prevented by clotting factor replacement. Vascular remodeling and permeability are associated with hemarthrosis and may contribute to HA progression; however, the mechanisms and effects of hemostasis correction are poorly understood. Here, we explored synovial vascular and gene expression changes in FVIII-deficient mice after induced hemarthrosis +/- FVIII replacement, and in wild-type mice with reversible hemostasis suppression. Methods Hemarthrosis was induced in FVIII-deficient mice by sub-patellar needle puncture +/- 100-200 IU/kg recombinant human FVIII (rhFVIII) 2 hours before and 6 hours after injury. Wild-type mice were treated with 10 µg/ml warfarin for 7 days and 0.25 mg/kg anti-FVIII 2 hours before injury (hypoBALB/c). After injury, warfarin was continued for 2 weeks or reversed on day 2 with 100 IU/kg 4-factor prothrombinase complex concentrate (4F-PCC). Vascularity and gene expression were analyzed at baseline and 2 weeks post-injury. Vessel number and remodeling were assessed by histology with Safranin-O-Fast Green and α-smooth muscle actin (αSMA) staining, respectively, and microvascular flow was detected by musculoskeletal ultrasound with Power Doppler. The permeability of synovial vessels was determined by quantification of extravasated albumin-bound Evans blue dye in knee joints. For synovial gene expression studies, libraries were prepared using the NEBNext Ultra II DNA Library Prep Kit and sequenced on an Illumina NextSeq500 (single-end; 75bp reads). The limma-voom method (R BioConductor) was used for differential expression analyses and functional enrichment was performed using Signaling Pathway Impact Analysis. Results In FVIII-deficient mice, knee injury caused profound hemarthrosis that was largely prevented with rhFVIII prophylaxis (day 2 hematocrit: 26.4% and 46.3%). Soft tissue proliferation increased to a similar extent, as did various vascular parameters: microvascular flow (vehicle: 1.8-fold; rhFVIII: 1.5-fold), vessel number (vehicle: 2.3-fold, p=0.0005; rhFVIII: 2.0-fold, p=0.004), vessels with diameter ≥ 20 µm (vehicle: 2.9-fold, p=0.02; rhFVIII: 2.7-fold, p=0.02), and αSMA area per vessel (vehicle: 2.3-fold, p>0.05; rhFVIII: 3.6-fold, p=0.0006). Vascular permeability also increased significantly (1.7-fold, p=0.0007) and was only partially rescued by rhFVIII prophylaxis (1.3-fold, p>0.05). In hypoBALB/c mice (day 2 hematocrit: 29.6%), significant but less pronounced vascular changes occurred regardless of hemostasis correction, and without associated permeability, suggesting this is uniquely associated with FVIII-deficiency. RNA sequencing in FVIII-deficient mice revealed a strong transcriptional response to hemarthrosis (1527 differentially expressed genes (DEG), 13 perturbed pathways) that was only partially dampened with rhFVIII treatment (891 DEG, 20 pathways). Perturbation of extracellular matrix (ECM)-receptor interactions was highly significant in both groups (vehicle: pNDE=7.7x10-10; rhFVIII: pNDE=6.8x10-9). Similarly, numerous genes relating to angiogenesis and ECM remodeling, including collagens and MMPs, were up-regulated and minimally affected by rhFVIII treatment. These transcriptional changes may facilitate the observed vascular remodeling after hemarthrosis. Conclusions Hemarthrosis triggers profound changes in synovial gene expression, notably ECM components, that may drive the associated soft tissue and vascular changes, including vessel remodeling and leakiness. These processes are incompletely mitigated by hemostasis correction and may exacerbate (re-) bleeding tendencies. Therefore, further exploration is needed to identify key molecular pathways that can be targeted to intercept the progression of HA. Disclosures von Drygalski: UniQure BV, Bayer, Bioverativ/Sanofi, Pfizer, Novo Nordisk, Biomarin, Shire, CSL Behring: Consultancy.

Abstract Introduction Tissue oxygen index (TOI), by near Infrared Spectroscopy (NIRS), is a valuable tool for noninvasive, indirect measurement of oxygen supply-demand balance. Cerebral TOI is decreased in sickle cell disease (SCD), and correlates with disease severity. Previous work suggests that cerebral TOI is inversely correlated with hemoglobin S level and chronic transfusion therapy restores TOI to normal values. Nahavandi et al. have proposed that low cerebral TOI in SCD disease can be attributed to impaired oxygen delivery and/or carrying capacity of sickle blood. Unfortunately, the specificity of cerebral TOI is still an area of active debate. In order to elucidate these mechanisms we measured global cerebral blood flow (CBF),arterial oxygen content (CaO2), oxygen delivery (DO2), arterial and venous oxygen saturation (SaO2 and SvO2) and oxygen extraction fraction (OEF) and cerebral metabolic rate of oxygen (CMRO2) in 12 healthy controls and 15 SCD patients using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Methods All patients were recruited with informed consent or assent and this study was approved by the CHLA IRB. Fifteen patients with SCD and 12 healthy ethnicity matched controls (CTL) were studied. MRI compatible NIRS probes were placed on the forehead and TOI was recorded throughout the entire MRI examination. SaO2 was measured via peripheral pulse oximetery. Phase Contrast (PC) of the carotid and vertebral arteries was used to measure global CBF. T2 Relaxation Under Spin Tagging (TRUST) was used to measured T2 relaxation of blood within the sagittal sinus. T2 relaxation was converted to SvO2 via calibration curves. Blood draw for hemoglobin and electrophoresis was performed. Exclusion criteria included pregnancy, previous stroke, acute chest or pain crisis hospitalization within one month. Results Table 1 summarizes the relationship between cerebral TOI, age, laboratory values, and hemodynamic variables. Surprisingly, TOI was independent of indices of oxygen supply (SaO2, CBF, oxygen delivery) and oxygen demand (CMRO2); cerebral venous saturation and OEF were the only hemodynamic correlate of TOI. Total hemoglobin and percent sickle hemoglobin were equally and independently correlated with TOI with a combined r2 of 0.59 on multivariate regression (p<0.0001). Discussion This represents the first study comparing TOI to direct measurements of cerebral oxygen supply and consumption in SCD patients. We demonstrate that TOI tracks SvO2 and OEF, suggesting that it is weighted toward venous vascular beds. The relationship of TOI and HbS% has been previously described and could either shifting of the oxygen dissociation curve or mechanical disruption of microvascular integrity. TOI's strong dependence on total hemoglobin (after correction for HbS%) is particularly startling given its independence with oxygen delivery, suggesting that total hemoglobin is acting as a surrogate marker of microvascular disease severity in SCD patients. TableParameterR2pAge (Years)0.0127nsHemoglobin (gm/dl)0.295<0.05Hemoglobin S %0.229<0.05WBC (103/uL)0.0020nsCBF ml/100g/min0.018nsSaO2 (%)0.034nsO2 delivery0.071nsSvO2 (%)0.290<0.05OEF (%)0.238<0.05CMR020.112ns Disclosures Coates: novartis: Honoraria, Speakers Bureau; shire: Consultancy, Honoraria; apo pharma: Consultancy, Honoraria, Speakers Bureau; acceleron: Consultancy, Honoraria.

A clinically relevant question is whether partial FVIII proteins are expressed in tissues from patients with severe hemophilia A (HA) due to an intron-22 inversion mutation. If so, this could in principle confer central immune tolerance to the expressed FVIII regions, thereby lowering the risk of anti-FVIII immune responses. In 2013, Pandey et al. reported detection of FVIII proteins in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs), B cells and liver tissues from an intron-22 inversion subject and non-HA controls. They concluded that partial FVIII proteins were translated from inverted mRNA encoding F8 exons 1-22, and also from the F8B transcript, which contains F8 exons 23-26 (Nature Medicine 19(10), 1318-24). In 2014, the Montgomery and Ginsburg labs reported that FVIII protein is expressed principally, and possibly exclusively, in endothelial cells (ECs). These studies utilized mouse models with EC-directed deletion of F8 exons 17-18, or of the FVIII transporter protein LMAN1, respectively. The F8-EC-knockout mice had a severe hemophilia A (HA) phenotype. Earlier studies from several labs, including Pandey et al., relying primarily on antibody staining, had reported FVIII expression in additional cell types, including PBMCs and hepatocytes. The present study tests the hypothesis that partial FVIII proteins are expressed from inverted mRNA encoding F8 exons 1-22 and/or from F8B mRNA. A panel of FVIII-specific polyclonal and monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) was tested for FVIII specificity by staining permeabilized PBMCs, monocytes, T cells, blood outgrowth ECs, monocyte-derived macrophages and dendritic cells, HUVECs and B-cell lines. Positive and negative controls included FVIII-expressing BHK cells and non-engineered BHK cells. Specificity was further tested by immunoprecipitation (IP) of cell lysates followed by SDS-PAGE, Western blots and mass spectrometry to define proteins pulled down by the anti-FVIII antibodies. In addition, immunohistochemistry (IHC) staining was carried out for liver sections from HA dogs with an intron-22 inversion mutation and from otherwise normal (non-HA) control dogs. IP followed by SDS-PAGE, Westerns and/or mass spec revealed that a significant fraction of the anti-FVIII antibodies bound to other proteins besides FVIII in the tissues and cells examined. A cocktail of 4 anti-FVIII mAbs that were validated using (+) and (-) control samples was used to stain isolated and cultured cells and tissues. Cross-recognition of canine FVIII was confirmed by IP + Western blots. IHC using the mAb cocktail followed by HRP-conjugated secondary antibodies produced variable staining of liver tissues from HA and non-HA dogs, regardless of tissue preparation methods. However, use of fluorescent-labeled secondary mAbs produced signals well above background in ECs of control dog livers but not in the HA livers. Multiple confocal images were selected randomly, and average MFI values of 10 non-HA liver sections were well above those of 10 HA sections (p = 0.006). A second staining method, the Duolink Proximity Ligation Assay, was employed as an independent test to detect interactions between FVIII and VWF. Again, only normal control liver sections showed fluorescence above background (p =0.0004). F8B mRNA was not detected in canine liver and was not expected based on the canine intron-22 DNA sequence. We conclude that if protein is expressed from inverted mRNA encoding F8 exons 1-22, it is below the detection limit of these assays. Permeabilized human cells were tested for FVIII expression by staining using the mAb cocktail, or validated anti-FVIII-C2 mAbs to detect the putative protein encoded by F8B, followed by fluorescent detection. Cells were also stimulated with histamine followed by a chromogenic FVIII activity assay of supernatants. Results indicated that if FVIII or F8B protein are expressed in non-ECs, they are below the detection limit of these assays. We also note that if the putative F8B-encoded protein confers tolerance, immune responses of HA patients to the FVIII C2 domain would be quite rare, which is not the case. Although neonatal thymic expression of partial FVIII proteins may occur, immune tolerance to self-antigens requires repeated exposures of the immune system to the antigens. We conclude it is unlikely that HA patients with an intron-22 inversion mutation have universally acquired central tolerance to partial proteins encoded by inverted F8 mRNA or F8B. Disclosures Ragni: Shire/Takeda: Consultancy, Other: Study drug; Sangamo: Research Funding; OPKO: Research Funding; Bioverativ/Sanofi: Consultancy, Research Funding; Bayer: Consultancy; ICER: Consultancy; Biomarin: Consultancy, Research Funding; Alnylam/Sanofi: Consultancy, Research Funding; Spark Therapeutics: Consultancy, Research Funding. Pratt:Bloodworks NW: Patents & Royalties: inventor on patents related to FVIII immunogenicity; Grifols, Inc: Research Funding.

Abstract Introduction. Approximately 3-5% of pediatric ALL patients present with the Philadelphia chromosome (Ph+). In the past, Ph+ ALL was associated with a poor prognosis, with long-term event-free-survival (EFS) rates of approximately 30% and most patients allocated to hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) in first complete remission (CR1). The COG AALL0031 study showed that continuous high imatinib exposure improved outcome with no increase in toxicity and that HSCT offered no advantage over intensive chemotherapy plus imatinib (Schultz et al, JCO2009). Contemporarily, the EsPhALL 2004-2009 intergroup study of post-induction treatment of Ph+ ALL randomly tested the discontinuous use of imatinib added to BFM ALL high risk chemotherapy after the Induction phase in patients with early response, showing an approximate 10% advantage in long-term DFS. All non-responding patients received imatinib and overall 80% received HSCT in CR1 (Biondi et al, Lancet Oncology 2012). Based on both studies, in 2010 the EsPhALL trial was amended into a single arm study to give all patients, on top of the BFM ALL high risk chemotherapy, imatinib 300/mg/m2/day continuously since day 15 of Induction and to gradually decrease the use of HSCT. We present here the results of this EsPhALL 2010-2014 study. Methods. Ph+ ALL patients aged 1-17 years were enrolled by 10 national study groups (AIEOP, BFM-G/CH, COALL, FRALLE-EORTC, NOPHO, MRC, DCOG, CPH, PINDA, and HKPHOSG), mainly in Europe. MRD was assessed by PCR using IG/TR targets or BCR/ABL1 in hierarchical order, according to Euro-MRD rules. Eligibility to HSCT depended on early response and, after 2012, on MRD at end of Protocol IB (≥ 5 x 10-4) and at the end of consolidation block 3 (any positivity in patients with MRD&lt; 5 x 10-4 at end of IB). Imatinib was recommended throughout the first year after transplant. Patients who continued on chemotherapy received treatment until 24 months after diagnosis. Results. Overall 158 patients were registered from January 2010 to December 2014; 3 were not eligible, leaving 155 evaluable patients. Sixty-two patients (40%) were ≥ 10 years, 73 (47%) had ≥50,000 WBC count at diagnosis, 103 (84%) had p190. 102 (66%) patients achieved both early good response and CR1 at end of IA and were classified as good risk, while the remaining 53 (34%) were at poor risk. CR1 was achieved by 151 patients (97%) at the end of Induction and by the remaining 4 at the end of IB. Overall, 59 patients (38%) underwent HSCT in CR1. Nineteen patients discontinued treatment, 17 during chemotherapy, 15 due to serious adverse events (SAE, of which 9 related to imatinib - mainly infections) and the remaining 2 to MRD increase (1) and to transfer to adult unit (1). Among patients who underwent HSCT in CR1, 2 discontinued imatinib after HSCT, due to MRD increase (1) and gastrointestinal toxicity related to imatinib (1). Overall, 185 SAE were observed in 86 (55%) patients. The most frequent SAE was infection which occurred in 50 (32%) patients. Other toxicities included osteonecrosis (7 patients, 5%) and gastrointestinal disorders (9 patients, 6%). On the complete cohort of 155 patients, with a median follow-up of 57 months (range 1-86), the 5-year EFS and survival were 57.0 (SE 4.1) and 71.8 (SE 3.8), respectively. The 5-year cumulative incidence of relapse was 26.9 (SE 3.7). Overall, 65 events occurred, 46 in 96 patients who received chemotherapy only (32 relapses and 14 deaths in CCR) and 19 in 59 HSCT in CR1 (8 relapses and 11 deaths in CCR). Overall, relapses occurred in the BM (22), BM+CNS (11), BM+eye (1) and CNS (6). All deaths in CCR, except for 1 in chemotherapy and 3 after HSCT, were due to infection. Half of the deaths in CCR (12/25) occurred in 2 unexpected clusters, in HSCT performed in 2010-2011 and in chemotherapy-only patients ≥ 10 years. Further investigations did not reveal any common pattern within the clusters. Conclusions: Addition of imatinib given continuously since day 15 of induction markedly increased CR rate to 97% from 50% of the EsPhALL 2004-2009 study. Moreover, in EsPhALL 2010-2014 only 38% of patients underwent HSCT in CR1 (decreasing from 56% in 2010 to 28% in 2014), compared with 81% in the previous study. In spite of this marked decrease in HSCT, the outcome was similar in the 2 studies: 5-year EFS and survival were 57.0% and 71.8% versus 60.3% and 71.6%, respectively in EsPhALL 2010-2014 versus EsPhALL 2004-2009. Disclosures Cazzaniga: Fondazione Tettamanti onlus: Employment; Italian Association for Cancer Research: Research Funding. Saha: Shire: Research Funding. Schrappe: Medac: Consultancy, Research Funding; SigmaTau: Consultancy, Research Funding; Novartis: Consultancy, Research Funding; JAZZ Pharma: Consultancy, Research Funding; Baxalta: Consultancy, Research Funding.

For improving the generality, expandability and accuracy, the general embedded intelligent monitoring system of tower crane is developed. The system can be applied to different kinds of tower cranes running at any lifting ratio, can be initialized using U disk with the information of tower crane, and fit the lifting torque curve automatically. In dangerous state, the system can sent out alarm signals with sounds and lights, and cut off power by sending signals to PLC through communication interface RS485. When electricity goes off suddenly, the system can record the real-time operating information automatically, and store them in a black box, which can be taken as the basis for confirming the accident responsibility.In recent years, tower cranes play a more and more important role in the construction of tall buildings, in other construction fields are also more widely used. For the safety of tower cranes, various monitors have been developed for monitoring the running information of crane tower [1-8]. These monitors can’t eliminate the errors caused by temperature variations automatically. The specific tower crane’s parameters such as geometric parameters, alarming parameters, lifting ratio, lifting torque should be embedded into the core program, so a monitor can only be applied to a specific type of tower crane, lack of generality and expansibility.For improving the defects of the existing monitors, a general intelligent monitoring modular system of tower crane with high precision is developed, which can initialize the system automatically, eliminate the temperature drift and creep effect of sensor, and store power-off data, which is the function of black box.Hardware design of the monitoring systemThe system uses modularized design mode. These modules include embedded motherboard module, sensor module, signal processing module, data acquisition module, power module, output control module, display and touch screen module. The hardware structure is shown in figure 1. Figure 1 Hardware structure of the monitoring systemEmbedded motherboard module is the core of the system. The motherboard uses the embedded microprocessor ARM 9 as MCU, onboard SDRAM and NAND Flash. Memory size can be chosen according to users’ needs. SDRAM is used for running procedure and cache data. NAND Flash is used to store embedded Linux operating system, applications and operating data of tower crane. Onboard clock with rechargeable batteries provides the information of year, month, day, hour, minute and second. This module provides time tag for real-time operating data. Most interfaces are taken out by the plugs on the embedded motherboard. They include I/O interface, RS232 interface, RS485 interface, USB interface, LCD interface, Audio interface, Touch Screen interface. Pull and plug structure is used between all interfaces and peripheral equipments, which not only makes the system to be aseismatic, but also makes its configuration flexible. Watch-dog circuit is designed on the embedded motherboard, which makes the system reset to normal state automatically after its crash because of interference, program fleet, or getting stuck in an infinite loop, so the system stability is improved greatly. In order to store operating data when power is down suddenly, the power-down protection circuit is designed. The saved data will be helpful to repeat the accident process later, confirm the accident responsibility, and provide the basis for structure optimization of tower crane.Sensor module is confirmed by the main parameters related to tower crane’s security, such as lifting weight, lifting torque, trolley luffing, lifting height, rotary angle and wind speed. Axle pin shear load cell is chosen to acquire lifting weight signals. Potentiometer accompanied with multi-stopper or incremental encoder is chosen to acquire trolley luffing and lifting height signals. Potentiometer accompanied with multi-stopper or absolute photoelectric encoder is chosen to acquire rotary angle signals. Photoelectric sensor is chosen to acquire wind speed signals. The output signals of these sensors can be 0~5V or 4~20mA analog signals, or digital signal from RS485 bus. The system can choose corresponding signal processing method according to the type of sensor signal, which increases the flexibility on the selection of sensors, and is helpful for the users to expand monitoring objects. If the acquired signal is analog signal, it will be processed with filtering, isolation, anti-interference processing by signal isolate module, and sent to A/D module for converting into digital signals, then transformed into RS485 signal by the communication protocol conversion device according to Modbus protocol. If the acquired signal is digital signal with RS485 interface, it can be linked to RS485 bus directly. All the acquired signals are sent to embedded motherboard for data processing through RS485 bus.The data acquisition module is linked to the data acquisition control module on embedded motherboard through RS485 interface. Under the control of program, the system inquires the sensors at regular intervals, and acquires the operating data of crane tower. Median filter technology is used to eliminate interferences from singularity signals. After analysis and processing, the data are stored in the database on ARM platform.Switch signal can be output to relay module or PLC from output control module through RS485 bus, then each actuator will be power on or power off according to demand, so the motion of tower crane will be under control.Video module is connected with motherboard through TFT interface. After being processed, real-time operating parameters are displayed on LCD. The working time, work cycle times, alarm, overweight and ultar-torque information will be stored into database automatically. For meeting the needs of different users, the video module is compatible with 5.7, 8.4 or 10.4 inches of color display.Touch screen is connected with embedded motherboard by touch screen interface, so human machine interaction is realized. Initialization, data download, alarm information inquire, parameter modification can be finished through touch screen.Speaker is linked with audio interface, thus alarm signals is human voice signal, not harsh buzz.USB interface can be linked to conventional U disk directly. Using U disk, users can upload basic parameters of tower crane, initialize system, download operating data, which provides the basis for the structural optimization and accident analysis. Software design of the monitoring systemAccording to the modular design principle, the system software is divided into grading encryption module, system update module, parameter settings module, calibration module, data acquisition and processor module, lifting parameters monitoring module, alarm query module, work statistics module.Alarm thresholds are guarantee for safety operation of the tower crane. Operating data of tower crane are the basis of service life prediction, structural optimization, accident analysis, accident responsibility confirmation. According to key field, the database is divided into different security levels for security requirements. Key fields are grade encryption with symmetrical encryption algorithm, and data keys are protected with elliptic curve encryption algorithm. The association is realized between the users’ permission and security grade of key fields, which will ensure authorized users with different grades to access the equivalent encrypted key fields. The user who meets the grade can access equivalent encrypted database and encrypted key field in the database, also can access low-grade encrypted key fields. This ensures the confidentiality and integrity of key data, and makes the system a real black box.The system is divided into operating mode and management mode in order to make the system toggle between the two states conveniently. The default state is operating mode. As long as the power is on, the monitoring system will be started by the system guide program, and monitor the operating state of the tower crane. The real-time operating data will be displayed on the display screen. At the dangerous state, warning signal will be sent to the driver through voice alarm and light alarm, and corresponding control signal will be output to execution unit to cut off relevant power for tower crane’s safety.By clicking at the mode switch button on the initial interface, the toggle can be finished between the management mode and the operating mode. Under the management mode, there are 4 grades encrypted modes, namely the system update, alarm query, parameter setting and data query. The driver only can browse relevant information. Ordinary administrator can download the alarm information for further analysis. Senior administrator can modify the alarm threshold. The highest administrator can reinitialize system to make it adapt to different types of tower crane. Only browse and download function are available in the key fields of alarm inquiry, anyone can't modify the data. The overload fields in alarm database are encrypted, only senior administrator can browse. The sensitive fields are prevented from being tampered to the great extent, which will provide the reliable basis for the structural optimization and accident analysis. The system can be initialized through the USB interface. Before initialization, type, structural parameters, alarm thresholds, control thresholds, lifting torque characteristics of tower crane should be made as Excel files and then converted to XML files by format conversion files developed specially, then the XML files are downloaded to U disk. The U disk is inserted into USB interface, then the highest administrator can initialize the system according to hints from system. After initialization, senior administrator can modify structural parameters, alarm thresholds, control thresholds by clicking on parameters setting menu. So long as users can make the corresponding excel form, the system initialization can be finished easily according to above steps and used for monitoring. This is very convenient for user.Tower crane belongs to mobile construction machinery. Over time, sensor signals may have some drift, so it is necessary to calibrate the system regularly for guaranteeing the monitoring accuracy. Considering the tower is a linear elastic structure, sensors are linear sensors,in calibration linear equation is used:y=kx+b (1)where x is sample value of sensor, y is actual value. k, b are calibration coefficients, and are calculated out by two-points method. At running mode, the relationship between x and y is:y=[(y1-y0)/(x1-x0)](x-x0)+y0 (2)After calibration, temperature drift and creep can be eliminated, so the monitoring accuracy is improved greatly.Lifting torque is the most important parameter of condition monitoring of tower crane. Comparing the real-time torque M(L) with rated torque Me(L), the movement of tower crane can be controlled under a safe status.M (L)= Q (L)×L (3)Where, Q(L)is actual lifting weight, L is trolley luffing. Me(L) = Qe(L)×L (4)Where, Q e(L) is rated lifting weight. The design values of rated lifting weight are discrete, while trolley luffing is continuous. Therefore there is a rated lifting weight in any position. According to the mechanical characteristics of tower crane, the rated lifting weight is calculated out at any point by 3 spline interpolation according to the rated lifting weight at design points.When lifting weight or lifting torque is beyond rated value, alarm signal and control signal will be sent out. The hoist motor with high, medium and low speed is controlled by the ratio of lifting weight Q and maximum lifting weight Qmax,so the hoisting speed can be controlled automatically by the lifting weight. The luffing motor with high and low speed is controlled by the ratio of lifting torque M and rated lifting torque Me. Thus the luffing speed can be controlled by the lifting torque automatically. The flow chart is shown in figure 2. Fig. 2 real-time control of lifting weight and lifting torqueWhen accidents take place, power will be off suddenly. It is vital for identifying accident liability to record the operating data at the time of power-off. If measures are not taken to save the operating data, the relevant departments is likely to shirk responsibility. In order to solve the problem, the power-off protection module is designed. The module can save the operating data within 120 seconds automatically before power is off suddenly. In this 120 seconds, data is recorded every 0.1 seconds, and stores in a 2D array with 6 rows 1200 columns in queue method. The elements of the first line are the recent time (year-month-day-hour-minute-second), the elements of the second line to sixth line are lifting weight, lifting torque, trolley luffing, lifting height and wind speed in turn. The initial values are zero, when a set of data are obtained, the elements in the first column are eliminated, the elements in the backward columns move frontwards, new elements are filled into the last column of the array, so the array always saves the operating data at the recent 120 seconds. In order to improve the real-time property of the response, and to extend the service life of the nonvolatile memory chip EEPROM-93C46, the array is cached in volatile flip SDRAM usually. So long as power-off signal produces, the array will be shift to EEPROM, at once.In order to achieve the task, the external interruption thread and the power-off monitoring thread of program is set up, the power-off monitoring thread of program is the highest priority. These two threads is idle during normal operation. When power is off, the power-off monitoring thread of program can be executed immediately. When power-off is monitored by power-off control circuit, the external interruption pins produces interrupt signal. The ARM microprocessor responds to external interrupt request, and wakes up the processing thread of external interruption, then sets synchronized events as informing state. After receiving the synchronized events, the data cached in SDRAM will be written to EEPROM in time.ConclusionThe general intelligence embedded monitoring system of tower crane, which can be applicable to various types of tower crane operating under any lifting rates, uses U disk with the information of the tower crane to finish the system initialization and fits the lifting torque curve automatically. In dangerous state, the system will give out the voice and light alarm, link with the relay or PLC by the RS485 communication interface, and cut off the power. When power is down suddenly, the instantaneous operating data can be recorded automatically, and stored in a black box, which can be taken as the proof for identifying accident responsibility. The system has been used to monitor the "JiangLu" series of tower cranes successfully, and achieved good social and economic benefits.AcknowledgementsThe authors wish to thank China Natural Science Foundation(50975289), China Postdoctoral Science Foundation(20100471229), Hunan science & technology plan, Jianglu Machinery & Electronics Co. Ltd for funding this work.Reference Leonard Bernold. Intelligent Technology for Crane Accident Prevention. Journal of Construction Engineering and Management. 1997, 9: 122~124.Gu Lichen,Lei Peng,Jia Yongfeng. Tower crane' monitor and control based on multi-sensor. Journal of Vibration, Measurement and Diagnosis. 2006, 26(SUPPL.): 174-178.Wang Ming,Zhang Guiqing,Yan Qiao,et, al. Development of a novel black box for tower crane based on an ARM-based embedded system. Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Automation and Logistics. 2007: 82-87.Wang Renqun, Yin Chenbo, Zhang Song, et, al. Tower Crane Safety Monitoring and Control System Based on CAN Bus. Instrument Techniques and Sensor. 2010(4): 48-51.Zheng Conghai,Li Yanming,Yang Shanhu,et, al. Intelligent Monitoring System for Tower Crane Based on BUS Architecture and Cut IEEE1451 Standard. Computer Measurement & Control. 2010, 18, (9): 1992-1995.Yang Yu,Zhenlian Zhao,Liang Chen. Research and Design of Tower Crane Condition Monitoring and Fault Diagnosis System. 2010 Proceedings of International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Computational Intelligence. 2010: 405-408.Yu Yang, Chen Liang, Zhao Zhenlian. Research and design of tower crane condition monitoring and fault diagnosis system. International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Computational Intelligence, 2010, 3: 405-408.Chen Baojiang, Zeng Xiaoyuan. Research on structural frame of the embedded monitoring and control system for tower crane. 2010 International Conference on Mechanic Automation and Control Engineering. 2010: 5374-5377.

Goobie, Beth. Born Ugly. Markham, ON: Red Deer Press, 2011. Print. Beth Goobie writes unflinching books. Even so, Born Ugly may be the toughest of hers I’ve read yet. Narrated by Shir Rutz, a 15-year-old girl without friends or caring family, this novel is both a realistic portrayal of high school bullying and a thriller that plays with perceptions of “goodness” in people. Goobie spends most of the novel focusing on the story of Shir’s problems, however, ultimately to the detriment of the thriller plot, which subsequently blocked me from a full immersion into the latter section of the book. Goobie is at her best when she is staring directly into the tough situations in which Shir finds herself, primarily through her status as the ugliest girl at her school. Shir is relentlessly targeted every day by a group of popular boys who offer her quarters in exchange for kisses, with the punch line that it is worth paying to kiss someone as ugly as her. She is known around the school as “dog face,” and is forced to eat a sandwich of dog feces. Her home life is little better. Her mother clearly prefers her younger sister, who is prettier and better-behaved. Shir’s father has long since vanished, and Mrs. Rutz only mentions him when she is putting her daughter down, saying that Shir is an ugly drunk, just like her dad. Shir’s sister often knows about the pranks planned for Shir, and stands and watches from the sidelines without offering any help or comfort. While Shir drinks heavily to erase the pain of her days from her mind, she has two small lights of hope: her part time job for Mr. Anderson delivering groceries, as well as an unexpected friendship with a boy she meets at her favourite hiding place under a town bridge. However, the job is not all it seems; Mr. Anderson has started to ask her to deliver packages to people and places that seem shady, and acts nervous if she asks too many questions. About the last third of the book follows the mystery to its revelation and climax. Goobie’s descriptions of the dull inevitability of a bullied teenager’s life are extremely well-written, and painfully realistic. Shir is highly believable in her voice and actions, which gave me a real sense of the slow, awful path it can be through high school. It is also a relief to read the scenes between Shir and one of her delivery clients, an elderly woman who meets her with great kindness, and provides moving descriptions of how someone can respond to even the smallest bit of warmth. The slow pace of Shir’s daily life is the strongest story here, as compared to the mystery, which makes sense but is told far too quickly, and is wrapped up too neatly to seem authentic. Nonetheless, this is a book in which I think many teenagers will find some echo of their lives. Recommended: 3 out of 4 stars Reviewer: Allison SivakAllison Sivak is the Assessment Librarian at the University of Alberta Libraries. She is currently pursuing her PhD in Library and Information Studies and Elementary Education, focusing on how the aesthetics of information design influence young people’s trust in the credibility of information content.

Abstract: The dog is an animal that is monumental. Inside a dog pooled nature of good and bad. In history, dogs have a variety of stories. He has been the cause for a person to obtain the grace of Allah, and vice versa it includes animals go to heaven due to accompany a group of youths who maintain faith in moral damages and shirk, as the story Ashhab al-kahfi. On the other side dogs are considered very disgusting, so that objects exposed to lick or touch are considered unclean by contact with unclean weight category (muglalladzah). Therefore, the approach ta'abbudi and Ta'aqquli in seeing the dog was very urgent problem, to obtain a sensible attitude on all sides, so that it can respect differences of opinion caused by the dog.Keywords: ta'abbudi, Ta'aqquli, Unclean MughalladzahAbstraksi: Anjing merupakan hewan yang sangat monumental. Dalam dirinya terhimpun sifat baik dan buruk. Dalam sejarah kehidupannya, anjing mempunyai beragam cerita. Ia pernah menjadi sebab bagi seseorang untuk mendapatkan keridlaan dan rahmat Allah SWT, begitu pun sebaliknya ia termasuk binatang yang masuk surga karena menemani sekelompok pemuda yang mempertahankan keimanan di tengah kerusakan moral dan kesyirikan, sebagaimana cerita ashhab al-kahfi. Di sisi lain anjing dianggap sangat menjijikkan, sehingga benda yang terkena jilatan atau sentuhannya dianggap kena najis dengan katagori najis berat (muglalladzah). Oleh karenanya, pendekatan Ta’abbudi dan Ta’aqquli dalam melihat masalah anjing tadi sangat urgen, agar diperoleh sikap arif dari semua pihak, sehingga bisa saling menghargai perbedaan pendapat yang disebabkan oleh sang anjing.Kata kunci: Ta’abbudi, Ta’aqquli, Najis Mughalladzah

In the field of dog cognition research, many studies assume that their subjects have multimodal recognition of their owner: Experiments using the face or voice of the person have proliferated. An outstanding question is whether owned domestic dogs represent the people with whom they live via smell. Olfaction is a principle sensory modality for dogs, and there is evidence that it is integral to recognition of conspecifics. In the current study, we investigated whether owned dogs spontaneously (without training) distinguished their owner's odor from a stranger's odor. Using natural body odor captured on a t-shirt, we found that dogs habituated to a familiar odor and dishabituated to an unfamiliar odor. This finding begins to answer the question of how dogs recognize and represent humans, including their owners.

Purpose Bond strength is an indicator of the quality of the fusing process. The study's primary purpose is to predict the bond strength using easily measurable variables. This study focuses on shirting fabrics fused with woven interlinings and changes in bond strength before and after washing. Design/methodology/approach This study attempts to model and predict bond strength of fused shirt composites using an initial screening design followed by full factorial design of experiments. After screening out, those found significantly affecting the bond strength are fabric fiber content, interlining areal weight and fusing temperature. This study proposes the regression models explaining the effect of the three variables on bond strength before and after washing the fused composites. Findings This study found that heavy interlinings (250 g/sq.m) require higher fusing temperatures than the lighter interlining (225 g/sq.m). After washing, the bond strength of samples fused at high temperatures reduced in some instances. Maintaining a high temperature without considering interlining weight can lower the bond strength after washing the fused composites. Originality/value A combination of screening and full factorial DOE is used to analyze and predict bond strength of composites comprising medium-weight shirting fabrics and heavier weight interlinings used in shirts.

ABSTRACTObjective. To model the growth in dogs of different size and breeds that during their development showed a relative body weight according to the standards of their racial group. Materials and methods. The data used were obtained from the Canine Research Center (CIC), property of Empresa Solla S.A., located in the municipality of Rionegro (Antioquia, Colombia). The parameters of the growth curve were defined based on the logistic model using the procedure PROC NLIN of the SAS. Results. The adult weight (a) ranged from 2.12 Kg (York Shire Terrier) to 32.88 Kg (Weimaraner). For small, medium and large breeds, growth rates (1/b) during the exponential phase ranged between 9.91-18.91%, 9.12-13.83% and, 8.17-14.38%, respectively, and the average age at which 50% of the adult weight was reached (x0) was 3.49±0.03, 4.21±0.42 y 5.27±0.86 months, correspondingly. Large dog breeds reached maturity (T99) later than smaller breeds, 14.37±1.79 vs. 9.46±1.63 mo. Conclusions. The logistic model was able to describe the growth in dogs of different size, however, a larger sample size will improve its predictive ability, given the individual variability that characterizes growth.

Abstract The lower Shire valley region in Malawi has long been characterized by floods which have accounted for many fatalities and disaster-related economic losses in the region. Rain-fed crop production has also been adversely affected by such floods, subsequently leading to the region registering the highest levels of poverty in the country due to low agricultural crop production. This study employed both qualitative and quantitative methods and based on what is practiced in the region and elsewhere, recommended strategies that would lower the risk of engaging in crop production under floodwater harvesting. Study results revealed that farmers in the region have sought to dig networks of water ponds and shallow wells as coping strategies to future water scarcity at a scheme level. The absence of well-designed networks of field waterways in the irrigation schemes results in an unequal distribution of floodwaters among field plots. The study concluded that in addition to digging a network of shallow wells and small water ponds to enhance infiltration of floodwaters and increasing groundwater recharge, a resilient and low-risk package of the floodwater harvesting system in the region must also include (1) construction of floodwater diversion structures to increase the chances of flooding even from relatively small rainfall storms, (2) construction of floodwater field distribution channel networks to facilitate field to field distribution of floodwaters, and (3) formulating water distribution rules to enhance equal floodwater distribution among field plots.

The power of culturally-bound controlling images around notions of 'colour' in regard to ethnicity have historically been marked and far-reaching. Most obvious examples of such political power relations can be seen in regard to racism and social domination. Biologically-based assertions that one specific category of people are somehow inherently inferior or superior to another were central and indeed continue to be paramount in (neo) Nazi-style rhetoric. Such political beliefs, most notable of course within the first half of the Twentieth Century, often went hand-in-hand with a right-wing ecologism that eschewed the alienation of urban life for an idealised rural existence (Heywood 283). This paper focusses upon how such assumptions and controlling images have resonated in recent times within the Nordic Black Metal music scene - an encompassing term used to describe a sub-genre of music that exists within a wider Heavy Metal and in particular Extreme Metal scene. Black Metal did not gain a stranglehold on Extreme Metal subculture until the 1990s. It also took socio-politics in Metal a stage further and to an extreme never seen before. Being most prolific in Scandinavia, and in particular Norway, Black Metal tended to focus upon Viking mythology and Odinism as a source of subject matter. Here, Nordic Black Metal based its identity on the virtues associated with its geographical location. As Dyer (21) points out, Northern Europe, with its notions of remoteness and coldness, combined with ideas of the cleanliness of the air, the soul- elevating beauty of mountain vistas, and the pureness of the white snow, could be seen to have formed the distinctiveness of a white identity and its related notions of energy, discipline and spiritual elevation. Such notions have their roots in the National Socialist programme of propaganda films of the 1930s and 1940s. Such films included Ich fur Dich - Du fur Mich (Me for You - You for Me, 1934), (Welch 48), which reinforced Nazi ideals of 'racial purity' and was centred on two interrelated themes; that of Blut und Boden ('blood and soil'), and Volk und Heimat ('a people and a homeland'). Here the strength of the 'master race' was linked to the sacredness of the German soil, usually in the form of some idyllic pastoral setting. Nazi 'revolution' was based upon presumed Germanic traditions and the recapture of a mythical past. Thus urban and industrial life was eschewed in favour of a more Germanic utopian community vision. This led the Nazis to draw an inexorable link between the pureness of the German land and the pureness of the Aryan race. The idea of the German utopian community raised notions of fitness and survival. For example, Walther Darre, the then Minister for Agriculture, drew Darwinistic parallels between animals and humans when he stated that, “We shall gather together the best blood. Just as we are now breeding our Hanover horse from the few remaining pure-blooded male and female stock, so we shall see the same type of breeding over the next generation of the pure type of Nordic German” (Welch 67). Such Nazi ideas of purity and survival of the fittest have been echoed in the Black Metal scene of recent years. This has clearly been illustrated, for example, in the sentiments of musicians such as 'Hellhammer', drummer with Norwegian band Mayhem who, when asked if he had fascist views, revealed that “I'm pretty convinced that there are differences between races as well as anything else. I think that like animals, some races are more... you know, like a cat is much more intelligent than a bird or a cow, or even a dog, and I think that's also the case with different races” (Moynihan and Soderlind 306). The comparison of certain people to animals acts to create controlling images that, in this instance, makes racism appear to be natural and inevitable (Collins 68). As Davis (25) points out, a key belief in racist ideology is the biologically and genetically-based assumption that ethnic minorities share similar patterns of behaviour because it is 'in their blood'. Indeed, it is no accident that some Black Metal musicians have made comparisons between ethnicity and animals. Such comparisons act to not only further this idea of superior 'blood stock' but also serve to dehumanise those who are seen to be inferior. Black Metal musicians saw themselves as being superior both musically as well as 'racially'. Just as Minister for Agriculture Walther Darre suggested that the pure blooded Nordic German was, although few in numbers, a superior racial minority within the human race in general, certain Black Metal musicians have shared a similar view that they are a racially and therefore musically superior group within the wider Extreme and Heavy Metal scene. Such assumptions have manifested themselves in a number of ways. Musicians such as Varg Vikernes, of Norwegian band Burzum, have made direct links between the development of Metal and assumed qualities of 'whiteness' when he argued that “The guitar is a European invention ... However, the music played on the guitar is mostly nigger (sic) music”, (NME n.pag). In such an example there is the assumption that 'white' Metal and Metal musicians are somehow inherently superior, and that this superiority of talent stems from a racial 'purity' lacking in 'non-white' metal scenes which, consequently, are seen as nothing more than a contamination, both racially and therefore musically. As Nazi actions were in part based upon the recapture of a mythical past, so too in Black Metal is there a notion that “We must take this scene to what it was in the past”, (Moynihan and Soderlind 60). Thus, as in National Socialism of the 1930s and 1940s, modern day Nazism within the Black Metal scene takes inspiration, ideology and hope from a romanticised notion of the past. This can be seen in the slogans that adorn much Black Metal band's merchandise, for example the band Darkthrone and their self-confessed “Norsk Arisk Black Metal” (Norwegian Aryan Black Metal) which appeared on the sleeve of their 1994 album Transylvanian Hunger, and in the more elaborate socio-political views of other Black Metal musicians such as Varg Vikernes who has expressed his Utopian visions in the belief that there should be a “return to the life-style of the Middle-Ages” in which “The masses need to live in harmony with nature”, (Vikernes n.pag). The notion that “Black Metal is for white people” (Moynihan and Doderlind 305) was also reflected in other stylistic components of Black Metal iconography. The practice of wearing “corpsepaint” was quickly adopted by nearly all Black Metal bands in the early years of its development, and is still widely used today. The concept of wearing corpsepaint - theatrical black and white makeup that created a gruesome appearance - can be traced as far back as the emergence of rock bands such as KISS and heavier acts such as King Diamond, who became known for their elaborate stage rock shows. However, whilst the adoption of corpsepaint by Black Metal bands may have been to create similar macabre images as more established rock and Heavy Metal bands had before them, the emphasis on 'whiteness' that corpsepaint gives cannot be overlooked. Such images, the pale white face emphasised even further when contrasted with traditional codes of dress - the black denim and leather clothes, can be seen to be emphasising the idea of white being an 'ideal'. That is, the symbolism that is carried by the colour white, its “moral and also aesthetic superiority”, (Dyer 70), has also manifested itself in certain aspects of Extreme Metal and in particular Black Metal. As highlighted earlier, just as 'whiteness' has been linked with notions of power, superiority and purity, so to have some Black Metal bands suggested that whiteness within Metal is inherently superior. The adoption of corpse paint is just one way notions of 'whiteness' have been underlined in the Extreme Metal scene. Such ideas of whiteness in some cases developed into more pronounced aspects of Nationalism and in particular National Socialism. The development of extreme right-wing beliefs, coupled with other more established controversial subject matters, such as Satanism, led to a notoriety that some Black Metal was, in many ways, proud to live up to. Whilst overtly racist or fascist sentiments are far from the norm within the Black Metal and wider Extreme Metal genre and the intolerance of such beliefs within the Metal industry in general has been clearly illustrated on many occasions, it cannot be said that those who are open and committed to extreme right-wing beliefs have not gained attention and some support through the controversial iconography and discourse they have used. A marked example of such attitudes can be found in the music, beliefs and actions of the Norwegian Black Metal band Burzum. Burzum, a solo project of musician Varg Vikernes, was one of the first Black Metal bands to appear in Norway. Although originally gaining inspiration from popular motifs in fantasy literature, Vikernes became increasingly known within the Black Metal scene for his increasingly radical views in regard to racial ideology and is now an outright self-confessed Neo-Nazi. In recent years Vikernes has courted controversy and reinforced a racist and fascist discourse within the Black Metal scene. In 1997, Vikernes was heavily criticised by many within Extreme Metal over the design of a new Burzum t-shirt. Created by Vikernes himself, the front featured the usual Burzum logo but was also adorned with a German World War II SS Death's Head logo. This, combined with a back print which bore the slogan “Support your local Einsatzkommando”, led to problems licensing and printing the shirt. Whilst Tiziana Stupia, Director of the now defunct Suffolk-based Misanthropy Records to which Burzum was signed, highlighted that the term Einsatzkommando was “still used quite uncontroversially to describe police SWAT teams” (Terrorizer 1997:6, no.41), the unambiguous fascist motifs also present on the shirt betray the true intention of the slogan. However, it would be erroneous to suggest that controlling images of 'colour' within the Nordic Black Metal scene are situated merely within a framework of neo-Nazi rhetoric. Indeed, such radical and consequently isolated ideologies and actions of certain Extreme Metal musicians that were very much apparent in the early 1990s have largely given way to more contemporary and in some ways egalitarian aesthetic, thematic and stylistic formations. The pastoral fixations of Black Metal that were very much analogous with right-wing dogmatic beliefs have been replaced by a distinctly 'urban' mindset that now focuses upon a 'commonality of adversity' and problems of modern existence for all peoples. Aesthetically the use of 'corpsepaint' has largely been dropped by many of the more pioneering acts, and this combined with stylistic movements that have seen the adoption of traditionally 'non-white' musical formations, has resulted in the drum 'n' bass/ ambient trip-hop concentrations of bands such as Arcturus and Ulver, and the general focus of 'urban decay' espoused by those such as Satyricon. Yet, even contemporary Black Metal has not completely severed its links with fascist controversy, and consequently constructs of colour, as even merely the names of acts such as Zyklon clearly illustrate. It is clear then that certain oppressive texts in relation to constructs of 'colour' can be highly problematic for many, both within and outside the Extreme metal scene. Powerful and historical discourses that espouse 'natural' assumptions around notions of ethnicity produce crude yet largely unquestioned presentations. Consequently, through its incorporation of such texts, certain aspects of Black Metal can be seen to perpetuate oppressive ideas of 'difference'. Via certain controlling images, some individuals can be subjected to objectification within Extreme Metal subculture which sees them marginalised and relegated. Consequently, dominant discourses within some areas of Black Metal can have the result of portraying ethnic minorities as merely 'non-white' and thus inexorably link such groups with a notion of 'inferiority'. References Collins, P.H. Black Feminist Thought. London: Routledge, 1991. Davis, F.J. Who is Black?. Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1991. Dyer, W. White. London: Routledge, 1997. Heywood, A. Political Ideologies. London: MacMillan Press LTD, 1998. Moynihan, M. & Soderlind, D. Lords of Chaos: The Bloody Rise of the Satanic Metal Underground. Venice: Feral House, 1998. NME Magazine. No Title. (September 5 1997) http.http://www.burzum.com. Accessed November 28 2000. Terrorizer Extreme Music Magazine (no.41, 1997:6) EQ Publications LTD. Vikernes, Varg. Civilisation. (no date) http.http://www.burzum.com/library/varg/civil... Accessed December 7 2000. Welch, D. The Third Reich: Politics and Propaganda. London: Routledge, 1993. Discography: Darkthrone, Transylvanian Hunger. Peaceville records, Vile 43, 1994. Links http://www.burzum.com. http://www.burzum.com/library/varg/civilisation.html. CIT Citation reference for this article MLA Style Beckwith., Karl. ""Black Metal is for white people"" M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 5.3 (2002). [your date of access] < http://www.media-culture.org.au/0207/blackmetal.php>. Chicago Style Beckwith., Karl, ""Black Metal is for white people"" M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 5, no. 3 (2002), < http://www.media-culture.org.au/0207/blackmetal.php> ([your date of access]). APA Style Beckwith., Karl. (2002) "Black Metal is for white people". M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 5(3). < http://www.media-culture.org.au/0207/blackmetal.php> ([your date of access]).

In the summer of 1999, four ships carrying 599 Fujianese people arrived on the west coast of Canada. They survived a desperate and dangerous journey only for the Canadian Government to put them in prison. After numerous deportations, there are still about 40 of these people in Canadian prisons as of January 2001. They have been in jail for over a year and a half under mere suspicion of flight risk. About 24 people have been granted refugee status. Most people deported to China have been placed in Chinese prisons and fined. It is worth remembering that these migrants may have been undocumented but they are not "illegal" in that they have mobility rights. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights recognizes everyone's right to leave any country and to seek asylum. It can be argued that it is not the migrants who are illegal, but the unjust laws that criminalize their freedom of movement. In considering people's rights, we need to keep in mind not only the civil and political rights that the West tends to privilege, but equally important social and economic rights as well. As a local response to a global phenomenon, Direct Action Against Refugee Exploitation (DAARE) formed in Vancouver to support the rights of the Fujianese women, eleven of whom at the time of writing are still being held in the Burnaby Correctional Centre for Women (BCCW). In DAARE’s view, Immigration Canada's decision to detain all these people is based on a racialized group-profiling policy which violates basic human rights and ignores Canadian responsibility in the creation of the global economic and societal conditions which give rise to widespread migration. In light of the Canadian government's plans to implement even more punitive immigration legislation, DAARE endorses the Coalition for a Just Immigration and Refugee Policy's "Position Paper on Bill C31." They call for humanitarian review and release for the remaining Fujianese people. This review would include a few released refugee claimants who are still in Canada, children, women who were past victims of family planning, people facing religious persecution and, of course, those who are still in prison after 18 months and who have never been charged with any crime. Suspicion of flight risk is not a valid reason to incarcerate people for such a long time. Who Is a Migrant? The lines between "voluntary" and "forced" migration are no longer adequate to explain the complexities of population movements today. Motives for forced displacement include political, economic, social and environmental factors. This spectrum runs from the immediate threats to life, safety and freedom due to war or persecution, to situations where economic conditions make the prospects of survival marginal and non-existent. (Moussa 2000). Terms like "economic migrant" and "bogus refugee" have been used in the media to discredit migrants such as the Fujianese and to foster hostility against them. This scapegoating process oversimplifies the situation, for all refugees and all migrants are entitled to the basic respect due all human beings as enshrined in the UN Declaration of Human Rights. There can be multiple reasons for an individual to migrate—ranging from family reunification to economic pressures to personal survival; to fear of government corruption and of political persecution, to name just a few. The reduction of everything to merely the economic does not allow one to understand why migration is occurring and likely to increase in the future. Most immigrants to Canada could also be described as economic migrants. Conrad Black is an economic migrant. The privileging of rich migrants over poor ones romanticizes globalization as corporate progress and ignores the immense human suffering it entails for the majority of the world's population as the gap between the wealthy and the poor rapidly increases. Hundreds of years ago, when migrants came to this aboriginal territory we now call Canada, they came in order to survive—in short, they too were "economic migrants." Many of those migrants who came from Europe would not qualify to enter Canada today under its current immigration admissions guidelines. Indeed, over 50% of Canadians would not be able to independently immigrate to Canada given its current elitist restrictions. One of the major reasons for an increase in migration is the destruction of rural economies in Asia and elsewhere in the world. Millions of people have been displaced by changes in agriculture that separate people from the land. These waves of internal migration also result in the movement of peoples across national borders in order to survive. Chinese provinces such as Fujian and Guangdong, whose people have a long history of overseas travel, are particularly common sources of out-migration. In discussing migration, we need to be wary of how we can inadvertently reinforce the colonization of First Nations people unless we consciously work against that by actively supporting aboriginal self-determination. For example, some First Nations people have been accused of "smuggling" people across borders—this subjects them to the same process of criminalization which the migrants have experienced, and ignores the sovereign rights of First Nations people. We need ways of relating to one another which do not reenact domination, but which work in solidarity with First Nations' struggles. This requires an understanding of the ways in which racism, colonialism, classism, and other tactics through which "dividing and conquering" take place. For those of us who are first, second, third, fourth, fifth generation migrants to this land, our survival and liberation are intimately connected to that of aboriginal people. History Repeating Itself? The arrival of the Fujianese people met with a racist media hysteria reminiscent of earlier episodes of Canadian history. Front page newspaper headlines such as "Go Home" increased hostility against these people. In Victoria, people were offering to adopt the dog on one of the ships at the same time that they were calling to deport the Chinese. From the corporate media accounts of the situation, one would think that most Canadians did not care about the dangerous voyage these people had endured, a voyage during which two people from the second ship died. Accusations that people were trying to enter the country "illegally" overlooked how historically, the Chinese, like other people of colour, have had to find ways to compensate for racist and classist biases in Canada's immigration system. For example, from 1960 to 1973, Canada granted amnesty to over 12,000 "paper sons," that is, people who had immigrated under names other than their own. The granting of "legal" status to the "paper sons" who arrived before 1960 finally recognized that Canada's legislation had unfairly excluded Chinese people for decades. From 1923 to 1947, Canada's Chinese Exclusion Act had basically prevented Chinese people from entering this country. The xenophobic attitudes that gave rise to the Chinese Exclusion Act and the head tax occurred within a colonial context that privileged British migrants. Today, colonialism may no longer be as rhetorically attached to the British empire, but its patterns—particularly the globally inequitable distribution of wealth and resources—continue to accelerate through the mechanism of transnational corporations, for example. As Helene Moussa has pointed out, "the interconnections of globalisation with racist and colonialist ideology are only too clear when all evidence shows that globalisation '¼ legitimise[s] and sustain[s] an international system that tolerates an unbelievable divide not only between the North and the South but also inside them'" (2000). Moreover, according to the United Nations Development Programme, the income gap between people in the world's wealthiest nations and the poorest nations has shifted from 30:1 in 1960 to 60:1 in 1990 and to 74:1 in 1997. (Moussa 2000) As capital or electronic money moves across borders faster than ever before in what some have called the casino economy (Mander and Goldsmith), change and instability are rapidly increasing for the majority of the world's population. People are justifiably anxious about their well-being in the face of growing transnational corporate power; however, "protecting" national borders through enforcement and detention of displaced people is a form of reactive, violent, and often racist, nationalism which scapegoats the vulnerable without truly addressing the root causes of instability and migration. In short, reactive nationalism is ineffective in safe-guarding people's survival. Asserting solidarity with those who are most immediately displaced and impoverished by globalization is strategically a better way to work towards our common survival. Substantive freedom requires equitable economic relations; that is, fairly shared wealth. Canadian Response Abilities The Canadian government should take responsibility for its role in creating the conditions that displace people and force them to migrate within their countries and across borders. As a major sponsor of efforts to privatize economies and undertake environmentally devastating projects such as hydro-electric dams, Canada has played a significant role in the creation of an unemployed "floating population" in China which is estimated to reach 200 million people this year. Punitive tactics will not stop the movement of people, who migrate to survive. According to Peter Kwong, "The well-publicized Chinese government's market reforms have practically eliminated all labor laws, labour benefits and protections. In the "free enterprise zones" workers live virtually on the factory floor, laboring fourteen hours a day for a mere two dollars—that is, about 20 cents an hour" (136). As Sunera Thobani has phrased it, "What makes it alright for us to buy a t-shirt on the streets of Vancouver for $3, which was made in China, then stand up all outraged as Canadian citizens when the woman who made that t-shirt tries to come here and live with us on a basis of equality?" Canada should respond to the urgent situations which cause people to move—not only on the grounds upon which Convention refugees were defined in 1949 (race, religion, nationality, social group, political opinion) which continue to be valid—but also to strengthen Canada's system to include a contemporary understanding that all people have basic economic and environmental survival rights. Some migrants have lives that fit into the narrow definition of a UN Convention refugee and some may not. Those who do not fit this definition have nonetheless urgent needs that deserve attention. The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives has pointed out that there are at least 18 million people working in 124 export zones in China. A living wage in China is estimated to be 87 cents per hour. Canadians benefit from these conditions of cheap labour, yet when the producers of these goods come to our shores, we hypocritically disavow any relationship with them. Responsibility in this context need not refer so much to some stern sense of duty, obligation or altruism as to a full "response"—intellectual, emotional, physical, and spiritual—that such a situation provokes in relations between those who "benefit"—materially at least—from such a system and those who do not. References Anderson, Sarah, et al. Field Guide to the Global Economy. New York: New Press, 2000. Canadian Council of Refugees. "Migrant Smuggling and Trafficking in Persons." February 20, 2000. Canadian Woman Studies: Immigrant and Refugee Women. 19.3 (Fall 1999). Chin, Ko-lin. Smuggled Chinese. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1999. Coalition for a Just Immigration and Refugee Policy. "Position Paper on Bill C31." 2000. Davis, Angela. The Angela Davis Reader. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 1998. Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women, Foundation Against Trafficking in Women, and International Human Rights Law Group. "Human Rights Standards for the Treatment of Trafficked Persons." January 1999. Henry, Frances and Tator, Carol. Racist Discourses in Canada's English Print Media. Toronto: Canadian Foundation for Race Relations, 2000. Jameson, Fredric and Miyoshi, Masao, Eds. The Cultures of Globalization. Durham: Duke University Press, 1998. Kwong, Peter. Forbidden Workers. New York: New Press, 1997. Mander, Jerry and Goldsmith, Edward, Eds. The Case Against the Global Economy. San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1996. Moussa, Helene. "The Interconnections of Globalisation and Migration with Racism and Colonialism: Tracing Complicity." 2000. ---. "Violence against Refugee Women: Gender Oppression, Canadian Policy, and the International Struggle for Human Rights." Resources for Feminist Research 26 (3-4). 1998 Migrant Forum statement (from Asia Pacific People's Assembly on APEC) 'Occasional Paper Migration: an economic and social analysis.' Pizarro, Gabriela Rodriguez. "Human Rights of Migrants." United Nations Report. Seabrook, Jeremy. "The Migrant in the Mirror." New Internationalist 327 (September 2000): 34-5. Sharma, Nandita. "The Real Snakeheads: Canadian government and corporations." Kinesis. October/November (1999): 11. Spivak, Gayatri. "Diasporas Old and New: Women in the Transnational World." Class Issues. Ed. Amitava Kumar. New York: New York University Press, 1997. States of Disarray: The Social Effects of Globalization. London: United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UN RISD), 1995. Thobani, Sunera. "The Creation of a ‘Crisis’." Kinesis October/November (1999): 12-13. Whores, Maids and Wives: Making Links. Proceedings of the North American Regional Consultative Forum on Trafficking in Women, 1997.

[Editors’ note: this lyric essay was presented as the keynote address at Edith Cowan University’s CREATEC symposium on the theme Catastrophe and Creativity in November 2012, and represents excerpts from the author’s publication Threading Light: Explorations in Loss and Poetry. Regina, SK: Hagios Press, 2011. Reproduced with the author’s permission].Essay and verse and anecdote are the ways I have chosen to apprentice myself to loss, grief, faith, memory, and the stories we use to tie and untie them. Cat’s cradle, Celtic lines, bends and hitches are familiar: however, when I write about loss, I find there are knots I cannot tie or release, challenging both my imagination and my craft. Over the last decade, I have been learning that writing poetry is also the art of tying together light and dark, grief and joy, of grasping and releasing. Language is a hinge that connects us with the flesh of our experience; it is also residue, the ash of memory and imagination. (Threading Light 7) ———Greek katastrophé overturning, sudden turn, from kata down + strophe ‘turning” from strephein to turn.Loss and catastrophe catapult us into the liminal, into a threshold space. We walk between land we have known and the open sea. ———Mnemosyne, the mother of the nine Muses, the personification of memory, makes anthropologists of us all. When Hermes picked up the lyre, it was to her—to Remembrance —that he sang the first song. Without remembrance, oral or written, we have no place to begin. Stone, amulet, photograph, charm bracelet, cufflink, fish story, house, facial expression, tape recorder, verse, or the same old traveling salesman joke—we have places and means to try to store memories. Memories ground us, even as we know they are fleeting and flawed constructions that slip through our consciousness; ghosts of ghosts. One cold winter, I stayed in a guest room in my mother’s apartment complex for three days. Because she had lost her sight, I sat at the table in her overheated and stuffy kitchen with the frozen slider window and tried to describe photographs as she tried to recall names and events. I emptied out the dusty closet she’d ignored since my father left, and we talked about knitting patterns, the cost of her mother’s milk glass bowl, the old clothes she could only know by rubbing the fabric through her fingers. I climbed on a chair to reach a serving dish she wanted me to have, and we laughed hysterically when I read aloud the handwritten note inside: save for Annette, in a script not hers. It’s okay, she said; I want all this gone. To all you kids. Take everything you can. When I pop off, I don’t want any belongings. Our family had moved frequently, and my belongings always fit in a single box; as a student, in the back of a car or inside a backpack. Now, in her ninth decade, my mother wanted to return to the simplicity she, too, recalled from her days on a small farm outside a small town. On her deathbed, she insisted on having her head shaved, and frequently the nursing staff came into the room to find she had stripped off her johnny shirt and her covers. The philosopher Simone Weil said that all we possess in the world is the power to say “I” (Gravity 119).Memory is a cracked bowl, and it fills endlessly as it empties. Memory is what we create out of what we have at hand—other people’s accounts, objects, flawed stories of our own creation, second-hand tales handed down like an old watch. Annie Dillard says as a life’s work, she’d remember everything–everything against loss, and go through life like a plankton net. I prefer the image of the bowl—its capacity to feed us, the humility it suggests, its enduring shape, its rich symbolism. Its hope. To write is to fashion a bowl, perhaps, but we know, finally, the bowl cannot hold everything. (Threading Light 78–80) ———Man is the sire of sorrow, sang Joni Mitchell. Like joy, sorrow begins at birth: we are born into both. The desert fathers believed—in fact, many of certain faiths continue to believe—that penthos is mourning for lost salvation. Penthus was the last god to be given his assignment from Zeus: he was to be responsible for grieving and loss. Eros, the son of Aphrodite, was the god of love and desire. The two can be seen in concert with one another, each mirroring the other’s extreme, each demanding of us the farthest reach of our being. Nietzsche, through Zarathustra, phrased it another way: “Did you ever say Yes to one joy? O my friends, then you have also said Yes to all Woe as well. All things are chained, entwined together, all things are in love.” (Threading Light 92) ———We are that brief crack of light, that cradle rocking. We can aspire to a heaven, or a state of forgiveness; we can ask for redemption and hope for freedom from suffering for ourselves and our loved ones; we may create children or works of art in the vague hope that we will leave something behind when we go. But regardless, we know that there is a wall or a dark curtain or a void against which we direct or redirect our lives. We hide from it, we embrace it; we taunt it; we flout it. We write macabre jokes, we play hide and seek, we walk with bated breath, scream in movies, or howl in the wilderness. We despair when we learn of premature or sudden death; we are reminded daily—an avalanche, an aneurysm, a shocking diagnosis, a child’s bicycle in the intersection—that our illusions of control, that youthful sense of invincibility we have clung to, our last-ditch religious conversions, our versions of Pascal’s bargain, nothing stops the carriage from stopping for us.We are fortunate if our awareness calls forth our humanity. We learn, as Aristotle reminded us, about our capacity for fear and pity. Seeing others as vulnerable in their pain or weakness, we see our own frailties. As I read the poetry of Donne or Rumi, or verse created by the translator of Holocaust stories, Lois Olena, or the work of poet Sharon Olds as she recounts the daily horror of her youth, I can become open to pity, or—to use the more contemporary word—compassion. The philosopher Martha Nussbaum argues that works of art are not only a primary means for an individual to express her humanity through catharsis, as Aristotle claimed, but, because of the attunement to others and to the world that creation invites, the process can sow the seeds of social justice. Art grounds our grief in form; it connects us to one another and to the world. And the more we acquaint ourselves with works of art—in music, painting, theatre, literature—the more we open ourselves to complex and nuanced understandings of our human capacities for grief. Why else do we turn to a stirring poem when we are mourning? Why else do we sing? When my parents died, I came home from the library with stacks of poetry and memoirs about loss. How does your story dovetail with mine? I wanted to know. How large is this room—this country—of grief and how might I see it, feel the texture on its walls, the ice of its waters? I was in a foreign land, knew so little of its language, and wanted to be present and raw and vulnerable in its climate and geography. Writing and reading were my way not to squander my hours of pain. While it was difficult to live inside that country, it was more difficult not to. In learning to know graveyards as places of comfort and perspective, Mnemosyne’s territory with her markers of memory guarded by crow, leaf, and human footfall, with storehouses of vast and deep tapestries of stories whispered, sung, or silent, I am cultivating the practice of walking on common ground. Our losses are really our winter-enduring foliage, Rilke writes. They are place and settlement, foundation and soil, and home. (Threading Light 86–88) ———The loseability of our small and larger worlds allows us to see their gifts, their preciousness.Loseability allows us to pay attention. ———“A faith-based life, a Trappistine nun said to me, aims for transformation of the soul through compunction—not only a state of regret and remorse for our inadequacies before God, but also living inside a deeper sorrow, a yearning for a union with the divine. Compunction, according to a Christian encyclopaedia, is constructive only if it leads to repentance, reconciliation, and sanctification. Would you consider this work you are doing, the Trappistine wrote, to be a spiritual journey?Initially, I ducked her question; it was a good one. Like Neruda, I don’t know where the poetry comes from, a winter or a river. But like many poets, I feel the inadequacy of language to translate pain and beauty, the yearning for an embodied understanding of phenomena that is assensitive and soul-jolting as the contacts of eye-to-eye and skin-to-skin. While I do not worship a god, I do long for an impossible union with the world—a way to acknowledge the gift that is my life. Resonance: a search for the divine in the everyday. And more so. Writing is a full-bodied, sensory, immersive activity that asks me to give myself over to phenomena, that calls forth deep joy and deep sorrow sometimes so profound that I am gutted by my inadequacy. I am pierced, dumbstruck. Lyric language is the crayon I use, and poetry is my secular compunction...Poets—indeed, all writers—are often humbled by what we cannot do, pierced as we are by—what? I suggest mystery, impossibility, wonder, reverence, grief, desire, joy, our simple gratitude and despair. I speak of the soul and seven people rise from their chairs and leave the room, writes Mary Oliver (4). Eros and penthos working in concert. We have to sign on for the whole package, and that’s what both empties us out, and fills us up. The practice of poetry is our inadequate means of seeking the gift of tears. We cultivate awe, wonder, the exquisite pain of seeing and knowing deeply the abundant and the fleeting in our lives. Yes, it is a spiritual path. It has to do with the soul, and the sacred—our venerating the world given to us. Whether we are inside a belief system that has or does not have a god makes no difference. Seven others lean forward to listen. (Threading Light 98–100)———The capacity to give one’s attention to a sufferer is a rare thing; it is almost a miracle; it is a miracle. – Simone Weil (169)I can look at the lines and shades on the page clipped to the easel, deer tracks in the snow, or flecks of light on a summer sidewalk. Or at the moon as it moves from new to full. Or I can read the poetry of Paul Celan.Celan’s poem “Tenebrae” takes its title from high Christian services in which lighting, usually from candles, is gradually extinguished so that by the end of the service, the church is in total darkness. Considering Celan’s—Antschel’s—history as a Romanian Jew whose parents were killed in the Nazi death camps, and his subsequent years tortured by the agony of his grief, we are not surprised to learn he chose German, his mother’s language, to create his poetry: it might have been his act of defiance, his way of using shadow and light against the other. The poet’s deep grief, his profound awareness of loss, looks unflinchingly at the past, at the piles of bodies. The language has become a prism, reflecting penetrating shafts of shadow: in the shine of blood, the darkest of the dark. Enlinked, enlaced, and enamoured. We don’t always have names for the shades of sorrows and joys we live inside, but we know that each defines and depends upon the other. Inside the core shadow of grief we recognise our shared mortality, and only in that recognition—we are not alone—can hope be engendered. In the exquisite pure spot of light we associate with love and joy, we may be temporarily blinded, but if we look beyond, and we draw on what we know, we feel the presence of the shadows that have intensified what appears to us as light. Light and dark—even in what we may think are their purest state—are transitory pauses in the shape of being. Decades ago my well-meaning mother, a nurse, gave me pills to dull the pain of losing my fiancé who had shot himself; now, years later, knowing so many deaths, and more imminent, I would choose the bittersweet tenderness of being fully inside grief—awake, raw, open—feeling its walls, its every rough surface, its every degree of light and dark. It is love/loss, light/dark, a fusion that brings me home to the world. (Threading Light 100–101) ———Loss can trigger and inspire creativity, not only at the individual level but at the public level, whether we are marching in Idle No More demonstrations, re-building a shelter, or re-building a life. We use art to weep, to howl, to reach for something that matters, something that means. And sometimes it may mean that all we learn from it is that nothing lasts. And then, what? What do we do then? ———The wisdom of Epictetus, the Stoic, can offer solace, but I know it will take time to catch up with him. Nothing can be taken from us, he claims, because there is nothing to lose: what we lose—lover, friend, hope, father, dream, keys, faith, mother—has merely been returned to where it (or they) came from. We live in samsara, Zen masters remind us, inside a cycle of suffering that results from a belief in the permanence of self and of others. Our perception of reality is narrow; we must broaden it to include all phenomena, to recognise the interdependence of lives, the planet, and beyond, into galaxies. A lot for a mortal to get her head around. And yet, as so many poets have wondered, is that not where imagination is born—in the struggle and practice of listening, attending, and putting ourselves inside the now that all phenomena share? Can I imagine the rush of air under the loon that passes over my house toward the ocean every morning at dawn? The hot dust under the cracked feet of that child on the outskirts of Darwin? The gut-hauling terror of an Afghan woman whose family’s blood is being spilled? Thich Nhat Hanh says that we are only alive when we live the sufferings and the joys of others. He writes: Having seen the reality of interdependence and entered deeply into its reality, nothing can oppress you any longer. You are liberated. Sit in the lotus position, observe your breath, and ask one who has died for others. (66)Our breath is a delicate thread, and it contains multitudes. I hear an echo, yes. The practice of poetry—my own spiritual and philosophical practice, my own sackcloth and candle—has allowed me a glimpse not only into the lives of others, sentient or not, here, afar, or long dead, but it has deepened and broadened my capacity for breath. Attention to breath grounds me and forces me to attend, pulls me into my body as flesh. When I see my flesh as part of the earth, as part of all flesh, as Morris Berman claims, I come to see myself as part of something larger. (Threading Light 134–135) ———We think of loss as a dark time, and yet it opens us, deepens us.Close attention to loss—our own and others’—cultivates compassion.As artists we’re already predisposed to look and listen closely. We taste things, we touch things, we smell them. We lie on the ground like Mary Oliver looking at that grasshopper. We fill our ears with music that not everyone slows down to hear. We fall in love with ideas, with people, with places, with beauty, with tragedy, and I think we desire some kind of fusion, a deeper connection than everyday allows us. We want to BE that grasshopper, enter that devastation, to honour it. We long, I think, to be present.When we are present, even in catastrophe, we are fully alive. It seems counter-intuitive, but the more fully we engage with our losses—the harder we look, the more we soften into compassion—the more we cultivate resilience. ———Resilience consists of three features—persistence, adaptability transformability—each interacting from local to global scales. – Carl FolkeResilent people and resilient systems find meaning and purpose in loss. We set aside our own egos and we try to learn to listen and to see, to open up. Resilience is fundamentally an act of optimism. This is not the same, however, as being naïve. Optimism is the difference between “why me?” and “why not me?” Optimism is present when we are learning to think larger than ourselves. Resilience asks us to keep moving. Sometimes with loss there is a moment or two—or a month, a year, who knows?—where we, as humans, believe that we are standing still, we’re stuck, we’re in stasis. But we aren’t. Everything is always moving and everything is always in relation. What we mistake for stasis in a system is the system taking stock, transforming, doing things underneath the surface, preparing to rebuild, create, recreate. Leonard Cohen reminded us there’s a crack in everything, and that’s how the light gets in. But what we often don’t realize is that it’s we—the human race, our own possibilities, our own creativity—who are that light. We are resilient when we have agency, support, community we can draw on. When we have hope. ———FortuneFeet to carry you past acres of grapevines, awnings that opento a hall of paperbarks. A dog to circle you, look behind, point ahead. A hip that bends, allows you to slidebetween wire and wooden bars of the fence. A twinge rides with that hip, and sometimes the remnant of a fall bloomsin your right foot. Hands to grip a stick for climbing, to rest your weight when you turn to look below. On your left hand,a story: others see it as a scar. On the other, a newer tale; a bone-white lump. Below, mist disappears; a nichein the world opens to its long green history. Hills furrow into their dark harbours. Horses, snatches of inhale and whiffle.Mutterings of men, a cow’s long bellow, soft thud of feet along the hill. You turn at the sound.The dog swallows a cry. Stays; shakes until the noise recedes. After a time, she walks on three legs,tests the paw of the fourth in the dust. You may never know how she was wounded. She remembers your bodyby scent, voice, perhaps the taste of contraband food at the door of the house. Story of human and dog, you begin—but the wordyour fingers make is god. What last year was her silken newborn fur is now sunbleached, basket dry. Feet, hips, hands, paws, lapwings,mockingbirds, quickening, longing: how eucalypts reach to give shade, and tiny tight grapes cling to vines that align on a slope as smoothlyas the moon follows you, as intention always leans toward good. To know bones of the earth are as true as a point of light: tendernesswhere you bend and press can whisper grace, sorrow’s last line, into all that might have been,so much that is. (Threading Light 115–116) Acknowledgments The author would like to thank Dr. Lekkie Hopkins and Dr. John Ryan for the opportunity to speak (via video) to the 2012 CREATEC Symposium Catastrophe and Creativity, to Dr. Hopkins for her eloquent and memorable paper in response to my work on creativity and research, and to Dr. Ryan for his support. The presentation was recorded and edited by Paul Poirier at Mount Saint Vincent University in Halifax, Nova Scotia. My thanks go to Edith Cowan and Mount Saint Vincent Universities. ReferencesBerman, Morris. Coming to Our Senses. New York: Bantam, 1990.Dillard, Annie. For the Time Being. New York: Vintage Books, 2000.Felstiner, John. Paul Celan: Poet, Survivor, Jew. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2001.Folke, Carl. "On Resilience." Seed Magazine. 13 Dec. 2010. 22 Mar. 2013 ‹http://seedmagazine.com/content/article/on_resilience›.Franck, Frederick. Zen Seeing, Zen Drawing. New York: Bantam Books, 1993.Hanh, Thich Nhat. The Miracle of Mindfulness. Boston: Beacon Press, 1976.Hausherr, Irenee. Penthos: The Doctrine of Compunction in the Christian East. Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1982.Neilsen Glenn, Lorri. Threading Light: Explorations in Loss and Poetry. Regina, SK: Hagios Press, 2011. Nietzsche, Frederick. Thus Spake Zarathustra. New York: Penguin, 1978. Nussbaum, Martha. Upheavals of Thought: The Intelligence of Emotions. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001. Oliver, Mary. “The Word.” What Do We Know. Boston: DaCapo Press, 2002.Rilke, Rainer Maria. Duino Elegies and the Sonnets to Orpheus. (Tenth Elegy). Ed. Stephen Mitchell. New York: Random House/Vintage Editions, 2009.Weil, Simone. The Need for Roots. London: Taylor & Francis, 2005 (1952).Weil, Simone. Gravity and Grace. London: Routledge, 2004.Further ReadingChodron, Pema. Practicing Peace in Times of War. Boston: Shambhala, 2006.Cleary, Thomas (trans.) The Essential Tao: An Initiation into the Heart of Taoism through Tao de Ching and the Teachings of Chuang Tzu. Edison, NJ: Castle Books, 1993.Dalai Lama (H H the 14th) and Venerable Chan Master Sheng-yen. Meeting of Minds: A Dialogue on Tibetan and Chinese Buddhism. New York: Dharma Drum Publications, 1999. Hirshfield, Jane. "Language Wakes Up in the Morning: A Meander toward Writing." Alaska Quarterly Review. 21.1 (2003).Hirshfield, Jane. Nine Gates: Entering the Mind of Poetry. New York: HarperCollins, 1997. Lao Tzu. Tao Te Ching. Trans. Arthur Waley. Chatham: Wordsworth Editions, 1997. Neilsen, Lorri. "Lyric Inquiry." Handbook of the Arts in Qualitative Research. Eds. J. Gary Knowles and Ardra Cole. Thousand Oaks: Sage, 2008. 88–98. Ross, Maggie. The Fire and the Furnace: The Way of Tears and Fire. York: Paulist Press, 1987.

IntroductionThe death of Chris Cornell in the spring of 2017 shook me. As the lead singer of Soundgarden and a pioneer of early 1990s grunge music, his voice revealed an unbridled pain and joy backed up by the raw, guitar-driven rock emanating from the Seattle, Washington music scene. I remember thinking, there’s only one left, referring to Eddie Vedder, lead singer for Pearl Jam, and lone survivor of the four seminal grunge bands that rose to fame in the early 1990s whose lead singers passed away much too soon. Alice in Chains singer Layne Staley died in 2002 at the age of 35, and Nirvana front man Kurt Cobain’s death in 1994 had resonated around the globe. I thought about when Cornell and Staley said goodbye to their friend Andy Wood, lead singer of Mother Love Bone, after he overdosed on heroine in 1990. Wood’s untimely death at the age of 24, only days before his band’s debut album release, shook the close-knit Seattle music scene and remained a source of angst and inspiration for a genre of music that shaped youth culture of the 1990s.When grunge first exploded on the pop culture scene, I was a college student flailing around in pursuit of an English degree I had less passion for than I did for music. I grew up listening to The Beatles and Prince; Led Zeppelin and Miles Davis; David Bowie and Willie Nelson, along with a litany of other artists and musicians crafting the kind of meaningful music I responded to. I didn’t just listen to music, I devoured stories about the musicians, their often hedonistic lifestyles; their processes and epiphanies. The music spoke to my being in the world more than the promise of any college degree. I ran with friends who shared this love of music, often turning me on to new bands or suggesting some obscure song from the past to track down. I picked up my first guitar when John Lennon died on the eve of my eleventh birthday and have played for the past 37 years. I rely on music to relocate my sense of self. Rhythm and melody play out like characters in my life, colluding to make me feel something apart from the mundane, moving me from within. So, when I took notice of grunge music in the fall of 1991, it was love at first listen. As a pop cultural phenomenon, grunge ruptured the music and fashion industries caught off guard by its sudden commercial appeal while the media struggled to galvanize its relevance. As a subculture, grunge rallied around a set of attitudes and values that set the movement apart from mainstream (Latysheva). The grunge sound drew from the nihilism of punk and the head banging gospel of heavy metal, tinged with the swagger of 1970s FM rock running counter to the sleek production of pop radio and hair metal bands. Grunge artists wrote emotionally-laden songs that spoke to a particular generation of youth who identified with lyrics about isolation, anger, and death. Grunge set off new fashion trends in favor of dressing down and sporting the latest in second-hand, thrift store apparel, ripping away the Reagan-era starched white-collared working-class aesthetic of the 1980’s corporate culture. Like their punk forbearers who railed against the status quo and the trappings of success incurred through the mass appeal of their art, Kurt Cobain, Eddie Vedder, and the rest of the grunge cohort often wrestled with the momentum of their success. Fortunes rained down and the media ordained them rock stars.This auto-ethnography revisits some of the cultural impacts of grunge during its rise to cultural relevance and includes my own reflexive interpretation positioned as a fan of grunge music. I use a particular auto-ethnographic orientation called “interpretive-humanistic autoethnography” (Manning and Adams 192) where, along with archival research (i.e. media articles and journal articles), I will use my own reflexive voice to interpret and describe my personal experiences as a fan of grunge music during its peak of popularity from 1991 up to the death of Cobain in 1994. It is a methodology that works to bridge the personal and popular where “the individual story leaves traces of at least one path through a shifting, transforming, and disappearing cultural landscape” (Neumann 183). Grunge RootsThere are many conflicting stories as to when the word “grunge” was first used to describe the sound of a particular style of alternative music seeping from the dank basements and shoddy rehearsal spaces in towns like Olympia, Aberdeen, and Seattle. Lester Bangs, the preeminent cultural writer and critic of all things punk, pop, and rock in the 1970s was said to have used the word at one time (Yarm), and several musicians lay claim to their use of the word in the 1980s. But it was a small Seattle record label founded in 1988 called Sub Pop Records that first included grunge in their marketing materials to describe “the grittiness of the music and the energy” (Yarm 195).This particular sound grew out of the Pacific Northwest blue-collar environment of logging towns, coastal fisheries, and airplane manufacturing. Seattle’s alternative music scene unfolded as a community of musicians responding to the tucked away isolation of their musty surroundings, apart from the outside world, free to submerge themselves in their own cultural milieu of rock music, rain, and youthful rebellion.Where Seattle stood as a major metropolitan city soaked in rainclouds for much of the year, I was soaking up the desert sun in a rural college town when grunge first leapt into the mainstream. Cattle ranches and cotton fields spread across the open plains of West Texas, painted with pickup trucks, starched Wrangler Jeans, and cowboy hats. This was not my world. I’d arrived the year prior from Houston, Texas, an urban sprawl of four million people, but I found the wide-open landscape a welcome change from the concrete jungle of the big city. Along with cowboy boots and western shirts came country music, and lots of it. Garth Brooks, Reba McEntire, George Straight; some of the voices that captured the lifestyle of my small rural town, twangy guitars and fiddles blaring on local radio. While popular country artists recorded for behemoth record labels like Warner Brothers and Sony, the tiny Sub Pop Records championed the grunge sound coming out of the Seattle music scene. Sub Pop became a playground for those who cared about their music and little else. The label cultivated an early following through their Sub Pop Singles Club, mailing seven-inch records to subscribers on a monthly basis promoting new releases from up-and-coming bands. Sub Pop’s stark, black and white logo showed up on records sleeves, posters, and t-shirts, reflecting a no-nonsense DIY-attitude rooted in in the production of loud guitars and heavy drums.Like the bands it represented, Sub Pop did not take itself too seriously when one of their best-selling t-shirts simply read “Loser” embracing the slacker mood of newly minted Generation X’ers born between 1961 and 1981. A July 1990 Time Magazine article described this twenty-something demographic as having “few heroes, no anthems, no style to call their own” suggesting they “possess only a hazy sense of their own identity” (Gross & Scott). As a member of this generation, I purchased and wore my “Loser” t-shirt with pride, especially in ironic response to the local cowboy way of life. I didn’t hold anything personal against the Wrangler wearing Garth Brooks fan but as a twenty-one-year-old reluctant college student, I wanted to rage with contempt for the status quo of my environment with an ambivalent snarl.Grunge in the MainstreamIn 1991, the Seattle sound exploded onto the international music scene with the release of four seminal grunge-era albums over a six-month period. The first arrived in April, Temple of the Dog, a tribute album of sorts to the late Andy Wood, led by his close friend, Soundgarden singer/songwriter, Chris Cornell. In August, Pearl Jam released their debut album, Ten, with its “surprising and refreshing, melodic restraint” (Fricke). The following month, Nirvana’s Nevermind landed in stores. Now on a major record label, DGC Records, the band had arrived “at the crossroads—scrappy garageland warriors setting their sights on a land of giants” (Robbins). October saw the release of Soundgarden’s Badmotorfinger as “a runaway train ride of stammering guitar and psycho-jungle telegraph rhythms” (Fricke). These four albums sent grunge culture into the ether with a wall of sound that would upend the music charts and galvanize a depressed concert ticket market.In fall of 1991, grunge landed like a hammer when I witnessed Nirvana’s video for “Smells Like Teen Spirit” on MTV for the first time. Sonically, the song rang like an anthem for the Gen Xers with its jangly four-chord opening guitar riff signaling the arrival of a youth-oriented call to arms, “here we are now, entertain us” (Nirvana). It was the visual power of seeing a skinny white kid with stringy hair wearing baggy jeans, a striped T-shirt and tennis shoes belting out choruses with a ferociousness typically reserved for black-clad heavy metal headbangers. Cobain’s sound and look didn’t match up. I felt discombobulated, turned sideways, as if vertigo had taken hold and I couldn’t right myself. Stopped in the middle of my tracks on that day, frozen in front of the TV, the subculture of grunge music slammed into my world while I was on my way to the fridge.Suddenly, grunge was everywhere, As Soundgarden, Nirvana, and Pearl Jam albums and performances infiltrated radio, television, and concert halls, there was no shortage of media coverage. From 1992 through 1994, grunge bands were mentioned or featured on the cover of Rolling Stone 33 times (Hillburn). That same year, The New York Times ran the article “Grunge: A Success Story” featuring a short history of the Seattle sound, along with a “lexicon of grunge speak” (Marin), a joke perpetrated by a former 25-year-old Sub Pop employee, Megan Jasper, who never imagined her list of made-up vocabulary given to a New York Times reporter would grace the front page of the style section (Yarm). In their rush to keep up with pervasiveness of grunge culture, even The New York Times fell prey to Gen Xer’s comical cynicism.The circle of friends I ran with were split down the middle between Nirvana and Pearl Jam, a preference for one over the other, as the two bands and their respective front men garnered much of the media attention. Nirvana seemed to appeal to people’s sense of authenticity, perhaps more relatable in their aloofness to mainstream popularity, backed up with Cobain’s simple-yet-brilliant song arrangements and revealing lyrics. Lawrence Grossberg suggests that music fans recognise the difference between authentic and homogenised rock, interpreting and aligning these differences with rock and roll’s association with “resistance, refusal, alienation, marginality, and so on” (62). I tended to gravitate toward Nirvana’s sound, mostly for technical reasons. Nevermind sparkled with aggressive guitar tones while capturing the power and fragility of Cobain’s voice. For many critics, the brilliance of Pearl Jam’s first album suffered from too much echo and reverb muddling the overall production value, but twenty years later they would remix and re-release Ten, correcting these production issues.Grunge FashionAs the music carved out a huge section of the charts, the grunge look was appropriated on fashion runways. When Cobain appeared on MTV wearing a ragged olive green cardigan he’d created a style simply by rummaging through his closet. Vedder and Cornell sported army boots, cargo shorts, and flannel shirts, suitable attire for the overcast climate of the Pacific Northwest, but their everyday garb turned into a fashion trend for Gen Xers that was then milked by designers. In 1992, the editor of Details magazine, James Truman, called grunge “un fashion” (Marin) as stepping out in second-hand clothes ran “counter to the shellacked, flashy aesthetic of 1980s” (Nnadi) for those who preferred “the waif-like look of put-on poverty” (Brady). But it was MTV’s relentless airing of Nirvana, Pearl Jam, and Soundgarden videos that sent Gen Xers flocking to malls and thrift-stores in search grunge-like apparel. I purchased a pair of giant, heavyweight Red Wing boots that looked like small cars on my feet, making it difficult to walk, but at least I was prepared for any terrain in all types of weather. The flannel came next; I still wear flannos. Despite its association with dark, murky musical themes, grunge kept me warm and dry.Much of grunge’s appeal to the masses was that it was not gender-specific; men and women dressed to appear unimpressed, sharing a taste for shapeless garments and muted colors without reference to stereotypical masculine or feminine styles. Cobain “allowed his own sexuality to be called into question by often wearing dresses and/or makeup on stage, in film clips, and on photo shoots, and wrote explicitly feminist songs, such as ‘Sappy’ or ‘Been a Son’” (Strong 403). I remember watching Pearl Jam’s 1992 performance on MTV Unplugged, seeing Eddie Vedder scrawl the words “Pro Choice” in black marker on his arm in support of women’s rights while his lyrics in songs like “Daughter”, “Better Man”, and “Why Go” reflected an equitable, humanistic if somewhat tragic perspective. Females and males moshed alongside one another, sharing the same spaces while experiencing and voicing their own response to grunge’s aggressive sound. Unlike the hypersexualised hair-metal bands of the 1980s whose aesthetic motifs often portrayed women as conquests or as powerless décor, the message of grunge rock avoided gender exploitation. As the ‘90s unfolded, underground feminist punk bands of the riot grrrl movement like Bikini Kill, L7, and Babes in Toyland expressed female empowerment with raging vocals and buzz-saw guitars that paved the way for Hole, Sleater-Kinney and other successful female-fronted grunge-era bands. The Decline of GrungeIn 1994, Kurt Cobain appeared on the cover of Newsweek magazine in memoriam after committing suicide in the greenhouse of his Seattle home. Mass media quickly spread the news of his passing internationally. Two days after his death, 7,000 fans gathered at Seattle Center to listen to a taped recording of Courtney Love, Cobain’s wife, a rock star in her own right, reading the suicide note he left behind.A few days after Cobain’s suicide, I found myself rolling down the highway with a carload of friends, one of my favorite Nirvana tunes, “Come As You Are” fighting through static. I fiddled with the radio to clear up the signal. The conversation turned to Cobain as we cobbled together the details of his death. I remember the chatter quieting down, Cobain’s voice fading as we gazed out the window at the empty terrain passing. In that reflective moment, I felt like I had experienced an intense, emotional relationship that came to an abrupt end. This “illusion of intimacy” (Horton and Wohl 217) between myself and Cobain elevated the loss I felt with his passing even though I had no intimate, personal ties to him. I counted this person as a friend (Giles 284) because I so closely identified with his words and music. I could not help but feel sad, even angry that he’d decided to end his life.Fueled by depression and a heroin addiction, Cobain’s death signaled an end to grunge’s collective appeal while shining a spotlight on one of the more dangerous aspects of its ethos. A 1992 Rolling Stone article mentioned that several of Seattle’s now-famous international musicians used heroin and “The feeling around town is, the drug is a disaster waiting to happen” (Azzerad). In 2002, eight years to the day of Cobain’s death, Layne Staley, lead singer of Alice In Chains, another seminal grunge outfit, was found dead of a suspected heroin overdose (Wiederhorn). When Cornell took his own life in 2017 after a long battle with depression, The Washington Post said, “The story of grunge is also one of death” (Andrews). The article included a Tweet from a grieving fan that read “The voices I grew up with: Andy Wood, Layne Staley, Chris Cornell, Kurt Cobain…only Eddie Vedder is left. Let that sink in” (@ThatEricAlper).ConclusionThe grunge movement of the early 1990s emerged out of musical friendships content to be on their own, on the outside, reflecting a sense of isolation and alienation in the music they made. As Cornell said, “We’ve always been fairly reclusive and damaged” (Foege). I felt much the same way in those days, sequestered in the desert, planting my grunge flag in the middle of country music territory, doing what I could to resist the status quo. Cobain, Cornell, Staley, and Vedder wrote about their own anxieties in a way that felt intimate and relatable, forging a bond with their fan base. Christopher Perricone suggests, “the relationship of an artist and audience is a collaborative one, a love relationship in the sense, a friendship” (200). In this way, grunge would become a shared memory among friends who rode the wave of this cultural phenomenon all the way through to its tragic consequences. But the music has survived. Along with my flannel shirts and Red Wing boots.References@ThatEricAlper (Eric Alper). “The voices I grew up with: Andy Wood, Layne Staley, Chris Cornell, Kurt Cobain…only Eddie Vedder is left. Let that sink in.” Twitter, 18 May 2017, 02:41. 15 Sep. 2018 <https://twitter.com/ThatEricAlper/status/865140400704675840?ref_src>.Andrews, Travis M. “After Chris Cornell’s Death: ‘Only Eddie Vedder Is Left. Let That Sink In.’” The Washington Post, 19 May 2017. 29 Aug. 2018 <https://www.washingtonpost.com/newsmorning-mix/wp/2017/05/19/after-chris-cornells-death-only-eddie-vedder-is-left-let-that-sink-in>.Azzerad, Michael. “Grunge City: The Seattle Scene.” Rolling Stone, 16 Apr. 1992. 20 Aug. 2018 <https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/grunge-city-the-seattle-scene-250071/>.Brady, Diane. “Kids, Clothes and Conformity: Teens Fashion and Their Back-to-School Looks.” Maclean’s, 6 Sep. 1993. Brodeur, Nicole. “Chris Cornell: Soundgarden’s Dark Knight of the Grunge-Music Scene.” Seattle Times, 18 May 2017. 20 Aug. 2018 <https://www.seattletimes.com/entertainment/music/chris-cornell-soundgardens-dark-knight-of-the-grunge-music-scene/>.Ellis, Carolyn, and Arthur P. Bochner. “Autoethnography, Personal Narrative, Reflexivity: Researcher as Subject.” Handbook of Qualitative Research. 2nd ed. Eds. Norman Denzin and Yvonna Lincoln. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2000. 733-768.Foege, Alec. “Chris Cornell: The Rolling Stone Interview.” Rolling Stone, 28 Dec. 1994. 12 Sep. 2018 <https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/chris-cornell-the-rolling-stone-interview-79108/>.Fricke, David. “Ten.” Rolling Stone, 12 Dec. 1991. 18 Sep. 2018 <https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-album-reviews/ten-251421/>.Giles, David. “Parasocial Interactions: A Review of the Literature and a Model for Future Research.” Media Psychology 4 (2002): 279-305.Giles, Jeff. “The Poet of Alientation.” Newsweek, 17 Apr. 1994, 4 Sep. 2018 <https://www.newsweek.com/poet-alienation-187124>.Gross, D.M., and S. Scott. Proceding with Caution. Time, 16 July 1990. 3 Sep. 2018 <http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,155010,00.html>.Grossberg, Lawrence. “Is There a Fan in the House? The Affective Sensibility of Fandom. The Adoring Audience” Fan Culture and Popular Media. Ed. Lisa A. Lewis. New York, NY: Routledge, 1992. 50-65.Hillburn, Robert. “The Rise and Fall of Grunge.” Los Angeles Times, 21 May 1998. 20 Aug. 2018 <http://articles.latimes.com/1998/may/31/entertainment/ca-54992>.Horton, Donald, and R. Richard Wohl. “Mass Communication and Para-Social Interactions: Observations on Intimacy at a Distance.” Psychiatry: Interpersonal and Biological Process 19 (1956): 215-229.Latysheva, T.V. “The Essential Nature and Types of the Youth Subculture Phenomenon.” Russian Education and Society 53 (2011): 73–88.Manning, Jimmie, and Tony Adams. “Popular Culture Studies and Autoethnography: An Essay on Method.” The Popular Culture Studies Journal 3.1-2 (2015): 187-222.Marin, Rick. “Grunge: A Success Story.” New York Times, 15 Nov. 1992. 12 Sep. 2018 <https://www.nytimes.com/1992/11/15/style/grunge-a-success-story.html>.Neumann, Mark. “Collecting Ourselves at the End of the Century.” Composing Ethnography: Alternative Forms of Qualitative Writing. Eds. Carolyn Ellis and Arthur P. Bochner. London: Alta Mira Press, 1996. 172-198.Nirvana. "Smells Like Teen Spirit." Nevermind, Geffen, 1991.Nnadi, Chioma. “Why Kurt Cobain Was One of the Most Influential Style Icons of Our Times.” Vogue, 8 Apr. 2014. 15 Aug. 2018 <https://www.vogue.com/article/kurt-cobain-legacy-of-grunge-in-fashion>.Perricone, Christopher. “Artist and Audience.” The Journal of Value Inquiry 24 (2012). 12 Sep. 2018 <https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/BF00149433.pdf>.Robbins, Ira. “Ten.” Rolling Stone, 12 Dec. 1991. 15 Aug. 2018 <https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-album-reviews/ten-25142>.Strong, Catherine. “Grunge, Riott Grrl and the Forgetting of Women in Popular Culture.” The Journal of Popular Culture 44.2 (2011): 398-416. Wiederhorn, Jon. “Remembering Layne Staley: The Other Great Seattle Musician to Die on April 5.” MTV, 4 June 2004. 23 Sep. 2018 <http://www.mtv.com/news/1486206/remembering-layne-staley-the-other-great-seattle-musician-to-die-on-april-5/>.Yarm, Mark. Everybody Loves Our Town: An Oral History of Grunge. Three Rivers Press, 2011.

My father killed the boar when he was 16. He’d dreamed of killing the boar for some time. My father’s brother had killed a boar when he was only fifteen. My father’s brother was five years older than him. Like most big brothers, he treated his little brother with intolerant contempt. He’d been saying for months that my father would never kill a boar. He was too weak. He was a girl. He was useless. And, just the day before, he told him he was so worthless he better finish the fence on the bottom paddock before dusk or he could expect a kicking. The family farm was gradually being cleared from the bush and the fencing slow and arduous. My father finished the fence. My father was very good with his hands and in truth a much better fencer than his brother, which didn’t help matters between them. That night my father didn’t go to sleep in the room he shared with his brother. Instead he went out into the bush past the bottom paddock, where the boars roamed, his rifle strapped over his shoulder and a knife in his ankle scabbard. The cleared ground was rough and uneven, a broken landscape created by the eruptions and outpourings of the volcanoes Ruapehu, Ngauruhoe and Tongariro. In the bush, the terrain was even rougher, jagged rises and deep gullies, all ripe with the verdant vegetation flourishing on the rich volcanic soil. My father found himself a niche in a cliff on the edge of the bush above a small clearing near the creek. He huddled there in his woollen coat and dungarees and waited. He’d brought the dogs with him and they drove the boar out of the bush and into the clearing among the tree ferns just before dawn. By then my father was hunched on a rock, out of the way. The dogs worried the boar. They grabbed its tail, snapped at its balls, sank their teeth into its legs. The boar fought back. It lashed at them with its tusks. It caught one and tossed it into a tree fern, the dog yelping from the pain of its ripped rib cage. The boar roared, stomping and rooting. The dogs continued to circle. My father had waited all night in the cold, his rifle loaded and the safety catch off. My father was a very good shot. Better than his brother. That was why his parents had splurged on his birthday gift and bought him a .303 rifle. His brother had a .22, but he couldn’t shoot pigeons or ducks. My father, though, could use his brother’s gun to bring down a brace of ducks. Another reason his brother treated him like a piece of dirt. But out in the bush he couldn’t shoot the boar for fear of killing one of the dogs. He slipped the catch on and laid the gun down beside him. He took a knife from the scabbard on his belt. He waited until the boar was facing away from him, dogs in front and behind it. He jumped from the rock, and kicked the boar’s right hind leg out. The boar went down. My father threw himself on its back and plunged the knife in between the shoulders. Deep, to cut the spine and throat. The boar squealed, thrashed and subsided. My father thrust himself upright, knife still in blood-soaked hand, and stood away from the boar. The boar rolled over, the dogs still nipping at it. My father used the knife again, slashing deep across the boar’s throat. It screamed and lunged at him with head and tusks. He leapt away, falling over one of the dogs. The boar didn’t die straight away. It thrashed about on the ground, snorting and sighing at first, then whimpering as blood gushed out, steamed on the cold ground and coagulated in the crushed ferns. Eventually it was just panting, and slowly at that. Finally it was dead. My father shooed the dogs away. He cut off the boar’s balls and pizzle and tossed them to the dogs. He slit the boar from arse to belly and began the process of removing its warm innards, first working with the bladder to attempt to keep its contents from having too much contact with his game. His hands reached right inside to disentangle the intestines. His shirt and jacket were soaked with its blood. His hands were greasy with blood and shit. He washed himself as best as he could in the freezing water of the creek. He manoeuvred the boar so that it was half sitting on the ground then he lowered himself down and backed between the boar’s front legs, his head under its chin. Taking the weight of the beast on his shoulders, he slowly stood and began to trudge out of the bush and through the rough paddocks towards his family home on the top of the rise. The dogs kept him company for a bit, but the lure of home was too much for them and they took off up the hill in a barking frenzy. All except the one that had been tossed by the boar. It slunk at his heels, blood on its flank where the tusk had ripped through. His father and brother were waiting for him on the veranda. His brother glared and yelled at him because he had missed the morning milking of the cows, but his father told him to take the boar to the meat shack. This was behind the house. It was a rough weatherboard structure on the cool, south-side. It was secure against dogs and vermin and big enough to hang several carcases. A sheep and legs of ham were already there. The shack had a smooth stone floor with drainage channels grooved into it. My father laid the boar on the floor of the shack. He cut the hock of each hind leg just behind the tendon to make a space for the gambrel hook. He inserted the hook then used the hoist in the shack to raise the boar up to the rail that ran down the centre of the room and from which the meat hung. My father then began to skin the boar, stripping back the black bristled outer flesh as much as possible in one piece. Once it was scrubbed of the bristles and tanned, the skin would be soft and supple, suitable for a purse or for covering a saddle. He washed the carcass. Later, when the day’s farm work was over, the whole family would work on preparing and preserving the boar. His mother had already fired up the copper to boil water for the cleaning and salting. Lastly, he sawed off the boar’s head. He placed it on the butcher’s block in the shack and worked at the tusks. On this big beast the tusks were almost five inches long, curved and very sharp. They were much larger than the tusks from his brother’s boar. Once he had the tusks out of the boar’s mouth, he stripped of all but his underpants and washed himself as best as he could at the tap of the water tank at the back of the house. The water was icy and there was a stiff breeze from the snow on the mountains. It was still winter. But my father hardly noticed. He was still warm from the blood of the boar and the sight of his brother’s face when he had seen the size of it. Two months later, he took the tusks into the town of Taumaranui. He sought advice from the jeweller in the main street, who had made a speciality of working with tusks. The jeweller was known all over the King Country. The jeweller talked about how the tusks might be mounted. He suggested a band of gold, edges engraved with delicate leaves, to join the tusks base to base, so that the points formed a semicircle. Just below the points, he suggested two gold bands joined with a delicate gold chain, from which the tusks could be hung. And that is what my father agreed to. The jeweller took one month then my father claimed his tusks and took them home to mount on his bedroom wall, where his brother was forced to see them every day. My father signed up for the Air Force when he was 18. He wanted to fly away from his brother and the cows and the fencing and digging the rocks out of the paddock and that is exactly what he did. He learned to fly, something he’d dreamed of doing, same as he had dreamed of killing a boar. My father was a great dreamer. He left the tusks at home with his mother. She took them out of the bedroom them and placed them on the wall of the family room to remind her of him. His brother would turn them back to front. My father sent home photographs of himself: one from Cairo with him in tropical gear, sparkling eyes and a jaunty smile under his new moustache; another from Waddingham in his Sergeant pilot’s uniform standing with his crew in front of their Lancaster as it is loaded with bombs; a last one from an unknown place but he is wearing his Flying Officer’s uniform for he had been promoted and there are ribbons on his chest, too, but his eyes do not shine and he does not smile. As they arrived from the other side of the world in the slow mail his mother placed these photographs on the sideboard in the family room under my father’s tusks. In a mood after the Sunday roast his brother would turn them face down, saying my father wouldn’t be coming back so why did he have to be reminded of him. But he did come back, which even his brother had to acknowledge. He was 23. He was a shell of the boy who had killed the boar. He had been gutted by the war, though he showed no outward signs of the mutilation. It was all within, deep within, embedded in him like tusks in the jaw of a boar. My father began studying to be a veterinarian when he was 25. As part of his repatriation package, he was paid to study at the University of Sydney. He took the tusks down from his mother’s wall and packed them into one of the suitcases he and my mother took with them on the flying boat to Sydney. The tusks hung on the wall of the semi in Enmore they lived in for the five years he studied. Then after he had graduated they went back across the Tasman and my father began his work with animals. The animals received his ministrations with passive indifference and helped resolve the horror in his head, an unremitting memory of the perilous flights under attack across black skies and terrain, the fires unleashed by the phosphorous bombs released from his plane’s bomb bay let alone the destruction from other ordnance, the morning briefings after what was left of the squadron had returned and he learned which of his mates was no longer. He drank a bit. Maybe too much, but nobody ever sat down with him and talk about what he had been through. He had some medals and his old flying jacket and it was expected that he just get on with life. Which he did, overall. Once my parents were back in New Zealand, he set up practice in Waikato, with dairy cattle his most frequent patients. The Waikato district lies to the north of the King Country where my father had killed the boar. His family were not so far away, but he didn’t visit them that often. His brother was running things down there. His brother held vets in contempt and made that clear on the rare occasions my father did visit. Then his father, my grandfather, died. The farm went to his older brother as was the custom of those times. His widowed mother moved up to Auckland, so my father had no reason to visit the farm or his brother any more. Maybe it was only a matter of moving away from his brother but he lost and found himself in Australia. Maybe it was also the fact that a few years after he had made the move, the phone rang one night and he found he was talking to his brother’s wife. His brother had shot himself down in the bottom paddock that morning. It seems my father’s brother was never a very good farmer. From that time on my father mellowed, relaxed and began to enjoy himself. The tusks, though, were always on his bedside table, reminding him of that night he spent out in the bush and killed the boar. My father died three weeks before he was to turn 80. His death was long and painful to those of us who had to watch it, though for him it was ameliorated by painkillers and palliative care given him. It was my job to arrange the details of his funeral. Since his death was no surprise, all of his family, his three sons and his two daughters, grandsons and grand-daughters and his great grand children as well, had already gathered to say goodbye to him. But everybody was now under pressure to get back to jobs and other commitments. I spoke to the undertakers. They arranged the funeral the day following my father’s death in their own chapel. My mother wanted an open casket so my father had to be dressed in his best clothes. My mother and I selected the clothes and I took them to the undertakers. The next morning, before the ceremony, the undertakers called me and asked me to come to their rooms behind the chapel. They asked me to check that my father looked as much as we wanted him to look. He lay in the coffin, only his head and hands showing, the rest of him expertly trussed and dressed for this last display. His hair was neatly brushed and there was a bristle or two of whiskers on his cheek and chin. His eyes were closed and the skin on his face waxy, but cold from wherever he had been stored. I kissed him on his forehead. Then I placed the tusks on his chest, just under his neck and over the tie and jacket my mother had decided he should wear. My father was ready. I drove my mother down to the chapel just before 2 pm. She and I were the last people to be seated. We were both to sit in the front row. She walked straight up the aisle past the other mourners to my father’s coffin and she stood there for a moment looking at her husband of nearly sixty years. She stretched out her arm and stroked the tusks on his chest. Then she turned and I reached out and guided her to her seat. “He’ll like having them,” she whispered to me. Then we sang “There’s a hole in the bucket”. My father always liked that song. The crematorium was miles away. My father travelled there alone. Just as he had faced the boar. References De Hek, Danny. “Hunting regions—King Country: The home of wild pig hunting in New Zealand.” New Zealand’s Information Network 16 Aug. 2010 . Dick, Tim. “The boar wars.” WAtoday.com.au 13 Nov. 2008. 16 Aug. 2010 . Rushmer, Miles. “Bush surfing: That’s a New Zealand pig hunt.” ESPN Outdoors 28 Apr. 2005. 16 Aug. 2010 . Walrond, Carl. “Pig hunting.” Te Ara: The Encyclopaedia of New Zealand 1 Mar. 2009. 16 Aug. 2010 .

Stand-up is a global phenomenon. It is Australia’s most significant form of advocatorial theatre and a major platform for challenging stigma and prejudice. In the twenty-first century, Australian stand-up is transforming into a more culturally diverse form and extending the spectrum of material addressing human rights. Since the 1980s Australian stand-up routines have moved beyond the old colonial targets of England and America, and Indigenous comics such as Kevin Kopinyeri, Andy Saunders, and Shiralee Hood have gained an established following. Additionally, the turn to Asia is evident not just in trade agreements and the higher education market but also in cultural exchange and in the billing of emerging Asian stand-ups at mainstream events. The major cultural driver for stand-up is the Melbourne International Comedy Festival (MICF), Australia’s largest cultural event, now over 30 years old, and an important site for dissecting constructs of democracy and nationhood. As John McCallum has observed, popular humour in post-World War II Australia drew on widespread feelings of “displacement, migration and otherness—resonant topics in a country of transplanted people and a dispossessed indigenous population arguing over a distinct Australian identity” (205–06). This essay considers the traditional comic strategies of first and second generation immigrant stand-ups in Australia and compares them with the new wave of post 9/11 Asian-Australian and Middle-Eastern-Australian stand-ups whose personas and interrogations are shifting the paradigm. Self-identifying Muslim stand-ups challenge myths of dominant Australian identity in ways which many still find confronting. Furthermore, the theories of incongruity, superiority, and psychological release re-rehearsed in traditional humour studies, by figures such as Palmer (1994) and Morreall (2009), are predicated on models of humour which do not always serve live performance, especially stand-up with its relational dependence on audience interaction.Stand-ups who immigrated to Australia as children or whose parents immigrated and struggled against adversity are important symbols both of the Australian comedy industry and of a national self-understanding of migrant resilience and making good. Szubanski and Berger hail from earlier waves of European migrants in the 1950s and 1960s. Szubanski has written eloquently of her complex Irish-Polish heritage and documented how the “hand-me-down trinkets of family and trauma” and “the culture clash of competing responses to calamity” have been integral to the development of her comic success and the making of her Aussie characters (347). Rachel Berger, the child of Polish holocaust survivors, advertises and connects both identities on her LinkedIn page: “After 23 years as a stand-up comedian, growing up with Jewish guilt and refugee parents, Rachel Berger knows more about survival than any idiot attending tribal council on reality TV.”Anh Do, among Australia’s most famous immigrant stand-ups, identifies as one of the Vietnamese “boat people” and arrived as a toddler in 1976. Do’s tale of his family’s survival against the odds and his creation of a persona which constructs the grateful, happy immigrant clown is the staple of his very successful routine and increasingly problematic. It is a testament to the power of Do’s stand-up that many did not perceive the toll of the loss of his birth country; the grinding poverty; and the pain of his father’s alcoholism, violence, and survivor guilt until the publication of Do’s ironically titled memoir The Happiest Refugee. In fact, the memoir draws on many of the trauma narratives that are still part of his set. One of Do’s most legendary routines is the story of his family’s sea journey to Australia, told here on ABC1’s Talking Heads:There were forty of us on a nine metre fishing boat. On day four of the journey we spot another boat. As the boat gets closer we realise it’s a boatload of Thai pirates. Seven men with knives, machetes and guns get on our boat and they take everything. One of the pirates picks up the smallest child, he lifts up the baby and rips open the baby’s nappy and dollars fall out. And the pirate decides to spare the kid’s life. And that’s a good thing cos that’s my little brother Khoa Do who in 2005 became Young Australian of the Year. And we were saved on the fifth day by a big German merchant ship which took us to a refugee camp in Malaysia and we were there for around three months before Australia says, come to Australia. And we’re very glad that happened. So often we heard Mum and Dad say—what a great country. How good is this place? And the other thing—kids, as you grow up, do as much as you can to give back to this great country and to give back to others less fortunate.Do’s strategy is apparently one of genuflection and gratitude, an adoption of what McCallum refers to as an Australian post-war tradition of the comedy of inadequacy and embarrassment (210–14). Journalists certainly like to bill Do as the happy clown, framing articles about him with headlines like Rosemary Neill’s “Laughing through Adversity.” In fact, Do is direct about his gallows humour and his propensity to darkness: his humour, he says, is a means of countering racism, of “being able to win people over who might have been averse to being friends with an Asian bloke,” but Neill does not linger on this, nor on the revelation that Do felt stigmatised by his refugee origins and terrified and shamed by the crippling poverty of his childhood in Australia. In The Happiest Refugee, Do reveals that, for him, the credibility of his routines with predominantly white Australian audiences lies in the crafting of himself as an “Aussie comedian up there talking about his working-class childhood” (182). This is not the official narrative that is retold even if it is how Do has endeared himself to Australians, and ridding himself of the happy refugee label may yet prove difficult. Suren Jayemanne is well known for his subtle mockery of multiculturalist rhetoric. In his 2016 MICF show, Wu-Tang Clan Name Generator, Jayemanne played on the supposed contradiction of his Sri Lankan-Malaysian heritage against his teenage years in the wealthy suburb of Malvern in Melbourne, his private schooling, and his obsession with hip hop and black American culture. Jayemanne’s strategy is to gently confound his audiences, leading them slowly up a blind alley. He builds up a picture of how to identify Sri Lankan parents, supposedly Sri Lankan qualities such as an exceptional ability at maths, and Sri Lankan employment ambitions which he argues he fulfilled in becoming an accountant. He then undercuts his story by saying he has recently realised that his suburban background, his numerical abilities, his love of black music, and his rejection of accountancy in favour of comedy, in fact prove conclusively that he has, all along, been white. He also confesses that this is a bruising disappointment. Jayemanne exposes the emptiness of the conceits of white, brown, and black and of invented identity markers and plays on his audiences’ preconceptions through an old storyteller’s device, the shaggy dog story. The different constituencies in his audiences enjoy his trick equally, from quite different perspectives.Diana Nguyen, a second generation Vietnamese stand-up, was both traumatised and politicised by Pauline Hanson when she was a teenager. Hanson described Nguyen’s community in Dandenong as “yellow Asian people” (Filmer). Nguyen’s career as a community development worker combating racism relates directly to her activity as a stand-up: migrant stories are integral to Australian history and Nguyen hypothesises that the “Australian psyche of being invaded or taken over” has reignited over the question of Islamic fundamentalism and expresses her concern to Filmer about the Muslim youths under her care.Nguyen’s alarm about the elision of Islamic radicalism with Muslim culture drives an agenda that has led the new generation of self-identified Muslim stand-ups since 9/11. This post 9/11 world is described by Wajahat as gorged with “exaggerated fear, hatred, and hostility toward Islam and Muslim [. . . ] and perpetuated by negative discrimination and the marginalisation and exclusion of Muslims from social, political, and civic life in western societies.” In Australia, Aamer Rahman, Muhamed Elleissi, Khaled Khalafalla, and Nazeem Hussain typify this newer, more assertive form of second generation immigrant stand-up—they identify as Muslim (whether religious or not), as brown, and as Australian. They might be said to symbolise a logical response to Ghassan Hage’s famous White Nation (1998), which argues that a white supremacism underlies the mindset of the white elite in Australia. Their positioning is more nuanced than previous generations of stand-up. Nazeem Hussain’s routines mark a transformation in Australian stand-up, as Waleed Aly has argued: “ethnic comedy” has hitherto been about the parading of stereotypes for comfortable, mainstream consumption, about “minstrel characters” [. . .] but Hussain interrogates his audiences in every direction—and aggravates Muslims too. Hussain’s is the world of post 9/11 Australian Muslims. It’s about more than ethnic stereotyping. It’s about being a consistent target of political opportunism, where everyone from the Prime Minister to the Foreign Minister to an otherwise washed-up backbencher with a view on burqas has you in their sights, where bombs detonate in Western capitals and unrelated nations are invaded.Understandably, a prevalent theme among the new wave of Muslim comics, and not just in Australia, is the focus on the reading of Muslims as manifestly linked with Islamic State (IS). Jokes about mistaken identity, plane crashes, suicide bombing, and the Koran feature prominently. English-Pakistani Muslim, Shazia Mirza, gained comedy notoriety in the UK in the wake of 9/11 by introducing her routine with the words: “My name’s Shazia Mirza. At least that’s what it says on my pilot’s licence” (Bedell). Stand-ups Negin Farsad, Ahmed Ahmed, and Dean Obeidalla are all also activists challenging prevailing myths about Islam, skin colour and terrorism in America. Egyptian-American Ahmed Ahmed acquired prominence for telling audiences in the infamous Axis of Evil Comedy Tour about how his life had changed much for the worse since 9/11. Ahmed Ahmed was the alias used by one of Osama Bin Laden’s devotees and his life became on ongoing struggle with anti-terrorism officials doing security checks (he was once incarcerated) and with the FBI who were certain that the comedian was among their most wanted terrorists. Similarly, Obeidalla, an Italian-Palestinian-Muslim, notes in his TEDx talk that “If you have a Muslim name, you are probably immune to identity theft.” His narration of a very sudden experience of becoming an object of persecution and of others’ paranoia is symptomatic of a shared understanding of a post 9/11 world among many Muslim comics: “On September 10th 2001 I went to bed as a white American and I woke up an Arab,” says Obeidalla, still dazed from the seismic shift in his life.Hussain and Khalafalla demonstrate a new sophistication and directness in their stand-up, and tackle their majority white audiences head-on. There is no hint of the apologetic or deferential stance performed by Anh Do. Many of the jokes in their routines target controversial or taboo issues, which up until recently were shunned in Australian political debate, or are absent or misrepresented in mainstream media. An Egyptian-Australian born in Saudi Arabia, Khaled Khalafalla arrived on the comedy scene in 2011, was runner-up in RAW, Australia’s most prestigious open mic competition, and in 2013 won the best of the Melbourne International Comedy Festival for Devious. Khalafalla’s shows focus on racist stereotypes and identity and he uses a range of Middle Eastern and Indian accents to broach IS recruitment, Muslim cousin marriages, and plane crashes. His 2016 MICF show, Jerk, was a confident and abrasive routine exploring relationships, drug use, the extreme racism of Reclaim Australia rallies, controversial visa checks by Border Force’s Operation Fortitude, and Islamophobia. Within the first minute of his routine, he criticises white people in the audience for their woeful refusal to master Middle Eastern names, calling out to the “brown woman” in the audience for support, before lining up a series of jokes about the (mis)pronunciation of his name. Khalafalla derives his power on stage by what Oliver Double calls “uncovering.” Double contends that “one of the most subversive things stand-up can do is to uncover the unmentionable,” subjects which are difficult or impossible to discuss in everyday conversation or the broadcast media (292). For instance, in Jerk Khalafalla discusses the “whole hating halal movement” in Australia as a metaphor for exposing brutal prejudice: Let me break it down for you. Halal is not voodoo. It’s just a blessing that Muslims do for some things, food amongst other things. But, it’s also a magical spell that turns some people into fuckwits when they see it. Sometimes people think it’s a thing that can get stuck to your t-shirt . . . like ‘Oh fuck, I got halal on me’ [Australian accent]. I saw a guy the other day and he was like Fuck halal, it funds terrorism. And I was like, let me show you the true meaning of Islam. I took a lamb chop out of my pocket and threw it in his face. And, he was like Ah, what was that? A lamb chop. Oh, I fucking love lamb chops. And, I say you fool, it’s halal and he burst into flames.In effect, Khalafalla delivers a contemptuous attack on the white members of his audience, but at the same time his joke relies on those same audience members presuming that they are morally and intellectually superior to the individual who is the butt of the joke. Khalafalla’s considerable charm is a help in this tricky send-up. In 2015 the Australian Department of Defence recognised his symbolic power and invited him to join the Afghanistan Task Force to entertain the troops by providing what Doran describes as “home-grown Australian laughs” (7). On stage in Australia, Khalafalla constructs a persona which is an outsider to the dominant majority and challenges the persecution of Muslim communities. Ironically, on the NATO base, Khalafalla’s act was perceived as representing a diverse but united Australia. McCallum has pointed to such contradictions, moments where white Australia has shown itself to be a “culture which at first authenticates emigrant experience and later abrogates it in times of defiant nationalism” (207). Nazeem Hussain, born in Australia to Sri Lankan parents, is even more confrontational. His stand-up is born of his belief that “comedy protects us from the world around us” and is “an evolutionary defence mechanism” (8–9). His ground-breaking comedy career is embedded in his work as an anti-racism activist and asylum seeker supporter and shaped by his second-generation migrant experiences, law studies, community youth work, and early mentorship by American Muslim comic trio Allah Made Me Funny. He is well-known for his pioneering television successes Legally Brown and Salam Café. In his stand-up, Hussain often dwells witheringly on the failings and peculiarities of white people’s attempts to interact with him. Like all his routines, his sell-out show Fear of the Brown Planet, performed with Aamer Rahman from 2004–2008, explored casual, pathologised racism. Hussain deliberately over-uses the term “white people” in his routines as a provocation and deploys a reverse racism against his majority white audiences, knowing that many will be squirming. “White people ask me how can Muslims have fun if they don’t drink? Muslims have fun! Of course we have fun! You’ve seen us on the news.” For Hussain stand-up is “fundamentally an art of protest,” to be used as “a tool by communities and people with ideas that challenge and provoke the status quo with a spirit of counterculture” (Low 1–3). His larger project is to humanise Muslims to white Australians so that “they see us firstly as human beings” (1–3). Hussain’s 2016 MICF show, Hussain in the Membrane, both satirised media hype and hysterical racism and pushed for a better understanding of the complex problems Muslim communities face in Australia. His show also connected issues to older colonial traditions of racism. In a memorable and beautifully crafted tirade, Hussain inveighed against the 2015 Bendigo riots which occurred after local Muslims lodged an application to Bendigo council to build a mosque in the sleepy Victorian town. [YELLING in an exaggerated Australian accent] No we don’t want Muslims! NO we don’t want Muslims—to come invade Bendigo by application to the local council! That is the most bureaucratic invasion of all times. No place in history has been invaded by lodging an application to a local council. Can you see ISIS running around chasing town planners? Of course not, Muslims like to wait 6–8 months to invade! That’s a polite way to invade. What if white people invaded that way? What a better world we’d be living in. If white people invaded Australia that way, we’d be able to celebrate Australia Day on the same day without so much blood on our hands. What if Captain Cook came to Australia and said [in a British accent] Awe we would like to apply to invade this great land and here is our application. [In an Australian accent] Awe sorry, mate, rejected, but we’ll give you Bendigo.As Waleed Aly sees it, the Australian cultural majority is still “unused to hearing minorities speak with such assertiveness.” Hussain exposes “a binary world where there’s whiteness, and then otherness. Where white people are individuals and non-white people (a singular group) are not” (Aly). Hussain certainly speaks as an insider and goes so far as recognising his coloniser’s guilt in relation to indigenous Australians (Tan). Aly well remembers the hate mail he and Hussain received when they worked on Salam Café: “The message was clear. We were outsiders and should behave as such. We were not real Australians. We should know our place, as supplicants, celebrating the nation’s unblemished virtue.” Khalafalla, Rahman, Elleissi, and Hussain make clear that the new wave of comics identify as Muslim and Australian (which they would argue many in the audiences receive as a provocation). They have zero tolerance of racism, their comedy is intimately connected with their political activism, and they have an unapologetically Australian identity. No longer is it a question of whether the white cultural majority in Australia will anoint them as worthy and acceptable citizens, it is a question of whether the audiences can rise to the moral standards of the stand-ups. The power has been switched. For Hussain laughter is about connection: “that person laughs because they appreciate the point and whether or not they accept what was said was valid isn’t important. What matters is, they’ve understood” (Low 5). ReferencesAhmed, Ahmed. “When It Comes to Laughter, We Are All Alike.” TedXDoha (2010). 16 June 2016 <http://tedxtalks.ted.com/video/TEDxDoha-Ahmed-Ahmed-When-it-Co>.Aly, Waleed. “Comment.” Sydney Morning Herald 24 Sep. 2013."Anh Do". Talking Heads with Peter Thompson. ABC1. 4 Oct. 2010. Radio.Bedell, Geraldine. “Veiled Humour.” The Guardian (2003). 8 Aug. 2016 <https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2003/apr/20/comedy.artsfeatures?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other>.Berger, Rachel. LinkedIn [Profile page]. 14 June 2016 <http://www.linkedin.com/company/rachel-berger>.Do, Anh. The Happiest Refugee. Sydney: Allen and Unwin, 2010. Doran, Mark. "Service with a Smile: Entertainers Give Troops a Taste of Home.” Air Force 57.21 (2015). 12 June 2016 <http://www.defence.gov.au/Publications/NewsPapers/Raaf/editions/5721/5721.pdf>.Double, Oliver. Getting the Joke: The Inner Workings of Stand-Up Comedy. 2nd ed. London: Bloomsbury, 2014.Filmer, Natalie. "For Dandenong Comedian and Actress Diana Nguyen The Colour Yellow has a Strong Meaning.” The Herald Sun 3 Sep. 2013.Hage, Ghassan. White Nation: Fantasies of a White Supremacy in a Multicultural Age. Sydney: Pluto Press, 1998.Hussain, Nazeem. Hussain in the Membrane. Melbourne International Comedy Festival, 2016.———. "The Funny Side of 30.” Spectrum. The Age 12 Mar. 2016.Khalafalla, Khaled. Jerk. Melbourne International Comedy Festival, 2016.Low, Lian. "Fear of a Brown Planet: Fight the Power with Laughter.” Peril: Asian Australian Arts and Culture (2011). 12 June 2016 <http://peril.com.au/back-editions/edition10/fear-of-a-brown-planet-fight-the-power-with-laughter>. McCallum, John. "Cringe and Strut: Comedy and National Identity in Post-War Australia.” Because I Tell a Joke or Two: Comedy, Politics and Social Difference. Ed. Stephen Wagg. New York: Routledge, 1998. Morreall, John. Comic Relief. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009.Neill, Rosemary. "Laughing through Adversity.” The Australian 28 Aug. 2010.Obeidalla, Dean. "Using Stand-Up to Counter Islamophobia.” TedXEast (2012). 16 June 2016 <http://tedxtalks.ted.com/video/TEDxEast-Dean-Obeidalla-Using-S;TEDxEast>.Palmer, Jerry. Taking Humour Seriously. London: Routledge, 1994. Szubanski, Magda. Reckoning. Melbourne: Text Publishing, 2015. Tan, Monica. "Aussie, Aussie, Aussie! Allahu Akbar! Nazeem Hussain's Bogan-Muslim Army.” The Guardian 29 Feb. 2016. "Uncle Sam.” Salam Café (2008). 11 June 2016 <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SeQPAJt6caU>.Wajahat, Ali, et al. "Fear Inc.: The Roots of the Islamophobia Network in America.” Center for American Progress (2011). 11 June 2016 <https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/religion/report/2011/08/26/10165/fear-inc>.

IntroductionAustralia is at a particular point in its history where there is a noticeable diaspora of artists and creative practitioners away from the major capitals of Sydney and Melbourne (in particular), driven in no small part by ballooning house prices of the last eight years. This has meant big changes for some regional spaces, and in turn, for the face of Australian cultural life. Regional cultural precincts are forming with tourist flows, funding attention and cultural economies. Likewise, there appears to be growing consciousness in the ‘art centres’ of Melbourne and Sydney of interesting and relevant activities outside their limits. This research draws on my experience as an art practitioner, curator and social researcher in one such region (Castlemaine in Central Victoria), and particularly from a recent interview series I have conducted in collaboration with art space in that region, Wide Open Road Art. In this, 23 regional and city-based artists were asked about the social, economic and local conditions that can and have supported their art practices. Drawing from these conversations and Bourdieu’s ideas around cultural production, the article suggests that authentic, diverse, interesting and disruptive creative practices in Australian cultural life involve the increasingly pressing need for security while existing outside the modern imperative of high consumption; of finding alternative ways to live well while entering into the shared space of cultural production. Indeed, it is argued that often it is the capacity to defy key economic paradigms, for example of ‘rational (economic) self-interest’, that allows creative life to flourish (Bourdieu Field; Ley “Artists”). While regional spaces present new opportunities for this, there are pitfalls and nuances worth exploring.Changes in Regional AustraliaAustralia has long been an urbanising nation. Since Federation our cities have increased from a third to now constituting two-thirds of the country’s total population (Gray and Lawrence 6; ABS), making us one of the most urbanised countries in the world. Indeed, as machines replaced manual labour on farms; as Australia’s manufacturing industry began its decline; and as young people in particular left the country for city universities (Gray and Lawrence), the post-war industrial-economic boom drove this widespread demographic and economic shift. In the 1980s closures of regional town facilities like banks, schools and hospitals propelled widespread belief that regional Australia was in crisis and would be increasingly difficult to sustain (Rentschler, Bridson, and Evans; Gray and Lawrence 2; Barr et al.; ABS). However, the late 1990s and early 21st century saw a turnaround that has been referred to by some as the rise of the ‘sea change’. That is, widespread renewed interest and idealisation of not just coastal areas but anywhere outside the city (Murphy). It was a simultaneous pursuit of “a small ‘a’ alternative lifestyle” and escape from rising living costs in urban areas, especially for the unemployed, single parents and those with disabilities (Murphy). This renewed interest has been sustained. The latest wave, or series of waves, have coincided with the post-GFC house price spike, of cheap credit and lenient lending designed to stimulate the economy. This initiative in part led to Sydney and Melbourne median dwelling prices rising by up to 114% in eight years (Scutt 2017), which alone had a huge influence on who was able to afford to live in city areas and who was not. Rapid population increases and diminished social networks and familial support are also considered drivers that sent a wave of people (a million since 2011) towards the outer fringes of the cities and to ‘commuter belt’ country towns (Docherty; Murphy). While the underprivileged are clearly most disadvantaged in what has actually been a global development process (see Jayne on this, and on the city as a consumer itself), artists and creatives are also a unique category who haven’t fared well with hyper-urbanisation (Ley “Artists”). Despite the class privilege that often accompanies such a career choice, the economic disadvantage art professions often involve has seen a diaspora of artists moving to regional areas, particularly those in the hinterlands around and train lines to major centres. We see the recent ‘rise of a regional bohemia’ (Regional Australia Institute): towns like Toowoomba, Byron Bay, Surf Coast, Gold Coast-Tweed, Kangaroo Valley, Wollongong, Warburton, Bendigo, Tooyday, New Norfolk, and countless more being re-identified as arts towns and precincts. In Australia in 2016–17, 1 in 6 professional artists, and 1 in 4 visual artists, were living in a regional town (Throsby and Petetskaya). Creative arts in regional Australia makes up a quarter of the nation’s creative output and is a $2.8 billion industry; and our regions particularly draw in creative practitioners in their prime productive years (aged 24 to 44) (Regional Australia Institute).WORA Conservation SeriesIn 2018 artist and curator Helen Mathwin and myself received a local shire grant to record a conversation series with 23 artists who were based in the Central Goldfields region of Victoria as well as further afield, but who had a connection to the regional arts space we run, WideOpenRoadArt (WORA). In videoed, in-depth, approximately hour-long, semi-structured interviews conducted throughout 2018, we spoke to artists (16 women and 7 men) about the relocation phenomenon we were witnessing in our own growing arts town. Most were interviewed in WORA’s roving art float, but we seized any ad hoc opportunity we had to have genuine discussions with people. Focal points were around sustainability of practice and the social conditions that supported artists’ professional pursuits. This included accessing an arts community, circles of cultural production, and the ‘art centre’; the capacity to exhibit; but also, social factors such as affordable housing and the ability to live on a low-income while having dependants; and so on. The conversations were rich with lived experiences and insights on these issues.Financial ImperativesIn line with the discussion above, the most prominent factor we noticed in the interviews was the inescapable importance of being able to live cheaply. The consistent message that all of the interviewees, both regional- and city-based, conveyed was that a career in art-making required an important independence from the need to earn a substantial income. One interviewee commented: “I do run my art as a business, I have an ABN […] it makes a healthy loss! I don’t think I’ve ever made a profit […].” Another put it: “now that I’m in [this] town and I have a house and stuff I do feel like there is maybe a bit more security around those daily things that will hopefully give me space to [make artworks].”Much has been said on the pervasive inability to monetise art careers, notably Bourdieu’s observations that art exists on an interdependent field of cultural capital, determining for itself an autonomous conception of value separate to economics (Bourdieu, Field 39). This is somewhat similar to the idea of art as a sacred phenomenon irreducible to dollar terms (Abbing 38; see also Benjamin’s “aura”; “The Work of Art”). Art’s difficult relationship with commodification is part of its heroism that Benjamin described (Benjamin Charles Baudelaire 79), its potential to sanctify mainstream society by staying separate to the lowly aspirations of commerce (Ley “Artists” 2529). However, it is understood, artists still need to attain professional education and capacities, yet they remain at the bottom of the income ladder not only professionally, but in the case of visual artists, they remain at the bottom of the creative income hierarchies as well. Further to this, within visual arts, only a tiny proportion achieve financially backed success (Menger 277). “Artistic labour markets are characterised by high risk of failure, excess supply of recruits, low artistic income level, skewed income distribution and multiple jobholding” (Mangset, Torvik Heian, Kleppe, and Løyland; Menger). Mangset et al. point to ideas that have long surrounded the “charismatic artist myth,” of a quasi-metaphysical calling to be an artist that can lead one to overlook the profession’s vast pitfalls in terms of economic sustainability. One interviewee described it as follows: “From a very young age I wanted to be an artist […] so there’s never been a time that I’ve thought that’s not what I’m doing.” A 1% rule seems widely acknowledged in how the profession manages the financial winners against those who miss out; the tiny proportion of megastar artists versus a vast struggling remainder.As even successful artists often dip below the poverty line between paid engagements, housing costs can make the difference between being able to live in an area and not (Turnbull and Whitford). One artist described:[the reason we moved here from Melbourne] was financial, yes definitely. We wouldn’t have been able to purchase a property […] in Melbourne, we would not have been able to live in place that we wanted to live, and to do what we wanted to do […]. It was never an option for us to get a big mortgage.Another said:It partly came about as a financial practicality to move out here. My partner […] wanted to be in the bush, but I was resistant at first, we were in Melbourne but we just couldn’t afford Melbourne in the end, we had an apartment, we had a studio. My partner was a cabinet maker then. You know, just every month all our money went to rent and we just couldn’t manage anymore. So we thought, well maybe if we come out to the bush […] It was just by a happy accident that we found a property […] that we could afford, that was off-grid so it cut the bills down for us [...] that had a little studio and already had a little cottage on there that we could rent that out to get money.For a prominent artist we spoke to this issue was starkly reflected. Despite large exhibitions at some of the highest profile galleries in regional Victoria, the commissions offered for these shows were so insubstantial that the artist and their family had to take on staggering sums of personal debt to execute the ambitious and critically acclaimed shows. Another very successful artist we interviewed who had shown widely at ‘A-list’ international arts institutions and received several substantial grants, spoke of their dismay and pessimism at the idea of financial survival. For all artists we spoke to, pursuing their arts practice was in constant tension with economic imperatives, and their lives had all been shaped by the need to make shrewd decisions to continue practising. There were two artists out of the 23 we interviewed who considered their artwork able to provide full-time income, although this still relied on living costs remaining extremely low. “We are very lucky to have bought a very cheap property [in the country] that I can [also] have my workshop on, so I’m not paying for two properties in Melbourne […] So that certainly takes a fair bit of pressure off financially.” Their co-interviewee described this as “pretty luxurious!” Notably, the two who thought they could live off their art practices were both men, mid-career, whose works were large, spectacular festival items, which alongside the artists’ skill and hard work was also a factor in the type of remuneration received.Decongested LivingBeyond more affordable real estate and rental spaces, life outside our cities offers other benefits that have particular relevance to creative practitioners. Opera and festival director Lindy Hume described her move to the NSW South Coast in terms of space to think and be creative. “The abundance of time, space and silence makes living in places like [Hume’s town] ideal for creating new work” (Brown). And certainly, this was a theme that arose frequently in our interviews. Many of our regionally based artists were in part choosing the de-pressurised space of non-metro areas, and also seeking an embedded, daily connection to nature for themselves, their art-making process and their families. In one interview this was described as “dreamtime”. “Some of my more creative moments are out walking in the forest with the dog, that sort of semi-daydreamy thing where your mind is taken away by the place you’re in.”Creative HubsAll of our regional interviewees mentioned the value of the local community, as a general exchange, social support and like-minded connection, but also specifically of an arts community. Whether a tree change by choice or a more reactive move, the diaspora of artists, among others, has led to a type of rural renaissance in certain popular areas. Creative hubs located around the country, often in close proximity to the urban centres, are creating tremendous opportunities to network with other talented people doing interesting things, living in close proximity and often open to cross-fertilisation. One said: “[Castlemaine] is the best place in Australia, it has this insane cultural richness in a tiny town, you can’t go out and not meet people on the street […] For someone who has not had community in their life that is so gorgeous.” Another said:[Being an artist here] is kind of easy! Lots of people around to connect—with […] other artists but also creatively minded people [...] So it means you can just bump into someone from down the street and have an amazing conversation in five minutes about some amazing thing! […] There’s a concentration here that works.With these hubs, regional spaces are entering into a new relevance in the sphere of cultural production. They are generating unique and interesting local creative scenes for people to live amongst or visit, and generating strong local arts economies, tourist economies, and funding opportunities (Rentschler, Bridson, and Evans). Victoria in particular has burgeoned, with tourist flows to its regions increasing 13 per cent in 5 years and generating tourism worth $10 billion (Tourism Victoria). Victoria’s Greater Bendigo is Australia’s most popularly searched tourist destination on Trip Advisor, with tourism increasing 52% in 10 years (Boland). Simultaneously, funding flows have increased to regional zones, as governments seek to promote development outside Australia’s urban centres and are confident in the arts as a key strategy in boosting health, economies and overall wellbeing (see Rentschler, Bridson, and Evans; see also the 2018 Regional Centre for Culture initiative, Boland). The regions are also an increasingly relevant participant in national cultural life (Turnbull and Whitford; Mitchell; Simpson; Woodhead). Opportunities for an openness to productive exchange between regional and metropolitan sites appear to be growing, with regional festivals and art events gaining importance and unique attributes in the consciousness of the arts ‘centre’ (see for example Fairley; Simpson; Farrelly; Woodhead).Difficulties of Regional LocationDespite this, our interviews still brought to light the difficulties and barriers experienced living as a regional artist. For some, living in regional Victoria was an accepted set-back in their ambitions, something to be concealed and counteracted with education in reputable metropolitan art schools or city-based jobs. For others there was difficulty accessing a sympathetic arts community—although arts towns had vibrant cultures, certain types of creativity were preferred (often craft-based and more community-oriented). Practitioners who were active in maintaining their links to a metropolitan art scene voiced more difficulty in fitting in and successfully exhibiting their (often more conceptual or boundary-pushing) work in regional locations.The Gentrification ProblemThe other increasingly obvious issue in the revivification of some non-metropolitan areas is that they can and are already showing signs of being victims of their own success. That is, some regional arts precincts are attracting so many new residents that they are ceasing to be the low-cost, hospitable environments for artists they once were. Geographer David Ley has given attention to this particular pattern of gentrification that trails behind artists (Ley “Artists”). Ley draws from Florida’s ideas of late capitalism’s ascendency of creativity over the brute utilitarianism of the industrial era. This has got to the point that artists and creative professionals have an increasing capacity to shape and generate value in areas of life that were previous overlooked, especially with built environments (2529). Now more than ever, there is the “urbane middle-class” pursuing ‘the swirling milieu of artists, bohemians and immigrants” (Florida) as they create new, desirable landscapes with the “refuse of society” (Benjamin Charles Baudelaire 79; Ley New Middle Class). With Australia’s historic shifts in affordability in our major cities, this pattern that Ley identified in urban built environments can be seen across our states and regions as well.But with gentrification comes increased costs of living, as housing, shops and infrastructure all alter for an affluent consumer-resident. This diminishes what Bourdieu describes as “the suspension and removal of economic necessity” fundamental to the avant-garde (Bourdieu Distinction 54). That is to say, its relief from heavy pressure to materially survive is arguably critical to the reflexive, imaginative, and truly new offerings that art can provide. And as argued earlier, there seems an inbuilt economic irrationality in artmaking as a vocation—of dedicating one’s energy, time and resources to a pursuit that is notoriously impoverishing. But this irrationality may at the same time be critical to setting forth new ideas, perspectives, reflections and disruptions of taken-for-granted social assumptions, and why art is so indispensable in the first place (Bourdieu Field 39; Ley New Middle Class 2531; Weber on irrationality and the Enlightenment Project; also Adorno’s the ‘primitive’ in art). Australia’s cities, like those of most developed nations, increasingly demand we busy ourselves with the high-consumption of modern life that makes certain activities that sit outside this almost impossible. As gentrification unfolds from the metropolis to the regions, Australia faces a new level of far-reaching social inequality that has real consequences for who is able to participate in art-making, where these people can live, and ultimately what kind of diversity of ideas and voices participate in the generation of our national cultural life. ConclusionThe revival of some of Australia’s more popular regional towns has brought new life to some regional areas, particularly in reshaping their identities as cultural hubs worth experiencing, living amongst or supporting their development. Our interviews brought to life the significant benefits artists have experienced in relocating to country towns, whether by choice or necessity, as well as some setbacks. It was clear that economics played a major role in the demographic shift that took place in the area being examined; more specifically, that the general reorientation of social life towards consumption activities are having dramatic spatial consequences that we are currently seeing transform our major centres. The ability of art and creative practices to breathe new life into forgotten and devalued ideas and spaces is a foundational attribute but one that also creates a gentrification problem. Indeed, this is possibly the key drawback to the revivification of certain regional areas, alongside other prejudices and clashes between metro and regional cultures. It is argued that the transformative and redemptive actions art can perform need to involve the modern irrationality of not being transfixed by matters of economic materialism, so as to sit outside taken-for-granted value structures. This emphasises the importance of equality and open access in our spaces and landscapes if we are to pursue a vibrant, diverse and progressive national cultural sphere.ReferencesAbbing, Hans. Why Artists Are Poor: The Exceptional Economy of the Arts. Amsterdam: Amsterdam UP, 2002.Adorno, Theodor. Aesthetic Theory. London: Routledge, 1983.Australian Bureau of Statistics. “Population Growth: Capital City Growth and Development.” 4102.0—Australian Social Trends. Canberra: Australian Bureau of Sttaistics, 1996. <http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/2f762f95845417aeca25706c00834efa/924739f180990e34ca2570ec0073cdf7!OpenDocument>.Barr, Neil, Kushan Karunaratne, and Roger Wilkinson. Australia’s Farmers: Past, Present and Future. Land and Water Resources Research and Development Corporation, 2005. 1 Mar. 2019 <http://inform.regionalaustralia.org.au/industry/agriculture-forestry-and-fisheries/item/australia-s-farmers-past-present-and-future>.Benjamin, Walter. Charles Baudelaire: A Lyric Poet in the Era of High Capitalism. London: NLB, 1973.———. “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.” Illuminations. Ed. Hannah Arendt. Trans. Harry Zohn. New York: Schocken Books, 1969.Boland, Brooke. “What It Takes to Be a Leading Regional Centre of Culture.” Arts Hub 18 July 2018. 1 Mar. 2019 <https://www.artshub.com.au/festival/news-article/sponsored-content/festivals/brooke-boland/what-it-takes-to-be-a-leading-regional-centre-of-culture-256110>.Bourdieu, Pierre. Distinction. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1984.———. The Field of Cultural Production. New York: Columbia UP, 1993.Brown, Bill. “‘Restless Giant’ Lures Queensland Opera’s Artistic Director Lindy Hume to the Regional Art Movement.” ABC News 13 Sep. 2017. 10 Mar. 2019 <https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-09-12/regional-creative-industries-on-the-rise/8895842>.Docherty, Glenn. “Why 5 Million Australians Can’t Get to Work, Home or School on Time.” Sydney Morning Herald 17 Feb. 2019. 10 Mar. 2019 <https://www.smh.com.au/national/why-5-million-australians-can-t-get-to-work-home-or-school-on-time-20190215-p50y1x.html>.Fairley, Gina. “Big Hit Exhibitions to See These Summer Holidays.” Arts Hub 14 Dec. 2018. 1 Mar. 2019 <https://visual.artshub.com.au/news-article/news/visual-arts/gina-fairley/big-hit-exhibitions-to-see-these-summer-holidays-257016>.Farrelly, Kate. “Bendigo: The Regional City That’s Transformed into a Foodie and Cultural Hub.” Domain 9 Apr. 2019. 10 Mar. 2019 <https://www.domain.com.au/news/bendigo-the-regional-city-you-didnt-expect-to-become-a-foodie-and-cultural-hub-813317/>.Florida, Richard. “A Creative, Dynamic City Is an Open, Tolerant City.” The Globe and Mail 24 Jun. 2002: T8.Gray, Ian, and Geoffrey Lawrence. A Future For Regional Australia: Escaping Global Misfortune. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001.Hume, Lindy. Restless Giant: Changing Cultural Values in Regional Australia. Strawberry Hills: Currency House, 2017.Jayne, Mark. Cities and Consumption. London: Routledge, 2005.Ley, David. The New Middle Class and the Remaking of the Central City. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996.———. “Artists, Aestheticisation and Gentrification.” Urban Studies 40.12 (2003): 2527–44.Menger, Pierre-Michel. “Artistic Labor Markets: Contingent Works, Excess Supply and Occupational Risk Management.” Handbook of the Economics of Art and Culture. Eds. Victor Ginsburgh and David Throsby. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 2006. 766–811.Mangset, Per, Mari Torvik Heian, Bard Kleppe and Knut Løyland. “Why Are Artists Getting Poorer: About the Reproduction of Low Income among Artists.” International Journal of Cultural Policy 24.4 (2018): 539-58.Mitchell, Scott. “Want to Start Collecting Art But Don’t Know Where to Begin? Trust Your Own Taste, plus More Tips.” ABC Life, 31 Mar. 2019 <https://www.abc.net.au/life/tips-for-buying-art-starting-collection/10084036>.Murphy, Peter. “Sea Change: Re-Inventing Rural and Regional Australia.” Transformations 2 (March 2002).Regional Australia Institute. “The Rise of the Regional Bohemians.” Regional Australia Institute 24 May. 2017. 1 Mar. 2019 <http://www.regionalaustralia.org.au/home/2017/05/rise-regional-bohemians-painting-new-picture-arts-culture-regional-australia/>.Rentschler, Ruth, Kerrie Bridson, and Jody Evans. Regional Arts Australia Stats and Stories: The Impact of the Arts in Regional Australia. Regional Arts Australia [n.d.]. <https://www.cacwa.org.au/documents/item/477>.Simpson, Andrea. “The Regions: Delivering Exceptional Arts Experiences to the Community.” ArtsHub 11 Apr. 2019. <https://visual.artshub.com.au/news-article/sponsored-content/visual-arts/andrea-simpson/the-regions-delivering-exceptional-arts-experiences-to-the-community-257752>.

This article explores the role of authenticity in televisual teaching and learning based on a case study of Who Do You Think You Are?, a documentary series in which celebrities go on a journey to retrace their family tree. Originally broadcast by the British Broadcasting Corporation, this series has been adapted in eighteen countries, including Australia. The Australian version is produced locally and has been airing on the public channel Special Broadcasting Service (SBS) since 2008. According to its producers, Who Do You Think You Are? teaches history and promotes multiculturalism:We like making a broad range of programs about history and telling our own Australian stories and particularly the multicultural basis of our history […] A lot of people know the broad Australian stroke, English, British history but they don’t really know as much about the migratory history […] It’s a way of saying this is our country now, this is where it came from, here’s some stories, which you might not be aware of, and what’s happened to people along the way. (Producer 1) In this article, I examine Who Do You Think You Are? as an educational text and I investigate its pedagogy. Starting with the assumption that it aims to teach, my intention is to explain how it teaches. In particular, I want to demonstrate that authenticity is a key feature of its pedagogy. Applied to the televisual text, the term “authentic” refers to the quality of being true or based on facts. In this sense, authenticity implies actuality, accuracy and reliability. Applied to media personae, “authentic” must be understood in its more modern sense of “genuine”. From this perspective, to be “authentic” requires displaying “one’s inner truths” (McCarthy 242). Based on my textual analysis and reception study, I show that these two forms of authenticity play a crucial role in the pedagogy of Who Do You Think You Are? Signifying Authenticity One of the pedagogical techniques of Who Do You Think You Are? is to persuade viewers that it authentically represents actual events by using some of the codes and conventions of the documentary. According to Michael Renov, the persuasive modality is intrinsic to all documentary forms and it is linked to their truth claim: “the documentary ‘truth claim’ (which says, at the very least: ‘Believe me, I’m of the world’) is the baseline for persuasion for all of nonfiction, from propaganda to rock doc” (30). Who Do You Think You Are? signifies actuality by using some of the codes and conventions of the observational documentary. As Bill Nichols explains, observational documentaries give the impression that they spontaneously and faithfully record actual events as they happen. Nichols compares this mode of documentary to Italian Neorealism: “we look in on life as it is lived. Social actors engage with one another, ignoring the filmmakers” (111). In Who Do You Think You Are? the celebrities and other social actors often engage with one another without acknowledging the camera’s presence. In those observational scenes, various textual features signify actuality: natural sounds, natural light or shaky hand-held camera, for example, are often used to connote the unprepared recording of reality. This is usually reinforced by the congruence between the duration of the scene and the diegetic time (the duration of the action that is represented). Furthermore, Who Do You Think You Are? emphasises authenticity by showing famous Australians as ordinary people in ordinary settings or doing mundane activities. As one of the SBS programmers pointed out during our interview: “It shows personalities or stars that you can never get to as real people and it makes you realise that those people, actually, they’re the same as you and I!” (SBS programmer). Celebrities are “real” in the sense that they exist in the profilmic world; but in this context showing celebrities “as real people” means showing them as ordinary individuals whom the audience can relate to and identify with. Instead of representing “stars” through their usual manufactured public personae, the program offers glimpses into their real lives and authentic selves, thus giving “backstage access to the famous” (Marwick and boyd 144). In this regard, the series aligns with other media texts, including “celebreality” programs and social networking sites like Twitter, whose appeal lies in the construction of more authentic and intimate presentations of celebrities (Marwick and boyd; Ellcessor; Thomas). This rhetoric of authenticity is enhanced by the celebrity’s genealogical journey, which is depicted both as a quest for historical knowledge and for self-knowledge. Indeed, as its title suggests, the program links ancestry to personal identity. In every episode, the genealogical investigation reveals similarities between the celebrity and their ancestors, thus uncovering personality traits that seem to have been transmitted from generation to generation. Thus, the series does more than simply showing celebrities as ordinary people “stripped of PR artifice and management” (Marwick and boyd 149): by unveiling those transgenerational traits, it discloses innermost aspects of the celebrities’ authentic selves—a backstage beyond the backstage. Who Do You Think You Are? communicates authenticity in these different ways in order to invite viewers’ trust. As Louise Spence and Vinicius Navarro observe, this is characteristic of most documentaries: Whereas fiction films may allude to actual events, documentaries usually claim that those events did take place in such and such a way, and that the images and sounds on the screen are accurate and reliable […] Most documentaries—if not all of them—have something to say about the world and, in one way or another, they want to be trusted by their audience. (Spence and Navarro 13) Similarly, Nichols writes that as documentary viewers, “we uphold our belief in the authenticity of the historical world represented on screen […] we assume that documentary sounds and images have the authenticity of evidence” (36). This is supported by Thomas Austin’s reception study of documentary films in the United Kingdom, which shows that most viewers expect documentaries to give them “access to the real.” According to Austin, these generic expectations about authenticity contribute to the pedagogic authority of documentaries. Therefore, the implied audience (Barker and Austin) of Who Do You Think You Are? must trust that it authentically represents actual events and individuals and they must perceive it as an accurate and reliable source of knowledge about the historical world in order to “attain a meaningful encounter” (48) with it. The implied audience in no way predicts actual audiences’ responses (which I will examine in the remainder of this article) but it is an important aspect of the program’s pedagogy: for the text to be read as a “history lesson” (Nichols 39) viewers must be persuaded by the program’s rhetoric of authenticity. Perceiving Authenticity My reception study confirms that in order to learn, viewers must be persuaded by this rhetoric of authenticity, which promises “information and knowledge, insight and awareness” (Nichols 40). This is illustrated by the responses of five viewers who participated in a screening and focus group discussion. Arya, Marnie, Junior, Lec and Krista all say that they have learnt from Who Do You Think You Are? either at home or from the episode that was screened before our discussion. They all agree that the program teaches about history, multiculturalism and other aspects that were not predicted by the producers (such as human nature, relationships and social issues). More importantly, these viewers learn from the program because they trust that it authentically represents actual events and because they perceive the personae as “natural”, “relaxed” and “being themselves” and their emotions as “genuine”: Krista: It felt genuine to me.Lec: Me also […]Marnie: I felt like he seemed more natural, even with the interpreter there, talking with his aunty. He seemed more himself, he was more emotional […]Arya: I don’t think that they’re acting. To go outside of this session, I mean, I’ve seen the show before and I think it is really genuine. As Austin notes, what matters from the viewers’ perspective is not “the critically scrutinised indexical guarantee of documentary, but rather a less well defined and nebulous sense of qualities such as the 'humanity', 'honesty', 'sincerity'.” This does not mean that viewers naively believe that the text gives a transparent, unmediated access to the truth (Austin). Trust (or in Austin’s words “willing abandonment”) can be combined with scepticism (Buckingham; Ang; Liebes and Katz). Marnie, for example, oscillates between these two modalities of response: Marnie: If something seems quite artificial, it stands out, you start thinking about well, why did they do that? But while they’re just sitting down, having a conversation, there’s not anything really that you have to think about. Obviously all those transition shots, sitting on the rock, opening a letter in the square, they also have, you know, the violins playing and everything. Everything builds to feel a bit more contrived, whereas when they’re having the conversation, I wasn’t aware of the music. Maybe I was listening to what they were saying more. But I think you sort of engage a bit more in listening to what they’re saying when they’re having a conversation. Whereas the filling, you’re not really thinking about his emotions so much as…why is he wearing that shirt? Interestingly, the scenes that Marnie perceives as authentic and that she engages with are the “conversations” scenes, which use the codes and conventions of the observational documentary. The scenes that she views with scepticism are the more dramatised sequences, which do not use the codes and conventions of the observational documentary. Marnie is the only viewer in my focus groups who clearly oscillates between trust and scepticism. She is also the most ambivalent about what she has learnt and about the quality of the knowledge that she gains from Who Do You Think You Are? Authenticity and Emotional Responses Because they believe that the personae and emotions in the program are genuine, these viewers are emotionally engaged. As the producers explain, learning from Who Do You Think You Are? is not a purely cognitive process but is fundamentally an emotional and empathetic experience: There are lots of programs on television where you can learn about history. I think what’s so powerful about this show is because it has a very strong emotional arc […] You can learn a lot of dates, and you can pass a test, just on knowing the year that the Blue Mountains were first crossed or the Magna Carta was signed. But what Who Do You Think You Are? does is that it takes you on a journey where you get to really feel the experiences of those people who were fighting the battle or climbing the mast. (Producer 2) The producers invite viewer empathy in two ways: they design the program so that viewers are encouraged to share the emotions of people who lived in the past; and they design it so that viewers are encouraged to share the emotions of the celebrities who participate in the program. This is illustrated by the participants’ responses to one scene in which the actor Don Hany sees an old photograph of his pregnant mother: Lec: I was touched! I was like “aw!”Ms Goldblum: I didn’t buy it.Krista: You didn’t feel like that, Lec?Lec: Not at all! Like, yeah, I got a bit touched.Junior: Yeah. And those looked like genuine tears, they weren’t crocodile tears.Ms Goldblum: I didn’t think so. There was a [sniffing], pause, pose, camera moment.Junior: I had a little moment…Krista: Aw!Interviewer: You had a moment?Junior: Yeah, there was a little moment there.Ms Goldblum: Got a little teary?Junior: When he’s looking at the photos, yeah. Because I think everyone’s done that, gone back and looked through old photos, you know what that feeling is. As this discussion suggests, authenticity is a crucial aspect of the program’s pedagogy, not only because the viewers must trust it in order to learn from it, but also because it facilitates empathy and emotional engagement. Distrust and Cynicism In contrast, the viewers who do not learn from Who Do You Think You Are? perceive the program as contrived and the celebrity’s emotions as inauthentic: Wolfgang: I don’t think they taught me much that I didn’t already know in regards to history.Naomi: Yeah, me neither […] I kind of look at these shows and think it’s a bit contrived […]Wolfgang: I hate all that. They’re constructing a show purely for money, that’s all bullshit. That annoys me […]Ms Goldblum: But for me the show is just about, I don’t know, they try to find something to be sentimental and it’s not. Like, they try to force it […] I didn’t buy it […] Because they are aware of the constructed nature of the program and because they perceive it as contrived, these viewers do not engage emotionally with the content: Naomi: When I see someone on this show looking at photos, I find it really difficult to stop thinking he’s got a camera on his face.Wolfgang: Yeah.Naomi: He’s looking at photos, and that’s a beautiful moment, but there’s a camera right there, looking at him, and I can’t help but think that when I see those things […] There are other people in the room that we don’t see and there’s a camera that’s pointing at him […] This intellectual distance is sometimes expressed through mockery and laughter (Buckingham). Because they distrust the program and make fun of it, Wolfgang and Ms Goldblum (who were not in the same focus group) are both described as “cynics”: Ms Goldblum: He gets all teary and I think oh he’s an actor he’s just putting that shit on, trying to make it look interesting. Whereas if it were just a normal person, I’d find it more believable. But I think the whole premise of the show is they take famous people, like actors and all those people in the spotlight, I think because they put on good shows. I would be more interested in someone who wasn’t famous. I’d find it more genuine.Junior: You are such a cynic! […]Wolfgang: And look, maybe I’m a big cynic about this, and that’s why I haven’t watched it. But it’s this emotionally padded, scripted, prompted kind of thing, which makes it more palatable for people to watch. Unlike most participants, who identify the program as “educational” and “documentary”, Wolfgang classifies it as pure entertainment. His cynicism and scepticism can be linked to his generic labelling of the program as “reality TV”: Wolfgang: I don’t watch commercial TV, I can’t stand it. And it’s for that reason. It’s all contrived. It’s all based on selling something as opposed to looking into this guy’s family and history and perhaps learning something from it. Like, it’s entertainment, it’s not educational […] It’s a reality TV sort of thing, I just got no interest in it really. As Annette Hill shows in her reception study of the reality game program Big Brother, most viewers are cynical about the authenticity of reality television. Despite the generic label of “reality”, most interpret reality programs as inauthentic. Indeed, as John Corner points out, reality television is characterised by display and performance, even though it adopts some of the codes and conventions of the documentary. Hill’s research also reveals that viewers often look for moments of authenticity within the unreal context of reality television: “the ‘game’ is to find the ‘truth’ in the spectacle/performance environment” (337). Interestingly, this describes Naomi and Wolfgang’s attitude towards Who Do You Think You Are?: Naomi: The conversation with his mum seemed a bit more relaxed, maybe. Or a bit more...I don’t know, I kind of look at these shows and think it’s a bit contrived. Whereas that seemed a bit more natural […]Wolfgang: Often he’s just sitting there and I suppose those are filling shots. But I found that when he was chatting to his aunty and seeing the photos that he hadn’t seen before, when he was a child, he was tearing up […] That’s probably the one time I didn’t notice, like, didn’t think about the cameras because I found it quite powerful, when he was tearing up, that was a kind of an emotional moment. According to Austin, viewers’ discourses about authenticity in relation to documentaries and reality television serve as markers of cultural distinction: Often underpinning expressions of the appeal of 'the real', the use of a discourse of authenticity frequently revealed taste markers and a set of cultural distinctions deployed by these cinemagoers, notably between the veracity and 'honesty' of Etre et Avoir [a French documentary] and the contrasting 'fakery' and 'inauthenticity' of reality television. Describing documentaries as authentic and educational and reality television as fake entertainment can be a way for some (middle-class) viewers to assert their socio-cultural status. By performing as the sceptical and cynical viewer and criticising lower cultural forms, research participants distinguish themselves from the imagined mass of unsophisticated and uneducated (working class?) viewers (Buckingham; Austin). Conclusion Some scholars suggest that viewers learn when they compare what they watch on television to their own experiences or when they identify with television characters or personae (Noble and Noble; Tulloch and Lupton; Tulloch and Moran; Buckingham and Bragg). My study contributes to this field of inquiry by showing that viewers learn when they perceive televisual content as authentic and as a reliable source of knowledge. More importantly, the results reveal how some televisual texts signify authenticity to invite trust and learning. This study raises questions about the role of trust and authenticity in televisual learning and it would be fruitful to pursue further research to determine whether these findings apply to genres that are not factual. Examining the production, textual features and reception of fictional programs to understand how they convey authenticity and how this sense of truthfulness influences viewers’ learning would be useful to draw more general conclusions about televisual pedagogy, and perhaps more broadly about the role of trust and authenticity in education. References Ang, Ien. Watching Dallas: Soap Opera and the Melodramatic Imagination. London: Methuen, 1985. Austin, Thomas. "Seeing, Feeling, Knowing: A Case Study of Audience Perspectives on Screen Documentary." Participations 2.1 (2005). 20 Nov. 2014 ‹http://www.participations.org/volume%202/issue%201/2_01_austin.htm›. Barker, Martin, and Thomas Austin. From Antz to Titanic: Reinventing Film Analysis. London: Pluto Press, 2000. Big Brother. Exec. Prod. John de Mol. Channel 4. 2000. Buckingham, David. Children Talking Television: The Making of Television Literacy. London: The Falmer Press, 1993. Buckingham, David, and Sara Bragg. Young People, Media and Personal Relationships. London: The Independent Television Commission, 2003. Corner, John. "Performing the Real: Documentary Diversions." Television & New Media 3.3 (2002): 255—69. "Don Hany." Who Do You Think You Are? Series 5, Episode 3. SBS. 16 Apr. 2013. Ellcessor, Elizabeth. "Tweeting @feliciaday: Online Social Media, Convergence, and Subcultural Stardom." Cinema Journal 51.2 (2012): 46-66. Hill, Annette. "Big Brother: The Real Audience." Television & New Media 3.3 (2002): 323-40. Liebes, Tamar, and Elihu Katz. The Export of Meaning: Cross-Cultural Readings of Dallas. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1990. Marwick, Alice, and danah boyd. "To See and Be Seen: Celebrity Practice on Twitter." Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies 17.2 (2011): 139-58. McCarthy, E. Doyle. “Emotional Performances as Dramas of Authenticity.” Authenticity in Culture, Self, and Society. Eds. Phillip Vannini & J. Patrick Williams. Farnham: Ashgate Publishing, 2009. 241-55. Nichols, Bill. Introduction to Documentary, Second Edition. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 2001. Noble, Grant, and Elizabeth Noble. "A Study of Teenagers' Uses and Gratifications of the Happy Days Shows." Media Information Australia 11 (1979): 17-24. Producer 1. Personal Interview. 29 Sept. 2013. Producer 2. Personal Interview. 10 Oct. 2013. Renov, Michael. Theorizing Documentary. New York: Routledge, 1993. SBS Programmer. Personal Interview. 22 Nov. 2013. Spence, Louise, and Vinicius Navarro. Crafting Truth: Documentary Form and Meaning. New Brunswick: Rutgers UP, 2011. Thomas, Sarah. "Celebrity in the ‘Twitterverse’: History, Authenticity and the Multiplicity of Stardom Situating the ‘Newness’ of Twitter." Celebrity Studies 5.3 (2014): 242-55. Tulloch, John, and Deborah Lupton. Television, Aids and Risk: A Cultural Studies Approach to Health Communication. Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1997. Tulloch, John, and Albert Moran. 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We take as our subject what many would deem a waste of good celluloid: the degraded cultural form of the stoner film. Stoner films plot the experiences of the wasted (those intoxicated on marijuana) as they exhibit wastefulness—excessiveness, improvidence, decay—on a number of fronts. Stoners waste time in constantly hunting for pot and in failing to pursue more productive activity whilst wasted. Stoners waste their minds, both literally, if we believe contested studies that indicate marijuana smoking kills brains cells, and figuratively, in rendering themselves cognitively impaired. Stoners waste their bodies through the dangerous practice of smoking and through the tendency toward physical inertia. Stoners waste money on marijuana firstly, but also on such sophomoric accoutrements as the stoner film itself. Stoners lay waste to convention in excessively seeking pleasure and in dressing and acting outrageously. And stoners, if the scatological humour of so many stoner films is any index, are preoccupied with bodily waste. Stoners, we argue here, waste whiteness as well. As the likes of Jesse and Chester (Dude, Where’s My Car?), Wayne and Garth (Wayne’s World), Bill and Ted (Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure) and Jay and Silent Bob (Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back) make clear, whiteness looms large in stoner films. Yet the genre, we argue, disavows its own whiteness, in favour of a post-white hybridity that lavishly squanders white privilege. For all its focus on whiteness, filmic wastedness has always been an ethnically diverse and ambiguous category. The genre’s origins in the work of Cheech Marin, a Chicano, and Tommy Chong, a Chinese-European Canadian, have been buttressed in this regard by many African American contributions to the stoner oeuvre, including How High, Half Baked and Friday, as well as by Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle, and its Korean-American and Indian-American protagonists. Cheech and Chong initiated the genre with the release of Up in Smoke in 1978. A host of films have followed featuring protagonists who spend much of their time smoking and seeking marijuana (or—in the case of stoner films such as Dude, Where’s My Car? released during the height of the War on Drugs—acting stoned without ever being seen to get stoned). Inspired in part by the 1938 anti-marijuana film Reefer Madness, and the unintended humour such propaganda films begat amongst marijuana smokers, stoner films are comedies that satirise both marijuana culture and its prohibition. Self-consciously slapstick, the stoner genre excludes more serious films about drugs, from Easy Rider to Shaft, as well as films such as The Wizard of Oz, Yellow Submarine, the Muppet movies, and others popular amongst marijuana smokers because of surreal content. Likewise, a host of films that include secondary stoner characters, such as Jeff Spicoli in Fast Times at Ridgemont High and Wooderson in Dazed and Confused, are commonly excluded from the genre on the grounds that the stoner film, first and foremost, celebrates stonerism, that is “serious commitment to smoking and acquiring marijuana as a lifestyle choice.” (Meltzer). Often taking the form of the “buddy film,” stoner flicks generally feature male leads and frequently exhibit a decidedly masculinist orientation, with women, for the most part reduced to little more than the object of the white male gaze.The plot, such as it is, of the typical stoner film concerns the search for marijuana (or an accessory, such as junk food) and the improbable misadventures that ensue. While frequently represented as resourceful and energetic in their quest for marijuana, filmic stoners otherwise exhibit ambivalent attitudes toward enterprise that involves significant effort. Typically represented as happy and peaceable, filmic stoners rarely engage in conflict beyond regular clashes with authority figures determined to enforce anti-drug laws, and other measures that stoners take to be infringements upon happiness. While Hollywood’s stoners thus share a sense of entitlement to pleasure, they do not otherwise exhibit a coherent ideological orthodoxy beyond a certain libertarian and relativistic open-mindedness. More likely to take inspiration from comic book heroes than Aldous Huxley or Timothy Leary, stoners are most often portrayed as ‘dazed and confused,’ and could be said to waste the intellectual tradition of mind expansion that Leary represents. That stoner films are, at times, misunderstood to be quintessentially white is hardly suprising. As a social construct that creates, maintains and legitimates white domination, whiteness manifests, as one of its most defining features, an ability to swallow up difference and to insist upon, at critical junctures, a universal subjectivity that disallows for difference (hooks 167). Such universalising not only sanctions co-optation of ethnic cultural expression, it also functions to mask whiteness’s existence, thus reinforcing its very power. Whiteness, as Richard Dyer argues, is simultaneously everywhere and nowhere. It obfuscates itself and its relationship to the particular traits it is said to embody—disinterest, prudence, temperance, rationality, bodily restraint, industriousness (3). Whiteness is thus constructed as neither an ethnic nor racial particularity, but rather the transcendence of such positionality (Wiegman 139). While non-whites are raced, to be white is to be “just human” and thus to possess the power to “claim to speak for the commonality of humanity” whilst denying the accrual of any particular racial privilege (Dyer 2). In refuting its own advantages—which are so wide ranging (from preferential treatment in housing loans, to the freedom to fail without fear of reflecting badly on other whites) that they are, like whiteness itself, both assumed and unproblematic—whiteness instantiates individualism, allowing whites to believe that their successes are in no way the outcome of systematic racial advantage, but rather the product of individual toil (McIntosh; Lipsitz). An examination of the 1978 stoner film Up in Smoke suggests that whatever the ethnic ambiguity of the figure of the stoner, the genre of the stoner film is all about the wasting of whiteness. Up in Smoke opens with two alternating domestic scenes. We first encounter Pedro De Pacas (Cheech Marin) in a cluttered and shadowy room as his siblings romp affectionately upon his back, waking him from his slumber on the couch. Pedro rises, stepping into a bowl of cereal on the floor. He stumbles to the bathroom, where, sleepy and disoriented, he urinates into the laundry hamper. The chaos of Pedro’s disrupted sleep is followed in the film by a more metaphoric awakening as Anthony Stoner (Tommy Chong) determines to leave home. The scene takes place in a far more orderly, light and lavish room. The space’s overpowering whiteness is breached only by the figure of Anthony and his unruly black hair, bushy black beard, and loud Hawaiian shirt, which vibrates with colour against the white walls, white furnishings and white curtains. We watch as Anthony, behind an elaborate bar, prepares a banana protein shake, impassively ignoring his parents, both clothed in all-white, as they clutch martini glasses and berate their son for his lack of ambition. Arnold Stoner [father]: Son, your mother and me would like for you to cozy up to the Finkelstein boy. He's a bright kid, and, uh... he's going to military school, and remember, he was an Eagle Scout. Tempest Stoner [mother]: Arnold…Arnold Stoner: [shouts over/to his wife] Will you shut up? We’re not going to have a family brawl!Tempest Stoner: [continues talking as her husband shouts]…. Retard.Arnold Stoner: [to Anthony] We've put up with a hell of a lot.[Anthony starts blender] Can this wait? ... Build your goddamn muscles, huh? You know, you could build your muscles picking strawberries.You know, bend and scoop... like the Mexicans. Shit, maybe I could get you a job with United Fruit. I got a buddy with United Fruit. ... Get you started. Start with strawberries, you might work your way up to these goddamn bananas! When, boy? When...are you going to get your act together?Anthony: [Burps]Tempest Stoner: Gross.Arnold Stoner: Oh, good God Almighty me. I think he's the Antichrist. Anthony, I want to talk to you. [Anthony gathers his smoothie supplements and begins to walk out of the room.] Now, listen! Don't walk away from me when I'm talking to you! You get a goddamn job before sundown, or we're shipping you off to military school with that goddamn Finkelstein shit kid! Son of a bitch!The whiteness of Anthony’s parents is signified so pervasively and so strikingly in this scene—in their improbable white outfits and in the room’s insufferably white décor—that we come to understand it as causative. The rage and racism of Mr. Stoner’s tirade, the scene suggests, is a product of whiteness itself. Given that whiteness achieves and maintains its domination via both ubiquity and invisibility, what Up in Smoke accomplishes in this scene is notable. Arnold Stoner’s tortured syntax (“that goddamn Finkelstein shit kid”) works to “mak[e] whiteness strange” (Dyer 4), while the scene’s exaggerated staging delineates whiteness as “a particular – even peculiar – identity, rather than a presumed norm” (Roediger, Colored White 21). The belligerence of the senior Stoners toward not only their son and each other, but the world at large, in turn, functions to render whiteness intrinsically ruthless and destructive. Anthony’s parents, in all their whiteness, enact David Roediger’s assertion that “it is not merely that ‘Whiteness’s is oppressive and false; it is that ‘Whiteness’s is nothing but oppressive and false” (Toward the Abolition 13).Anthony speaks not a word during the scene. He communicates only by belching and giving his parents the finger as he leaves the room and the home. This departure is significant in that it marks the moment when Anthony, hereafter known only as “Man,” flees the world of whiteness. He winds up taking refuge in the multi-hued world of stonerism, as embodied in the scene that follows, which features Pedro emerging from his home to interact with his Chicano neighbours and to lovingly inspect his car. As a lowrider, a customised vehicle that “begin[s] with the abandoned materials of one tradition (that of mainstream America), … [and is] … then transformed and recycled . . . into new and fresh objects of art which are distinctly Chicano,” Pedro’s car serves as a symbol of the cultural hybridisation that Man is about to undergo (quoted in Ondine 141).As Man’s muteness in the presence of his parents suggests, his racial status seems tentative from the start. Within the world of whiteness, Man is the subaltern, silenced and denigrated, finding voice only after he befriends Pedro. Even as the film identifies Man as white through his parental lineage, it renders indeterminate its own assertion, destabilising any such fixed or naturalised schema of identity. When Man is first introduced to Pedro’s band as their newest member, James, the band’s African American bass player, looks at Man, dressed in the uniform of the band, and asks: “Hey Pedro, where’s the white dude you said was playing the drums?” Clearly, from James’s point of view, the room contains no white dudes, just stoners. Man’s presumed whiteness becomes one of the film’s countless gags, the provocative ambiguity of the casting of a Chinese-European to play a white part underscored in the film by the equally implausible matter of age. Man, according to the film’s narrative, is a high school student; Chong was forty when the film was released. Like his age, Man’s whiteness is never a good fit. That Man ultimately winds up sleeping on the very couch upon which we first encounter Pedro suggests how radical and final the break with his dubious white past is. The “Mexicans” whom his father would mock as fit only for abject labour are amongst those whom Man comes to consider his closest companions. In departing his parents’ white world, and embracing Pedro’s dilapidated, barrio-based world of wastedness, Man traces the geographies narrated by George Lipsitz in The Possessive Investment in Whiteness. Historically, Lipsitz argues, the development of affluent white space (the suburbs) was made possible by the disintegration of African American, Chicano and other minority neighbourhoods disadvantaged by federal, state, and corporate housing, employment, health care, urban renewal, and education policies that favoured whites over non-whites. In this sense, Man’s flight from his parents’ home is a retreat from whiteness itself, and from the advantages that whiteness conveys. In choosing the ramshackle, non-white world of stonerism, Man performs an act of racial treachery. Whiteness, Lipsitz contends, has “cash value,” and “is invested in, like property, but it is also a means of accumulating property and keeping it from others,” which allows for “intergenerational transfers of inherited wealth that pass on the spoils of discrimination to succeeding generations” (vii-viii). Man’s disavowal of the privileges of whiteness is a reckless refusal to accept this racial birthright. Whiteness is thus wasted upon Man because Man wastes his whiteness. Given the centrality of prudence and restraint to hegemonic constructions of whiteness, Man’s willingness to squander the “valuable asset” that is his white inheritance is especially treasonous (Harris 1713). Man is the prodigal son of whiteness, a profligate who pours down the drain “the wages of whiteness” that his forbearers have spent generations accruing and protecting (Roediger, The Wages of Whiteness). His waste not only offends the core values which whiteness is said to comprise, it also denigrates whiteness itself by illuminating the excess of white privilege, as well as the unarticulated excess of meanings that hover around whiteness to create the illusion of transcendence and infinite variety. Man’s performance, like all bad performances of whiteness, “disrupt[s] implicit understandings of what it means to be white” (Hartigan 46). The spectre of seeing white domination go ‘up in smoke’—via wasting, as opposed to hoarding, white privilege—amounts to racial treason, and helps not only to explicate why whites in the film find stonerism so menacing, but also to explain the paradox of “pot [making] the people who don’t smoke it even more paranoid than the people who do” (Patterson). While Tommy Chong’s droll assertion that "what makes us so dangerous is that we're harmless" ridicules such paranoia, it ultimately fails to account for the politics of subversive squandering of white privilege that characterise the stoner film (“Biographies”). Stoners in Up in Smoke, as in most other stoner films, are marked as non-white, through association with ethnic Others, through their rejection of mainstream ideas about work and achievement, and/or through their lack of bodily restraint in relentlessly seeking pleasure, in dressing outrageously, and in refusing to abide conventional grooming habits. Significantly, the non-white status of the stoner is both voluntary and deliberate. While stonerism embraces its own non-whiteness, its Otherness is not signified, primarily, through racial cross-dressing of the sort Eric Lott detects in Elvis, but rather through race-mixing. Stoner collectivity practices an inclusivity that defies America’s historic practice of racial and ethnic segregation (Lott 248). Stonerism further reveals its unwillingness to abide constrictive American whiteness in a scene in which Pedro and Man, both US-born Americans, are deported. The pair are rounded up along with Pedro’s extended family in a raid initiated when Pedro’s cousin “narcs” on himself to la migra (the Immigration and Naturalization Service) in order to get free transport for his extended family to his wedding in Tijuana. Pedro and Man return to the US as unwitting tricksters, bringing back to the US more marijuana than has ever crossed the Mexican-US border at one time, fusing the relationship between transnationalism and wastedness. The disrespect that stoners exhibit for pregnable US borders contests presumed Chicano powerlessness in the face of white force and further affronts whiteness, which historically has mobilised itself most virulently at the threat of alien incursion. Transgression here is wilful and playful; stoners intend to offend normative values and taste through their actions, their dress, and non-white associations as part of the project of forging a new hybridised, transnational subjectivity that threatens to lay waste to whiteness’s purity and privilege. Stoners invite the scrutiny of white authority with their outrageous attire and ethnically diverse composition, turning the “inevitability of surveillance” (Borrie 87) into an opportunity to enact their own wastedness—their wasted privilege, their wasted youth, their wasted potential—before a gaze that is ultimately confounded and threatened by the chaotic hybridity with which it is faced (Hebdige 26). By perpetually displaying his/her wasted Otherness, the stoner makes of him/herself a “freak,” a label cops use derisively throughout Up in Smoke to denote the wasted without realising that stoners define themselves in precisely such terms, and, by doing so, obstruct whiteness’s assertion of universal subjectivity. Pedro’s cousin Strawberry (Tom Skerritt), a pot dealer, enacts freakishness by exhibiting a large facial birthmark and by suffering from Vietnam-induced Post Traumatic Stress disorder. A freak in every sense of the word, Strawberry is denied white status by virtue of physical and mental defect. But Strawberry, as a stoner, ultimately wants whiteness even less than it wants him. The defects that deny him membership in the exclusive “club” that is whiteness prove less significant than the choice he makes to defect from the ranks of whiteness and join with Man in the decision to waste his whiteness wantonly (“Editorial”). Stoner masculinity is represented as similarly freakish and defective. While white authority forcefully frustrates the attempts of Pedro and Man to “score” marijuana, the duo’s efforts to “score” sexually are thwarted by their own in/action. More often than not, wastedness produces impotence in Up in Smoke, either literally or figuratively, wherein the confusion and misadventures that attend pot-smoking interrupt foreplay. The film’s only ostensible sex scene is unconsummated, a wasted opportunity for whiteness to reproduce itself when Man sleeps through his girlfriend’s frenzied discussion of sex. During the course of Up in Smoke, Man dresses as a woman while hitchhiking, Pedro mistakes Man for a woman, Man sits on Pedro’s lap when they scramble to change seats whilst being pulled over by the police, Man suggests that Pedro has a “small dick,” Pedro reports liking “manly breasts,” and Pedro—unable to urinate in the presence of Sgt. Stedenko—tells his penis that if it does not perform, he will “put [it] back in the closet.” Such attenuations of the lead characters’ masculinity climax in the penultimate scene, in which Pedro, backed by his band, performs “Earache My Eye,” a song he has just composed backstage, whilst adorned in pink tutu, garter belt, tassle pasties, sequined opera mask and Mickey Mouse ears: My momma talkin’ to me tryin’ to tell me how to liveBut I don't listen to her cause my head is like a sieveMy daddy he disowned me cause I wear my sister's clothesHe caught me in the bathroom with a pair of pantyhoseMy basketball coach he done kicked me off the teamFor wearing high heeled sneakers and acting like a queen“Earache My Eye” corroborates the Othered natured of stonerism by marking stoners, already designated as non-white, as non-straight. In a classic iteration of a bad gender performance, the scene rejects both whiteness and its hegemonic partners-in-crime, heterosexuality and normative masculinity (Butler 26). Here stoners waste not only their whiteness, but also their white masculinity. Whiteness, and its dependence upon “intersection … [with] interlocking axes [of power such as] gender … [and] sexuality,” is “outed” in this scene (Shome 368). So, too, is it enfeebled. In rendering masculinity freakish and defective, the film threatens whiteness at its core. For if whiteness can not depend upon normative masculinity for its reproduction, then, like Man’s racial birthright, it is wasted. The stoner’s embodiment of freakishness further works to emphasise wasted whiteness by exposing just how hysterical whiteness’s defense of its own normativity can be. Up in Smoke frequently inflates not only the effects of marijuana, but also the eccentricities of those who smoke it, a strategy which means that much of the film’s humour turns on satirising hegemonic stereotypes of marijuana smokers. Equally, Cheech Marin’s exaggerated “slapstick, one-dimensional [portrayal] of [a] Chicano character” works to render ridiculous the very stereotypes his character incarnates (List 183). While the film deconstructs processes of social construction, it also makes extensive use of counter-stereotyping in its depictions of characters marked as white. The result is that whiteness’s “illusion of [its] own infinite variety” is contested and the lie of whiteness as non-raced is exposed, helping to explain the stoner’s decision to waste his/her whiteness (Dyer 12; 2). In Up in Smoke whiteness is the colour of straightness. Straights, who are willing neither to smoke pot nor to tolerate the smoking of pot by others/Others, are so comprehensively marked as white in the film that whiteness and straightness become isomorphic. As a result, the same stereotypes are mobilised in representing whiteness and straightness: incompetence, belligerence, hypocrisy, meanspiritedness, and paranoia, qualities that are all the more oppressive because virtually all whites/straights in the film occupy positions of authority. Anthony’s spectacularly white parents, as we have seen, are bigoted and dominating. Their whiteness is further impugned by alcohol, which fuels Mr. Stoner’s fury and Mrs. Stoner’s unintelligibility. That the senior Stoners are drunk before noon works, of course, to expose the hypocrisy of those who would indict marijuana use while ignoring the social damage alcohol can produce. Their inebriation (revealed as chronic in the DVD’s outtake scenes) takes on further significance when it is configured as a decidedly white attribute. Throughout the film, only characters marked as white consume alcohol—most notably, the judge who is discovered to be drinking vodka whist adjudicating drug charges against Pedro and Man—therefore dislodging whiteness’s self-construction as temperate, and suggesting just how wasted whiteness is. While stonerism is represented as pacific, drunkenness is of a piece with white/straight bellicosity. In Up in Smoke, whites/straights crave confrontation and discord, especially the angry, uptight, and vainglorious narcotics cop Sgt. Stedenko (Stacey Keech) who inhabits so many of the film’s counter-stereotypes. While a trio of white cops roughly apprehend and search a carload of innocent nuns in a manner that Man describes as “cold blooded,” Stedenko, unawares in the foreground, gives an interview about his plans for what he hopes will be the biggest border drug bust in US history: “[Reporter:] Do you expect to see any violence here today? [Sgt. Stedenko:] I certainly hope so.” Stedenko’s desire to act violently against stoners echoes mythologies of white regeneration in the Old West, wherein whiteness refurbished itself through violent attacks on Native Americans, whose wasteful cultures failed to make “civilised” use of western lands (Slotkin 565).White aggression is relentlessly depicted in the film, with one important exception: the instance of the stoned straight. Perhaps no other trope is as defining of the genre, as is the scene wherein a straight person accidentally becomes stoned. Up in Smoke offers several examples, most notably the scene in which a motorcycle cop pulls over Pedro and Man as they drive a van belonging to Pedro’s Uncle Chuey. In a plot twist requiring a degree of willing suspension of disbelief that even wasted audiences might find a stretch, the exterior shell of the van, unbeknownst to Pedro and Man, is made entirely of marijuana which has started to smoulder around the exhaust pipe. The cop, who becomes intoxicated whilst walking through the fumes, does not hassle Pedro and Man, as expected, but instead asks for a bite of their hot dog and then departs happily, instructing the duo to “have a nice day.” In declining, or perhaps simply forgetting, to exercise his authority, the cop demonstrates the regenerative potential not of violent whiteness but rather of hybrid wastedness. Marijuana here is transformative, morphing straight consciousness into stoner consciousness and, in the process, discharging all the uptight, mean-spirited, unnecessary, and hence wasteful baggage of whiteness along the way. While such a utopian potential for pot is both upheld and satirised in the film, the scene amounts to far more than an inconsequential generic gag, in that it argues for the disavowal of whiteness via the assumption of the voluntary Otherness that is stonerism. Whiteness, the scene suggests, can be cast off, discarded, wasted and thus surmounted. Whites, for want of a better phrase, simply need to ‘just say no’ to whiteness in order to excrete the brutality that is its necessary affliction and inevitable result. While Up in Smoke laudably offers a powerful refusal to horde the assets of whiteness, the film fails to acknowledge that ‘just saying no’ is, indeed, one of whiteness’s exclusive privileges, since whites and only whites possess the liberty to refuse the advantages whiteness bestows. Non-whites possess no analogical ability to jettison the social constructions to which they are subjected, to refuse the power of dominant classes to define their subjectivity. Neither does the film confront the fact that Man nor any other of Up in Smoke’s white freaks are disallowed from re-embracing their whiteness, and its attendant value, at any time. However inchoate the film’s challenge to racial privilege, Up in Smoke’s celebration of the subversive pleasures of wasting whiteness offers a tentative, if bleary, first step toward ‘the abolition of whiteness.’ Its utopian vision of a post-white hybridised subjectivity, however dazed and confused, is worthy of far more serious contemplation than the film, taken at face value, might seem to suggest. Perhaps Up in Smoke is a stoner film that should also be viewed while sober. ReferencesBill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure. Dir. Stephen Herek. Orion Pictures Corporation, 1989.“Biographies”. 10 June 2010 ‹http://www.cheechandchongfans.com/biography.html›. Borrie, Lee. "Wild Ones: Containment Culture and 1950s Youth Rebellion”. Diss. University of Canterbury, 2007.Butler, Judith. "Critically Queer”. GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies 1.1 (1993): 17-32.Chavoya, C. Ondine. “Customized Hybrids: The Art of Ruben Ortiz Torres and Lowriding in Southern California”. CR: The New Centennial Review 4.2 (2004): 141-84.Clerks. Dir. Kevin Smith. Miramax Films, 1994. Dazed and Confused. Dir. Richard Linklater. Cineplex Odeon Films, 1993. Dude, Where’s My Car? Dir. Danny Leiner. Twentieth Century Fox, 2000.Dyer, Richard. White: Essays on Race and Culture. London: Routledge, 1997.“Editorial: Abolish the White Race—By Any Means Necessary”. Race Traitor 1 (1993). 9 June 2010 ‹http://racetraitor.org/abolish.html›.Fast Times at Ridgemont High. Dir. Amy Heckerling. Universal Pictures, 1982.Friday. Dir. F. Gary Gray. New Line Cinema, 1995.Half Baked. Dir. Tamra Davis. Universal Pictures, 1998.Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle. Dir. Danny Leiner. New Line Cinema, 2004.Harris, Cheryl. “Whiteness as Property”. Harvard Law Review 106 (1993): 1707-1791. Hartigan, John Jr. “Objectifying ‘Poor Whites and ‘White Trash’ in Detroit”. White Trash: Race and Class in America. Eds. Matt Wray, and Annalee Newitz. NY: Routledge, 1997. 41-56.Hebdige, Dick. Subculture: The Meaning of Style. London: Methuen, 1979.hooks, bell. Black Looks: Race and Representation. Boston: South End Press, 1992.How High. Dir. Jesse Dylan. Universal Pictures, 2001.Lipsitz, George. The Possessive Investment in Whiteness: How White People Profit fromIdentity Politics. Philadelphia: Temple UP, 2006. List, Christine. "Self-Directed Stereotyping in the Films of Cheech Marin”. Chicanos and Film: Representation and Resistance. Ed. Chon A. Noriega. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1992. 183-94.Lott, Eric. “Racial Cross-Dressing and the Construction of American Whiteness”. The Cultural Studies Reader. 2nd ed. Ed. Simon During. London: Routledge, 1999. 241-55.McIntosh, Peggy. “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack”. 10 June 2010 ‹http://www.case.edu/president/aaction/UnpackingTheKnapsack.pdf›.Meltzer, Marisa. “Leisure and Innocence: The Eternal Appeal of the Stoner Movie”. Slate 26 June 2007. 10 Aug. 2010 ‹http://www.slate.com/id/2168931›.Toni Morrison. Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1992.Patterson, John. “High and Mighty”. The Guardian 7 June 2008. 10 June 2010 ‹http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2008/jun/07/2›.Roediger, David. Colored White: Transcending the Racial Past. Berkeley: U of California P, 2002.Roediger, David. The Wages of Whiteness: Race and the Making of the American Working Class. Rev. ed. London: Verso Books, 1999.———. Towards the Abolition of Whiteness: Essays on Race, Class and Politics. London: Verso Books, 1994.Shome, Raka. “Outing Whiteness”. Critical Studies in Media Communication 17.3 (2000): 366-71.Slotkin, Richard. Regeneration through Violence: The Mythology of the American Frontier. Norman: U of Oklahoma P, 1973.Up in Smoke. Dir. Lou Adler. Paramount Pictures, 1978.Wayne’s World. Dir. Penelope Spheeris. Paramount Pictures, 1992.Wiegman, Robyn. “Whiteness Studies and the Paradox of Particularity”. boundary 2 26.3 (1999): 115-50.

This essay combines life writing with meditations on the significance of walking as integral to the ritual practice of pilgrimage, where the individual improves her soul or health through the act of walking to a shrine containing healing relics of a saint. Braiding together insights from medieval literature, contemporary ecocriticism, and memory studies, I reflect on my own pilgrimage practice as it impacts the land itself. Canterbury, England serves as the central shrine for four pilgrimages over decades: 1966, 1994, 1997, and 2003.The act of memory was not invented in the Anthropocene. Rather, the nonhuman world has taught humans how to remember. From ice-core samples retaining the history of Europe’s weather to rocks embedded with fossilized extinct species, nonhuman actors literally petrifying or freezing the past—from geologic sites to frozen water—become exposed through the process of anthropocentric discovery and human interference. The very act of human uncovery and analysis threatens to eliminate the nonhuman actor which has hospitably shared its own experience. How can humans script nonhuman memory?As for the history of memory studies itself, a new phase is arguably beginning, shifting from “the transnational, transcultural, or global to the planetary; from recorded to deep history; from the human to the nonhuman” (Craps et al. 3). Memory studies for the Anthropocene can “focus on the terrestrialized significance of (the historicized) forms of remembrance but also on the positioning of who is remembering and, ultimately, which ‘Anthropocene’ is remembered” (Craps et al. 5). In this era of the “self-conscious Anthropocene” (Craps et al. 6), narrative itself can focus on “the place of nonhuman beings in human stories of origins, identity, and futures point to a possible opening for the methods of memory studies” (Craps et al. 8). The nonhuman on the paths of this essay range from the dirt on the path to the rock used to build the sacred shrine, the ultimate goal. How they intersect with human actors reveals how the “human subject is no longer the one forming the world, but does indeed constitute itself through its relation to and dependence on the object world” (Marcussen 14, qtd. in Rodriguez 378). Incorporating “nonhuman species as objects, if not subjects, of memory [...] memory critics could begin by extending their objects to include the memory of nonhuman species,” linking both humans and nonhumans in “an expanded multispecies frame of remembrance” (Craps et al. 9). My narrative—from diaries recording sacred journey to a novel structured by pilgrimage—propels motion, but also secures in memory events from the past, including memories of those nonhuman beings I interact with.Childhood PilgrimageThe little girl with brown curls sat crying softly, whimpering, by the side of the road in lush grass. The mother with her soft brown bangs and an underflip to her hair told the story of a little girl, sitting by the side of the road in lush grass.The story book girl had forgotten her Black Watch plaid raincoat at the picnic spot where she had lunched with her parents and two older brothers. Ponchos spread out, the family had eaten their fresh yeasty rolls, hard cheese, apples, and macaroons. The tin clink of the canteen hit their teeth as they gulped metallic water, still icy cold from the taps of the ancient inn that morning. The father cut slices of Edam with his Swiss army knife, parsing them out to each child to make his or her own little sandwich. The father then lay back for his daily nap, while the boys played chess. The portable wooden chess set had inlaid squares, each piece no taller than a fingernail paring. The girl read a Junior Puffin book, while the mother silently perused Agatha Christie. The boy who lost at chess had to play his younger sister, a fitting punishment for the less able player. She cheerfully played with either brother. Once the father awakened, they packed up their gear into their rucksacks, and continued the pilgrimage to Canterbury.Only the little Black Watch plaid raincoat was left behind.The real mother told the real girl that the story book family continued to walk, forgetting the raincoat until it began to rain. The men pulled on their ponchos and the mother her raincoat, when the little girl discovered her raincoat missing. The story book men walked two miles back while the story book mother and girl sat under the dripping canopy of leaves provided by a welcoming tree.And there, the real mother continued, the storybook girl cried and whimpered, until a magic taxi cab in which the father and boys sat suddenly appeared out of the mist to drive the little girl and her mother to their hotel.The real girl’s eyes shone. “Did that actually happen?” she asked, perking up in expectation.“Oh, yes,” said the real mother, kissing her on the brow. The girl’s tears dried. Only the plops of rain made her face moist. The little girl, now filled with hope, cuddled with her mother as they huddled together.Without warning, out of the mist, drove up a real magic taxi cab in which the real men sat. For magic taxi cabs really exist, even in the tangible world—especially in England. At the very least, in the England of little Susie’s imagination.Narrative and PilgrimageMy mother’s tale suggests how this story echoes in yet another pilgrimage story, maintaining a long tradition of pilgrimage stories embedded within frame tales as far back as the Middle Ages.The Christian pilgrim’s walk parallels Christ’s own pilgrimage to Emmaus. The blisters we suffer echo faintly the lash Christ endured. The social relations of the pilgrim are “diachronic” (Alworth 98), linking figures (Christ) from the past to the now (us, or, during the Middle Ages, William Langland’s Piers Plowman or Chaucer’s band who set out from Southwark). We embody the frame of the vera icon, the true image, thus “conjur[ing] a site of simultaneity or a plane of immanence where the actors of the past [...] meet those of the future” (Alworth 99). Our quotidian walk frames the true essence or meaning of our ambulatory travail.In 1966, my parents took my two older brothers and me on the Pilgrims’ Way—not the route from London to Canterbury that Chaucer’s pilgrims would have taken starting south of London in Southwark, rather the ancient trek from Winchester to Canterbury, famously chronicled in The Old Road by Hilaire Belloc. The route follows along the south side of the Downs, where the muddy path was dried by what sun there was. My parents first undertook the walk in the early 1950s. Slides from that pilgrimage depict my mother, voluptuous in her cashmere twinset and tweed skirt, as my father crosses a stile. My parents, inspired by Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, decided to walk along the traditional Pilgrims’ Way to Canterbury. Story intersects with material traversal over earth on dirt-laden paths.By the time we children came along, the memories of that earlier pilgrimage resonated with my parents, inspiring them to take us on the same journey. We all carried our own rucksacks and walked five or six miles a day. Concerning our pilgrimage when I was seven, my mother wrote in her diary:As good pilgrims should, we’ve been telling tales along the way. Yesterday Jimmy told the whole (detailed) story of That Darn Cat, a Disney movie. Today I told about Stevenson’s Travels with a Donkey, which first inspired me to think of walking trips and everyone noted the resemblance between Stevenson’s lovable, but balky, donkey and our sweet Sue. (We hadn’t planned to tell tales, but they just happened along the way.)I don’t know how sweet I was; perhaps I was “balky” because the road was so hard. Landscape certainly shaped my experience.As I wrote about the pilgrimage in my diary then, “We went to another Hotel and walked. We went and had lunch at the Boggly [booglie] place. We went to a nother hotel called The Swan with fether Quits [quilts]. We went to the Queens head. We went to the Gest house. We went to aother Hotle called Srping wells and my tooth came out. We saw some taekeys [turkeys].” The repetition suggests how pilgrimage combines various aspects of life, from the emotional to the physical, the quotidian (walking and especially resting—in hotels with quilts) with the extraordinary (newly sprung tooth or the appearance of turkeys). “[W]ayfaring abilities depend on an emotional connection to the environment” (Easterlin 261), whether that environment is modified by humans or even manmade, inhabited by human or nonhuman actors. How can one model an “ecological relationship between humans and nonhumans” in narrative (Rodriguez 368)? Rodriguez proposes a “model of reading as encounter [...] encountering fictional story worlds as potential models” (Rodriguez 368), just as my mother did with the Magic Taxi Cab story.Taxis proliferate in my childhood pilgrimage. My mother writes in 1966 in her diary of journeying along the Pilgrims’ Way to St. Martha’s on the Hill. “Susie was moaning and groaning under her pack and at one desperate uphill moment gasped out, ‘Let’s take a taxi!’ – our highborn lady as we call her. But we finally made it.” “Martha’s”, as I later learned, is a corruption of “Martyrs”, a natural linguistic decay that developed over the medieval period. Just as the vernacular textures pilgrimage poems in the fourteeth century, the common tongue in all its glorious variety seeps into even the quotidian modern pilgrim’s journey.Part of the delight of pilgrimage lies in the characters one meets and the languages they speak. In 1994, the only time my husband and I cheated on a strictly ambulatory sacred journey occurred when we opted to ride a bus for ten miles where walking would have been dangerous. When I ask the bus driver if a stop were ours, he replied, “I'll give you a shout, love.” As though in a P. G. Wodehouse novel, when our stop finally came, he cried out, “Cheerio, love” to me and “Cheerio, mate” to Jim.Language changes. Which is a good thing. If it didn’t, it would be dead, like those martyrs of old. Like Latin itself. Disentangling pilgrimage from language proves impossible. The healthy ecopoetics of languages meshes with the sustainable vibrancy of the land we traverse.“Nettles of remorse…”: Derek Walcott, The Bounty Once my father had to carry me past a particularly tough patch of nettles. As my mother tells it, we “went through orchards and along narrow woodland path with face-high nettles. Susie put a scarf over her face and I wore a poncho though it was sunny and we survived almost unscathed.” Certain moments get preserved by the camera. At age seven in a field outside of Wye, I am captured in my father’s slides surrounded by grain. At age thirty-five, I am captured in film by my husband in the same spot, in the identical pose, though now quite a bit taller than the grain. Three years later, as a mother, I in turn snap him with a backpack containing baby Sarah, grumpily gazing off over the fields.When I was seven, we took off from Detling. My mother writes, “set off along old Pilgrims’ Way. Road is paved now, but much the same as fifteen years ago. Saw sheep, lambs, and enjoyed lovely scenery. Sudden shower sent us all to a lunch spot under trees near Thurnham Court, where we huddled under ponchos and ate happily, watching the weather move across the valley. When the sun came to us, we continued on our way which was lovely, past sheep, etc., but all on hard paved road, alas. Susie was a good little walker, but moaned from time to time.”I seem to whimper and groan a lot on pilgrimage. One thing is clear: the physical aspects of walking for days affected my phenomenological response to our pilgrimage which we’d undertaken both as historical ritual, touristic nature hike, and what Wendell Berry calls a “secular pilgrimage” (402), where the walker seeks “the world of the Creation” (403) in a “return to the wilderness in order to be restored” (416). The materiality of my experience was key to how I perceived this journey as a spiritual, somatic, and emotional event. The link between pilgrimage and memory, between pilgrimage poetics and memorial methods, occupies my thoughts on pilgrimage. As Nancy Easterlin’s work on “cognitive ecocriticism” (“Cognitive” 257) contends, environmental knowledge is intimately tied in with memory (“Cognitive” 260). She writes: “The advantage of extensive environmental knowledge most surely precipitates the evolution of memory, necessary to sustain vast knowledge” (“Cognitive” 260). Even today I can recall snatches of moments from that trip when I was a child, including the telling of tales.Landscape not only changes the writer, but writing transforms the landscape and our interaction with it. As Valerie Allen suggests, “If the subject acts upon the environment, so does the environment upon the subject” (“When Things Break” 82). Indeed, we can understand the “road as a strategic point of interaction between human and environment” (Allen and Evans 26; see also Oram)—even, or especially, when that interaction causes pain and inflames blisters. My relationship with moleskin on my blasted and blistered toes made me intimately conscious of my body with every step taken on the pilgrimage route.As an adult, my boots on the way from Winchester to Canterbury pinched and squeezed, packed dirt acting upon them and, in turn, my feet. After taking the train home and upon arrival in London, we walked through Bloomsbury to our flat on Russell Square, passing by what I saw as a new, less religious, but no less beckoning shrine: The London Foot Hospital at Fitzroy Square.Now, sadly, it is closed. Where do pilgrims go for sole—and soul—care?Slow Walking as WayfindingAll pilgrimages come to an end, just as, in 1966, my mother writes of our our arrival at last in Canterbury:On into Canterbury past nice grassy cricket field, where we sat and ate chocolate bars while we watched white-flannelled cricketers at play. Past town gates to our Queen’s Head Inn, where we have the smallest, slantingest room in the world. Everything is askew and we’re planning to use our extra pillows to brace our feet so we won’t slide out of bed. Children have nice big room with 3 beds and are busy playing store with pounds and shillings [that’s very hard mathematics!]. After dinner, walked over to cathedral, where evensong was just ending. Walked back to hotel and into bed where we are now.Up to early breakfast, dashed to cathedral and looked up, up, up. After our sins were forgiven, we picked up our rucksacks and headed into London by train.This experience in 1966 varies slightly from the one in 1994. Jim and I walk through a long walkway of tall, slim trees arching over us, a green, lush and silent cloister, finally gaining our first view of Canterbury with me in a similar photo to one taken almost thirty years before. We make our way into the city through the West Gate, first passing by St. Dunstan’s Church where Henry II had put on penitential garb and later Sir Thomas More’s head was buried. Canterbury is like Coney Island in the Middle Ages and still is: men with dreadlocks and slinky didjeridoos, fire tossers, mobs of people, tourists. We go to Mercery Lane as all good pilgrims should and under the gate festooned with the green statue of Christ, arriving just in time for evensong.Imagining a medieval woman arriving here and listening to the service, I pray to God my gratefulness for us having arrived safely. I can understand the fifteenth-century pilgrim, Margery Kempe, screaming emotionally—maybe her feet hurt like mine. I’m on the verge of tears during the ceremony: so glad to be here safe, finally got here, my favorite service, my beloved husband. After the service, we pass on through the Quire to the spot where St. Thomas’s relic sanctuary was. People stare at a lit candle commemorating it. Tears well up in my eyes.I suppose some things have changed since the Middle Ages. One Friday in Canterbury with my children in 2003 has some parallels with earlier iterations. Seven-year-old Sarah and I go to evensong at the Cathedral. I tell her she has to be absolutely quiet or the Archbishop will chop off her head.She still has her head.Though the road has been paved, the view has remained virtually unaltered. Some aspects seem eternal—sheep, lambs, and stiles dotting the landscape. The grinding down of the pilgrimage path, reflecting the “slowness of flat ontology” (Yates 207), occurs over vast expanses of time. Similarly, Easterlin reflects on human and more than human vitalism: “Although an understanding of humans as wayfinders suggests a complex and dynamic interest on the part of humans in the environment, the surround itself is complex and dynamic and is frequently in a state of change as the individual or group moves through it” (Easterlin “Cognitive” 261). An image of my mother in the 1970s by a shady tree along the Pilgrims’ Way in England shows that the path is lower by 6 inches than the neighboring verge (Bright 4). We don’t see dirt evolving, because its changes occur so slowly. Only big time allows us to see transformative change.Memorial PilgrimageOddly, the erasure of self through duplication with a precursor occurred for me while reading W.G. Sebald’s pilgrimage novel, The Rings of Saturn. I had experienced my own pilgrimage to many of these same locations he immortalizes. I, too, had gone to Somerleyton Hall with my elderly mother, husband, and two children. My memories, sacred shrines pooling in familial history, are infused with synchronic reflection, medieval to contemporary—my parents’ periodic sojourns in Suffolk for years, leading me to love the very landscape Sebald treks across; sadness at my parents’ decline; hope in my children’s coming to add on to their memory palimpsest a layer devoted to this land, to this history, to this family.Then, the oddest coincidence from my reading pilgrimage. After visiting Dunwich Heath, Sebald comes to his friend, Michael, whose wife Anne relays a story about a local man hired as a pallbearer by the local undertaker in Westleton. This man, whose memory was famously bad, nevertheless reveled in the few lines allotted him in an outdoor performance of King Lear. After her relating this story, Sebald asks for a taxi (Sebald 188-9).This might all seem unremarkable to the average reader. Yet, “human wayfinders are richly aware of and responsive to environment, meaning both physical places and living beings, often at a level below consciousness” (Easterlin “Cognitive” 265). For me, with a connection to this area, I startled with recollection emerging from my subconscience. The pallbearer’s name in Sebald’s story was Mr Squirrel, the very same name of the taxi driver my parents—and we—had driven with many times. The same Mr Squirrel? How many Mr Squirrels can there be in this small part of Suffolk? Surely it must be the same family, related in a genetic encoding of memory. I run to my archives. And there, in my mother’s address book—itself a palimpsest of time with names and addressed scored through; pasted-in cards, names, and numbers; and looseleaf memoranda—there, on the first page under “S”, “Mr. Squirrel” in my mother’s unmistakable scribble. She also had inscribed his phone number and the village Saxmundum, seven miles from Westleton. His name had been crossed out. Had he died? Retired? I don’t know. Yet quick look online tells me Squirrell’s Taxis still exists, as it does in my memory.Making KinAfter accompanying a class on a bucolic section of England’s Pilgrims’ Way, seven miles from Wye to Charing, we ended up at a pub drinking a pint, with which all good pilgrimages should conclude. There, students asked me why I became a medievalist who studies pilgrimage. Only after the publication of my first book on women pilgrims did I realize that the origin of my scholarly, long fascination with pilgrimage, blossoming into my professional career, began when I was seven years old along the way to Canterbury. The seeds of that pilgrimage when I was so young bore fruit and flowers decades later.One story illustrates Michel Serres’s point that we should not aim to appropriate the world, but merely act as temporary tenants (Serres 72-3). On pilgrimage in 1966 as a child, I had a penchant for ant spiders. That was not the only insect who took my heart. My mother shares how “Susie found a beetle up on the hill today and put him in the cheese box. Jimmy put holes in the top for him. She named him Alexander Beetle and really became very fond of him. After supper, we set him free in the garden here, with appropriate ceremony and a few over-dramatic tears of farewell.” He clearly made a great impression on me. I yearn for him today, that beetle in the cheese box. Though I tried to smuggle nature as contraband, I ultimately had to set him free.Passing through cities, landscape, forests, over seas and on roads, wandering by fields and vegetable patches, under a sky lit both by sun and moon, the pilgrim—even when in a group of fellow pilgrims—in her lonesome exercise endeavors to realize Serres’ ideal of the tenant inhabitant of earth. Nevertheless, we, as physical pilgrims, inevitably leave our traces through photos immortalizing the journey, trash left by the wayside, even excretions discretely deposited behind a convenient bush. Or a beetle who can tell the story of his adventure—or terror—at being ensconced for a time in a cheese box.On one notorious day of painful feet, my husband and I arrived in Otford, only to find the pub was still closed. Finally, it became time for dinner. We sat outside, me with feet ensconced in shoes blessedly inert and unmoving, as the server brought out our salads. The salad cream, white and viscous, was presented in an elegantly curved silver dish. Then Jim began to pick at the salad cream with his fork. Patiently, tenderly, he endeavored to assist a little bug who had gotten trapped in the gooey sauce. Every attempt seemed doomed to failure. The tiny creature kept falling back into the gloppy substance. Undaunted, Jim compassionately ministered to our companion. Finally, the little insect flew off, free to continue its own pilgrimage, which had intersected with ours in a tiny moment of affinity. Such moments of “making kin” work, according to Donna Haraway, as “life-saving strateg[ies] for the Anthropocene” (Oppermann 3, qtd. in Haraway 160).How can narrative avoid the anthropocentric centre of writing, which is inevitable given the human generator of such a piece? While words are a human invention, nonhuman entities vitally enact memory. The very Downs we walked along were created in the Cretaceous period at least seventy million years ago. The petrol propelling the magic taxi cab was distilled from organic bodies dating back millions of years. Jurassic limestone from the Bathonian Age almost two hundred million years ago constitutes the Caen stone quarried for building Canterbury Cathedral, while its Purbeck marble from Dorset dates from the Cretaceous period. Walking on pilgrimage propels me through a past millions—billions—of eons into the past, dwarfing my speck of existence. Yet, “if we wish to cross the darkness which separates us from [the past] we must lay down a little plank of words and step delicately over it” (Barfield 23). Elias Amidon asks us to consider how “the ground we dig into and walk upon is sacred. It is sacred because it makes us neighbors to each other, whether we like it or not. Tell this story” (Amidon 42). And, so, I have.We are winding down. Time has passed since that first pilgrimage of mine at seven years old. Yet now, here, I still put on my red plaid wollen jumper and jacket, crisp white button-up shirt, grey knee socks, and stout red walking shoes. Slinging on my rucksack, I take my mother’s hand.I’m ready to take my first step.We continue our pilgrimage, together.ReferencesAllen, Valerie. “When Things Break: Mending Rroads, Being Social.” Roadworks: Medieval Britain, Medieval Roads. Eds. Valerie Allen and Ruth Evans. Manchester: Manchester UP, 2016.———, and Ruth Evans. Introduction. Roadworks: Medieval Britain, Medieval Roads. Eds. Valerie Allen and Ruth Evans. Manchester: Manchester UP, 2016.Alworth, David J. Site Reading: Fiction, Art, Social Form. Princeton: Princeton UP, 2016.Amidon, Elias. “Digging In.” Dirt: A Love Story. Ed. Barbara Richardson. Lebanon, NH: ForeEdge, 2015.Barfield, Owen. History in English Words. Grand Rapids: William B. 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