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1 May 2013 Incident at YYZ Toronto International Airport
Date: Tue, 30 Apr 2013 17:19:38 -0400 (EDT) Incident at YYZ Toronto International Airport We were in Toronto for the HASTAC Conference at York University. We left Sunday late afternoon. At the airport we checked our bag. We then took the bag through customs. We went through several stages. We had the bag tagged. We showed our boarding-passes and passports everywhere. We filled out the customs declarations. We waited in lines. We went through a long line. Azure had her boarding-pass stamped. The Canadian official forgot to stamp mine. We went through another line. We turned things in. I was stopped two stops later and told to return to the Canadian official. The line to reach him took a half hour the first time. I walked two stops back. I reached a U.S. official who had allowed us through the first time. I said do I have to go through the whole line again. I was annoyed. He told me I was being rude. He started yelling. He told me one of the three Canadian soldiers present would escort me back [it was to booth 20]. He was furious. He said if the soldiers have time. He said be polite to them. He said don't interrupt them. He said be nice to them. He was glaring at me. And for a moment I felt I was in a foreign country, the United States of America. He was bullying. His sarcasm was stupid. His insults were flat. His eyes impaled. Other people watched. He kept his eyes focused 'in that male gaze way' on me. He wanted me to challenge him. He wanted to arrest me for something. He wanted to humiliate me. I said nothing. The soldier was fine, the Canadian official joked with me, the U.S. guy let me through. I didn't look at him. People afterwards asked us what happened. I didn't know. All I knew is that here was an ugly bullying American who liked a uniform and didn't like me. Who wanted to arrest me; more, I was sure he was going to hit me. I kept thinking: here's the police and here's the police leakage across the border. You check INTO the United States while still in Canada. Canada, throw them out. I thought: this guy owns guns. I thought: this guy wants action. I thought of his pleasure: humiliation. I wanted to strike out at him. I was powerless there. There was here. I came back to the States and played cura and did this piece: http://lounge.espdisk.com/archives/1115 (best) http://espdisk.com/alansondheim/stations.mp3 I wanted to play as many styles as possible in as short a time as possible. But it's long. I want to wrap the strings around his eyes. I want to slam him to the ground. He turns me ugly. He turns me enemy combatant. He turns me collateral damage. I don't play guns with cura. Of the music: cura cures.
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