Getting into the ‘Knife by christian
by Christian Bertelsen
We got into the ‘knife this past monday. I guess you could say we’ve hit
the ground running. My wife started work the very next day, and I, in the
interim (before finding a job), began working at her mother’s store.
Thus far, I have been struck by the little things. For instance, when I went
out for breakfast this morning I came across some graffiti that had been
etched into the bathroom wall above the urinal. It read: “Steve + RP” (with
a heart carved around it). I had to chuckle. With Yellowknife only having a
population of 18 000, it is almost bereft of the anonymity common to most
urban forms of graffiti. Steve, we know who you are…
***
With regards to ‘the little things,’ I was particularly confronted by the
differences in scale. We live downtown–which is to say that nearly
everything is a 2 to 5 minute walk from our home. Magnification. Walking is
de rigueur here.
There are many aboriginals who hang out on street corners drinking and
chatting. And with regards to scale, in montreal things like this are more
diffuse, however here, they seem to line public space. Complicity lurks at
every corner. Unfortunately as with most routinized spaces, people here
get used to it.
***
In my continual acts of encountering, I am reminded of a careful suggestion
that my friend Neil Balan once made in a conference sometime ago regarding
the ethics of travel. Sure I have chosen to make Yellowknife home for the
next few years, but the novelty of my arrival is such that I am, in a many
ways, a foreigner who is but travelling here. As such there is a very real
ethics to these travelling encounters. A prescience that needs to undergird
any opening of oneself… I have been carrying myself with a welcoming smile
most of the time.
***
While waiting for the bank to open, an elderly aboriginal gentleman came sat
beside me and asked what time it was. “9:21 am, 9 minutes too early,” I
responded. Silently nodding, he shook my hand and was off. This interaction
didn’t seem to be overly superintended by a concern for status.
***
Today I was again confronted with my own complicity; which is to say that I
am a part of a set of social, cultural and economic forms and practices that
have been imposed upon Others without recognition of their autonomy and that
have particularly corrosive effects. To wit, while working at the store (a
gift and convenience shop) with my wife, Ngan, an aboriginal man came
in–around 35 minutes before closing time–and tried to buy hairspray. Ngan
looked at me with reticence in her eyes. I found myself frozen before this
rather complicated ethical dilemma. Luckily for us her mother saw what was
going and intervened. She said very abruptly: “I don’t want to sell this to
you. Go now. Get out of my store!” I guess we should of clued into it all
with the fact that the fellow was wearing a ballcap and was perhaps planning
his night. (You see, her mother has to be careful who she sells hairspray to
because some men drink it as a stimulant). But nevertheless, I was–and
still am–troubled by the ethics of intervention here. Double bind. A
damned-if-you-do and damned-if-you-don’t scenario. If only we could remedy
the structure that begets this kind of tragedy. The disappointed fellow
turned and left and in his wake a pungent waft of alcohol could be smelt.
September 13th, 2005 at 10:08 pm
***
While stocking the shelves and becoming-routine, I had a funny thought.
Capital patinates all. Whether it be exploitation, geography, politics or geological destruction, Capital tends to obfuscate the complexity that constitutes its products–sometimes amusingly.
I was stocking a number of tourist trinkets when it occurred to me. Most of Yellowknife’s tourists are Japanese. And most of the souvenirs that I stock are made in China. The political economy of tourist consumption has it such that the Japanese cross the Pacific to experience the ‘knife and purchase products that have been fabricated just across the south western sea adjacent to them.
October 22nd, 2005 at 1:39 am
edgar allan poe was from yellowknife. i am sure of it. the ravens here are, for a foreigner, bloody jarring. they are rather large. in fact, they are equal in size to ottomans that are two feet squared. the only consolation is that they seem to like minding their own business…
November 4th, 2005 at 4:24 pm
there is something about yellowknife that simply ‘makes sense.’ now what i am referring here
is not the contextualized epistemic frames that superintend various ‘knifers sense-making
practices. no, instead i am referring to yellowknife’s state of capital development–that
is, it’s means of soundly functioning as an economic assemblage. in effect, what i am saying
is that yellowknife’s capital development is at a state that, to me, ‘still makes sense.’
you see having come from montreal, i found that the first thing that struck me was
yellowknife’s difference in scale. montreal, though a small city internationally, is
manifestly larger and more complicated than yellowknife in scale. one can say that montreal
is more complex in that–from an economic perspective, the sheer breadth of its industry is
such that any striated or grid-like view of montreal is muddled by the multiple folds that
its myriad and interwoven economic lines are caught in. to be sure, yellowknife does have
its folds too, it is of course ‘the diamond capital of north america.’ as such, it has a
number of economic lines extending from lac de gras or snap lake to other geographic points
all over the world; here the folds are aplenty. however, if we restrict ourselves to the
city of yellowknife, one can look at its various buildings with almost a reconnoiterer’s
gaze and actually makes sense of the economic lines emerging therefrom. which is to say,
that yellowknife’s capital development hovers at a point whereby its folds are not so
innumerable as to completely obfuscate an understanding of it as an economic assemblage. so
in some sense one can say that the city of yellowknife’s striated or grid-like blanket can
still, on some abstract level, be flattened out and understood macrocosmically. there are
particular and peculiar comforts derived from differences of scale such as these.
January 23rd, 2006 at 1:57 pm
a poem from a tower
i live on capital–mea cupla
i do
quite literally in fact
our 14th floor perch sits atop a mall
by dint of our altitude, we generally look down
i approach the window with reticence
lest it affect my attitude
this precarious ledge, both frightening and pleasant
a stitched distinction
it affords me a reconnoiterer’s gaze
i see precious and bleak moments aggregate
different cultural, economic and environmental flowerings
anonymous, i observe but do not press upon
and yet, the reverse is not true
i see, hear and feel
visceral vibrations
i’m not ‘always thinking of a good vibration’
connected but detached
that which unfolds before my line of sight, impinges upon me
what a curious relationship!
the city is a stage… and i have a boxseat