If you ever have a chance to see the movie Downside UP: How art can change the spirit of a place, take it. It aired tonight on WGBH Boston. It’s a documentary about the revitalization of North Adams, Mass., centred around the establishment of Mass MoCA — the Museum of Contemporary Art — in the abandoned industrial buildings of the fading mill town.

We visited Mass MoCA last summer, in the midst of our summer sojourn in New England. It’s an amazing set of spaces. The film fills in the context very well.

One of those Really Big Cruise Ships was docked in Charlottetown today.

You could tell it was coming because all of the “We Welcome Cruise Ships” posters went up in local shops as they prepared to prostrate themselves to the ephemeral postcard and clubhouse sandwich buyers amidst their capsule ingestion of our delightful Island culture (this map for cruise ship visitors [PDF] is sort of “Charlottetown Lite” — how to lick the frosting out of our civic Oreo© in 5 hours or less; note how “FREE INTERNET” and Province House, the cradle of Canadian Confederation, are about the same size on the map).

Regardless of how soulless cruise ship tourism might be, one can’t help but be impressed by the immensity of the hardware involved. Here’s a picture we snapped this afternoon from Fort Amherst of the Holland America ship Rotterdam docked in Charlottetown Harbour. Click the photo for a larger version, with handy labels.

If you need any additional convincing that our city as seen through the fast food lens of the cruise ship visit is weird, look at how Holland America describes Charlottetown:

A provincial capital with a distinctly English feel. Where red double-decker buses motor along streets lined with gingerbread-trimmed Victorian houses; and tea is served promptly at three.

Exactly where does this Charlottetown exist? “Tea is served promptly at three?” Huh? Apparently they use some sort of automated “Describotron” system to write their copy, as here is how they characterize Victoria, British Columbia:

Stroll through the charming downtown of this very British city, with it’s double-decker buses, turreted castles, fine British woolens, tea and china. Or, just outside the city, visit the lush flora and fauna of Butchart Gardens.

Apparently double-decker buses, tea, and a British vibe go over big with the cruise ship set. Indeed, look how they describe London:

In the East Anglia countryside see the mill, bridge and medieval barns immortalized by landscape painter John Constable. Tour to London, shop stylish Knightsbridge, hop a double-decker bus.

The Rotterdam carries 1316 passengers and 600 crew. It was in port for 9 hours. The ship, in all its crazy bigness, is coming back on June 24, July 2, July 8, Sept. 23, Oct. 1, Oct. 13 and Oct. 21, so if you missed it this time, you can always catch it later in the season. We left Fort Amherst before it steamed out of Charlottetown Harbour; I think it would be quite a sight to see it leaving out there.

I started off the week, on Saturday, stumbling into the middle of the Gay Pride Parade near the Public Library in Boston. My first reaction: “wow, there are a lot more gays and lesbians in Boston than I thought.” I think that’s part of the point.

I was actually on my way to Restoration Hardware, and while wandering around the store (mini-review: there much less there than meets the eye), a prim elderly woman started to ask me a question about whether “we” still carried a particular item. Then she saw that I was wearing a jacket wrapped around my waist, and that I wasn’t actually an employee. She didn’t apologize; she just mumbled and wandered away.

Joining me in Restoration Hardware were a lot of very nervous looking men in short pants and golf shirts looking like they’d just wandered onto the set of their worst nightmare. Thank goodness for a hardware store; they might have exploded if not for that refuge. I’m as repressed about my sexuality as the next guy, but I like to hope it never comes to that.

I returned to Canada to Prime Minister Jean Chretien telling us that “There is an evolution in society,” and that same-sex marriages will soon be recognized in here. This might be the first time that a head of state has publicly recognized that societies evolve and the rules need to keep up. Bravo. Chretien, leading an anti-war, pro-pot, pro-same sex marriage government is coming dangerously close to being a progressive.

If one examines this issue from a purely aesthetic point of view, I’m with the gays and lesbians hands down. Look at this story from Alberta vs. this story from Ontario. The gay couple in Ontario looks happy, content, and casual. The Alberta Justice Minister looks like the bunged up captain of a sinking cultural ship.

Besides, if we’re going to culturally sidle, why not move towards the Belgians and the Dutch rather than our “not yet at the party” American cousins? Who’s got the cooler society?

As a “not married, but living in a longterm relationship and co-parenting a child with a person of the opposite sex” man, I feel like a whole bunch of new people will be joining a club that I’ve choosen, with Catherine, not to become a member of. Nonetheless, equality, including the equality to marry, is good, and I laud the courts and the federal government for their actions.

I have every confidence that our local government here on PEI will take the high road, and not step back into the dark ages as Alberta has choosen to do. Shame on them.

More sexuality news as situations develop…

Here’s Tim Bray on how we search. Interesting.

CDNOW is now an “Amazon.com veneer store,” as are Borders, the venerable Waterstones and Toys-R-Us. Consumers have less choice. Amazon has more money. I don’t have a moral opposition to this, just a malaise that the Amazon Borg is so successful at consuming its competition.

Bruce Cockburn released a new album last week called You’ve Never Seen Everything.

Rounder Records, which is releasing the album in the U.S.A., has a set of song clips from the album. On first listen, it all sounds a little too electronic too me: Cockburn is an inspired guitar player, and taking his sound and mixing it with bloops and glips that sound like they’re coming from a Commodore 64 does not enhance it in any way. Try listening to Tried and Tested, for example (RealAudio stream from Cooking Vinyl).

Part of this feeling might be an by-product of poor digital encoding for web delivery: all the clips I’ve listened to, no matter the source, seem to have been filtered through a thin jaggedy metal sock. Even acoustic numbers (try Open) have this quality. The best encoding — and even it’s very low-fi, are the Windows Media Player versions on Amazon.com.

My favourite track (keeping in mind that I’m strongly in the “Wondering Where the Lions Are” camp, in terms of his career), is Messenger Wind.

I consider myself a rather shy, quiet, and reserved person. The image I have of the “real inside me” is that little kid in grade four who had to be counselled by Mr. Dykstra, my teacher, about the importance of playing with other kids, and not hanging out around the corner alone playing in the dirt all the time.

Or that much elder fellow who, when faced without the careful guidance of my lady love at a party one night at Catherine Hennessey’s, spent the entire night glued to a chair in the corner (something Ms. Hennessey has never let me forget, to the extent where I am no longer welcome to sit in that particular chair).

Needless to say, in this light, I’ve never considered myself a gesticulator. But as this video [10.3MB QuickTime Movie], kindly provided by Daniel Burka, of last night’s session clearly demonstrates, I have somehow become one.

Watching this might force me back into my shell forever…

All the fuss in New York City about car alarms reminded me of the usual problem we experience here in downtown Charlottetown on July 1 when the fireworks go off over Charlottetown Harbour. Inevitably the sonic booms created by the fireworks set off a good collection of car alarms. I gather it’s those with motion sensors so finely tuned as to detect break-in attempts from mice. Either that or there are cars designed to detect and warn against attempted break-in by cruise missle.

In any case, if you own an alarmed car, and would like to relieve the downtown of annoying July 1 noise, leave your car at home and take the bus, or leave your car alarm turned off that night. (Note to criminals: please do not use this as an invitation to holiday burglary).

Thanks to Steven and his Merry Band, there’s a good collection of photos of last night’s seminar over at silverorange.

If you are, or plan to be a candidate in the upcoming municipal elections in Charlottetown, Summerside, Cornwall or Stratford, there is a certain part of the electorate that will expect you to have a weblog. If you don’t know what a weblog is, this summer is the time to find out, and the best way to do this is to read other weblogs. The technical part is easy; learning how to write for this audience has a learning curve.

This isn’t thousands of electors I’m talking about. But if you do this right, and your ideas are compelling, you might pick up 25 or 30 votes in a polling division. And in a close race, that might be all it takes.