I'mme Speaking of Failure

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Speaking of Failure: an Improvisation in Three Parts ish Includes Explicit details of Trauma version

Saturday 20 April, 2024

I'm not sure that writing on failure is possible. Or rather, it seems to me that expression, even of failure, is the antithesis of failure. That's why, in the final pages of the Summary of the Final Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, mention is made of the importance of the arts in the healing of Canada's indigenous peoples, of all oppressed peoples:

Art is active, and "participation in the arts is a guarantor of other human rights because the first thing that is taken away from vulnerable, unpopular or minority groups is the right to self-expression."²⁰⁷ (Page 280 in the .pdf version. The quote is attributed to Francois Matarraso in the endnotes on page 506.)

So I hope that I fail miserably at writing on failure. Because I don't want to prove failure, I want victory. I want a happy ending. I want beauty to prevail, even if it's painful. I want art to do its thing - to transcend.

When claude wittmann invited me to read from a "failure text" on the precarihousing soundmap, I looked to the raggedy collection of books I've been hauling around from apartment to apartment since pre-internet times. I felt drawn to read from a text that had personal significance, that I had a connection to. Matthew Goulish's 39 Microlectures caught my eye, and I pulled it off the shelf. Chapter 11: Failure. Aha! Promising, I thought.

Chapter 11 consists of a single subchapter, 11.1. It is entitled Failure: An Elegy. It consists of a countdown of sorts, from 20 to 0, of failures: the slow-motion fall off of the back of a high platform described in the first failure, number 20. I skimmed to number 0 and felt myself hit the ground: "Of this, she will not speak.”

In the source notes, "Of this she will not speak" is attributed to The Life of St. Teresa of Avila by Herself, J.M. Cohen, Translator.

I was first introduced to Matthew Goulish's work in art school. One of my teachers, who had worked with Goulish, had a few of his microlectures and was passing out photocopies of them in class. This was in the mid-late 1990's. Looking at them now, it looks like they may have been originally produced on an electric typewriter. I vaguely remember a comment about being mindful of sharing - not on the internet, just in general - and a mention of future publishing. A couple of years later, I noticed 39 Microlectures on a table in Pages bookstore in Toronto and recognised Goulish's name. Hunh, I thought. There it is. I bought the book because I felt like I was part of it.

Goulish's chapter on failure spoke to me because of my own inability to speak. Specifically about a sexual assault I experienced. Very specifically about an oral sexual assault I experienced. More specifically, a sexual assault by someone who was, for me at that time, a senior member of my art community. It's hard to speak when, unexpectedly, non-consensually, you find someone's penis rammed down your throat. But I've had a problem with speaking since I was a kid.

I thought that Goulish's text was unique in placing a woman's - and, by extension, women's - silence at the top of his inverted pyramid of failures. To me it acknowledged the enormity of the problem. And he's a man, and the Microlectures were published in 2000, long before #MeToo - this chapter deserved to be read.

Saturday 29 June, 2024

But what is expression?

Acts of resistance sometimes take place in "irreconcilable spaces" where artists choose to keep their residential school experiences private or share them only with other Aboriginal people.²⁰⁹ This is also essential to individual and collective reclaim- ing of identity, culture, and community memory. (Page 281. The quote is attributed to David Gameau.)

15 July 2024

Certainly it must lie in the choice to express, to speak, or not. Goulish's ground zero failure "Of this she will not speak", sourced from St. Theresa's "Of this I will not speak", translated by J.M. Cohen, is greater only than the preceeding failure in his list, the God who answered her prayers in the form of three years' suffering from illness which she believed to be her path to "eternal good". It still does not explain where the failure lies - why she did not speak. Is Goulish blaming St. Theresa herself? In her words is he hearing a refusal or a silencing? Or is his positioning of St. Theresa's not-speaking reflect the totality - the not knowing, the loss.

I wrote to Matthew Goulish, but I didn't hear back from him. It was about the rights to read his Chapter.

Even in a lost little corner of the internet, a page in a fringy art project, under a pseudonym, I'm not sure if I'll edit out the part about the sexual assault or not. I'm not sure how I feel about it, if I'm ready, if it'll be ok. Why, what it means. It it's worth it. If it'll help me or hinder me. I'm afraid. We wrapped up the (first phase of the?) soundmap project back in April, and, I've long since invoiced and received payment for this writing on failure that I haven't finished yet. $500. I don't want to fail at this. I'm reminded of another writing, another $500, in the early 2000's… fees in the arts seem to have stagnated. I never finished my piece. I took the money and never submitted the work. My confessional.

Our rental units at 38 Abell St. are now listed for sale. We know that the Ontario commercial Court Judge has ruled against at least one sales proposal, we think, but it's just hearsay, shared, possibly negligently, by the staff of a City Councilor. Of this frustrating, labyrinthine limbo I will not speak further. It's too exhausting.

Maybe Saint Theresa was tired. She had to choose where to spend her energy. She went on to found 17 Carmelite monasteries throughout Spain, the back of the book says. I wish I could sense back through the little black letters on the page, back through J.M. Cohen's translation, into her mind, her spirit, her soul. In her day, in her time, where did her agency lie? Why did she choose not to speak?

I hope one day to understand what moved Matthew Goulish in St. Theresa's not speaking, what failure the phrase "Of this I will not speak" contained for him.

That he spoke of it spoke to me.

Tuesday 3 September, 2024

I've got to finish this. I've got to let go. Does that make this failure, or is it a triumph?

But there was that whole story, a good story, that further proved my point, that was juicy, even, about trying to get permission to use Failure: An Elegy from Matthew Goulish's publisher.

There was all of that figuring out I had to do about whether or not I could speak about the sexual assault even here in this lost little corner of the internet - there's always that chance that it'll become an un-lost un-little corner - even under the blanket of this alias.

There was my ego, needing and wanting to pull together something brilliant, fabulous.

I'm writing this in a notebook. I'm going to need to create a text document to upload this to the map. There will inevitably be editing. Will I get stuck again? Will I be able to let this be rough, ragged, unsure, out of control, unbalanced, bad?

The End

If I don't finish this, I'll truly fail - I'll have never submitted it, I won't be here. I won't be moving on to something else, off to establish my 17 monasteries. But this isn't failure itself, it's an expression of failure.

Tuesday 19 November 2024

I'm failing at failure because in this lost corner of the internet under the blanket of my pseudonym claude is here. claude created the place, the possibility, the dialogue.

Individually, yes, we fail. But together we transcend. Through expression. Or something like that. Thank you, claude.

Speaking of Failure:
an Improvisation
in Three Parts ish
Includes Explicit details
of Trauma version

Speaking of Failure: an Improvisation in Three Parts ish Omits all Details of Trauma version

Saturday 20 April, 2024

I'm not sure that writing on failure is possible. Or rather, it seems to me that expression, even of failure, is the antithesis of failure. That's why, in the final pages of the Summary of the Final Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, mention is made of the importance of the arts in the healing of Canada's indigenous peoples, of all oppressed peoples:

Art is active, and "participation in the arts is a guarantor of other human rights because the first thing that is taken away from vulnerable, unpopular or minority groups is the right to self-expression."²⁰⁷ (Page 280 in the .pdf version. The quote is attributed to Francois Matarraso in the endnotes on page 506.)

So I hope that I fail miserably at writing on failure. Because I don't want to prove failure, I want victory. I want a happy ending. I want beauty to prevail, even if it's painful. I want art to do its thing - to transcend.

When claude wittmann invited me to read from a "failure text" on the precarihousing soundmap, I looked to the raggedy collection of books I've been hauling around from apartment to apartment since pre-internet times. I felt drawn to read from a text that had personal significance, that I had a connection to. Matthew Goulish's 39 Microlectures caught my eye, and I pulled it off the shelf. Chapter 11: Failure. Aha! Promising, I thought.

Chapter 11 consists of a single subchapter, 11.1. It is entitled Failure: An Elegy. It consists of a countdown of sorts, from 20 to 0, of failures: the slow-motion fall off of the back of a high platform described in the first failure, number 20. I skimmed to number 0 and felt myself hit the ground: "Of this, she will not speak."

In the source notes, "Of this she will not speak" is attributed to The Life of St. Teresa of Avila by Herself, J.M. Cohen, Translator.

I was first introduced to Matthew Goulish's work in art school. One of my teachers, who had worked with Goulish, had a few of his microlectures and was passing out photocopies of them in class. This was in the mid-late 1990's. Looking at them now, it looks like they may have been originally produced on an electric typewriter. I vaguely remember a comment about being mindful of sharing - not on the internet, just in general - and a mention of future publishing. A couple of years later, I noticed 39 Microlectures on a table in Pages bookstore in Toronto and recognised Goulish's name. Hunh, I thought. There it is. I bought the book because I felt like I was part of it.

Goulish's chapter on failure spoke to me because of my own inability to speak. Specifically trauma I experienced. But I've had a problem with speaking since I was a kid.

I thought that Goulish's text was unique in placing a woman's - and, by extension, women's - silence at the top of his inverted pyramid of failures. To me it acknowledged the enormity of the problem. And he's a man, and the Microlectures were published in 2000, long before #MeToo - this chapter deserved to be read.

Saturday 29 June, 2024

But what is expression?

Acts of resistance sometimes take place in "irreconcilable spaces" where artists choose to keep their residential school experiences private or share them only with other Aboriginal people.²⁰⁹ This is also essential to individual and collective reclaim- ing of identity, culture, and community memory. (Page 281. The quote is attributed to David Gameau.)

15 July 2024

Certainly it must lie in the choice to express, to speak, or not. Goulish's ground zero failure "Of this she will not speak", sourced from St. Theresa's "Of this I will not speak", translated by J.M. Cohen, is greater only than the preceeding failure in his list, the God who answered her prayers in the form of three years' suffering from illness which she believed to be her path to "eternal good". It still does not explain where the failure lies - why she did not speak. Is Goulish blaming St. Theresa herself? In her words is he hearing a refusal or a silencing? Or is his positioning of St. Theresa's not-speaking reflect the totality - the not knowing, the loss.

I wrote to Matthew Goulish, but I didn't hear back from him. It was about the rights to read his Chapter.

Even in a lost little corner of the internet, a page in a fringy art project, under a pseudonym, I'm not sure if I'll edit out the part about the trauma or not. I'm not sure how I feel about it, if I'm ready, if it'll be ok. Why, what it means. It it's worth it. If it'll help me or hinder me. I'm afraid.

We wrapped up the (first phase of the?) soundmap project back in April, and, I've long since invoiced and received payment for this writing on failure that I haven't finished yet. $500. I don't want to fail at this. I'm reminded of another writing, another $500, in the early 2000's… fees in the arts seem to have stagnated. I never finished my piece. I took the money and never submitted the work. My confessional.

Our rental units at 38 Abell St. are now listed for sale. We know that the Ontario commercial Court Judge has ruled against at least one sales proposal, we think, but it's just hearsay, shared, possibly negligently, by the staff of a City Councilor. Of this frustrating, labyrinthine limbo I will not speak further. It's too exhausting.

Maybe Saint Theresa was tired. She had to choose where to spend her energy. She went on to found 17 Carmelite monasteries throughout Spain, the back of the book says. I wish I could sense back through the little black letters on the page, back through J.M. Cohen's translation, into her mind, her spirit, her soul. In her day, in her time, where did her agency lie? Why did she choose not to speak?

I hope one day to understand what moved Matthew Goulish in St. Theresa's not speaking, what failure the phrase "Of this I will not speak" contained for him.

That he spoke of it spoke to me.

Tuesday 3 September, 2024

I've got to finish this. I've got to let go. Does that make this failure, or is it a triumph?

But there was that whole story, a good story, that further proved my point, that was juicy, even, about trying to get permission to use Failure: An Elegy from Matthew Goulish's publisher.

There was all of that figuring out I had to do about whether or not I could speak about the trauma even here in this lost little corner of the internet - there's always that chance that it'll become an un-lost un-little corner - even under the blanket of this alias.

There was my ego, needing and wanting to pull together something brilliant, fabulous.

I'm writing this in a notebook. I'm going to need to create a text document to upload this to the map. There will inevitably be editing. Will I get stuck again? Will I be able to let this be rough, ragged, unsure, out of control, unbalanced, bad?

The End

If I don't finish this, I'll truly fail - I'll have never submitted it, I won't be here. I won't be moving on to something else, off to establish my 17 monasteries. But this isn't failure itself, it's an expression of failure.

Tuesday 19 November 2024

I'm failing at failure because in this lost corner of the internet under the blanket of my pseudonym claude is here. claude created the place, the possibility, the dialogue.

Individually, yes, we fail. But together we transcend. Through expression. Or something like that. Thank you, claude.

Speaking of Failure:
an Improvisation
in Three Parts ish
Omits all Details
of Trauma version

land acknowledgement

We, who activate this map as the dispossessed disabled artists demanding housing in Toronto/Tkaronto (ddadh), acknowledge our privilege to live on traditional territory shared with us by many nations who have lived here and cared for it before and since settlers came. We live in Tkaronto/Toronto.

We acknowledge our discomfort with the 1787 Toronto Purchase, the 1805 Indenture, the 1923 Williams Treaties and possibly also with the 2010 $145 million settlement between Canada and the Mississaugas of New Credit First Nation and with Treaty No. 13, because they imposed settlers' concept of land ownership and extinguished rights. In that sense, we consider the possibility that we are on a territory that was never considered through an equal nation-to-nation relationship and never ceded.

We acknowledge that our work on finding our home in Tkaronto/Toronto closely touches on land ownership. We largely favour public land ownership, but we acknowledge also that, be it private or public, especially in Tkaronto/Toronto where the City has not started a decolonizing process, land ownership does not recognize the spirit and concepts with which the land is considered and cared for by Indigenous communities, Indigenous philosophy and knowledge.

We acknowledge that maps such as this one have served and still serve purposes of colonization. We acknowledge that the features appearing on our map, such as names, addresses and wards boundaries (very different for example from Native Lands territories boundaries are there to serve our housing-related goal and that this goal is only so far attending to the needs of the Indigenous and Métis population of Tkaronto as our efforts to reach out to them and make sure they could benefit from our work will go.

We acknowledge to have knowledge that Tkaronto/Toronto is in the "Dish With One Spoon Territory".

Image of the Medicine Wheel suggested by Alec Whitewolf Butler, one of the artists behind this map who is of Mi'kmaw, French, Irish and Afro descent, originally from Cape Breton Island aka Uni'Maki aka "Island of Fog".
information about the Medicine Wheel
image credit: commonswikimedia.org

The Dish With One Spoon is a treaty between the Anishinaabe, Mississaugas and Haudenosaunee that bound them to share the territory and protect the land. Subsequent Indigenous Nations and peoples, Europeans and all newcomers have been invited into this treaty in the spirit of peace, friendship and respect.

The "Dish", or sometimes it is called the "Bowl", represents what is now southern Ontario, from the Great Lakes to Quebec and from Lake Simcoe into the United States. *We all eat out of the Dish, all of us that share this territory, with only one spoon. That means we have to share the responsibility of ensuring the dish is never empty, which includes taking care of the land and the creatures we share it with. Importantly, there are no knives at the table, representing that we must keep the peace.

This was a treaty made between the Anishinaabe and Haudenosaunee after the French and Indian War. Newcomers were then incorporated into it over the years, notably in 1764 with The Royal Proclamation/The Treaty of Niagara.

We acknowledge our extremely limited capacity in respectfully enacting this treaty.

The settlers among us address our apology to all Indigenous individuals involved in the project and all Indigenous communities who are still suffering.

land