Plotting

We all know that history can’t be objective, right? Every story is told from a particular vantage point, with its own interests, perspectives, and agendas. But even though I know this, I find it easy to slip into complacency sometimes and just take what I am told at face value. I like to believe, at these times, that I am at least taking my history from credible sources. Then again, the other day I marvelled at learning that Jane Seymour died of post-childbirth complications and didn’t, as I had always assumed, have her head chopped off. I learned this on the Showtime show The Tudors. I didn’t even look for another source. Turns out I’m not always the critical thinker I’d like to be. Anyway, enough about me.

I like those moments when history’s problems make themselves evident. Take Guy Fawkes and the Gunpowder Plot, for example. For some inexplicable reason, Guy Fawkes has been on my mind at several different occasions this year. I always assumed that the Gunpowder Plot was meant as an attack on the institutions of the English Parliament and Monarchy. Well, after a bit of lazy research, I learned that it was actually an assassination attempt on King James I of England (VI of Scotland), his family, and his inner circle of Protestant lords. As it happens, Guy Fawkes and his co-conspirators were Catholic rebels. Yet the story becomes even more interesting when taken from another perspective. In the BBC series “A History of Scotland,” Neil Oliver claims that the Gunpowder Plot was a special attempt on King James’ life because he was Scottish, not simply because he was Protestant. Oliver makes the whole thing sound like a plan to thwart the “Scottish takeover of England.” Apparently, Fawkes’ co-conspirators were even found to have a hit-list of Scottish nobles living in London – although I haven’t found any other mention of this. So was the Gunpowder Plot an attack on an institution, an attack on Protestants, or an attack on the Scots? Or was it all of these things?

I used to think that Guy Fawkes Day was a celebration of the Gunpowder Plot, which never made sense to me. Surprisingly, I even asked some British people and they couldn’t really tell me what it was about. Finally, a relative in London explained that Guy Fawkes Day and the burning of the effigies is a celebration of the foiling of the plot and the execution of the rebels. So it makes more sense to me now why the English celebrate it. And even more so that the Scottish do. After all, no matter what the actual motivations of the plotters, it seems widely accepted that the target was James – the Scottish King and champion of the Scottish religion.

I had the good fortune of stopping in to The Guy Fawkes Inn for a drink this past Fall, while visiting York. It is reputedly the building in which he was born – but as with all history, that might not be true. Another building around the corner sports a similar plaque. The Inn was dark, lit only by tall, dripping candles. The windows were thin, the rooms drafty, and, as with many Tudor-era buildings, the walls looked like they might cave in at any minute. The beers were fantastic and the atmosphere eerie – the kind of place you might quietly gather to plot something terrible.

the Guy Fawkes Inn, York UK

Daddy’s on the Drink Again

Is there a fairy? A drunk dad fairy. . .that tip-toes in, takes the TV changer out of his hand, puts a blanket around his shoulders, lifts his head off his chest, so his neck won’t be sore tomorrow when the liquor leaves him for a time? Is there a drunk dad fairy? That pays for that Chinese food?

– Bruce McCulloch.

Today I’m wearing my Kids in the Hall t-shirt. It has a picture of Simon and Hecubus on the chest, with the word EVIL dripping off it like blood. People often look at me a bit sideways when I’m in this shirt, as if I were some kind of satan-worshipper or badly styled goth. But every now and again someone who knows better lights up with a smile and says “that’s a great shirt.”

I’ll never forget the time my sister and I were watching a Simon and Hecubus sketch and our dad came into the room, lit up with something not quite like a smile. He immediately turned off the TV and forbade us from ever watching The Kids in the Hall again. “That show is Satanic! It’s not right for young girls!” He refused to let us explain that it was a joke. Isn’t it odd, the apparently insignificant moments we remember.

I don’t think my dad would have like The Kids in the Hall much anyway, had he taken the time to watch it. The recurring “drunk dad” character was much too true to life.

I’ve heard it said that the best comedy always has an element of tragedy underlying it. There’s something cathartic and empowering about being able to laugh at your misery. I always liked the idea of the drunk dad fairy. It made me think there must be more than one drunk dad out there who needs to be taken care of.

Don’t worry, no spoilers here

This past Sunday one of my favourite TV shows, The Wire, ended it’s amazing 5-season run. For those of you who have never seen it, it’s a crime drama set in Baltimore. Normally I don’t like crime dramas, but this one was different. As I sat watching the montage at the end of the final episode, two things struck me. First, I found myself cheering at the end for criminals and drug dealers just as much as I was for the cops. It’s a strange thing to feel proud of a character because he is robbing someone with a shotgun. This exemplifies one of my favourite aspects of the show. As a viewer you spend as much time with the “bad guys” as you do with the “good guys,” and you see that there really is no such thing as either, but that each character is just a person living under a particular set of circumstances. By portraying everyone as equally human, the show refuses to moralize. Instead it flattens out the moral/immoral distinction and has everyone living in a kind of gray area. There are drug dealers who sometimes behave in otherwise very upright and respectable ways, just as there are cops or politicians or reporters who are not respectable at all. The other thing that struck me is how, no matter what events came to pass throughout the show, everything in the city remained the same. Even if a king-pin drug dealer is taken out, there is always a new one to take his place. Even when a murderer goes to jail, people on the streets are still being killed. Even when a corrupt politician is exposed for what he is, the corruption is so built into the system that it continues anyway. Not to say that we should abandon the law altogether, but it made me think that, no matter what measures we take to make our society a safer and more “moral” place, it never really changes. One character said “the game’s out there, and it’s play or get played.” They refer to the “game” of street life, drug dealing, and other gangsta shit, as if it is always there. If it’s “out there,” it exists beyond any individual character or even any group. It has a life of its own and everyone has to play. This may sound kind of bleak but I don’t actually find it depressing at all. To me it seems like a more honest portrait of life both inside and outside the law. And if we really want things to change, it will take a lot more than simply making something illegal, putting some people in jail, helping a few drug addicts, or even electing the right person to office. It will take a complete overhaul of the way society works. And we’re clearly not ready for that yet.

Now that The Wire is over I don’t know what to do with myself. Just like when The Sopranos ended, I feel as though I’ve lost a dear friend. I know there are other good shows out there, but I can’t imagine anything being as good as this was.