EzraWinton.com | Media arts and politics

The following post was written ten or so days ago…we’re now in Istanbul and this is the first moment I’ve found to post it belive it or not!….

Maybe it’s the Rakia talking, but I’m laying here in this bed, Bulgarian crickets if there is such a thing, mixed with melody of rough hound voice in folds of a small coastal village, and I’m thinking about caring and having a higher purpose. I just watched REPORTER, where the idea is put forward that knowing is not enough, the West especially needs to CARE. We’ve been staying in this village for three days in a nice B&B of a friend of a friend of Svetla’s. The owner has a penchant for Dutch furniture and design. The house is actually built from wood, not stone or brick as is customary in these parts. But a large dog has made herself known in the back garden daily and nightly with barks of what I soon discerned to be longing. A large beast needs to move. So, after being supplied with some leather gloves and a rusty chain, I took the thing out for a walk, or rather it took me for a jog.

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One of the many beautiful streets of Lisbon

So a recapping of our time in Portugal is in order. We left Paris on June 20 and landed in Lisbon where we stayed for two nights before taking a train to the breathtaking Algarve in Southern Portugal, where we spent a week. Lisbon was as charming as I remembered it: a small city on the sandy banks of the Tejo river, built up of layers of history that one can literally see in the form of an open archaeological excavation on display in one of the city’s oldest churches, Sé Catedral de Lisboa, where pre-Christ Phoenician homes were intermingled with layers of Roman shops, canals and steps. Svetla had left Montreal a little sick, and by Lisbon the bug had become a night-time cough that kept both of us awake and made us zombie-like during the daytime. But we had a nice, affordable hotel room right in the heart of downtown Rossio square, and next to the city’s most famous and oldest cable car, Elevador de Santa Justa, that goes up and down a steep incline.

The downtown has some sketchy parts, but it’s mostly pick-pockets and drug sellers, nothing too major. That first evening we wandered around and plunked down on wobbly chairs atop uneven stones at one of hundreds of small traditional street restaurants. I had been having one of my hunger fits so the spot was chosen purely out of utility and not intuition. Sitting there eating our fish dinners (we ate a lot of sardines in Portugal since June was the Month of the Sardine) and sipping on local wine, a steady stream of men whispering “hashish, coke, weed” streamed by.

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Poster in Sofia promoting Madonna's "Sticky and Sweet" Tour

It’s hot. The heat makes you sticky; turns you into a walking fly paper strip. Dirt sticks to you, bed sheets, clothing. Chairs stick to you when you get up to leave cafés. Other people stick to you, and not always the ones you’d even like sticking to you. The keys on this lap top are sticky. The stickiness seems to spread to everything. A viral tactile sensation that even this super duper high powered fan (announcing as it does on it’s box “Your Perfect Choice!”) aimed directly at me cannot combat. When the heat hits, Sofia is one sticky place. Add to this our residence on the sixth floor in an A-shaped attic appartment, and you will begin to appreciate my new obsession with things that go stick in the night.

In the evenings, after days wandering around doing this and that, then eating dinner with friends or at Svetla’s parents, we return to this little space of ours. After climbing the stone stairs all the way up, we arrive at a tiny door and undo the formidable locks. We both hesitate before entering, waiting for that pent up but now released, waft of hot air that feels like it’s been pushed out of a giant hot air balloon by a giant’s fist. Once inside we alight to our stations: Svetla darts to the bedroom and opens that room’s skylight, I struggle through the invisible inferno and grapple for the number “3” switch on the floor fan, then pop open the skylight in the common room, where I sit now. The two skylights opening at these times must have the effect, from the outside, of gaskets releasing high-pressure heat plumes from the red-tiled slopes of this apartment building’s roof top.

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Svetla and Ezra get sun on the Seine - the spot to drink wine as the sun sets in Paris

Those who check this space won’t be shocked to learn that it’s been a dear while since I managed to throw some words up on to the cyberpage, so I’m going to forgo the usual pandering and just let it be known that after weeks of a no-computer policy, we have recently faced technological hurdles, which have been overcome. I shall, from this day forward until the end of the summer, do my best to keep the dispatches flowing. So, some catching up is in order. Below is Paris summarized. The next entry will be Portugal, then the first week in Bulgaria, and then, I shall be caught up and able to sleep with a clear conscience.

It’s been just over two weeks since we left Montreal for Europe. We’re now safely in the chaotic folds of Bulgaria’s capital city Sofia. We’ve been here for three days, getting our bearings, getting stuffed full of delicious Balkan cuisine by Svetla’s mom, and continuing our campaign, begun in Portugal, for total relaxation. Read the rest of this entry »

Whew!! Writing from extremely cold cold cold Winnipeg where snow is on the ground and chill is in the bones. I’m here for the Gimme Some Truth documentary project - a film festival and conference happening in the city between November 6th and 9th. Myself and Tom Waugh were asked to come and speak about Challenge for Change as we approach the final editing stages of our book on the same subject. It’s been nice to see some of the people from the IMAA conference I attended in Kelowna last May, and today I saw a great video art performance installation. So for today and tomorrow and maybe Monday, I’m throwing out the odd blog about my experiences here at my real online gig, Art Threat. Check out my posts about Gimme Some Truth there.

And as I get ready to fly back to Montreal tomorrow, I’ll reflect on my recent stint of Canada-trotting from Montreal to Ottawa to Montreal to Vancouver to Montreal to Ottawa to Montreal to Winnipeg to Montreal, all in the span of about eight days. My eco-footprint is now the size of Manitoba. I have one more presentation to give in Ottawa on Tuesday (on my Female Suicide Bomber paper), then I’m really really done with all this extra craziness. From then until Xmas it will just be two papers and Cinema Politica. Ahh, the sweet smell of the end of a busy, frenetic time….

So check out my posts at Art Threat people - I’m hanging out with doc legends up here!!

I always love the first snowfall - I get a bit giggly and giddy like I used to when my mom would let me miss school on account of a “snow day.” That was back in BC where the white cold stuff was a bit of an anomoly. But on this chilly October night in Ottawa, it’s not that surprising. Still, I couldn’t resist taking a crummy photo with this phone I’m presently blogging with…22 centimeters of snow after 3 hours on a Greyhound, 3 hours of a graduate seminar, 5 hours of marking midterms, and 3 hours of research, and I’m down with the flakes!

This is my first attempt to blog from my new iPhone. I’m currently on the Hasidic bus from Montreal to New York…I can see now that blogging this way is not as convenient as having a keyboard, but I had to try it! New York here I come!

To accompany the post below (from August 6th) I’ve uploaded this short trailer video of the recent crazy wedding in Bulgaria that saw Svetla and I joined in ceremony and celebration a third time. The cameraman has done a great job and cut this little ditty to the song “accidentally in love.” If anyone is interested in viewing the feature length version, speak to our agent. The video is password-protected, just type in “Svetzra” and it should work. Enjoy!

Svetzra’s BG Wedding (wedding #3) from Ezra Winton on Vimeo.

Wow, where the hell have all the days gone? Let’s see, since I last posted Svetla and I had a wedding in an Orthodox church (quite obviously, pictured above) followed by an amazing party at a huge restaurant nestled in the forested foothills in the mountain range outside of Sofia and oh yes, it also doubled as an all-natural brewery! The wedding ceremony was quite intense yet somehow laid back at the same time. I was expecting one priest and got three, plus a full choir singing from some unseen place in the churches upper reaches. You can imagine how this setting could make even the biggest skeptic feel at the very least warm and fuzzy (or trembling with fear?). There was walking, stopping, chanting, candle holding (I almost melted mine under the intense Hulk-like grip I nervously exacted on the wax form), crown wearing and crown swapping, bible kissing, wine drinking, and of course a lot of photo-taking. The whole thing was positively confusing and marvelous…
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I’ve been in Europe for almost two weeks and have yet to find the right time to sit (with wireless) and write a post. Here it finally is (pictured above is me in front of the church I was christened in and me with the priest, my godmother Villy and Svetla’s sister Joanna, who translated the ceremony for me).

First the good news: My SSHRC (Social Science and Humanities Research Council) Doctoral Fellowship has been upgraded to a SSHRC CGS Doctoral Award, which means an increase from $60,000 over three years to $105,000 over three years. When I read the email I could barely contain the tears of total joy. It is an incredible honour to receive this award, one of the top of its kind in Canada (or the top??) and I had no idea that this kind of news could come to me this late in the summer. Woohoo!

In other news, I was christened in a Bulgarian Orthodox church on Monday, July 14th (the news of the SSHRC Award came, divine-like, later the same day). The ceremony was quite intense, with Svetla and her family (mom, dad, sister) as well as my new godmother Villy there to see me through it. Svetla’s sis Yoanna translated the priest’s Bulgarian as I was told to renounce the devil and live a life of faith and devotion. He drew tiny crosses on my forehead hands and feet with holy oils, dipped a green plant in holy water and drenched me in it. I had to step into the holy water three times and say “da” (yes) and afterward my godmom had to dry me off and help me into new socks and a new shirt. The whole thing seemed to last about an hour and took place in the upper most chamber of a beautiful little church in the neighbourhood Svetla grew up in. It was pretty warm despite the nice cool breeze coming in through the window and in the first 15 minutes I sweat off about 15 kilos, which is a non-Orthodox conversion equation I guess. We stood in front a giant mural of jesus standing in a river with disciples around him. In many of the photos Jesus’s iconic halo is directly above my own head. What does it all mean you may ask? It means I believe in family, in customs, in ritual, and in respect. That’s why I was christened in Bulgaria five days before getting married.

Speaking of married, we will be wed in the same beautiful church (pictured above) on July 19, a few days from now. A party is planned in the mountains near Sofia, at an all-natural brewery that doubles as a restaurant lodge. Fun fun! The running around is a little intense, Bulgarian style, but I’m coping. One day we (Svetla, mom, dad, Villy, me) drove all over Sofia searching for the perfect party spot - there were restaurants in parks, an outdoor pool (swimming kind) club, hotel spaces, and more. Thank god for me that every stop along the way I was able to have a nice cold Bulgarian beer in the heat. Beer often becomes my friend over here, when everyone around me is speaking Bulgarian and I become tall mute man from Canada.

But this time I am learning the language. I bought a few books and have been getting up in the morning relatively early and trying to teach myself the basics, and of course getting in lots of practice throughout the day. Whether it’s been a Bar-b-q overnight party at Rico’s summer house on the mountain or dancing to Brooklyn Funk Essentials at a great little jazz bar in Sofia called the Social Club, I have been indulging in destroying this nation’s beautiful language, word by word. But I’ve been making progress, and I’ve discovered the Bulgarians are even more thrilled to hear a foreigner make the tiniest linguistic attempts than the Quebecois. Still, after a late night of libations involving Rakia at Ricos, the only thing I could remember the next day was “dobro kuch-ay,” which due to the presence of a friendly Pit Bull, means “good dog.” You can’t go very far in Bulgarian society with “good dog” so needless to say, I’m trying to do a little more learning without alcohol.

That’s my update for now, but before I go, I’d like to thank Democracy Now and the Guardian for keeping me tethered to anglo-interpretations of the world outside this great city Sofia.