Marcello Di Cintio

Archive for May, 2011|Monthly archive page


Subverting the walls at TEDxCalgary

In Uncategorized on May 26, 2011 at 8:33 am

On June 4th, I will have the pleasure of giving a presentation at TEDxCalgary, a local ‘franchise’ of the inspiring TED talks that originated in California in the 1980s and have since become a sensation online. (Those of you who’ve never heard of TED should stop reading my blog and visit the TED site immediately.)

The theme of the TEDxCalgary event is Breaking Through: Exploring the Frontiers of Ideas and Action. Fittingly, my TED lecture will focus on my ‘walls’ project. I will retell the stories of people who have, through both “ideas and action,” subverted the walls and fences I’ve spent the last few years visiting. It is a human instinct, after all, to resist barriers. To run up and push on the doors marked ‘Do Not Enter.’

A wall is, by nature, a failure of creativity. There is nothing original or artful about erecting a wall. However, the act of defeating a wall can be a creative action. My presentation will examine two methods for subverting barriers. The first, most obviously, is to go over it (or under it, or around it). I will tell the stories of the migrants, refugees and activists I met during my travels that, through creativity, bravery and pluck, managed to get from Here to There. Secondly, and more esoterically, I will speak about those who’ve subverted the walls by transforming the barriers into art. When the wall becomes a canvas – or, in one case, a musical instrument – it ceases to be a barrier at all.

Details about the TEDxCalgary event, the other speakers I will share the stage with, and how to get tickets, can be found on the website here. For those who cannot attend, all presentations will eventually be posted online.


Poets and Pahlevans on the Cross-Country Bookshelf

In Uncategorized on May 22, 2011 at 11:20 am

This morning, friend and fellow writer Will Ferguson nominated Poets and Pahlevans: A Journey Into the Heart of Iran for the Alberta edition of CBC’s Cross Country Bookshelf. I am grateful for the nod, even though most of the other writers in the running – Will among them – are friends of mine.

(You can hear Will’s generous endorsement of my book here. Poets and Pahlevans gets its plug about halfway through the audio clip.)

So, if anyone in my own personal blogosphere is so inclined, please feel free to vote for Poets and Pahlevans. You will earn my sincere and electronic gratitude.

You can vote here.


Parc Extension Mural

In Uncategorized on May 20, 2011 at 8:35 pm


The  Montreal community of Parc Extension commissioned this mural to celebrate the neighbourhood’s centennial anniversary last year. The different fabrics in the image represent the diversity of cultures that make their home in Parc Ex.

The mural is not without its detractors, but I think it is gorgeous.



Thinking about Walls in Montreal

In Uncategorized on May 20, 2011 at 6:06 pm

I am in Montreal conducting research for what will likely be the last chapter of the ‘Walls’ book. I will investigate the fence, built in the 1960s, that stands between the neighbourhoods of the Town of Montreal and Parc Extension. I’ve only just begun my inquiries here and look forward to learning more. I am not certain what meaning this fence has for the residents of either community.

I am certain, though, that I will enjoy my time in Parc Ex. The community is a concentration of cultures from around the world. Someone recently counted 72 languages being spoken in the tiny neighborhood. I love this sort of thing, and not just because of the Bangladeshi curries and West African groceries available.

I will write more about Parc Ex and the fence later on. In the meantime, though, I would like to report briefly on a conference I attended earlier this week called Fences, Walls and Borders: State of Insecurity. The two-day event gathered scholars from around the world to present on a myriad of issues ranging from migration, terrorism, border art, security as culture, border architecture, journalism and much more. I love conferences like this. I am no scholar, and I revel in listening to big thinkers speak philosophically and intellectually about places I’ve experienced, as writer Ryszard Kapuściński might say, on the surface of my skin.

I spent the two days mining what I heard for ideas to explore in my own project. Here are a few of them:

  • The heightened security along the Indo-Bangladesh border has given rise to so much illegal trade that if the fences suddenly fell, so would the local economies.
  • There is a tendency to look at the walls and barriers as symbolic or social constructions – I do this myself sometimes. But for the border crossers, the walls are physical and dangerous realities.
  • In southern Arizona, the community has become so polarized and toxic on issues of illegal migration and the border that people must now call themselves “not-the-Other.” Anything Spanish or Mexican, no matter how banal, is suddenly controversial.
  • Poverty is structural violence.
  • Migration issues are discussed using ‘invasion rhetoric.’ When you call the illegal movement of migrants across the border as ‘waves’ or a ‘human tsunami’ you imply the necessity for levees and dams. But this invasion is a myth.
  • Borders everywhere have been transformed from mere lines into regions.
  • Walls blind us, but they do not make us deaf. We can hear what happens on the other side.
  • Borders vacillate, and so the walls built to define them are flaccid.
  • In Israel, the Gaza border can be defined by the range of the rockets that fly over its wall rather than its political boundary. In other words, the rockets extend the border. The real line becomes the point where violence cannot reach.
  • Humans possess an intuitive resistance to barriers.

Interesting ideas all. I thank the Thinkers for them.

Nominations for “Fatherhood”

In Uncategorized on May 4, 2011 at 11:51 pm

My “Fatherhood” story had a good week. The essay, which appeared in the November 2010 issue of Alberta Views, was shortlisted for both a Western Magazine Award and a National Magazine Award.

For the NMA, “Fatherhood” is nominated in the “Personal Journalism” category. Oddly, five of the nominated stories are about fathers and/or sons, and one tells the story of a new mother and her infant daughter. Parenthood is hot, I guess.

My fellow nominees include a number of fine writers including Heather O’Neill (“Me and My Dad”), Russell Smith (“My Beautiful Boy”) and Jeff Warren (“Tourists of Consciousness”). Another co-nominee is Noah Richler. The first time I was up for a NMA one of my co-nominees was his father, Mordecai Richler. (Neither of us won that year, as I recall). Noah’s nominated piece tells the story of turning Mordecai’s last novel, Barney’s Version, into a feature film and is called – keeping with the theme – “My Dad, the Movie, and Me.”

Wish me luck. It’d be nice to finally win one of these damn things.

The Iraqi Priest

In Uncategorized on May 4, 2011 at 11:18 pm

Today I interviewed Abbé Noël Farman for a story I am writing for Alberta Views. Abbé Noël Farman is a priest of the Chaldean Order of the Eastern Catholic Church who hails from Iraq. He is now the pastor at two Calgary churches: the Francophone parish Paroisse Sainte-Famille, and St. Mary Chaldean Parish. I will profile Abbé Farman’s life as a priest in Iraq, his journey from the Middle East to Canada, and his becoming a citizen last year.

Abbé Noël Farman is a fascinating man. He was born in the village in Iraq where Noah’s Ark landed, and worked as a journalist before he became a priest. He has a wife and three children; many churches within Catholicism, as it turns out, allow for married priests. One of the five languages Abbé Farman speaks is ancient Aramaic – the language of Jesus Christ – and during the Holy Thursday ritual, Farman recites for his congregation the words of Jesus exactly how they were first spoken at the Last Supper. Even as a non-believer I find this powerful, and I can’t wait to begin writing Farman’s story.

But one item from our conversation today affected me more than the rest. Last October, in Baghdad, terrorists massacred fifty-eight Iraqi Christians at a Catholic Church. After the disaster, two Calgary Muslims, a mother and her university-aged daughter, contacted Abbé Farman. The women were also from Iraq and requested a meeting with the Abbé. The three Iraqi-Canadians finally got together this morning. The women wanted to meet Farman to express their condolences for the massacre in their common homeland. They sat together in the church rectory for hours and spoke about the tragedy, about the country they all love but were compelled to leave, and about their new, better, lives in Canada.

I was struck by the quiet sincerity of the women’s gesture. This was not an act of official diplomacy. There was no photo-op. No camera crew. No stiff handshakes for the evening news. This was not about politics or optics. This was an expression of sadness and friendship between ordinary people who share a language and a birthplace – though not a faith – and who refuse to grant a victory to the men with guns. And this happened this morning, quietly, on a regular Wednesday, and the rest of the city carried on oblivious to the grace blossoming at its centre.

There are days I dislike this city. The day after the election was one of them. And then there are days like this.

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