More Chairful News
A city grips its armrests in fear
Cam Fuller
The StarPhoenix
Saturday, February 03, 2007
Previously immune to brazen acts of recklessness, Saskatoon has been jolted out of its complacency.
I’ll never forget where I was (where was I?) when I read the news: that the brave men and women of our city’s River Rescue Squad had been dispatched to the icy waters of the South Saskatchewan to retrieve four imperiled . . . chairs.
This wasn’t mere litter. Nor had a semi from The Brick jackknifed on the Traffic Bridge and spilled its contents.
(By the way, now that we’ve legalized the name Traffic Bridge, will tourists from Amsterdam be automatically drawn to it?) No, the truth was far more nefarious.
This was an act of . . . chairorrism.
Someone placed the chairs on the river ice as an extension of local artist Michael Hosaluk’s chair-themed exhibit Containment at the Mendel Art Gallery. Obviously, there was so much art bursting out that it couldn’t be contained in one place.
Coincidentally, two slackers in Boston are in deep trouble for planting flashing circuit boards around the city to publicize a late night cartoon show for stoned college kids. They face life in the dorm without munchies.
Although the hunt for Bin Laden continues, Saskatoon’s chair culprit — the settee-setter as ‘twer — was located within hours and identified as one Doug Taylor, a known associate of Michael Hosaluk. Subjected to several minutes of questioning by a StarPhoenix journalism intern, Taylor not only coined the term “chairorrism” but confessed to the deed. He also considered the fire department’s chair rescue an over-reaction. “Anyone just has to suggest a danger and they’ll spring into action,” he stated. The lack of remorse is typical of hardened chairorrists, according to CSIS, the Canadian Seating Intelligence Service.
It was a busy week for Taylor. A few days before, he made Freudians of us all by carving a snow sculpture of a mushroom with a bulbous stem that offended some penis — I mean “people,” heh, heh. Taylor insisted it was a magic mushroom stem and that they really are bulbous. Clearly, he’s not on the No Fly list.
Can four chairs sitting on a chunk of ice in the river be considered art? To get to the bottom of this chair-brained scheme, I went undercover as an art aficionado (where’s that damn beret?) and infiltrated Containment at the Mendel. You know you’re close when you see that funny looking, two-storey chair tower outside. The day it went up I assumed a Mendel official was going to sit up there as a frosty, midwinter fund-raising stunt. Talk about suffering for your art.
Inside Containment, you’ll see big chairs and small chairs, chairs in pieces, chairs turned over, chairs hanging by ropes and chairs with a tree trunk growing through them. That last one is what Hosaluk calls a “chairy tree” — which confirms my initial suspicion: that the hardest thing about putting a show like this together would be resisting the temptation to use all sorts of visual chair puns. Paint birds on a chair and it’s a wing back. Set one atop a washing machine during the spin cycle and it’s in the shaker style. Add a stone and you’ve got a rock ‘n’ chair. The driver’s seat from a Mercedes 600SL? Probably a dentist’s chair. Pop-gun on the seat? Must be an armed chair! Get it? Armed chair? I kill me! Since this is art, I noted, the chairs aren’t literally chairs. They are identically proportioned chair-like shapes made from nine pieces of dimensional lumber. They lack a back and a seat.
Depending on the size of your backside, you couldn’t sit on one without either falling through or getting stuck.
That’s always good for a laugh. Having a guy with his butt through a chair walking around downtown might be hilarious advertising. Or even serious performance art.
Searching for deep meaning and taking notes on the back of a Zeller’s receipt, I noticed a University class touring the exhibit. As the instructor spoke, one of the young men casually placed one of the chairs in a particular grouping in line with the others. For me, the significance of the piece was irrevocably changed. What is it about chairs that brings out the anarchist in a person? Hosaluk recently said he sent one of his chairs cascading off the weir and then fished it out with a hook. Weir-d.
And Taylor has threatened to chairplace again. Clearly, these chairorrists will stop at nothing to inflict art upon our community. Luckily, there’s help available. Earlier this week I had a top secret cell phone conversation with Jack Bauer, the fictional terrorism fighter from the TV show 24.
Unfortunately, Jack works 24 hours a day without sleeping, eating or taking bathroom breaks. As a result, he’s often quite tense.
CF: Awesome job with those nuclear bombs, Jack. Now, any idea how to contain the Saskatoon chair outbreak? Jack: Dammit Chloe, I need those co-ordinates — now! If I can’t find Abu Fayed before he gets those triggers reconfigured, we will lose Encino! CF: I know it’s a bad time, Jack but all I need are a couple of suggestions.
The food court at the mall, you figure? Jack: Dammit Audrey, this is the President’s life we’re talking about! I need two field agents and a tactical squad here — now! Do you copy? CF: You see, Jack, we’re having this whole art-versus-prank debate here at the moment and it would great if someone like you who’s. . . .
Jack: Dammit Karen, they got me! They’re going to tie me to a chair and torture me with electrodes and violate my civil rights! CF: Did you say CHAIR? Oh, no, not you too, Jack.
© The StarPhoenix (Saskatoon) 2007