a mixed message

The torch road show made it's way through Vancouver for a second time yesterday. It had a way of starting each day somewhere far from where it left off the day before. This is similar to stock market behaviour (a recent interest of mine) where prices seem to begin at a different place in the morning than they leave off the night before. There's no explaining it.

The excitement was in the city though, that's for sure. You could track the torch by where the choppers were buzzing. Noonish it went by near where I live, and finally I had to go out and look. It was mid-False Creek by that time, aloft in the fron of a dragon boat. Sweet! I could see it from my street corner (no view from my apartment, alas). One can't sustain being a grouch in the face of it. Well I can't, not completely anyway. (Sorry about the teeny, fuzzy picture, but it replicates what I saw.)

Apparently there was still a good contingent of protesters kicking up a fuss here and there in the city. They blocked Commercial Drive, no surprise, so the torch re-routed along Clark Drive, not such a pretty route, but who was watching then? Later the protesters (professionals, they would have been at APEC too) tried to interfere with the opening ceremony, but not surprisingly were left outside and on the fringe. Quite literally, as the size of this behemoth of an event just dwarfs the sound of the not-so-enthusiastic. I'm thinking that protesting only works for so long, and that the timing is critical. This is many years too late, as the show was a done deal long ago. You have to figure out something positive as an alternative by the time you get to this point.

I find I'm such a contrarian that chanted slogans turn me away. Slogans are tiresome, whoever's chanting them. Own the Podium! makes me bah humbug (I'm too Canadian, to the core, or maybe too female? to get behind the chest thumping, much as I like it when 'my' team wins, as though that was something I contributed to) and then No Games on Native Land! and I'm a booster again, especially With Glowing Hearts... (you've got to admit, that last's a pretty good one).

The truth is, I've always enjoyed the Olympics. I'm dazzled by the athletes. All of them, not just those who get there first. (Their single-minded purpose is a great model for anyone working towards any goal, including writerly types like myself. You can learn from the young.)  My favourites are the airborne, either on the ice or the slopes. Wow.

I'm sure there's a personality disorder designation that would explain my fluctuations (I'm passed 'the change') because I watched the opening ceremony, and I loved it. I didn't have to manufacture any of my enthusiasm either. (Have to admit though I'm glad I was watching it on TV—and recording it on my PVR—so I could pause, rewind, have dinner, and not sit through the pre-show warmup acts which probably would have got my contrary self back up. And I can invest the saved admission somewhere else.)

I started to think that Vancouver must be an interesting place (okay, I've lived here forever, so I just think it's normal). Certainly there are a tremendous number of talented people kicking around, and I like that so many Canadian stars came home to be part of it. Or have been here all along: I am pumped that Shane Koyczan (one of our local treasures) got to perform, because I think he's an absolutely marvelous writer and performer; Olympic calibre if I may say so. (Here's a link to a recording of the full poem; it was a variation last night.) And k.d. lang. Man, what a rendition of "Hallelujah." I never get tired of that song (thank you Leonard Cohen). Sarah McLaughlin, isn't she good?And I love Joni Mitchell.

Go Canada! (oops)

I liked the cleverness of the show too, of using the audience to stretch out the spectacle. And I liked the sharing of the lighting of the cauldron, which seemed such a fine acknowledgement that all these endeavours are group efforts, even when it comes down to individuals getting the spotlight. Even if one of the pillars did get stuck in the floor, sigh.

And here are my beefs. The one chance to actually get a mass of Canadians to sing along with the national anthem, and they go all artistic on us. I think that was an unfortunate decision, and the singer will likely get the blame. What were they thinking?

And last but not least: The volunteers leading in the athletes wore really short skirts or pants under their (unnecessarily) wintery coats. This was more subtle than the summer Olympics, with the egregious example of beach volleyball, but why oh why do women have to bare themselves when men don't? You'd think they'd be a bit sensitive to this sort of issue, given the bad publicity around denying Olympic ski jumping to women (see Vancouver poet laureate Brad Cran's poem on the subject).

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And there was tragedy yesterday: I am sorry, so sorry about Nodar Kumaritashvili, 21, a luger from the Republic of Georgia, who died yesterday during a training run in Whistler. He will live on as a graphic reminder that sometimes building something bigger, faster, taller, isn't always the best idea.