19 November, 2009
On the way to Paris I stopped for a day in Ottawa, met with my successor, who appears to have things well under control — good work, Toni, my thoughts are with you.
In my brief passage through what I liked to call the “West Wing” I had the chance to greet and exchange ritual bises canadiennes (or abrazos when more appropriate) with my colleagues and former staff. I also got my colleague and former Vice-Dean André Lapierre to record the shot above with his iPhone.
The formal portrait of Dean Lang hangs at the end of a frightening row of decanal figureheads stretching back to the period when Deans were not even real men but priests – such is the historical depth of the self-styled Université canadienne .
These origins are reflected in the stark black-and-white academic robe which is imposed on the Dean of Arts at uOttawa. My purple bow-tie was not, to be sure, de rigueur, instead devised minutes before the portrait session. I had just learned to tie one.
The snapshot of yours truly s provokes in me something of the vertigo of mise-en-abyme. It also allowed me to assert visually, with a gesture, that the person in the foreground somehow “produced” the Dean framed behind him. It is as if I have unveiled myself, though the cloaking cloth is no longer visible in my hands. Or as if I have somehow lept free from the portrait, shed my toge and spun aikido-like through a somersault, landing upright with my hands ready for the next attack.
The converse is however admittedly true. The present humble post-academic citizen now living in Southern California is indeed a product of that Ottawa Dean, since five years cannot be lived out with impunity, without consequence. I am a by-product, succédané, Ersatz, of myself.
Still, the psychological pilgrimage this photo enshrines has let me tie off a loop, to achieve the sense of closure I need to proceed further into the wild and untrammeled, rhizomic realm: my retirement.
Thus I realized with relief later in the day on the VIA train to Montreal – scene of some obsessive episodes of my youth which continue to haunt me – that I can now state, with conviction predicated on the presential verification of a primal scene itself rather than absential longing for things unresolved, that I am free to turn the pages written in Ottawa, and move on.
