Footnotes to a Conversation, May 19, 2025
“Creativity comes from looking for the unexpected and stepping outside your own experience.” – Ibuka Masaru
Expressive Resistance
The cancan was initially danced by men who risked being arrested for indecency. Women at working-class balls demonstrated their dancing skills as a means of attracting attention and escaping poverty. In the early cancan, “there were kicks, yes, but nothing like the ankle-to-ear feats that show up later. The aim was to be the opposite of ‘upright’ and proper, with couples holding their bodies scandalously close to each other, leaning on a diagonal, slouching, or dragging their feet along the floor. Elsewhere, there are reports of ‘windmilling arms’ and the influence of acrobatic dancer Charles-François Mazurier, who could leap up into the air and land in the splits.” [The Guardian]
Turning Sidewalks into Gardens
In the Netherlands, neighbours get together to remove sidewalk tiles and replace them with flowerbeds – with support from their municipality. “Tegelwippen is about more than just planting pretty flowers. As the climate crisis increases heat, drought and heavy rainfall, urban, concrete-covered areas can’t easily adapt to the changes. Buildings and sealed surfaces heat up and contribute to further warming of the climate … in North America, the area covered by impervious surfaces nearly doubled between 1985 and 2020.”
“In the Netherlands, every citizen is allowed to clear and plant a strip of paving slabs up to 50 centimeters away from the house wall without asking the authorities. ‘We want as many people as possible to take responsibility for making cities greener and therefore more resilient to the climate crisis.” [Reasons to be Cheerful]
Tracing the Roman Empire
If you’ve ever been to Europe, you’ll be familiar with the long, straight roads the Romans developed as they expanded their empire. They exported sewers, public baths, and grape-growing as well. We can also thank them for planting sweet chestnut trees across Europe that has led to roast chestnuts, some wonderful desserts, not to mention a nutrient-rich flour. But the Romans weren’t interested in the fruit. They were keen on the wood that quickly sprouted new growth when it was cut back (coppicing). Cultivating the trees in an orchard, whether for wood or for fruit, benefited the trees as they were able to grow uncrowded by other trees and plants, prolonging their lives substantially. [BBC]
The Movement of People
There’s a new museum in Rotterdam that I’d very much like to visit. Fenix Rotterdam is a multi-faceted look at migration through history, film, and art as well as refugee boats and tents, depicting migration as an emotional state and not just movement. [The Guardian]
Footnotes to a Conversation is a weekly Monday feature covering an assortment of topics that I’ve come across in the preceding week – books, art, travel, food, and whatever else strikes my fancy. I also post occasional articles on other dates, including frequent book reviews and travel tales.
If you share my love of nature, check out EcoFriendly West, an online publication encouraging environmental initiatives in Western Canada, and Nature Companion, a free nature app for Canada’s four western provinces.