Luna, The Whale.

I watched an amazing movie last weekend called The Whale. It’s a true story that takes place right of the coast of Vancouver Island (that’s where I live!) in Nootka Sound. The story is narrated by my lover Ryan Reynolds because he comes from the land up north and knows the story of Luna the whale well.

All Orca whales travel in pods. It’s true, ask them. The Whale, however is a story about an orca that gets separated from it’s pod at the age of two years old. In the movie they compare Luna’s situation to a child that’s meandering around a store, turns around and realizes that their family is no where in sight. Luna was all alone.

He would call into the night looking for his family. When no one answered his calls, he did the next best thing. He made friends. But not just any friends. Human friends. Luna hung around the passing boats, looking for attention. Lots of people gave him attention, too. It’s pretty hard to resist playing with an orca whale.

The Fisheries and Oceans Department was upset about Luna hanging around boats and people. It was dangerous for both sides involved. I don’t know about you, but I would’ve risked getting arrested and dove in the frigid water to play with Luna. Way too tempting!

Luna was teaching people that orcas were not killers by heart. He helped people recognize that whales needed interaction–he was lonely, he wanted to play and have fun! One lady in the film said that Luna would look you right in the eye as if he was saying, “I see you.”

The story of Luna is awesome. I’m jealous that I wasn’t living here during Luna’s reign. I would fully suggest looking up this movie and giving it a watch. Even if it’s only to hear Ryan Reynolds tell you a story.

Native Art

Seriously though. SERIOUSLY THOUGH.

I feel like I am one of those people who can really appreciate art. I love museums and galleries and I thoroughly enjoyed my modernism and postmodernism classes in college. I had trouble accepting modern art because really, I COULD DO ANY OF THAT. But its all about coming up with the idea. And some of it doesn’t have to mean anything. Sometimes art just is. What I am really having trouble accepting nowadays is Native American Art.

In the states, everyone refers to them as either Native Americans or Indians (because we’re lazy and don’t care about being politically correct). In Canada, people are overly PC and refer to them as First Nations or First Peoples. Okay, we get it, they were here first. But just because they call them by a better name, doesn’t necessarily mean that they treat them better than we do.

Canadians do, however, celebrate Native American art work to a creepy extent. At first glance, it looks like some kind of children’s drawing. Then, after you stare at it for a minute, it looks kind of okay. But if you stare at it for any longer, it starts to look slightly demonic. But that’s just my opinion. And my opinion happens to be right.

This art is everywhere. On buildings and schools, for sale in shops solely dedicated to native art. Its also on the Vancouver Canuck’s jersey. Shame on them. And don’t even get me started on the totem poles. Too many to count.

They really backed themselves into a corner–all of their art is the same style (it greatly resembles Mayan, Inca, and Aztec art). And while this is a different style, it gets so boring. Mostly because there are a limited amount of objects that are portrayed. Its always masks, orca whales, some sort of bird, bears, fish, or flying fish. Seriously, google native art and you will see tons of examples. It just gets to be the same old thing over and over again. Oh look, there’s that whale that seems to be growling at me…again.