Thor Hansen, Immigrant

Scandinavian spirit, Canadian vision


After the dismal reports I've been posting at Our Changing Landscape (mostly on how immigrants influence the Human Rights Commissions), there were immigrants who were psychologically, culturally and personally invested in Canada. They had some understanding of this complex "landscape" - physical and spiritual - that is Canada, and were able to provide their own lasting legacies.

One such was Danish textile designer, Thor Hansen.

From the Textile Museum of Canada:

Thor Hansen joined the influx of Scandinavian immigrants who spearheaded the craft revival in this country during the first half of the 20th century. Born in a small town outside Copenhagen, his Danish upbringing influenced much of his thinking: folk stories and handicraft were as second nature to him as breathing air. He came to Canada on a whim in 1928 after winning a ticket to Japan, but inspired by Canadian Pacific posters he chose Canada instead.


[H]e believed, "The basement workshop is the greatest blessing of the 20th century." By that he meant, not only is homespun craft good for the soul but it stimulates an appetite for Canadian culture. In 1948, he began a long and fruitful relationship with the newly established Simcoe County Arts and Crafts Association (SCACA), located in Ontario’s Georgian Bay area.


Hansen often remarked that, "Culture is one of the most burning subjects of the day in Canada."


What the Group of Seven did for Canadian painting, Hansen wanted to do for Canadian handicraft. His high regard for the Group of Seven is not surprising given that members of the Group saw parallels between the Canadian and Scandinavian wilderness.


[Hansen] showed a keen eye for repetition and rhythm and favoured a strong art deco style and developed a repertoire of motifs that he would use time and again: silhouettes and profiles of birds in flight, leaping salmon, and horned animals, as well as indigenous wildflowers and plants, especially trillium, lady’s slipper and morning glory.

New Blog Links

The Aussie, the fighter and the housewife

I've added three new links to my list of blogs, Oz Conservative, Ezra Levant blog, and The Thinking Housewife. I don't expect my list to grow into the fifty, sixty, or more blogs that some bloggers like to display. In fact, this is the first time I've updated my list in quite a while - I think that brings the total to fifteen! 

I've been reading Oz Conservative for a while. I found his site originally through google while I was doing my research for my article on the Buz Luhrmann film Australia. He writes mostly on social issues such as race and feminism, and with a traditional conservative stance. His writing is thoughtful with well-researched and referenced articles.

Ezra Levant is on a one-man battle against the Human Rights Commissions. That is not entirely true, since he does have numerous conservative writers and activists helping him out. But, he is certainly holding the torch.

The Thinking Housewife's blog is just that, a thoughtful assessment of society and culture from a housewife's point of view. One funny part was that Laura Wood (who is the author of this blog) had never watched an Oprah show until recently. I think she was left quite impressed. But, I would be cautious with Oprah. There are many things she gets wrong. 

More Purple Flowers

Conversation starters

Photocollage of Redbud trees in High Park

There is a delicate tree which grows right by a concrete high rise building. Its purple/pink flowers bloom for a brief few days, before we are left to wait for it the following year.

This tree (which looks more like a shrub) is equally eye-catching in the woods of the city's High Park, precisely because it looks so delicate and fragile amidst the long and sturdy trunks.

I made a photocollage of this tree in High Park a few years ago, but never knew its name. Whilst I was photographing it the other day in front of the high rise building, I decided to ask a couple approaching me, who looked like they might know something about it, what it was called. Sure enough, the woman said she was a gardener, and spent a little time describing the tree to me.

Photo of a Redbud tree in front of a high rise

It is a Redbud tree, and is indigenous to North America. It has a short life, true to its delicate look. It has no edible qualities to it, and is more ornamental than anything else. Here is more information.

These days, I am making a concerted effort to talk to people, a little randomly. Of course, I have to choose carefully whom I talk to; a city is always a city. But, often, I ask people in the supermarket how to use an ingredient (watercress was the latest I asked about), and now, it is especially interesting to ask about flowers and trees. I am surprised at how much people actually know, and are willing to impart.

The problem with Toronto is that it is becoming a strangely silent city. People don't talk in lines, transactions at cashier's are quiet transfers of money, bank tellers don't make small talk. I don't think that people are unfriendly, but that there are too many foreign (literally) elements which act as obstacles to conversation. I asked a Chinese sushi-maker recently what her sushi ingredients were, and she said, in very broken accented English something like "tona." "Tuna?" I asked. She said yes. When I tried it later, it turned out to be tofu.

So, I think people are afraid to talk to each other. Canadians, who are not the chattiest of people, still have a quiet sense of humor, and enjoy a banter whiling away their time in tedious lines. The other day, an elderly gentleman at the bank was trying so hard to make conversation, to the extent that he was teasingly telling the bank teller how to do her transactions. He wasn't getting very far with his jokes.

This silence has to be broken. Our multicultural city doesn't encourage it. But just because the Chinese sushi-maker and the Indian bank teller can't handle a normal conversation doesn't mean the rest of us have to be struck dumb.

Mrs. Harper's Stand

Not as tough as she seems

Left: Laureen Harper with Ezra Levant
Right: With Senator Pamela Wallin
I don't think we would see Aline Chrétien (or everyone's model
First Lady, Jackie Kennedy) standing or sitting like that. 

Recently, the pugnacious Ezra Levant, the one-man-fighter of the Human Rights Commission, was in Ottawa where he got to attend a soirée at 24 Sussex Drive with a few others as guest to Laureen Harper, Prime Minister Harper’s wife.

We don't hear too much from Laureen Harper. Here is a long and descriptive article on her. She is apparently media shy (or media savvy). She doesn't give too many interviews, and prefers to stay away from the limelight and let her husband do his work.

Laureen Harper trying out a Harley

She ran a successful graphic design company for a while, and was the breadwinner for her family at one time while Harper was honing his political skills. Now, she has become a housewife, although active in her children's school projects. I don't know if it is a rural Alberta thing (she grew up on a ranch), but she apparently owns a dirt bike, and still likes to ride it even as the wife of the Prime Minister.

I am sorry to say that I am a little biased against Mrs. Harper. I didn’t like the stories of her dirt bike hobby, which I thought she would have graciously given up once in Ottawa. Later on, I read that she was instrumental in Harper’s decision to make a formal apology to the Chinese community for the head tax levied on Chinese workers in the late 19th century to prevent (or discourage) them from entering Canada after the Canadian Pacific Railway was built.

In one of his commentaries, which unfortunately I cannot find online, but which I remember distinctly, Harper talks about a “family friend” of his wife’s, an elderly Chinese man, who was imposed this tax. It was an anecdotal, familiar story about one Chinese man, who I am sure was a good and loyal “friend”, although Harper’s description made him out to be more of an employee, who struck a personal chord with the Harper family.

I was of course surprised and disappointed that a conservative Prime Minister would find it necessary to apologize about a decision made by his predecessors whose intention was to preserve Canadian sovereignty and society. Too many Chinese had entered Canada in those early years, taking jobs away from ordinary citizens, and encouraging their family members from China to join them in their new homes. Harper either misunderstood this, or felt it necessary to make this apology in order to maintain votes and support from the Chinese community for his newly formed government. I cynically think it was more likely the latter.

But, his anecdotal story of the good Chinese friend made his decision even harder to take. It is as though he (and his wife) were saying that previous Canadians were heartless and cruel by making life difficult for these Chinese who had contributed so much to the nation’s growth, just like their kind, nice friend here. He was tugging at our hearts to make his case more valid.

I think it was mostly Laureen Harper who encouraged this personalized aspect to the whole unnecessary decision. For all her declaration that she doesn’t involve herself in her husband’s decisions, she sure made an impact with her Chinese friend story.

Dirt bikes aside, she unfortunately is no toughened rancher’s daughter, but the usual liberal sentimentalist who couldn’t see the tradition her ancestors were trying to maintain, and the Canada they were trying to build.

More Lilacs

And more memories to preserve


Lilacs blooming in front of a Cabbagetown house.
Downtown Toronto looking like small town Ontario.


The building on the left became the center drawing, which evolved naturally into the repeat pattern design on the right.


Now, the building is gone, as are the lilacs, replaced by this monstrosity. I discovered about a year after I took the photo and did the drawing, that the original house was being demolished. I must have had a premonition of things to come, to have invested so much time on the original lovely, grey and black building surrounded by the lilac bushes. I blogged about this destruction, and called my post, "preserving memory".

But, it isn't enough to preserve memories.

Americans Don't Vote for the Freaky and the Foreign

Surprising upsets in American Idol and Dancing with the Stars

I was playing around with some of Adam Lambert's performance
photos. I noticed a few weeks ago he has these evil expressions while
he sings. I edited these photos and put a rather cheesy scary laugh to go with them.

I actually like the "Live Leak" logo (Live Leak is a video sharing website). Lambert's demonic soul is leaking out into the public - well that's how I see it anyway.

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I watched this season's American Idol sporadically until I started to realize that one of the singers was singularly strange.

Adam Lambert, who has a charming smile and can be quite soft spoken and "normal", lets out his true self when he starts singing. Besides his ghoulish scream, that he does for almost every song, his eyes lined with black kohl and his fingernails painted in black nail polish give away a little of his true nature. 

I think we underestimate evil, and evil spirits in this modern world. I think that is what Adam is. His lifestyle is apparently of an ambiguous sexuality. But, I don't even think he is as mundane as a worldly homosexual. 

For him, I think anything goes. Anything that makes him feel good. Listen to this really creepy song, and his whole attitude from beginning to end, entitled: "Feeling Good" (he starts around the 4:50 mark). I think he is bigger than a mere earthling who just wants to "express himself" and feel good. I think he is actually possessed by real evil, and his purpose is to project that evil into the world.

Lambert in miniature wings - no, they're not angel wings.

In ancient days (and earlier Christian periods), people understood evil. They didn’t let creatures like Adam near them. Now, we just think he's an artist, or a rock star, and that he's out to entertain us.

Left: Xerxes of Persia who was at war with the Spartans,
as depicted in the movie 300
Right: Adam Lambert in his true costume

No, his mission is bigger than that.

The useless judges of American Idol were his biggest cheer leaders. They were praising him week after week. In fact, it was Danny Gokey who had the real, earthy talent. And the final face-off ended up being between Kris Allen and Adam. Kris is the soft-rock type of guy, pleasant, self-assured and humble at the same time.

Kris won the show.

I later learned that both Kris and Danny are practicing Christians. Kris works in his church, and Danny is a church music director. And both are married, or at least Danny was recently widowed.

It is a relief to see that audiences didn't go for the freaky. And normal, pious Christian men still make the cut in this world. Or at least, ordinary people trust them over weird androgens like Adam.

The  tiny gymnastics Olympian, Shawn Johnson, an all American  girl, won over the overly sexual French small time actor Gilles in Dancing with the Stars. Another score for normality.

Apologies to my Readers

My Spelling Problem



I do think I'm a pretty good speller, and that I have a substantial vocabulary. And I don't think my grammar is that bad. Thus, I do apologize to my readers for my small errors, which I try to correct as I see them. I know "outrageous" is not spelled "outragious" or however I spelled it recently. And that "somethin" needs a "g" at the end. And so on. (Just to make myself feel better, I read somewhere that F. Scott Fitzgerald was a pretty bad speller - but do novelists count?).

I just think I would rather be looking at the composition of a visual image, and I really do dislike editing. If I ever become a famous writer (:-)), I will have to hire an editor right away. It's always been like this. I would rather look at the "shape" of the writing: beginning, middle and ending; how the different parts interrelate; how divergences can be rerouted to fit in with the original idea; and so on. I don't think this is laziness. Partly it is that I post almost immediately whatever I have written. Partly it really is to do with time. I admire people who can look at a sentence and edit it on the spot.

Blogging helps me to work out many ideas. The archive system allows me to file my posts by date, and thus track the evolution of my ideas. I can refer to those ideas and posts, and try to make sense of the world. For example, my twin blog Our Changing Landscape was created after I realized at Camera Lucida that Muslims (and liberals) were exerting huge amounts of influence on our culture. If this were to continue to its logical conclusion, we (or I) would have no art, architecture, design, music, literature, and all those "cultural" things that interest me, to blog about.

So, dear readers, please do have patience. And pay more attention to my overall concepts and ideas, rather than the detailed (but important) things like spelling. I will take more care of that as I continue to blog.

Now, if you see any errors in this post...