JAMES BAY CULTURE BLOG #2

(Editor's note: “Blows” is a technical term suggesting flagrant disparagement or the outright dismissal of a given topic. It is considered a synonym for “sucks.”)

Dear James Bay,

Several days ago, soy latté in hand, I was out vigilantly patrolling the border regions of James Bay. I consider this the duty of every citizen. We all must work to stave off waves of scurrilous invaders from Cook St. Village – bakery & antique store refugees. So I was heading South through Beacon Hill Park when - BAM! – I ran smack into the World's Tallest Totem Pole. Moments later, lying in the dry brown grass, I regained my senses and soy latté foam was everywhere.

I admit it: I adore totem poles. That's not a secret Freudian confession, these archaic monuments really are breathtakingly magnificent -- statues, books, flags & DNA codes rolled into one.

Sigmund Freud, in TOTEM AND TABOO wrote:

“...the totem is the common ancestor of the clan; at the same time it is their guardian spirit and helper, which sends them oracles and, if dangerous to others, recognises and spares its own children.“

That sounds about right. Freud also wrote: “It is certainly noticeable that the ambivalence attached to the father complex also continues in totemism and in religions in general." Hmmm. Less clear.

I assume he meant that boys obey their fathers, kill their fathers, force their wives to become their mothers and then regret the whole damned operation – a murky mix of love and hatred that later gets projected onto carved wooden poles. A strange fellow. The longer I looked at this Pole, however, the more ambivalent I felt. Maybe the old goat was onto something. I had to find out more...

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