That Time I got Stuck in a Construction Site Looking for Magical Wolves

               So, I was about five or six when this one happened. Very small.

              When I was a kid, my parents and I lived in a fairly affordable co-op townhouse in the middle of a rather wealthy neighborhood. It was the sort of place where all sorts of strange, elderly, and broke people came and went, but because the rent was cheap, and it was close to some schools the little townhouse co-op was also full of families.

              It was a great place to grow up honestly. In the center of the messy circle of forward-facing houses surrounded by a bigger circle of much more extravagant houses was a little playground, reasonably well kept, where all us kids who had no idea how out of place our co-op was amidst the wealthy neighborhood around us would play and laugh and pick on each other, as kids do.

              It was also a place of a lot of development in my youth. While now you can go there and find a suburban sprawl all around the co-op, at the time there was nothing but a metal chain link fence separating us from the construction site in which houses none of us would grow up to be able to afford were being built.

              I knew from a very young age that older kids liked the sneak across that fence and explore the mounds of dirt and barely built foundation that covered the land there. I was actually a pretty well-behaved child when not dealing with bipolar disorder-induced mood swings, so I never had.

              Enter a child whom I will refer to as wolf child.

              Her and her sister, who is less relevant to this story, were from a household which is presumably some kind of background issues that led both of them, at around the same age as me, to have different ways of coping.

              While her sister decided she wanted to grow up and be a teenager right away, getting into make up and fawning over boys as a small child, the wolf child was all about tall tales and extravagant stories.

              She told me she was raised by wolves until being rescued shortly before we met.

              She told me she could talk to her hamster.

              She told me all sorts of things in this vein, with wolves being a common reoccurring theme.

              I, at age six, was greatly amused but didn’t really believe her. I was enthralled with her dramatic storytelling ability! I did not lend it much credence, although I’d never tell her that.

              One day the three of us were playing and decided to build a fort.

              I had never built a fort before, but I had seen characters do such on TV. Wood and tires and cardboard came together to make a child sized fortress! It was a wonderful sentiment. I wanted in.

              Sadly, the Co-op didn’t have a lot of spare boxes and scrap wood and tools to work with. The sister, ever charismatic or at least assuming she was, went off to go try and charm some adults into giving us a box or two. The wolf child had other plans.

              She turned to me and told me that across the fence lived the magical wolves who would show us where to find materials for our fort.

I gave her a blank look and said I wasn’t allowed over there. She dismissed this and ran off without me and I, not wanting to be alone when I said I’d be with her, followed.

I’m not an agile person. I was not an agile child. Scaling the fence to the construction site was not something I had an easy time with while she climbed over like a spider monkey scaling a branch.

Tumbling across the fence I nervously tailed her in search of these magical wolves. However, being so much less agile and so much clumsier, I very quickly lost track of her while stumbling from dirt pile to dirt pile. I was sweaty and tired and now very dirty, and I got my leg stuck in one such dirt pile.

I called for her, but she merely called back “Beware the rattlesnakes at the bottom!”

I didn’t believe her. There were no rattlesnakes in Ontario!

… right?

I was sad and crying and stuck and a complete mess when I heard another distant shout calling my name.

Sure enough, in the distance, by the fence was my father calling for me. I waved and yelled and pried myself out of the dirt pile, stumbling down and rushing to him, foot getting caught in the spring mud before he found me.

We were supposed to visit a family friend that night, but we did not. I needed a bath. It turned out that the wolf child’s sister had been the one-off say where we went and point my dad towards where I had been abandoned.

I imagine there was some shouting between parents when I hadn’t been around, some scolding of the sisters who got me into this mess. I however just remember my parents’ relief and residual terror when they found me, so I never snuck off like that again.

The sisters moved out at some point before we did, I would have been maybe eight or so when they did. I have no idea what happened to them, and both of their names are the sort with twenty spellings so I couldn’t look them up even if I wanted to.

I do remember those days of mischief and exploration though, and I treasure them as formative experiences. Sometimes when I’m in the neighborhood I look out on the now suburban sprawl where that construction site once was and remember all this. I consider walking around there to see what its like now.

After all, I never did find those blasted magical wolves.

Death of the Author, and Perhaps Death of the King of Spain

 CW:  sexual assault mention and discussion of fear of it

 

              So, a few weeks, maybe a month or so back I was sitting around with an old friend goofing off. We were singing songs and making jokes, when they break into King of Spain by Moxy Früvous.

              Only a short while prior I had composed a parody of said song as a joke for my mom, all about my cat Nebby being the king of Spain and being unable to eat humble pie due to it being too starchy for her strict carnivore diet as a cat.

              My mom had responded with mild discomfort to this parody, and when I asked why I was informed it was because the band who composed the song King of Spain was former CBC radio host Jian Ghomeshi’s band.

              I remembered when Jian Ghomeshi had hosted the radio program Q and I remembered the controversy and the many sexual assault charges surrounding him. And so, in this moment, in which my friend had broken into the same song that caused my mother discomfort just weeks earlier, I shared that mild discomfort at the memory.

              My friend questioned my own discomfort, and I explained the same thing my mother had to me. They awkwardly replied that they believe in death of the author and enjoying art for what it is as opposed to what the artist has done.

              I thought about this, and I wasn’t going to tell my friend that they were wrong, because I certainly had no idea what to do with that information. If they had been telling me this about Harry Potter, I likely would have been much quicker to challenge that opinion, as JK Rowling stands for many arguments against the rights of trans women and actively uses her fortune to campaign against them, but what was there to say about Jian Ghomeshi? I personally hadn’t heard hide nor hair of him since he left CBC.

              I thought back to another conversation I had had with another acquaintance. Said acquaintance had argued that there was nothing wrong with supporting JonTron, a youtuber who has sunk into infamy for racist and more recently anti-vaccine comments, because as a youtuber, even a semi-well known one, he had no power to use for these causes.

              I wasn’t sure I agreed with that, because his voice could certainly be amplified and used to spread misinformation even if he had no money to throw at his cause, whatever it may be. He still had words to tell people things that weren’t true, and ideas that could be given to people that may do worse than him with it.

              And yet, it’s not like regressive or bigoted folk like JonTron and JK Rowling are the same thing as on convicted or accused of sexual assault. At the end of the day, you could be known for having the most perfect views in the world of human rights and still be convicted of such a crime. It’s a mostly unrelated brand of heinous.

              I am uncomfortable singing King of Spain because it reminds me of my own fears as an asexual, afab person who wouldn’t offer consent in the first pace under the vast majority of circumstances. The knowledge that one of the central people who made this song would not respect that deep fear I carry rubs me the wrong way.

              And yet, I can see why that wouldn’t strike so personally for other people. I can see why they’d want to brush it aside, ignore it, and enjoy the music.

              I can see why jokes and silly faces and comedic timing to lead one to overlook what JonTron has said and done because its not relevant to what he’s making.

              I can see even why childhood nostalgia would make it hard to let go of Harry Potter, even in the face of everything Rowling has said and done.

              But I can’t dismiss those things myself. I don’t believe it’s black and white, I don’t believe we can just let the author die and celebrate works without them or cancel them on the internet no mercy. It is in fact a case-by-case basis, everyone has their limits, and everyone has their values.

              I haven’t forgiven any of these people for their actions, but I also respect that other people have their own prerogative. Well, ok, until you start giving someone who is actively hurting others with that money your money. Then I might be a little more judge-y. Why does anyone still eat at Chick Fil E?

              Its complicated and messy and doesn’t have a straight answer. I don’t have a clear answer myself, only my own views. We don't live in an agreeable world where everyone agrees who the villains are and how we should go about deplatforming them, that would just be childish.

              I do wish I could still enjoy King of Spain, however. It’s a silly song.