If you don't know that song, it's Dishes.


Understood aging. And how to wear spectacles - Jarvis Cocker

So yes, I turned 33 today. In my usual heroic fashion, I spent it marching for socialism! Well, at the annual Labour Day parade, if that counts. It was inspiring: my public sector contingent was almost entirely people of colour. It's good to know the labour movement represents some of the most exploited layers of the working class. It's less inspiring to hear what passes for culture: the unions had dancers on a flatbed truck rocking out to The Power, a song that hit the charts 15 years ago. The union van ahead of me blared Rise Up by The Parachute Club. Party like it's 1983.



I marched behind an "End Israeli Apartheid" banner, which caused some clapping and terse comments from pedestrians, and strained smiles from the social democrats on the review bleachers. The flyovers by military jets at the nearby air show added a note of poetic justice. Though it was more like a roar.

Marxism ruined my State Fair

The Labour Day parade goes to the annual fair, where marchers get in free. I hadn't been in years, so I was excited. I harbour fond memories of animals, cotton candy and obscure but essential products I didn't know I needed - ginsu knives, stain removers, that sort of thing. I ditched my comrades after lunch and lost myself in the great commercial mecca.

I started with the 'Hobbies, Arts & Crafts' pavilion. I was expecting craftspeople carving mailboxes, writing things on grains of rice, etc. But it was a big room full of vendors, selling mass-produced folk art vases and movie posters.


How friggin' quaint

So I went to find the animals, which meant passing by the army displays. I confess to a fascination with military technology, which I can't really justify by saying we'll have to use it someday against the ruling class. I guess I see it as feats of engineering, what humanity can accomplish in a collective project - gone horribly wrong. Anyhow, I realize it's made to be used, not to be spun off into radar and velcro.

It's bad enough that F-18s were roaring across the sky every few minutes - I saw one elderly Arab woman in a head scarf grimace and start complaining to her family. But do we need kids climbing on tanks and helicopters too? Actually, 4 soldiers died in Afghanistan yesterday, so I guess we need to replace them. There were smiling soldiers, bagpipers, and two big white banners with the "Support Our Troops" yellow ribbon in the middle, and people were signing them. It made me a little sick.


"Wait a minute, somebody's not laughing here. It's him!"

I have fond memories of farm shows, cos I like animals. But the 'Farm, Food & Fun' pavilion was sponsored by various meat marketing boards. I guess I didn't realize that when I was young: the cows, pigs and lambs are there to show everyone how fun and safe farming is. They don't screen PETA videos. I must've looked like I expected some, cos I was getting baleful stares from the middle-aged white people cradling their pot bellies in tightly-tucked denim shirts. But I couldn't help frowning: seeing cute little goats in wooden pens made me think how they'd be butchered a few months from now. The showroom-clean sawdust pens made me recall how awful the meat industry is for its workers. I liked the ostrich, because it nearly bit the finger off some slack-jawed yokel teasing it with his hand through the bars.

I went to the 'International Pavilion', expecting tourist displays from all the lands of the world, and secretly hoping North Korea would be there selling cartoons. But it was just another bunch of vendors - 'from around the world', but mostly from Chinatown a few blocks away.


"There's nothing for you here!"

By the time I got to the 'Sportzone', I wasn't surprised to see it sponsored by Sony, whose PSP display had far more onlookers than the basketball exhibition game taking place beside it. That's when it dawned on me: the fair was a huge sales op.

The pavilions taught me the true meaning of DIY is BIY - Buy It Yourself; multiculturalism is about varying shades of foreigners, who aren't so threatening cos look! - they have shiny geegaws to sell. Nothing about human endeavour, ethno-cultural pride, no use-value at all: just commodities, a suburban mall in festive garb. The parts that weren't about shopping, were about promoting agro-business and imperialism - so, shopping of a different sort.

I left feeling profoundly unmoved - and disturbed at how everyone else seemed to be enjoying themselves. Couldn't they see this was just consumerism, dressed up as entertainment? Did they think jet planes were made to amuse us and not to rain death on brown people? Was I just thinking too much?


"Dad, as intelligence goes up, happiness often goes down. In fact, I made a graph! I make a lot of graphs."

I felt like the grad-school rabbit in Matt Groening's School Is Hell, who tells a friend, "You just think you're happy", to which the friend replies, "Well, you just think you're smart." When I became a Marxist, ripping the gossamer veil off daily pleasures isn't what I signed up for, but that's what I got. Maybe this is why we have irony. It's ironic that the meat capitalists encourage kids to associate cute animals with an industry that slaughters them wholesale. It's ironic that the military puts on a big show for working class people when it's trying to meet higher recruitment targets.

But then, I hate irony. I like my humour to be sincere. Which means I have to avoid situations where honesty gets me depressed. Like fairs. And birthdays.