Southwestern Ontario August 13-30, 1078

In mid-August I spent a few days at a noisy, crowded, smoky campsite near Stratford.  Lots of families with kids, young adults partying, good old boys having a few beers and many too loud laughs.  People walking, biking and driving around the campground access roads, going who knows where.  This certainly does not feel like camping to me.  But then I’ve become accustomed to having places more or less to myself – but that was earlier in the summer, and in less popular, and populated, places, and I was often not in bona fide camping spots.  Still and all I find it hard to believe is that people (myself included) actually pay to camp in a place with no visual or aural privacy, cheek by jowl with other ‘happy (or not so happy) campers’.  Worser still, this place is right beside a highway, from which, for some reason, traffic sounds are amplified to levels approaching those on an airport runway. You can hear the cars and trucks for miles as they approach and disappear: 

zzzzzzzooooOOOOOooOOOOOoooommmmmm

 


And then there are the noisy antics of unchaperoned kids, carrying on until two and three in the morning, yelling and screaming their voices hoarse.

 

I consult my map, and consider where I might like to go next.  

 

And am invited to go back to Toronto for another rendezvous with my friend.  This time we spend rather more time in the city, going to restaurants, and once to a nightclub/disco called Bennelman’s.  

 




At Bennelman’s I sit and listen to the beat of African drums

primitive, sensual, sexual drums, beating loud 

engulfing, insisting, overwhelming

it is the heartbeat of lovemaking

of slow soft fingered foreplay

and hard frenetic fucking

bang, bang, bang!

 

but gazing out at the sea of bodies on the dance floor

I see bodies moving carefully, contrivedly, ‘artfully’

blank faces, devoid of any expression 

no sign of being in any way affected by 

the bewitching bestial beat

and no communication between the dancers

no physical contact, no eye contact, no smiles

 

behind me a white-robed woman, arm raised, cigarette in hand

watches the pulsating sea of dancers with bored indifference

a blond woman near the bar stands with hands pressed together at her chest

like an angel

she is a whore

 

the pulsing music beats on

the hollow-faced dancers dance on  

expressing nothing 

it is a kind of self-effacing, self-erasing ritual  

a denial of self, of vitality, of life

I will not fully live: therefore I will not fully die

 

I wonder why I came here

this is not my thing, or not my thing any more

but I dressed for the occasion 

I said I wanted to come (because he did)

and I am feigning enjoyment – ‘yes, I’m having a great time! I love it!’

 

I think of chameleons, how they change their colours 

make themselves invisible wherever they are

how often have I done that?

I will leave here – Bennelman’s and Taranna – soon

it’s not the place for me

even – or especially – chameleon me





    Note:  I took no photos during my time in Taranna, or at Bennelman's. Both photos are stock images.


Location: Toronto, ON, Canada

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