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LONDON FRINGE SPECIAL EDITION

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hermaneutics

The Decline and Fall of Death by Herman Goodden

ver the last decade, like my poppa before me, I’ve taken to reading the daily death notices in The London Free Press. It’s a hard habit to form any earlier in life and is less likely to take hold in people who haven’t lived in their community for a long time. You simply won’t know enough of the people whose ends are recorded there

www.londonyodeller.ca Publisher Bruce Monck bruce@londonyodeller.ca Editor Herman Goodden editor@londonyodeller.ca Layout Kirtley Jarvis EVENTS Alysha Monck info@londonyodeller.ca Contributors Paula Adamick / Ciara Allen Susan Cassan / Dave Clarke Shane Delear / Nida Home Doherty Adam Corrigan Holowitz Ian Hunter / Andrew Lawton Menno Meijer/ Robert Pegg Jason Rip /Jeffrey Schiller Renée Silberman/ Sean Twist David Warren / Barry Wells Advertising & Marketing

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yodeller@citymedia.ca

Front cover ERICA DORNBUSCH: SEHNSUCHT Acrylic, 40”x16” [detail] On view at the Art Exchange Other work on view at Visual Fringe

at the Arts Project JUNE 1 — June 11, 2016 www.artsproject.ca

(usually in less than scintillating prose) to reward any but the most morbidly dry curiosity. When our kids started moving out of the house and I found once again that I actually had a few spare minutes in the morning to properly check the pulse of the world, I started dropping in occasionally on the obituaries to see whose pulses had stopped. I found Saturdays to be particularly propitious because there tends to be a real bumper crop for the weekend edition as well as a smattering of birth announcements to offset the gloomy impression that Londoners are about to become extinct. I don’t read every last one. Sometimes it’s the photographs that draw me in. I’m always attracted to write-ups of anyone pictured in a military uniform, if only because at least one of their life’s chapters so fleetingly recalled will recount an adventure. I was impressed a couple months ago by an In Memoriam notice to mark the100th anniversary of the First World War death of some Londoner’s still remembered forbear. Many of the notices bravely assure us their subject will be “forever remembered,” even though we all too poignantly realize that the vast majority of them won’t be. One of the most desolating aspects of bereavement is witnessing the indifference with which the world rattles merrily along in spite of your loved one’s exit; the speed with which the surface water reassumes its placidity after the departed have splashed through and dropped out of our sight. I’m also drawn to the write-ups of anyone whose relatives have chosen an informal snap over a more studied pose – anything with a blurry Christmas tree in the background, or a photo that shows the subject playing a guitar, holding up their favourite bottle of poison or a fish they’ve just caught, leaning up against a prized car or motorbike. I’m also partial to obituaries where the bold-faced headers list nicknames like ‘Cheapskate,’ ‘Stinky,’ ‘Stretch’ or ‘The Moose’ as well as the subject’s proper entitles. Obituary prose can be stultifyingly dull and I avidly welcome personalizing touches so long as the focus remains on the departed and not the wonderful grieving saint writing the death notice. And I love dogs as much as anybody but my sneer reflex is activated when four legged friends make the list of chief mourners. (‘Gosh, her cat

opportunity for me (and I presume many others) to pay their final respects. Just as irksome are notices saying that cremation has already taken place and that there will be a private family gathering held at some vague time in the future. These bug me on a couple of fronts. Of course, a full blown funeral isn’t cheap and when there has been From Dance of Death by Hans Holbein the Younger, published in 1538 no provision left in a will liked her. She really must have been an to cover such exigencies, the expense amazing person.’) of visitation, interment and perhaps a Mostly it’s coming upon a familreception is more than some families iar last name that grabs my attention. can handle. But surely there has to be Through your 50’s there’s a tidal wave some middle ground between spending of parents to be buried, your own and thousands of dollars you don’t have on your friends’. During the busiest stretch a ruinously expensive public ceremony of my parents’ generational harvest, and dispensing with any sort of certhey attended three different funerals emony altogether. I found it wonderfully in one week, two at the same funeral consoling at my own parents’ funerals to home, and felt absolutely inundated with meet with people from their own deep mortality. “Whose funeral were you at pasts we would never have thought to today?” I asked them during that dismal invite. passage and they both had to pause for To me there’s a whiff of disrespect a second before answering and were and arrogance, a form of control-freakvisibly ashamed by the slippage of their ery, in the notion that while so-and-so overworked brains. Once your elders may have died this week, we’re going to are cleared out of the way, then the real formally mark his or her passing a few fun begins as the cowled gent with the months down the line when we’re feeling scythe turns his first sustained attena little more composed and the weather’s tions to your own generation. When you nicer and junior here doesn’t have to start marking off some of those wretched cram for his physics exam and his sister milestones – first death of someone you isn’t in rehearsals for the school show. smoked dope with . . . got punched out ‘Well, I’m looking at the dates here, Mr. by in public school . . . hitchhiked with … Reaper, and Thursday just isn’t going to played billiards with . . . necked with – work. By all means, take Dad now if you that’s when obituary reading becomes a absolutely have to but we’re not going compelling daily habit. to be able to properly acknowledge this thing until the third weekend in June. ow that I’m becoming an authority Does that work for you?’ on obituaries and death, there are I’m sorry but something is badly out a couple of funereal trends that I’m of whack when death is regarded as just seeing more and more of nowadays that another appointment that you get to penstrike me as utterly reprehensible. I was cil into your desk calendar and address miffed when an old childhood friend died at your earliest convenience. Like birth, a few years ago and his family placed no death shows up when it bloody well feels death announcement in the paper at all. I like it and convenience has nothing to do had been up to visit him during a hoswith it. The only proper response is to pital stay but upon his release I (incorwipe the schedule clean and deal with rectly as it turned out) assumed he was this momentous event while it’s upon out of danger. While there may have been you because if you leave it long enough some sort of private ceremony to mark and the wounds start to heal over, you his passing, details were never disclosed run the risk of never dealing with it at to the public at large and there was no all.

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03 HERMANEUTICS

Herman Goodden — Some observations arising from my daily perusal of The London Free Press obituary pages

YODELLING IN THE CANYON Barry Wells — Instead of trying to play catch up with Hogtown or K-W, how about celebrating what London already has? LAYING DOWN THE LAWTON Andrew Lawton — The Liberals want ranked balloting because they’ll be the second choice for voters to the left or right

ESSAYS IN IDLENESS David Warren — Spiritual consolation and whirling controversy — Is there anything that purple finches don’t provide? DAPPLED THINGS Paula Adamick — In the last sputtering months of his 8 year reign, a look back at the spectacularly bad thinking of President Obama

TUTELAGE 101 David Warren — The great majority of university students go there to avoid a liberal education

13 CENTENARY 14

Barry Wells — The Royal Canadian Regiment Museum solemnly marks the 100th anniversary of the Battle of Mount Sorrel

SOUND SURVEY

THEN PLAY ON Dave Clarke — Around Town: Shad at the London Music Hall/ Dave’s Jukebox: Ten slices of sunshine pop / Shortlisted: Five censored record jackets from the golden era of LP covers

Renée Silberman — London arts programmers should take a look at the fabulous goings on in Winnipeg

PEGG’S WORLD Bob Pegg — Preparing for the Alien Cosmic Expo by listening to 20 years of paranormal UFO hooey on late night radio HANGOVER HELPER Shane Delear— Our resident hangover specialist delicately probes the not so wonderful world of the technicolor yodel

BOOK CULTURE Susan Cassan — Nadia Bozak’s Thirteen Shells is a note perfect series of linked stories about growing up in a city not called London

PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS Jeffrey Schiller — What a pleasure it is when a good friend’s kids are just as much fun as he is LOOK AT THIS Nida Home Doherty — Tony Urquhart achieves big results with some small scale works at Thielsen Gallery

SOUNDS RAZOR Sean Twist — A glum November soul prepares himself to sweat and grimace his way through yet another summer DISPATCHES FROM DYSTOPIA Ciara Allen — The trauma of track and field day at elementary school can last a lifetime — and here’s the living proof

FOREST CITY FOLK Menno Meijer — A celebration of the 400 year old treaty between Haudenosaunee and the Netherlands at the Dutch-Canadian Society Hall THEATRE REVIEW Ian Hunter — Alas, poor Stratford; I knew it when the standards were ever so much higher than this

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EVENTS LISTINGS

06.09.16

THEATRE SPACE Adam Corrigan Holowitz — If you can’t make it out to every show at the Fringe Live Arts Festival, here are some thematically linked packages you might consider

FRINGE INTERVIEW Shane Delear — How crazy does it get backstage at the Fringe? We talk with the house technician at one of the venues

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Jason Rip — Dr. Colin Forbes, the Londoner who’s been everywhere, has just published the story of his life

FRINGE REVIEWS Where else are you going to find reviews for all 44 shows at this year’s London Fringe?

ed itor@l ondon yod e l l e r.c a

GREAT TO SEE TING GET HIS DUE [Re: The Civic Blessing and Inspiration of Ting, Hermaneutics, May 12, Herman Goodden]

Fantastic article on Ting in The London Yodeller. Who doesn’t love black and white photos of cartoonists?

— Diana Tamblyn

ON THE NUANCES OF ENGLISH AND ALPHORNS [Re: Does Anyone Here Speak English? 1,000 Words or Less, Mar. 31, Bob McKenzie] I enjoy

picking up and reading your great newspaper, a welcome addition to the London scene (no pun intended). Also, reading the E-Yodeller on line is handy when I have missed acquiring a particular hard copy. Among the entertaining and enjoyable articles recently I would include the language-focused 1,000 Words or Less column in the March 31 issue by Bob McKenzie. This brought to mind my own pet peeves regarding the misuse of English, some of which I have expressed in verse and posted on FaceBook or on-line learning resources for my students. I attach a selection of teaching rhymes for proper English usage along with my Ode to ‘O’ which supports McKenzie’s mentioned example of Shaw’s spelling of ghoti ( = fish). Herman, I remember how you would often sit

a couple of rows in front of where I was playing The Trumpet Shall Sound and other trumpet movements of Handel’s Messiah in St. Peter’s Basilica, and we used to chat after the performances. I have been remiss in not forwarding information on our Plumbing Factory Brass Band concerts for The Yodeller’s Classical Musical Events listings. I am attaching a news release and poster for our upcoming concert on June 8th. A program will follow when I forward it to my ‘band fans’ list in a day or so. On it you will see a piece called Tiroler Holzhackerbuab’n Marsch (Tyrolean Lumberjacks – Op. 356, 1904) by J.F. Wagner (1856-1908), which I describe as a cheerful, Alpine Schuhplattler, also called the Jolly Wood Choppers (Die lustigen Holzhackerbuam). On this tune I will add yodelling and AlpHorn to the regular Brass Band instrumentation. I guess I am a true London Yodeller!

— Henry Meredith (AKA Dr. Hank)

JUST AS UNIMPRESSED WITH THE DAUPHIN AS UNCLE BRUCE I’m wondering if you may have heard or perhaps might know when our Boy Prime Minister and his travelling entourage may be returning to Canada from their ‘Let the Taxpayer Pay Tour’? I’m starting to believe being a Rock Star Prime Minister is probably the best we are gonna get from our boy Justine who likes to imagine that everyone must have been born with a silver spoon in their mouth and money grows

on trees. Although everything seems to be working just fine without him or his party doing any actual governing, I have to say his performance so far as our boy Prime Minister reminds me of a hound dog I once owned who was so lazy he had to lean against a fence before he would bark.

MUSICAL CHAIRS

SATURDAYS 9-12PM

BRING YOUR APPETITE FOR GREAT MUSIC & GREAT PIE

— Doug Blacker

WHAT’S TO WORRY ABOUT WHEN THE STATE OKAYS MURDER? [Re: The Road to Genteel Genocide, Dappled Things, March 17, Paula Adamick] I wanted to

suggest Paula Adamick interview a couple of professional physicians to get a better perspective on what the ‘right to die’ or ‘euthanasia’ would most likely look like when it comes to pass. I think her perspective is valid; that we should be careful our society doesn’t turn into a fascist state like Weimar Germany. But the likelihood of that is quite remote and I’m sure that speaking with a professional doctor would make her argument more reasoned. I’m not sure she has a good handle on wise, reasonable perspectives other than the echo chamber of her small group and the groupthink of unprofessional people. On the other hand I’m reminded of the quote by Galileo: ‘In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual.’ However, I don’t think that this quote applies in her case, since I don’t feel the term ‘humble reasoning’ quite suits the style of writing she presents. — Edward

625 DUNDAS * JUST EAST OF ADELAIDE

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y od el l i ng i n t h e c a n y o n

Living in a city in the middle of Cow Country isn’t all bad For years Londoners have been foolishly comparing their city to the provincial capital of Toronto and more recently, Kitchener-Waterloo and Hamilton by Barry Wells Green Acres is the place to be, Farm livin’ is the life for me Land spreadin’ out so far and wide Keep Manhattan, just give me that countryside.

ondon’s millennials, assorted emerging leaders (“greenhorns”) and tech nerds probably don’t want to acknowledge it but two of London’s authentic claims to fame are: it’s an excellent city in which to raise a family and a smart choice for aging baby boomers (“emerging seniors”) to retire to. Raising families and catering to

seniors in a city in the middle of Southwestern Ontario’s Cow Country? How pedestrian and boring is that? But there are some advantages. When run-of-themill three-bedroom homes in Toronto are selling for an outrageous million bucks and up, you can buy the same home in London with a wider, deeper lot, a driveway and more mature trees for $300K. For years Londoners have been foolishly comparing their city to the provincial capital of Toronto and more recently, Kitchener-Waterloo and Hamilton. It’s an obsessive-compulsive affliction stemming from a competitive spirit on one hand and an inferiority complex on the other. We’ve seen this attitude of misplaced envy played out with the recent debate regarding the proposed $500K Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) and $1B Light Rail Transit (LRT) bus-hybrid systems. The bellyaching from some quarters because Council chose not to demand $800M from the bankrupt province and federal Liberals for the more pricey bushybrid LRT, was meant to convince the rest of us that London is forever doomed to mediocrity by a BRT system. But BRT supporter Deputy-Mayor Maureen Cassidy had it right when she candidly said on May 26 during a city hall committee meeting, “these millennials are led to believe BRT is a sloppy second.” The truth is, running London down at every opportunity as an urban back-

water ignores the reality our city has unique features and outstanding amenities seen nowhere else, even with our current stone-age public bus system in place. Here’s what I consider to be a few of London’s authentic gems worth celebrating with an ice-cold case of Labatt’s 50 Ale. It’s far from an exhaustive list: The Covent Garden Market and its public square. After its 1999 opening, it took a few years to iron out the problems experienced by the new market’s early tenants. Today, enjoying a post-shopping coffee or snack on the public square during fair weather or skating on its outdoor rink during winter is as good as it gets for someone like me, who enjoys life’s simple pleasures, along with my philosopher mates from the Men’s Mission. Across Talbot Street from the market is Budweiser Gardens which opened in 2002 as the JLC. Home to the OHL’s London Knights (2016 Memorial Cup Champions), the NBL of Canada’s London Lightning basketball team, plus top drawer concerts and other special events, The Bud is one of the most successful entertainment venues of its size in North America. Also in downtown London is historic Victoria Park, home to several free summer festivals and Winter Wonderland

Unique Home, Gifts and Accessories

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when the snow flies. The park even has a corner set aside for London’s commie pinkos to protest burning issues of the day at Central Avenue and Richmond. Abutting Victoria Park to the east and northeast is the award-winning Woodfield neighbourhood of East and West Woodfield, both heritage conservation districts designated under the Ontario Heritage Act. The Victorian architecture in this residential area is simply marvelous, darling. Located in the artsy-fartsy Old East Village, the historic Palace Theatre showcases the theatrical works of the London Community Players. Combined with the Aeolian Hall, these two entertainment jewels are the catalyst for positive change along the village’s commercial corridor. Wortley Village, my old stomping ground in old south London, features the old Normal School and the adjacent parklike setting for the annual Gathering on the Green. As its residents can attest, it’s one of the sweetest neighbourhoods in all of Canada in which to live. One of London’s best recreational assets is its multi-use, asphalt pathway system dubbed the Thames Valley Parkway (TVP) running along scenic parkland next to the Thames River. The current TVP is 40 km in length and is linked to over 150 km of additional pathways connecting all corners of The Forest City. Last but not least is the Cherryhill Village apartment complex on Oxford Street West. Cherryhill Village features 13 well-maintained apartment buildings, a busy mall, a fancy outdoor pool and bath house, an indoor fitness centre (including pool), garden plots for residents and the Cherryhill Activity Centre. There’s even special golf carts shuttling residents around the complex for free. Unfortunately, the golf carts don’t travel up to the new liquor store at Oxford and Wonderland, unless you covertly shoot the volunteer driver a 10 spot. p

lay ing down t h e l a wt on

Liberals Looking to Game the Electoral System by Andrew Lawton

ew people would disagree that Canada’s system of government leaves much to be desired. Is it broken? Perhaps, but that assessment may be more inspired by my dislike of the present democratically elected government than anything else. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberals have boldly expressed their view that our government, systemically, is inadequate in its service to Canadians, and the fundamental way that elections work must be changed. In a way, the position delegitimizes their government — all governments, really. This makes it all the more novel that they don’t want any change in our voting system to, itself, be voted on by the Canadian people. The idea of changing the way we vote and are represented is not new: Ontario had a referendum in 2007—nearly a decade ago – on whether to adopt mixed member proportion representation, instead of first past the post. Nearly two-thirds of Ontarians – 63 per cent, specifically – voted to keep the status quo. British Columbia readily embraces direct democracy, and still, 60.5 per cent of the province’s electorate voted against changing from first past the post to single transferable vote, a form of ranked balloting, in 2009. Is it that Canadians are happy with the way things are now, or just don’t fully understand the alternatives? Reformers argue it’s the latter – that people will always reject change when the alternative is something as obscure as a voting system that they had likely never heard of before the referendum. The Conservatives have maintained that a change in how Canadians are represented needs a vote by Canadians. The logic is pretty sound, especially since the Liberals are arguing that the country’s citizens are not well represented by the way they vote presently. Why then should those elected representatives be empowered to make the call alone? Though the Liberals campaigned on change, no roadmap for such change was laid out: all Canadians got was a promise that a Trudeau government would look into it. This process thus far has been less than inspiring. At the beginning of

June, the Liberals conceded in supporting an NDP motion to set up a multiparty committee on electoral reform. This was in response to a Liberal motion to set up a committee that would have been stacked with a Liberal majority, and thus need no other party’s approval to change. The original committee would have had six Liberals, three Conservatives,

Ranked balloting will ensure generations of Liberal rule. The reason? The Liberals are banking on being every Canadian’s second choice

one New Democrat, as well as two nonvoting members – Green Party Leader Elizabeth May and a Bloc Quebecois MP. Trudeau said his government “heard the opposition’s concerns” and made a dig at his predecessor, Stephen Harper – because, why not? – and vowed to make it a marginally-more-open-but-still-notreally type of consultation process. “In a multi-party democracy like Canada, first past the post distorts the will of the electorate. It’s part of why so many Canadians don’t engage in or care about politics,” Democratic Reform Minister Maryam Monsef told reporters when the original committee was announced. “While there’s no such thing as a perfect electoral system, we can do better.” Monsef has obstinately refused a

referendum, but ironically says the government is looking for ways to engage a wide array of Canadians. This spawned a cheeky rebuttal in the House of Commons from Conservative house leader Andrew Scheer, who mocked the hashtag-driven approach to democracy Monsef seems to think will yield a more genuine result than a referendum that would reach Canadians young and old, of all races, religions and geographic roots. The Liberals don’t want true engagement because, it would seem, they’ve already made up their minds about the result. I have little doubt that the Liberals are headed towards ranked balloting as their primary reform. The arguments in favour of ranked ballots are that Canadians will feel more comfortable voting for smaller, underrepresented parties like the Green Party or the Christian Heritage Party if they also get to choose a more ‘electable’ second choice, to which one’s vote will be transferred if their first choice is eliminated. These are often employed by parties in their leadership races to allow for a clear victor, and to dissuade people from feeling as though their vote of conscience might have been wasted. The single digit vote yields a brigade of enviro-peaceniks, Leviticus-quoters, Marxist-Leninists and Rhino-lovers – all of whom will celebrate the innovation, but they won’t get any representation in Ottawa. Ranked balloting will ensure generations of Liberal rule. The reason?

The Liberals are banking on being every Canadian’s second choice. In what is essentially a three party system, filled with parties on the right, the centre-left and the far left, Trudeau is banking on Conservative voters finding a Liberal prime minister more palatable than a New Democrat and NDPers preferring a Liberal to a Conservative. Unless another party is elected with a supermajority of votes, it’s hard to envision the Liberals not coasting to victory in most elections. Changes in the distribution and makeup of elected officials will invariably result in more representation for citydwellers in Ontario and Quebec, and less for those in Churchill Man. and Whitecourt, Alta. Monsef was correct when she acknowledged how elusive perfection is, and always will be, in a voting system. I’m not averse to change, but I think there must be reasonable expectations. Voting for an alternative to the status quo because of dissatisfaction is unlikely to change the electorate’s unhappiness. That referendums in Ontario and British Columbia have failed to even come close to changing the system suggests that Canadians don’t really think it’s all that broken to begin with. Most voters like having a direct representative in their area, and voting, in a simple manner, for a member of parliament with a party affiliation. The fact that every system has its pros and cons – including all proposed alternatives – should reinforce the reality that the fundamental idea of democracy is both beautiful and flawed.

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06.09.16

Among the leaves the small birds sing by David Warren

My Chief Newfoundland

Correspondent (I hadn’t mentioned the appointment yet: I hope he is not unduly alarmed) writes about prayer, among the birds. Or rather, he asked a question of my purple finches, who are at last back in force from wherever, exploiting the sunflower generosity of the High Doganate. He asked if they, or the other birds pray, as they seem to do in his neighbourhood of Saint John’s (where, I gather, he is a physical oceanographer). The birds in his backyard conflate into song about one hour before sunrise, in the first light of the morning dusk. “A gentle sound, not the rough ‘caw’ of our crows, nor the frantic chirps of small nesting birds as they attempt to fill their noisy children. It would be pleasant to believe that they are thanking God for life.” It is the same in Parkdale. I have often noticed the choir is preceded by a single voice, intoning the invitatory Psalm. And then the full gallery of songbirds, in all their species, sing Lauds from each his tiny loft. The sound is unmistakable: of joy in being alive. My swallows are back, too, only recently from the Amazon, or somewhere I think in southern Venezuela where the Ante-Parkdale may be found in the northern winter. They seem not to tire from their twice-annual, heroic journeying; nor to have suffered from the inevitable collapse of the Venezuelan economy after the introduction of socialism there, where only the human beings despair. The birds are above it. My hearing is not so fine that I can distinguish any chirping from them within the Lauds; I think they wait until just after, to fly out in their squadrons, and feast on the early morning bugs — nattering away to each other where they find the midge-clouds thickest. Alas, since last fall, the municipal authorities have taken out a beautiful old

Beth Stewart: A Peaceable Kingdom (White Crowned Sparrow), coloured pencil on board, 6 x 6 in, 2012

iron bridge over the railway, the underside of which was among the swallows’ largest hotels. It was targeted as unnecessarily quaint and lovely, banked on one side into a natural shade garden; it will be replaced with something better engineered to express the vicious ugliness in the soul of contemporary man. I daresay the demolition men were cursing at all the old swallow nests. But my swallows, like my finches and my sparrows, will survive. They find other hotels, and do not even bother to plague the city switchboard with their complaints. In the spring, I have learnt, through the month of May, many million birds pass over Greater Parkdale in a single night, returning to their northern abodes. Along the Lakeshore, just now, one may see the flocks of whimbrel, en route to Hudson’s Bay and the Keewatin. They wade, and poke about in the dirty sands, with their down-curved beaks; then, on seeing a man too close, alert their friends with a rippling whistle. I know they are feeding, but in a moment it seemed all their heads bowed together, as if in acknowledgement of the Holy Trinity. Then being noticed, they took fear and flew off. (I cannot say that I understand whimbrels. Approach a nest, I am told, and the parents will come at your face in a way that makes redwing blackbirds seem willing to compromise. But gathered in a mob they are meek and

skittish. This is quite the opposite of the human propensities.) Only, perhaps, a few hundred thousand among the songbirds have selected Inner Parkdale for their summer homes. Ovenbirds and juncos, warblers and thrushes, flickers and sapsuckers and chickadees, may be spotted in the quiet of the ravines; fox sparrows, song sparrows, house sparrows, chipping sparrows, lincolns, white-throats, savannahs, are to be counted among the “small brown jobs” of High Park and its vicinity; each a tiny squeezebox of music; enough to remind all those unstunted of the Joy of their Creator. I am no authority on this. I cannot tell if all the Liturgical Hours are observed. I have no confidence, either, in my powers of identification, for I am no birder. I deal only with the obvious. Without anything tantamount to human knowledge, they are praying for us.

Controversy continues to swirl around my habit of calling my finches “purple.” A consensus is emerging among semi-perfessional birders that they cannot be. Bird Dog, at Maggie’s Farm, is the latest to “call me” on this. Purple finches are piney-wood avians, he insists. Those must be common-garden house finches who address me from my balconata railing, here in inner-city Parkdale.

Perhaps I am naïve, but I take them at their word. They say they are purple finches, so that’s what I report. Besides, there could be legal issues. They might be “trans” purple finches. In which case, my calling them house finches could get me a visit from the Mounties, under our young Liberal government’s latest experiment in criminal law. One can now get two years in the slammer, up here, for failing to acknowledge any creature’s personal choice of identities. It is possible I misheard them, however. Sometimes they speak a singular metallic weet, whose meaning is clear enough. But usually it is a “bubbly continuous warble” (Andy Bezener, Birds of Ontario) — resembling Hindi, but with no English nouns inserted to help one determine the subject. I thought they said, Carpodacus purpureus. Perhaps it was, Carpodacus mexicanus, instead. Definitely, Carpodacus, and not, Loxia, for they sure don’t look like crossbills to me. And then there is the fact that they lack the (slightly vulgar) body streaks that I would expect to see on a house finch, whether male or female. And the lads seem to lack the brown hat. And the colouring on those males strikes me as a more graciously distributed matt raspberry; the red on a house finch would be more chesty and alarming and, you know: burgundy. The ladies, especially, know how to dress. There is that ermine mottle on their undersides, and it seems to me, that delicious dusk cheek. And they are less saucy than one would expect of the (sometimes frankly shrewish) house finch dames; they are lady-like and classy. I would swear, though not neces-

sarily in a court of law, that their tails are slightly notched, too. A visitor to the High Doganate said no, the tails are square, and besides, they can’t be purple finches. I told him purple finches have been recorded by the bird club in the woods of nearby High Park. He told me they stay there. They don’t do balconies. But this, I declared, is a distinguished balconata. We all know the house finch is one of those “introduced” species, from the extreme Southwest, released in number by bird-dealers in New York City a century ago in anticipation of a police raid; that they took to urban life like many other questionable immigrants; and spread quickly from one town to another. That they displaced the native purple finches to the sticks, and have so pushed and shoved even the house sparrows (illegal immigrants of a previous generation), that we now have more than a billion of them, in dense congregations. Did I say “illegal”? … Sorry. … The Eurasian house sparrows were imported in the 1850s to control the insects afflicting our cereal crops. But, ha! Turned out they were vegetarian — indeed trash vegetarians, who moved right into the slums. So that our melodious song sparrows felt obliged, street by street, to move elsewhere. These “Mexican” house finches have the same reputation. (Maybe Trump should have a go at them.) My finches are not like that, at all. They are delicate, cultured birds who, as I say, can sing in Latin (as well as Hindi). They are not in the least aggressive. Well, sometimes they will note that the seed dish is empty — but softly, musically, regretfully. Surely they are finches of the “purple” class”. p

s p ot l ight

Beth Stewart: Daily Bread (House Sparrow), coloured pencil on board, 6” x 6”, 2008

Two-time Yodeller cover artist, as well as our go-to illustrator whenever David Warren writes another one of his meditations on birds, Beth Stewart helped start up and has been an exhibitor every year with the visual arts wing of London Fringe. This year’s edition of Visual Fringe features the work of 25 London and area artists in drawing, painting, photography, mosaic and mixed media. The exhibition is free of charge and open for viewing at Fringe Venue 2, The Arts Project, until Saturday, June 11, 2016. 06.09.16

www.londonyodeller.ca 9

d ap p l ed t h i n g s

Relativism and Revisionism — Obama-style by Paula Adamick

a cloudless day when the first-ever sitting U.S. president visited Hiroshima, only one thing mattered. Not the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, killing 2,403 and devastating the American fleet; not the grisly Japanese attacks on POWs known as the Bataan Death March, not the kamikaze suicide bombings across the Pacific and not the abject refusal of the Japanese

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to halt the bloodshed in their own land, provoking the atomic bombings that ended World War II. No. All that mattered was how Hiroshima could be used by Barack Obama to portray himself as the moral magus he considers himself to be. In a sonorous address, Obama appeared to wrestle with the existential meaning of the atomic bombing that 71 years ago killed tens of thousands in an instant and ushered in the nuclear age. Speaking slowly and solemnly,

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Obama did not apologize per se for the American attacks there and in Nagasaki that ended Japanese aggression and World War II. But he did call for the world to “morally evolve” which, in Obama-speak, means the radical reduction of the world’s nuclear stockpiles. And who could be against that? “We stand here in the middle of this city and force ourselves to imagine the moment the bomb fell,” he said. “We force ourselves to feel the dread of children confused by

what they see. We listen to a silent cry. We remember all the innocents killed across the arc of that terrible war and the wars that came before and the wars that would follow. Mere words cannot give voice to such suffering. But we have a shared responsibility to look directly into the eye of history and ask what we must do differently to curb such suffering again.” Which means eradicating nuclear weapons. This from a president who failed to mention the unspeakable evils perpetrated by Imperial Japan before and throughout World War II. This from a president who, during his tour of Vietnam days earlier, announced he will drop a ban on selling military hardware to its Communist government, brushing off reminders of that country’s notorious human rights abuses while praising Ho Chi Minh who may have killed one million of his own people. And, in a particularly ugly display of moral equivalence, Obama also dismissed the Vietnam War as being caused by meddling politicians irrationally afraid of Communism. He also marked the lives lost on “both sides” as if the Communist terror squads butchering Vietnamese farmers or massacring Catholics were somehow morally the equal of American soldiers dying to stop them. Thus, by equating the names of 58,315 Americans who lost their lives to the evil they were fighting, their sacrifice was rendered worthless. And by a U.S. president, no less. But that

President Obama’s visit to Hiroshima was as true to his character as his hollow and often oblique pronouncements was the point, wasn’t it? This also from a president who recently signed a landmark nuclear deal with Iran which agreed to curb its atomic program in exchange for billions of dollars in sanctions relief – a deal critics fully expect the Iranians will use to build a significant nuclear stockpile while the world looks the other way. But who can remember today Obama’s promise during his 2008 presidential campaign of a nuclear-free world? For those who do remember, however, and for those who have actually studied history, the vacuity of Obama’s comments wasn’t surprising. Nor was their moral equivalence which equated American troops with the very Axis forces they defeated at such enormous cost. Outrageous? You bet. But typical of Obama whose “naïve idealism”, according to Washington columnist Charles Krauthammer, has caused a trail of havoc for America and for her allies around the world. Krauthammer is being kind. What he calls

“naïvete” is actually lazy mindedness. That’s why ideologues like Obama rely on ideology. Rather than making the effort to think for him/herself, the ideologue relies on ideological formulae to make decisions, usually with destructive results. In the case of Obama, however, most pundits close their eyes to this reality and its fecklessness and its consequences. Except perhaps for John Bolton, the former UN ambassador, who reminded Obama that an American president’s highest moral, constitutional and political duty is the protection of his fellow citizens from foreign threats and not the treatment of America’s enemies as morally equivalent; meaning there’s no need to apologize for America’s role on the international stage. Which is what Bolton thought Obama’s presence in Hiroshima was really about. “His penchant for apologizing is central to his legacy,” Bolton wrote. “He may not often say ‘I apologize’ explicitly, but

his meaning is always clear, especially since he often bends his knee overseas, where he knows the foreign audiences will get his meaning. It is, in fact, Obama’s subtlety that makes his effort to reduce America’s influence in the world so dangerous.”

started in Cairo in 2009 when Obama, speaking to an audience filled with members of the Muslim Brotherhood, referred to the “fear and anger” the 9/11 attacks provoked in Americans. “Unfortunately, faced with an uncertain threat, our government made a series of hasty decisions based on fear rather than foresight,” he said. Which is a characterization most Americans, whose parents and grandparents may have sacrificed themselves on foreign battlefields, overwhelmingly reject. Look too at what Obama’s remarks have produced, beginning with the Arab Spring and the subsequent collapse into chaos of several Middle Eastern countries, creating the massive wave of refugees fleeing to Europe and elsewhere. Meanwhile in Europe – saved from tyranny by American intervention in two world wars and now overwhelmed by refugees – Obama apologized repeatedly for his own country, saying “there have been times where America has shown arrogance and been dismissive, even derisive.” Ditto for Central and South America where Obama declared: “We have at times been disengaged and at times sought to dictate our terms.” It’s an oft-repeated theme that culminated most recently in his fawning visit to the Castro brothers whose half century of communist dictatorship has left Cuba

a shadow of its former charm and splendour. The list goes on and on. Then there’s Obama’s penchant for bowing in obeisance to foreign leaders – including the king of Saudi Arabia, the emperor of Japan and China’s leader, Zi Jinping – when diplomatic protocol dictates that heads of state do not bow to other heads of

Obama recently signed a landmark nuclear deal with Iran, the world’s premier state sponsor of terrorism – a deal critics predict the Iranians will use to build a significant nuclear stockpile while the world looks the other way

state, kings or otherwise, including King George III over whom the American revolution was fought in 1776. Plus his general insensitivity to anything truly American, such as showing up in Hiroshima on the eve of Memorial Day, the annual American commemoration of those who died serving in the nation’s armed forces. “Does anyone think it an accident that President Obama chose Memorial Day weekend to give his high-sounding moral equivalence speech in Hiroshima calling for a “moral revolution”, asked former congressman Tom Tancredo? “What Obama proposed in his speech in Japan is moral disarmament, and the consequences of that moral capitulation will be horrific if the world follows his advice. At Hiroshima, Obama was silent on the

question of American sacrifice, American valor, and American virtue, but eloquent on the issue of American guilt.” The truth is those who think like Obama have no idea how to fight a real war which is that true horror that comes upon mankind regularly like a judgment and a force of nature, impervious to the high-minded platitudes of shallow men with no understanding of humankind whatsoever, never mind its complexities. Nor does Obama appear capable of understanding what brought about the necessary bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the first place, avoiding the far more widespread horror that would have claimed countless more victims had Japan not been forced to surrender. Instead, he treats the bombings as a unique “evil” in a war where many died fighting to stop the malign forces of Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany. But for me, the passthe-sickbag moment came with the public “hugs” which exposed the utter fatuity of the event and of this president whose sentimental – and may I say, insincere – secular humanism resulted in the opposite of a towering moment. What it really was, was a cameraready moment where the “leader” of the free world portrayed his own country, his once great nation, as no longer victorious but vanquished. And not by an exterior enemy but by a hubristic self-indulgence symbolized by the gratuitous, meaningless hug of a victim he didn’t even know, or couldn’t possibly relate to. What was the selfieprone Obama suggesting? That Franklin D. Roosevelt’s declaration of

the attack on Pearl Harbor as a “A Day which will live in Infamy” was unnecessary or even preventable? That had he, Barack Obama, been president in December 1941 through August 1945, he would have done things differently? As if! This wasn’t moral weakness. This was yet another nadir in the moral wasteland of Obama’s entire presidency in which he rehashes history in absurdly simplistic terms, then rationalizes it with a relativist morality that denies the spiritual centre of all evil – the human soul and its myriad complexities and selfdeceits – with the tritest of platitudes: “We must pursue a world without nuclear stockpiles.” How underwhelming! Channelling Shakespeare, was

this not all sound and no fury, signifying nothing? As accurate a description of his past eight years as president as I can muster. Yet the visit to Hiroshima was as true to his character as his hollow and often oblique pronouncements. Like the one he dropped at the White House Correspondents Dinner at the end of April. “The end of the Republic has never looked better,” he told the nodding crowd while raising a glass in toast to who knows what. What did he mean by that anyway? And why did he “joke” that this might be the last WHCD? Apparently, the slavish and less-than-attentive media were too polite, too uncurious and perhaps

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too drunk to ask. And the postscript? Hours after that epic hug in Hiroshima, Obama hit the links yet again, logging his 291st round of golf since his presidency began in January 2009. Just as he did minutes after giving a speech in August 2014 about the vicious beheading of American journalist James Foley by ISIS. Then as now, Obama walked back onto a golf course for another round. Still, his latest outing, post-Hiroshima, on the course at Fort Belvoir Golf Course in North Virginia, marked another Obama record: He has now played over 48 full, 24-hour days of golf while serving as president. Now that’s what I call a legacy!

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t utel a g e 101

On Liberal Education Oddly, the contemporary mind, such as it is, hates training but omits teaching. The great majority of our college children go there to avoid a liberal education by David Warren

uring a conversation with whisky, a gentleman used the expression “teacher training.” He thought it ought to be improved. I had heard the phrase before. It struck me as unhappy: only two terms, and the one cancelling the other in the post-modern way. Surely we should use more words to conceal our self-contradictions. Even the standard of blathering is in decline. I proposed “teacher teaching,” or alternatively, “trainer training,” insist-

ing upon the distinction between the two activities. There may be some slight overlap between them, but training is what we provide to the human animal. Teaching extends to the human soul. Not that we aren’t both body and soul. There is, however, a question which is higher; or even, which will visibly decay. Mrs Jessie Glynn, my elderly and wise instructress in Latin some years ago (about fifty, I now calculate), was very careful with this distinction. She told her pupils they were to be trained, as dogs. But for relief, there would also be some teaching. We would read and discuss some Roman history and literature; we could apply our training to little exercises in imaginative composition, and poetical translation (both ways); and to savaging each other’s best efforts. We might consider a few Roman ideas that the Romans hardly ever examined, about how to live and so on; and compare them with our unexamined own. We would engage in the most frivolous time-travel, thereby. Training, she said, is required to learn a language; but teaching begins when we read with understanding, and come to chatter in it. It is that exhilarating moment when we graduate from “Latin” to “Classics.” The sooner we get to chattering the better; but the training of necessity comes first. Small children take joy in being trained. They are suited to it by nature: their little memories are sharp sharp sharp. Their bodies are quite flexible. As we grow we move from training to “learning.” Oddly, the contemporary mind, such

as it is, hates training but omits teaching. The great majority of our college children go there to avoid a liberal education. But they are already too long in the tooth to benefit from rote training, the way they could have done when they were smaller. They have minds, true, but no use for them. They want training for skills that could make them money. They are looking forward to an “intensely competitive” job market, in which they will be competing with robots, more and more. They need to become robots, but for the sake of competition must outpace their robot rivals in quickness and accuracy. Had they been taught anything, they would already know that they are going to lose. For robots can do most anything that is beneath the full human dignity, quicker and more accurately than they ever will. I wonder if Roman children, or Chinese for that matter in the Han, said, “When I grow up I want to be an abacus.” The modern solution is, never to grow up; to concede the battle with the robots and go on pogey instead. There is this “one percent” of people who are very, very rich — they seem to own all of the robots. Each, surely, can afford to pay for ninety-nine abject losers.

c en t en a r y

100 Years The Battle of Mount Sorrel On

battle, the Canadians achieved victory in the final operation, driving back the Germans and recapturing much of the lost ground. In partnership with the London Arts Council and the London Heritage

legionmagazine.com

June 2 at the Wolseley Barracks Parade Square at 701 Oxford Street East in London, the Royal Canadian Regiment Museum commemorated the Centennial of the Battle of Mount Sorrel (June 2-June 13, 1916) during

Canadian troops rest in reserve trenches during the Battle of Mount Sorrel near Ypres, Belgium, in June 1916.

World War I when the Royal Canadian Regiment, along with other units from the 2nd and 3rd Canadian Divisions (Canadian Expeditionary Force), were engaged in combat with three divisions of the German Fourth Army on the outskirts of Ypres, Belgium, from the Village of Hooge to Armagh Wood and Mount Sorrel. Professor Jonathan F.W. Vance, J.B. Smallman Research Chair at Western University’s Department of History, was the featured speaker at this special commemorative event. Professor Vance teaches military history, Canadian history and social memory. His current research focuses on the First World War, Canadian culture and prisoners of war. Mount Sorrel was a 30-metre, wooded hill with a commanding position over the city of Ypres. The Battle of Mount Sorrel lasted nearly two full weeks and cost Canadian forces more than 8,000 casualties. Having lost the first two phases of this important

Council, a new interactive display interpreting the original Flanders Fields Cross showing the names of some of the men killed in this bloody battle, was publicly unveiled. London’s Royal Canadian Regiment Museum tells the story of Canada’s senior infantry regiment. The museum, located at historic Wolseley Barracks, has a large collection, including regimental memorials, silverware, uniforms, medals, original art, weapons, military equipment, archives and musical instruments. The Royal Canadian Regiment Museum at 701 Oxford Street East is open to the public on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays from 10am to 4pm; Thursdays from 10am to 8pm and Saturdays and Sundays from 12 noon to 4pm. Free admission to the general public. 519.660.5275 ext. 5102 info@thercrmuseum.ca http://www.thercrmuseum.ca/

— Barry Wells 06.09.16

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t hen p l a y on by Dave Clarke

AROUND TOWN

Shad At The London Music Hall Saturday, June 25th

London’s hip hop success story, Shadrack Kabango, aka Shad, came to Canada when his family fled the genocide in Rwanda for Kenya and then to London. His initial release, the self-financed When This Is Over earned him a record deal with the Black Box Recordings label and his second release, The Old Prince followed. Shad is known for his profanity-

free upbeat raps and cool jazz samples. One of the highlights of that second album is the track The Old Prince Lives at Home, extolling the joys of living at home with your parents. Two more albums followed, TSOL in 2010 and Flying Colours in 2013. Music had to take a little bit of a back seat when Shad took over the hosting chores on CBC Radio One’s Q Show, but he returns to London June 25th for a performance at the London Music Hall, with special guests Matthew’s

Progress and Jr. Filion. Tickets are $20 for this all-ages show that gets underway at 8pm.

SHORTLISTED

Censored Album Covers A

lbum cover censorship is not uncommon, though most of the time it’s for blatant nudity, sexuality, or disturbing images, but today we’ll check out some more innocent examples.

1 The Five Keys On Stage 1957

This one featured a nice side shot of the popular doo wop band but the fellow in front, lead singer Rudy West had a rather beefy finger that got into the shot and because of its location it gave the impression that something substantial had fallen out of the fly of his pants. Totally innocent, yes, but the album was recalled and the offending member was airbrushed out.

2 Moby Grape Moby Grape 1967

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The fine debut album from this acclaimed psychedelic San Francisco group also fell victim to the censors. In true hippie-rebel style the band’s drummer, Don Stevenson, subtly flipped the bird when the photo was snapped. This popular middle finger salute is pretty commonplace in this day of cell phone photography, but was a little too much for a 1960’s audience and the album

was retouched so no one’s feelings would be hurt

3 Rolling Stones Some Girls 1978

Great Rolling Stones album cover, a mash up of vintage wig ads and some iconic actresses, also ran into a little trouble. Permission to use the celebrity likenesses wasn’t officially obtained and lawsuits from Lucille Ball, Farrah Fawcett, Raquel Welch, Liza Minnelli (on behalf of her mother Judy Garland} and the estate of Marilyn Monroe, were threatened. Even the Valmor wig company sued and were paid off. A new version of the cover with blank spots replaced the original.

4 Poison Open Up and Say Ahh! 1988

Noted hair metal band, Poison’s cover photo of a red face demon with an unusually long tongue somehow was

also deemed offensive, so two black strips at the top and bottom were added so that only those menacing eyes were left showing.

5 Tad 8 Way Santa 1991

Seattle grunge rockers Tad found this photo in a thrift store purchase of a young shirtless fellow copping a feel on his girlfriend’s breast, and figured it was just the thing for the cover of their 8 Way Santa LP. Turns out the mustachioed lad had become a born-again Christian and didn’t want his wanton youthful ways on display. Litigation was threatened, forcing the band to replace it with a boring old band photo.

DAVE’S JUKEBOX

A Short Introduction to Sunshine Pop T

he antithesis of the gloom and doom of protest songs and the wailing guitars of garage rock, Sunshine Pop was inspired by the works of the Mamas and Papas and the Association. The genre was full of hooky tunes, lush harmonies and lyrics that promoted love, happiness and, of course, sunshine. Here are 10 tracks on my jukebox that illustrate some of the genre’s key tracks.

The Parade

Sunshine Girl 1967 Very much in the mode of the Association, with key ingredients like a bouncy tune, cool harmonies and of course sunshine in the lyrics.

2 The Peppermint Rainbow

Will You Be Staying After Sunday? 1969 Cheerful line up of two girls and three guys with a sound reminiscent of the Mamas and Papas. And they tick another Sunshine Pop box with their somewhat psychedelic but non-threatening band name.

3 The Yellow Balloon

Yellow Balloon 1967 If I had to pick one tune that illustrated Sunshine Pop, it would be this one with its super catchy tune, upbeat lyrics and a chorus full of

The Cowsills being presented with a Gold Record in 1967

“ba ba ba’s”. On top of that, the lead singer was an incognito Don Grady, aka Robbie of My Three Sons fame.

4 The Turtles

You Showed Me 1968 Unlike many of the Sunshine poppers who were one hit wonders, the Turtles had a string of bouncy hits including Elenore and She’d Rather Be with Me. I like this mid-tempo love song that highlights the band’s lush harmonies.

5 The Clique

Sugar on Sunday 1969 Another one hit wonder, this Texas band sounds a lot like the band whose song they covered, Tommy James and the Shondells. But the flip, Superman, brought them back in the spotlight when covered by REM.

6 Mercy

Love Will Make You Happy 1969 A totally sucky masterpiece that gets me every time, with interesting female harmonies, a great opening riff that was sampled by Belle & Sebastian on their track Miraculous Technique and, of course, love and happy in the title.

The Neon Philharmonic

Morning Girl 1969 Nice electric harpsichord opening highlights this one hit wonder with its symphonic sound and A Day in the Life ending.

The Cowsills

The Rain, The Park and Other Things 1967 With multiple Sunshine Pop hits, this Rhode Island family band was the model for TV’s Partridge Family. This, their debut single, is insidiously catchy.

The Cryan’ Shames

Sugar & Spice 1966 This one has great guitar work, a smile-inducing chorus and they were one of the two 60’s bands that had a drummer with a hook for a hand.

The Blades of Grass

Happy 1967 We’ll end on a happy note with this great tune from a New Jersey outfit who released this single the same week as another Sunshine Pop group, The Sunshine Company. Even though their version is superior, the Sunshine Company’s version beat them in the charts.

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sound survey

Chagall in Winnipeg – An Exhibit, Connections and Reflections by renée silberman

innipeg is a wonderful city for a visitor who has the habit of turning up during the tiny sliver of time between the disappearance of the last snowflake of winter and the arrival of the first mosquito of summer. A habit? Do two journeys a habit make? Well, let’s not examine the statistics. Say only that circumstances brought this writer twice to the big town on the prairie, both at just the moment the Winnipeg Art Gallery launched vital, essential, magnificent exhibits. In 2013, the WAG celebrated its centenary with a show featuring works produced over the span of each of the hundred years of its existence up to the anniversary date, works borrowed from collections across the country. Three Londoners were represented in that most generoushearted exhibition – Paul Peel, Jack Chambers, and Greg Curnoe, referencing distinctive styles and historic contributions to Canadian art. This season, a retrospective of work by Cape Dorset artist Oviloo Tunnillie (1949-2014)

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is heart-breaking and elevating. The daughter of a graphic-artist mother and sculptor father, Oviloo followed an atypical path for a creative woman who chose to work in stone, rather than on paper. The work of her early years displays a continuation of traditional use of motifs from the natural world. As a sensitive observer of social conditions, though, Oviloo shifted the emphasis of her efforts to images pertaining to the condition of women in her community. Her female figures shield their eyes with one hand to protect themselves from “seeing” the indignities they suffer, they lose themselves in contemplation of their psychological and physical wounds; with the other hand they cover the place of their violation. Oviloo understood, as Michelangelo did, the power of the rock to contain, perhaps imprison, the image, a figure waiting to be liberated by the hand of the artist. Born into a harsh environment, Oviloo recognized the dominance of nature, taking her cue always from what the earth gave her. In rooms adjacent to the spaces occupied by Oviloo Tunnillie’s eloquent sculpture,

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Marc Chagall and his wife Vava

a suite of lithographs on wove paper by Marc Chagall (18871985) illustrate the mythic tale of Daphnis and Chloé. The story of foundlings discovering each other, falling in love, living in a dream-like state of innocence, awakening in the course of adventures (“growing up”), arriving at the happy denoué-

ment where marriage conquers all, was an apt topic for Chagall, a romantic whose life and love were entangled all the years of his existence. Chagall witnessed the often violent and sometimes beautiful currents of his era, of his various homes. He was a child of Vitebsk. A shtetl in the Russian Pale of Settlement, a miserable place, where his father, he recalled, lived a hard-scrabble life, his work-roughened hands almost constantly immersed in barrels of icy salted herring (but when he was free of his labour, his hands held sacred texts, lifting him far above his earthly cares). Bella Rosenfeld, counterpoint to dreariness at home, sparked the fire of love, became the flame of attraction, the source of inspiration as long as she lived. The Rosenfelds would not hear of a man without a future (a luft-mensch in Yiddish) courting their daughter. And so, young Chagall set out for Paris,

to prove himself worthy – a universal tale, indeed. Paris in 1910 – what a time to be young, alive, to be an artist ranging among various stylistic movements, excited by the experimental energy of the age. And to dream of a beloved in a distant land. Fairly early in the course of World War I, Chagall returned to Vitebsk for a family funeral, expecting to make a quick turnaround, but that was not to be. Trapped in Russia, but happily married, Chagall painted, taught, and produced stage sets for the Yiddish State Theatre. In 1922, Marc, Bella, and their child Ida left for France. Thus, ended the first chapter of Chagall’s travels through life and art. The imagery and themes were in place. Topsyturvy wooden houses, a fiddler on the roof, goats, donkeys; the handsome artist, paint-brush in hand, a beautiful bride, bouquets in hand or free-floating; a rooster. And colour – “make the image sing through colour,” Chagall proclaimed. Succulent textures created by masterful manipulation of the hues of the rainbow. But now, black years of the twentieth century approached. In 1941, the last moment before the complete collapse of France, the Chagalls made a dash for the US, with help from a number of strategically placed advocates. In 1944, Bella succumbed to an untreated infection, leaving behind a completely bereft, emotionally distraught widower and daughter. At this point, an odd story begins to unfold. Ida introduced her father to Virginia Haggard McNeil, a French-speaking English woman living in an unhappy marriage, and in need of money. McNeil settled in as housekeeper, and before long, the inevitable happened. For a few years,

Marc Chagall (1887-1985): Noon in Summer, from Daphnis and Chloé

Virginia and Chagall lived as lovers, first in New York, then in France. Their son David McNeil and Virginia’s child from her first union were members of the entourage. Serving as companion to “the Great Man” was unsatisfactory for McNeil, and she decamped for another

The imagery and themes were in place. Topsy-turvy wooden houses, a fiddler on the roof, goats, donkeys; the handsome artist, paint-brush in hand, a beautiful bride, bouquets in hand or free-floating; a rooster.

romance. Ida quickly found a replacement companion – Valentina “Vava” Brodsky, a Russian emigré living in London. In hardly any time, Vava became Madame Chagall, steering her husband through the remaining thirty years of his life, guiding the direction of his artwork, managing the business end of his output. She moved Ida to the sidelines, and largely eliminated Chagall’s contact with David. Vava was

a tough cookie, who nonetheless enabled the artist to take on important ventures, including the sublime lithographs in the WAG show, a collaborative venture with the National Gallery of Art. The individual pieces in Chagall: Daphnis & Chloé display the gamut of the artist’s imaginative strengths. A sense of mystery draws the viewer into Volume I – the forest scenes and the bucolic countryside are the loci of the early action. The young people edge toward each other, they approach each other in both physical and emotional ways. Sensuality pervades the atmosphere. As the story advances, the settings change – Chagall visited the isle of Lesbos to catch the atmosphere – the sea, the grottos, mountains, pastures all have their place. A winter scene, though, returns to the shtetl – this is a striking example of a nostalgic retreat to his own youthful days. The colors are lush, the technical aspects of the lithographic process fully worked out. But now, what about the connection between the Chagalls and Sophie-Carmen Eckhardt Gramatté and her husband Frederick Eckhardt? It happens that Sophie and her

first husband, Expressionist artist Walter Gramatté were close friends of Vava in Berlin in the 1920s. In fact, on display in the WAG, as part of a small satellite exhibit, Chagall & Winnipeg, was a portrait of Valentina painted by Walter Gramatté in the late 1920s. The catalogue describes the picture as “haunting,” but close inspection gives one a feeling that Vava had a dark side early on. Frederick, devoted to sustaining the memory and reputation of Gramatté, was thrilled to locate Vava, The friendship of the two couples remained strong as long as they lived. The legacy of that friendship was celebrated in this extraordinary exhibit. A third artist, Esther Warkov (1941 –) is currently represented in a special show of her works. Warkov, a highly regarded Winnipeg artist, grew up in the North End of the city, where she imbibed local cultural influences – Jewish folk art, to begin with, but later extending her reach to a broad array of other topics, other investigations. There is a little of Chagall in some of her whimsy, but her vision follows personal approaches to the world around her. To round out the opening night festivities, Alexander Mickelthwate, Music Director of the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, performed two movements of Debussy’s Suite Bergamasque,; a small ensemble of dancers associated with the Royal Winnipeg Ballet presented an excerpt from Ravel’s Daphnis & Chloé. Most wonderful for this visitor was the possibility of seeing high level cultural activity in a city that seems to cherish its arts organizations. Visual arts, music, and no doubt literature, are well presented to the public. Winnipeg is a long distance from other major centres, and for that reason, knows it has an audience looking for artistic stimulation at home. Three cheers! Hats off! And see you next year, dear Winnipeg!! p

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www.londonyodeller.ca 17

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ome old coot was being interviewed by Linda Moulton Howe on the syndicated overnight radio show Coast to Coast A.M., recently and claimed to have seen secret NASA footage of the Apollo 11 moon-landing in which aliens (the ones who constructed the moon, no less,) welcomed Neil Armstrong by giving him the finger as he came down the ladder to take that famous “one small step.” Finally, conclusive proof that the middle-finger salute literally is the universal symbol for ‘F.U.’ Of course, all this was taken with great seriousness by the program’s ‘science’ reporter Howe. All the preceding talk in the interview (about ‘reptilian’ aliens and their earthly human hybrids,) was just as bizarre – yet pretty normal fare by Coast to Coast standards but I was hoping for a bit more reaction from Howe or the show’s host George Noory. The interview was certainly worthy of a standup comedy bit off Funny 1410, the station to the right of the dial of Coast’s longtime home at CJBK-1290. The 90-something geezer had been telling tall tales for the better part of an hour before dropping the third-finger salute reference. Come for the set-up, stay for the punch-line. The thing is, the old fella likely wasn’t trying to be funny. Certainly, no one on the show took it that way. He very well may have been perfectly serious. In fact, Howe later went on to praise the guy as being thoroughly believable. All of this is what I remind myself every night whenever I spend a few hours listening to the show. I’ve been a regular listener for well over 20 years, starting with the golden era of Art Bell. And true, it can be predictable much of the time and frustrating that guests

Stanton Friedman, one of the first people to write about the 1947 crash of a supposed spaceship/ weather-balloon in Roswell, New Mexico, is the keynote speaker at the Alien Cosmic Expo, a three-day conference being held in Brantford the weekend of June 24 to 26.

can make any outrageous claims they want and they go unchallenged. But every once in a while there will be a real gem that makes the rest of a wasted evening worthwhile. It’s pure entertainment. But apparently I’m one of the few who take it that way. Everyone else – the guests, the callers and the host all take this stuff extremely seriously.

I used to be open to the possibility of ghosts and life after death. But after two decades of listening to Coast to Coast A.M., I don’t believe anything.

All this ‘stuff’ being anything to do with aliens, time-travel, ghosts and the paranormal, every form of whatever passes for being ‘spiritual’ these days and conspiracy theories of which nothing is tooooo far out there. Example – did you know that Hillary Clinton was involved in the ‘death’ of John Kennedy Jr.? It’s the only show I follow where I always have to first qualify my fandom with the statement “Of course I don’t believe any of this stuff.” Which is sad. Because I used to be at least open to the possibility of life on other worlds and ghosts and life after death. But two decades of listening to Coast

and a non-stop stream of flakes, B.S. artists and con-men have made me jaded and cynical. Now, I don’t believe anything unless I see or experience it myself. That’s kind of a shame because the show actually does have the occasional guest who isn’t a fruitcake or huckster turning his claims of being abducted by aliens into a tidy little cottage industry. Too bad, that’s like choosing not to believe in God because you don’t approve of television evangelists. And that’s the gospel truth. One of those more credible regular guests is Stanton Friedman, one of the first people to write about the 1947 crash of a supposed spaceship/ weather-balloon in Roswell, New Mexico. Friedman is the keynote speaker at the Alien Cosmic Expo, a three-day conference on all things UFO being held in Brantford the weekend of June 24 to 26. This marks the second such event for the organizers after launching the debut conference last summer. The weekend boasts a roster of 21 speakers, many of whom are Coast to Coast regulars – Friedman, Bob Mitchell, Richard Dolan, Stephen Bassett. Travis Walton of Fire In the Sky fame who will retell the story of his three-day period of being abducted which I don’t believe any of because it has regularly changed over the years since I first heard him tell it to Art Bell.

Occasional weekend Coast host Richard Syrette will moderate a panel on ‘ET Disclosure Hearing’ featuring Paul Hellyer, the now 93-year-old former Canadian minister of defense during the Pearson/Trudeau years who apparently got all the proof he needed about the existence of U.F.O.’s courtesy of his work with NORAD. Bassett will be flogging the same horse he has been for twenty years, that ‘disclosure’ is guaranteed after the next American presidential election. The emphasis here is on credibility. I’ve heard them all over the years and they tell a good story. If nothing else, it will be entertaining. Of the bunch, Friedman is the most fact-based researcher even to a skeptic like myself. Critical thinking is an anomaly in the U.F.O. community and he is one of the few who publicly doesn’t buy into much of the guff being passed off as truth these days on all those ‘investigation’ shows on the History channel. And he’s willing to name names if you want any examples. For regular or occasional listeners of Coast, or anyone who just wants to believe, a trip to Brantford for the last weekend in June may be in order. Price and schedule information can be found at aliencosmicexpo.com. It promises to be the biggest and best U.F.O. expo in the tri-county area this season.

han g o ve r he l p e r

A Queasy Meditation on the Technicolor Yodel Hovering feverish in your bedroom later, feeling simultaneously relieved and scooped out, you are less ill but differently awful by Shane Delear

here is no delicate way to put it, but it is a reality. Even if one doesn’t live larger than the average person, even if you don’t lead the reckless and glamorous life of Shane Delear (otherwise known as the Hangover Helper) – heck, your greatest vice could be brewing your tea too strong – but everyone, every now and then, has to barf. I think the patheticness is what’s most awful about it. You have become a seething cauldron of homemade wine and late night burgers and have woken from uneasy dreams (cat burglars, black and white photographers, misplaced moleskin notebooks) to see the creepy light of predawn and hear the sneering cacophony of songbirds greeting the day outside your window. Taking long cool breaths, eschewing blankets, scooting away from the other person in your bed (actually, from their warmth) . . . you try anything that you can to escape the sickening heat that emanates from everything, including yourself. The fight against nausea is too tenuously pitched to allow you to move your head to flip the pillow and that is your undoing. You know you’ve passed the tipping point. Dreading the upcoming unpleasantness, you dash to the bathroom where battery acid and onions are convulsively ejected high-speed with more luck than aim. Then comes the profound awareness of your frailty; how thrummingly weak and human you are, how prone to the whims of a hostile universe . . . the multitudes of bacteria rising up, revolting. The comfort then, of a hand rubbing your wretched back. It’s a point in space / time that had been violent and jagged: in this exercise I represent it with gallons of purple and black paint

sloshed and colliding midair, exploding vectors of angry spatter, a tar-thick soup from horizon to horizon which then – like in a dish detergent commercial – retreats, revealing a glowing and growing strength and safety, a relief that extends all over you. Soon the ordeal is done. You’ve brushed your teeth and from the ether appears a glass of water, a vitamin and an Advil you couldn’t possibly try to keep down. Hovering feverish in your bedroom later, feeling simultaneously relieved and scooped out, you are less ill but dif-

ferently awful – your sinuses burn, but the rollercoastery upheaval has receded. You can start to drift off to sleep and hope the headache will be gone when you wake up. There’s this trembling gratitude to have a strong and sympathetic human beside you. Someone who in enlightened kindness leaves you to sleep through your breakfast date with your out-of-town friend and brings you back a breakfast sandwich. This is the greatest hangover help of all – love.

YOUR HANGOVER HELPER HAPPY HOUR BEAT THE HEAT EDITION My husband and I get a weekly delivery of organic produce and I didn’t have anything to do with the rhubarb, so I chopped it up and simmered it with some strawberry slices for half an hour in two cups of water that had a cup of sugar boiled into it. Strained that out (save the gunk that’s left, we’ll get to it in a minute) and became the proud father of a strawberry rhubarb syrup. So what the heck do you do with it? Simple: it + gin + soda = dammmmmmn. If you want it to be needlessly complicated and happen to be making hummus that day, save the water from your chickpea can and throw an ounce of it with an ounce of the syrup and one and a half of gin into a shaker with lots of ice and shake the dickens out of it. The chickpea water is a substitute for egg whites. This’ll make a rich frothy “flip” and I know it sounds gross, but 1) it shares a quality with almost everything else in that it’s less gross than egg whites and 2) trust me. If you want an even richer foam, strain it off the ice and do a second “dry shake” then pour it onto fresh ice in a wide mouthed glass. Treat yourself to a dash or two of bitters while you’re at it. I call it a Rhubarbarian. If that’s too much effort and it’s a crazy hot day pour an ounce or so into a wheat beer (my favourite right now is Hey Day, brewed by Granville Island Brewing out of BC, available in tall cans from the LCBO but you could go extra snooty and get a German like Hacker Pschorr or Schneider Weisse or even chuck some into something people have heard of, like Hoegaarden or Rickards White). Or . . . put it on ice cream maybe? AND you can take the strained gunk and make blender drinks with it! p

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b o o k cul t u re

A Nominally Veiled Slice of London Life Nadia Bozak Thirteen Shells House of Anansi ($19.95)

by Susan Cassan

adia Bozak, Assistant Professor of English at Carlton, is a rooted-inLondon author, daughter of Bob Bozak, potter and sculptor, and Dawn Bozak, a fine clay artist and respected secondary school art teacher. By no means new to publishing, Bozak is the author of two novels, Orphan Love and El Niño, and a groundbreaking PHD thesis, The Cinematic Footprint: Lights, Cameras, Natural Resources. Thirteen Shells is a collection of stories in the life of a girl named Shell growing up in “Somerset”, a small city close to Toronto in the 1980’s. The lush, sensory rendering of the physical world of childhood, with shards of bright green glass dug from the garden treasured in a box, the shadowy light filtered through the leaves of trees, and the smell of wood smoke infused with pot is communicated in rich prose. The intensity of girlish friendships plays out against the sting of betrayal and the humiliation of going to school in Goodwill castoffs of a fellow class member. Shell’s longing to

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belong with her peers is made difficult by her parents’ counter cultural attitudes. When Robbie Burns prays that we might :” … see oursels as ithers see us”, there is no more rigorously dissecting eye for the job than a child anatomizing her Mum and Dad. Shell, the child of pottery artists with a commitment to pesticide free foods from the Co-op, gardening, and canning their own vegetables, naturally must yearn for the plastic toys and junk food of her friend Vicki’s household. With a child’s sharp vision she detects all the gaps between her parent’s stated ideals and their lapses, buying bread at the corner store rather than making the long trip to the Co-op. Most of all, Shell struggles through the years leading up to and after the divorce. Early, Shell senses the coldness between Mum and Dad, whose idealism and love for each other has withered, though not their devotion to their child. If parents wince at their child’s observations, the other women in her father’s life are positively scalded by Shell’s anger. She has no trouble recognizing that the pretty woman visiting her Dad’s studio has more on her mind than coffee and strudel. Shell observes with irony what it is like for a mother to put aside her dreams to build

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a solid economic foundation for her daughter while a father persists in his ambition to be an artist. Fast foods start to appear in the home as mother juggles earning a living and studies to upgrade her qualifications. The story of a young girl reacting against the “back to the earth” movement of the ‘60s becomes more pointed when Shell discovers music. In her home she has heard Joni Mitchel warbling Both Sides Now, and the likes of Murray McLauchlan singing, “thanks for the meal, here’s a song that is real, from the kid from the city” to that farmer with a face like a shoe. Patti Smith’s punk rock calls to Shell in songs like Piss Factory and Rock ’n Roll Nigger. The excruciating divide between parent and child widens as all mother’s efforts to make contact with her daughter are spurned. Teen temptations like smoking pot, skipping school, and friendships with drug dealers float Shell further and further away from the protection of her mother and her home. What sets this novel apart from many written about youthful rebellion is the compassion with which the parents are viewed. Nadia Bozak has stated in interviews that the birth of her own child has given her a richer understanding of parenting.

Emerging from the literature of women is the place of choice, where the girl sees her young love for what he is and knows he has to be left behind. Shell’s attraction to the glam-

ourous, dangerous drug dealer changes to pity as she sees him accept the job of putting on roof shingles for her mother. His attempts to be respectable in dress and language, and eagerness to please move him out of the transgressive bad guy into what he is, an impoverished man clinging to survival. Shell knows her world will be bigger, wider and far away. As a vivid picture of growing up in the ‘80’s, Thirteen Shells is a landmark. The regrettable part is the insistence on

eliminating the authentic geographic details. Artists contribute hugely to their native culture when they create an imaginative world to correspond to the bricks and mortar. So there is a Paris of the imagination as well as the actual city. Must we still hedge our bets, hoping that making it possible for American readers to mistake the location for the Midwest will improve sales? Would it have been so hard to call the location London, instead of Somerset? What would be the harm in naming the O-Pee-Chee factory? Many of the landmarks and businesses which are given fictional names are long gone. It would have been wonderful to have preserved them in the context of this sensitively written story of growing up. Reading this engaging book about the rebellious daughter of nonconforming artistic parents, makes you wonder what form the next generation’s rebellion will take. Punk rock has given way to rap. By the time Nadia Bozak’s own daughter hits her teens, what’s left in the lexicon of shock? Becoming a Young Conservative? Advocating for someone like Donald Trump? Time alone will tell. In the meantime, enjoy this journey through a world that is already history through the knowing eyes of a growing girl. p

t he p ur s ui t o f h a p p i n e s s

Kimmy and Chester by Jeffrey Schiller

ilton Head Island is located about an hour’s drive from Savannah, Goergia and for golfers across North America, it is truly a Mecca. So it seems a rather odd place to come across Kimmy and Chester, or at least Kimmy. As a result of my continual pursuit of happiness I recently found myself a visitor to this amazingly beautiful throwback to a simpler time. I suppose you can say this trip started about 30 years ago. It was around then that I met and began working with Ed. He is a southern gentleman by all definitions but more importantly, Ed lives life to the fullest; he always has. Some would question his decision making and I am not sure even I always agreed with where we ended up on any given Friday night, let alone where we woke up on any given Saturday, but Ed made no excuses; he never considered this life a practice round, this was it in his mind. The story of Ed was recently punctuated with the introduction of Bernice. Ask anyone who knows Ed and they will tell you that Bernice was just what Ed needed. She loves life every bit as much as Ed but adds just the right amount of common sense to the decision making process without taking anything away from the adventure. So it was no surprise to anyone that Ed and Bernice became engaged. As Ed is from the south and a true lover of all things ‘golf’, Hilton Head Island seemed like a natural place for the nuptials. We arrived on a gorgeous Tuesday afternoon

Hilton Head Island beach at sunset

and soon found ourselves enjoying a rehearsal gathering of “epic Ed” proportions. Fresh oysters harvested hours earlier, low country boil, shrimp and copious amounts of wine and whiskey, with the occasional cigar for good measure. Ed never does anything small and loves a good time and he did not fail on this go around. So what about Kimmy and Chester? Well, after a justifiably groggy Wednesday morning and a feeble attempt at breakfast, Joanne and I decided to venture out to the Marriott Beach Club and meet up with Ed’s offspring who we have had the pleasure of knowing since they were much younger. They mentioned they would be enjoying a leisurely day by the pool and if we were around why not stop in for a visit? As luck would have it – after a nine-mile bike ride, I might add – we found ourselves in the vicinity and decided to take them up on the offer. Kimmy was the first to greet us, in the parking lot, with an offer of water and CPR . . . obviously deducing that my lack of physical exertion over the past 50 some years had not prepared me well for a nine mile bike ride. Once by the pool we met up with Chester. Ed has four children altogether. One

was off golfing, one had not arrived, and so it was that we would spend the afternoon with the two that were in attendance. I could spend the rest of this article telling you about the amazing food and wine we enjoyed on the island. The meals were epic, the atmosphere, the weather, the fresh oysters and the key lime pie were everything you could hope and more but trust me when I summarize that portion by saying early on, “Hilton Head Island makes me happy.”

why the interest in these two folks specifically? From the minute you first meet Kimmy, you know you’ve met “Kimmy”. There is no pretension here. She is loud in a fun way that confirms your immediate perception that Kimmy loves life. Kimmy is a bartender. She displays some ink on both arms and she is beautiful. She proudly talks about her siblings and you can tell she loves them just because that’s what Kimmy does – she loves. Chester appears a little more restrained; no ink here. Chester is a golf pro and coach and it would be easy to see him in beige slacks, burgundy loafers and a navy blue button down dress shirt. Look closely and you see a father, a husband

and a caring brother but you don’t have to look any closer to see what you see a little more obviously in Kimmy; happiness and a love of life. Chester analyzes and looks closely at things. I suppose that’s what makes him a great golf instructor and coach. He wonders, he studies and he dreams but none of that takes away from the moment. He is right here right now. He laughs every bit as hard and his eyes betray a sort of confidence that allows him to enjoy everything around him. If you took golf lessons from Kimmy, you would have the time of your life. Would your golf game improve? I’m not sure but I wouldn’t bet on it. Then again, if Chester was a bartender, you would frequent the bar just to engage him in conversation. Would your martini be the best? I would have to say probably not but you wouldn’t notice anyway. We lazed around the pool that afternoon, each nursing a hangover in our own way but agreeing that a little hair of the dog was a good starting place for each of us. Chester spoke about his new business venture and it was obvious he was passionate about it and excited to see it grow. Kimmy ordered Greek food because she once dated a Greek guy! Chester sat comfortably on the edge of the pool and Kimmy lounged, walked and swam. That afternoon I took great pleasure in seeing two versions of happy. The controlled comfortable, confident happiness that was Chester and the passionate, loud, exciting, life-loving happiness that is Kimmy. Kimmy and Chester make me happy.

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l ook a t t hi s

Outside the Box by Nida Home Doherty

Thielsen Gallery, currently, there is a very fine exhibition of Tony Uruquart paintings. In the one-room exhibition space that hosts the paintings, the whiteness of the walls, the subtleness of framing, and the off-white of the matting, give contrast to the brilliant colour, detail, and playfulness of the 11 small watercolour and ink landscape paintings. Each delightful rendering is a visual play of surface abstraction and representational landscapes, where foreground and background are there and not there at the same time, and content is intentionally ambiguous and somewhat mysterious. The eye moves around the box-like framed painting, trying to puzzle it out. The visually intriguing piece entitled 3 Camels and an A with inked-in vague line shapes and certain recognizable forms appears like an abstract painting with fluid patches of colour wash that cover the picture plane. The wash draws attention to the surface of the work, but at the same time, there is a play between the foreground shapes and a brilliant somewhat abstracted setting sun on the distant horizon. Furthering the intrigue,

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Tony Urquhart: 3 Camels & an A, mixed media on paper, 5-9/16” x 7-5/8”, 2014

the eye searches deeper into the details of the shapes, looking for the camels and the letter A while trying to understand the content and context of the painting — a rendering from a foreign land, or perhaps an illustration for a child’s fantasy story. Colour, line, and shape play on the surface of all Uruquart’s paintings, interplaying with the elements of perspective and depth of field. Mill Lake Fence, Ireland is a particularly lovely example of this visual play. A detailed, inked-in fence post defines the foreground and through a diminishing fence line the eye is led across a country field into the distant lake and hill beyond. The perspective created in the ink drawing is then suddenly flattened by a perfect middle tone turquoise blue wash for the sky — the background suddenly jumps to the foreground. The same thing happens in a similar painting entitled Field, Ireland. A detailed and intriguing fence line leads back into a farmhouse on a distant hill on the horizon. But this perspective rendering is instantly changed into an abstract

painting with a flat triangular brilliant yellow wash that covers the field and another wash of medium blue for the sky. Landscape painting and abstraction rest within the same frame. Boxes have been a strongly-held theme of Uruquart’s work, mainly his well-known box sculptures. In this exhibition boxes again appear. Colour Box is a particularly splendid representation of Uruquart’s main art themes. In this piece we are looking down at a box frame the shape of an artist’s paint box. At the same time we are looking at an abstract painting of rich pastel colour washes held within the box frame, which, in effect, is not unlike the shape and colour of an artist’s palette. The perspective is twisted again with a straight on look at an artist’s water brush pot at the bottom of the painting. Here the themes of surface abstraction and three-dimensional perspective are interplayed with themes of art object and an artist’s materials. Box Study Red, another painting on the box theme, is an interesting play on threedimensional perspective, surface colour,

Tony Urquhart: Costume Study, watercolour & ink on paper, 5-7/8” x 4”, 2015

flattened space, and ambiguity of shape. A three-dimensional box structure, like the UK telephone boxes, is rendered as both representational and abstract. As the viewer, your mind and eye try to tease out the recognizable from the ambiguous, while enjoying the playfulness of colour and texture happening on the surface. The three cactus paintings, Cactus, Cactus 2, and Cactus 3, when viewed collectively, present three very different approaches to painting still life, and show the whimsy and playfulness of the artist. Cactus presents a bunch of rounded forms and shapes, rendered in brilliant washes of various colours, looking not unlike a beautiful and abundant bouquet of flowers, and an abstract painting at the same time. Inked into the surface in Cactus 2, a number of tall rounded prickly shapes appear like rather charming animated characters. Objects, wild and prickly, dominate the picture plane in Cactus 3, with even a little blood red spilling out in one corner of the painting. My particular favourite piece in the exhibition is 3 Palms, which is another rendering of a foreign place, but also has a certain narrative quality. At first the painting presents itself as very abstract with three thin pillar-like linear forms dividing the picture plane, which is covered in subtle colour washes and sparse texture. These three linear forms take on a character-like presence with the palm branches that shoot out at the top looking like heads of some exotic bird, a peacock perhaps. With this view, the

painting is about three proud characters standing strong against an ambiguous landscape of texture and colour. The smallness of the paintings themselves, which draws you close to the work, serves to make this a special exhibition. Like miniature paintings, the smallness brings an intensity to the viewing, and as you note the texture, the colour, the details of the line, and try to puzzle out the content, the works stay in your mind long after you leave the exhibition.

Tony Urquhart’s new work is part of a Revolving Group Exhibition until July 29, 2016 Thielsen Gallery 1038 Adelaide St N., London, ON 519-434-7681 http://www.thielsengallery.com/

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sounds r azor

Waiting for my time to come around Judging by my infrequent walks through Wortley Village, the majority of my fellow Londoners have summer personalities by Sean Twist

ummer has finally arrived in London with all the grace of a monster truck convention. Sunlight whores around the streets like it has no shame and bills to pay. The skies are as blue as a drowning victim. The temperature feels like a sweaty hug from a hairy shouldered stranger in a Sons of Anarchy wife beater. In short, London is ecstatic. Which brings me to Icelandic murder mysteries. I found a copy of Arnaldur Indridason’s Voices: A Reykjavik Murder Mystery in the dining room the other day. I think it was my wife’s, or maybe it just wandered in there, desperate

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to get out of the sunlight. I was immediately taken with the subtitle. It took me to a happy place, where things are cold and bleak and no one talks unless they have something to say. It also made me think of two things: 1) That if I ever wrote an Icelandic murder mystery I would call it Christ It’s Cold Out And Jormunder Is Dead and 2) Personalities can be qualified as seasonal. Judging by my infrequent walks through Wortley Village, the majority of my fellow Londoners have summer personalities. The way they look so cheerful in their shorts, flip flops and friendly leering at their neighbours’ wives. It’s a July outlook, a meteorological extrovert analog that is the preferred forecast for the city. If you don’t like summer, then what the hell is wrong with you, weirdo? Which may explain the Donald Sutherland from Invasion of the Body Snatcher looks I get when I walk past. Bedecked in my eternal black jeans, black

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t-shirt and 70s-era Aerosmith roadie hair, I am clearly not the preferred forecast. I am more of a late November, rainy Sunday afternoon kind of guy. Which brings me to my need for social justice. We live in an era of the aggrieved. No one is now expected to feel any displeasure, irritation, or frowny face feelings. If you have to struggle at anything, then clearly the government isn’t writing you a big enough cheque. Every day should be nothing but rainbows, ringing affirmations of your awesomeness and a clear, shining road to a glorious tomorrow. Anything less means you are suffering an injustice, an inequality, and by God, someone should do something for you. Not you, of course. You have enough on your plate. But someone else. Which brings me to how I feel aggrieved and how I want equality. I don’t like summer. I don’t like the heat. I don’t like the noise from the patios clogging up Richmond Street. I don’t like coming up with excuses to not attend family barbeques. I don’t like the sound of cicadas, lawnmowers, or neighbours shouting their love for Welcome To The Jungle at three am. In short, I feel like totally aggrieved and injusticed-ed. And in the name of equality, I want the city to do something for me. Which brings me to opium dens. I’m currently fascinated with opium dens. This is down to me currently watching way too much Penny Dreadful and hitting the four year mark without drinking. The allure of chemical oblivion while Eva Green lounges beside me in something fetchingly Victorian appeals. So while everyone else gets to sit on patios, pouring beer down their throats or vaping through fogs of marijuana – I mean, flavoured tobacco – why can’t I get what I want?

Don’t I have the right? Must I endure the slings and arrows of outrageous summertime extroverts? Is it my fault I’m in 2016 London, Ontario and not 1889 London, England? Is it my

and should keep me aggrieved for years to come. Whenever I go outside during these hellish months, I could simply put on my Opiate 2000 and access A Study In Green. This program – a

RED ALERT, RED ALERT: Yodeller columnist commits London summerwear infraction

fault I’m a November soul trapped in a world of hopped up Julys? Why isn’t someone doing something to make this right for me? Which brings me to virtual reality headsets. London – our London, not the cool one with Eva Green and opium – has a history of throwing money at video game companies. So why not throw some of that Springbank Dam money towards a company that can perfect a virtual reality headset – just for me? Something like an Oculus but with steampunk pipes? Something that won’t get caught in my hair? Something in black? Once I got the headset – let’s call it the Opiate 2000 – I could then ask for something else. Because everyone knows when you’re aggrieved, you simply have to ask for more once your first complaint has been met. And since my name is Twist, there’s like an ancestral precedent, so I have even more right to do so. Which brings me to A Study In Green. This would be a virtual reality program written just for me. To deal with my own issues, which are myriad and complex

combination of an ARG (alternate reality game) and pure arcane wizardry – would take input from the world around me and transform it into my preferred surroundings: a gloomy, midnight London England. A place where it’s always fog bound and raining. Where Eva Green walks beside me, her arm in mine, enraptured with my dismissal of the Ghostbusters remake. This program would transform the unremarkable sidewalks of Wortley Village to history-soaked cobblestones. An Acura charging past blasting hip hop would become a horse drawn carriage, racing off to a mysterious rendezvous. And a sidewalk patio would be transmogrified into an underground opium den, where I could finally relax, stretched out in a plastic lawn chair the Opiate 2000 would assure me was a chaise lounge. I’d even support local business by ordering a Coke, which would waver into a cool glass of absinthe. I’ll even give the headset back in November, when my time comes around. It’s not too much to ask. If not, I’ll just get a grant to write that Icelandic murder mystery. Then you’ll all be sorry.

d ispa t ch e s f ro m d y s t o p i a

Traumatized for Life by Phys Ed

Ciara Allen

Just the other day I was standing in my kitchen working on

a wheel of brie for my afternoon snack, when there arose a cacophony of prepubescent noise from the park across the street. A group of school children and their adult chaperones were pouring out along the path and into the street. Something about this sight felt familiar, and I realised it was “Play Day”, a mandatory end of year event at my Alma Mater (read: Elementary school) which had the entire student body go on a day trip to the park to engage in a series of physical activities. Think “The Hunger Games” only with forced camaraderie and more mental torture. I winced at this memory, traumas I thought I had erased flashing through my mind. My entire body beaded in sweat. My muscles screaming in protest. The jeering and lamentation of my peers rising to a crescendo while teachers leered over us, judging. Always judging. Under whose watch were schools allowed to do this to innocent children?

From my earliest memories, myself and my classmates were forced into physical activity, pairing us in lopsided “sporting” combat. For natural athletes, it was a time to shine. For others such as myself, it was an exercise in degradation. I will never forgive or forget such humiliations being forced upon me as a pudgy, bushy-haired nerd. I just wanted to lose myself in fantastical worlds through literature, or battle my way to becoming the greatest Pokémon master in all of Kanto. Instead I was bullied into tests of physical endurance and sportsmanship for which I could not be more clearly ill-suited. There were the “games” in gym class, leaving me entangled in skipping ropes or nursing goose eggs from errant volleyballs. Worse still, the school wide Track & Field day wherein I was expected to be able to vault, sprint, and tumble my ungainly adolescent body — clad in oversized clothing and hiking boots — through each competition. The final lap race around the perimeter of the park in which it was held, saw me place 13th out of 14, stumbling across the finish and collapsing into the grass as a teacher let my orange participation ribbon flutter to the ground beside my heaving form. Then Play Day. A slapdash course of team building exercises and feats of athleticism, allegedly for our benefit. Sadly, not mine. Instead of a new found appreciation for exercise and improved relationships with my peers, I am left unable to use public gyms or perform in front of crowds, my self image crystallized as a chubby 11 year old. That’s right, elementary school sporting events traumatized me for life. How could it be in the best interest of every child to force participation in such things? Instead of leaving proper exercise and physical health to the parents, a group of fascists (or educators, whatever you like) made it part of the curriculum. Some good that did me. I know I don’t speak for everyone, but I’ll leave you with this: I can’t remember how to do long division, but I’ll be damned if I am ever able to wash away the horrors of gym class.

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Dawn Chrisjohn serves traditional Oneida food to members of the Dutch Canadian community at the Dutch-Canadian Society hall in London.

Going Dutch with Haudenosaunee for 400 Years

Dutch Canadians [above] join in a round dance led by Gina Doxtater and Johan Yoseph of the Oneida Nation while celebrating the 400 years the two nations have shared their treaty, the first between a European people and First Nations. Howard Elijah [right] one of Oneidaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s traditional Chiefs, accepts a pair of wooden shoes from the Dutch-Canadian Society in commemeration of the 400-year-old treaty between Haudenosaunee and The Netherlands at the DutchCanadian Society Hall in London. 26 the london yodeller

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Dutch Canadians ride to the Forks on the annual GoGreenGoDutchGoBike tour along the trails of London. The purpose of the event is to raise awareness of preserving the planet and raising money for bicycles for children for families who cannot afford them. This year the added celebration of the 400-year-treaty between the Haudenosaunee Confederacy and the Netherlands was also a part of the festivities.

Peace, Mutual Respect and Caring for the Environment We have all heard of “going Dutch”. It often refers to everyone paying their own way in restaurants and movie theatres. In many ways this can also describe the 400-yearold treaty between The Netherlands and the Haudenosaunee Confederacy symbolized by the two-row-wampum used by the Haudenosaunee people for centuries. The belts have two purple stripes on a white background. The purple stripes symbolize two craft moving down a river, each holding the political and spiritual beliefs of their occupants, without interfering in the affairs of the other nation. The white background also symbolizes peace. The Treaty is the first treaty to be signed between First Nations and Europeans. In London the Dutch Canadian community’s annual GoGreenGoDutchGoBike tour added a celebration of that treaty to their festivities with Elders and Clan Mothers from Oneida to restate their commitment to the Treaty and the responsibilities that go along with it. The annual tour raises money for childrens’ bicycles for families who could not otherwise afford them, and to raise awareness of respecting Mother Earth through the use of environmentally friendly transportation. Forest City Folk is an ongoing documentary of contemporary life in London, Ontario by London photojournalist Menno Meijer

Richard TerVrugt [above] former Honorary Consul of The Netherlands in London, and the board members of the Dutch Canadian Society of London, added a celebration of the treaty between the Netherlands and the Haudenosaunee, symbolized by the Two-Row Wampum, to this year’s celebration of Mother Earth. 06.09.16

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Hey all you film junkies and movie addicts! from new releases to cult classics, western film’s got your fix!

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Wherefore art thou, Stratford? Ian Lake in the Stratford Festival’s production of Macbeth

by Ian Hunter

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or more than four decades I have been attending the Stratford Festival; it happens that I enjoy theatre and love Shakespeare. In the early years I saw the entire playbill, latterly three or four plays a season. “The best thing about living in London, Ontario”, I used to tell anyone who asked, “is proximity to Stratford.” Truth be told, there has been a noticeable decline in the quality of acting in recent years (roughly coinciding with the passing of Richard Monette in 2008, after 14 years as Stratford’s Artistic Director), but it was still the most accomplished repertory theatre in Canada. At last year’s wonderful production of The Physicists at the Tom Patterson theatre, I sat next to a couple who each year drive up from Lexington, Kentucky for a theatre week. This year we booked preview tickets for Macbeth and As You Like It, a tragedy and a comedy among Shakespeare’s best work. Macbeth, directed by the current artistic director, Antonio Cimolino, is a bleak, well-conceived production. The stage is often dark, or illuminated by natural fire (torches), and the weird sisters cast their spells over a fiery cauldron. The director has added personal touches (e.g. the slaying and hanging of a soldier before the dialogue begins) that convey political instability and, without words, just how uneasy lie the heads that wear a crown. The trouble with this Macbeth is that the actors are not up to the text. Oh, the witches were compelling, and one or two characters spoke their lines quite convincingly, but the play stands or falls on Macbeth and his avaricious, conniving wife; alas, Ian Lake is not up to Macbeth, and Krystin Pellerin is even more inadequate as Lady Macbeth. So the audience is left with a play

imaginatively staged, convincingly (un)lit, but poorly acted; in fact the acting is not noticeably above a few high school productions that I dimly remember. Such acting is unworthy of a stage formerly graced by the likes of William Hutt and Christopher Plummer. But Macbeth was perfection incarnate compared to the travesty that currently shares the Festival Theatre – As You Like It. Take it from me, you won’t. This As You Like It is the single worst theatre performance I have had the misfortune to attend. The tip-off came as the audience took its seats while an M.C. urged everyone to come up onstage and dance a jig. The Forest of Arden, you see, has been moved to Newfoundland, and the time is the mid-1980s.

ell, fair enough, I have seen such transpositions done successfully – even at Stratford, as in John Hirsch’s wonderful 1983 As You Like It. But to say that the current production went downhill might suggest a gradual decline; not so. From the opening scene this is a plunge into inanity, vulgarity, and stupidity. The audience had been given branches on the way in and the M.C. who slank her fetching way around the stage and up and down the aisles throughout, would occasionally bellow out instructions to hold the branches up or wave them around, or set them on your knee, and the poor mindless old saps who comprised the bulk of the audience would, cheerlessly it seemed to me, generally comply. Meanwhile, the actors fell over patrons’ legs, or sat on their laps, or delivered a tub of ice cream. This time

it did not matter that the actors could not convincingly speak Shakespeare’s lines because no one was allowed to concentrate on such a frippery. Witless but not funny. The melancholy Jaques (who has one the greatest soliloquies in the canon – “All the world’s a stage”, recounting the seven ages of man, that concludes “…sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything” – which about sums up this production) was played by an overweight, middle-aged woman. Need I say more? When we left (at intermission) I sought out the House Manager and told her that I considered this a disgrace to Shakespeare (of whom the current management obviously cares not), to the audience (who, should anyone attend who reads this, deserves to be fleeced) and to previous artistic directors – like Robin Philips, and John Neville and the aforementioned Richard Monette; not all of their productions were stellar, but none was a slovenly assault on the audience’s intelligence. I remain grateful to the Stratford Festival for beautiful and insightful productions over many years; but to every thing there is a season, and this is my last season as a patron. Inadequate acting is an accepted hazard of theatre-going; but being told by an onstage M.C. just before intermission: “Don’t forget to pee” is a pleasure that I can now willingly forego. As Iras says to the dying Cleopatra: “The tough day is done/And we are for the dark”. Who wrote that? That same guy, W.S., whose spirit in days past haunted the environs of Stratford, Ontario.

sp o tl ight Our cover artist for our special London Fringe Live Arts Festival edition is Erica Dornbusch, a contemporary acrylic painter, who uses her own form of abstract expressionism to visually narrate the inner lives, sacred places, and essences of people and landscapes. Visually impaired and facing further loss of vision, Erica is committed to making paintings until she can’t in the same way any longer. Then the plan is to simply find new and different ways to do the same thing. You can see some of her work at Visual Fringe which is on at The Arts Project until Saturday, June 11th. Then she has a solo show of new work entitled, ReVision, coming up at the Westland Gallery at 156 Wortley Road which will run from June 21 to July 9. The opening reception will be Saturday, June 24 at 7:30PM and on Wednesday, June 29 at 7PM she will be giving an Artist’s Talk and tour of that show.

Erica Dornbusch: Coronado 18”x36" Acrylic on canvas. On view at the The Apartment, The Westland Gallery

Our Yodeller cover image is a detail from a large canvas entitled Sehnsucht. The attitude of the main figure seemed suggestive to us of an engrossed theatre patron. The words in the lower left corner derive from C.S. Lewis’ essay, The Weight of Glory.

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ri pl a sh

I’ve Been Everywhere, Mon —

Doc Forbes’ Four Continent Journey by Jason Rip

SUPPORT THESE FINE BUSINESSES WHERE YOU’LL FIND Aeolian Hall Museum London the art centre Music & Video Place THE ART EMPORIUM mystic bookshop art exchange THE OLDE BAKERY CAFE artisan bakery ON THE SIDE ANTIQUES The Arts Project Palace Theatre FRAMING & ART CENTRE Attic Books PLAYWORLD FRINGE CUSTOM FRAMING & GALLERY Beat Goes On quiznos Grand Theatre BELLONE’S RAILWAY CITY BREWERY harvey’s Bijan’s Art Studio red roaster irene’s fish & chips B.J.’S COUNTRY MARKET root cellar organic cafe joe kool’s BONDI’S PIZZA scot’s corner John Bellone’s THE BOOK BIN Speed City records KING EDWARD RESTAURANT boston pizza Starbucks L.A. Mood Cardinal Books STRATHROY ANTIQUE MALL LITTLE BEAVER RESTAURANT Chaucer’s Pub subway THE LITTLE BOOK SHOPPE cherryhill mall Sunrise Records LITTLE RED’S PUB & EATERY Citi-Plaza mall tim horton’s london library branches city lights bookshop turner’s drug store London Music Club Coffee Culture VILLAGE PIZZA london pain & headache clinic Covent Garden Market western fair district Long & McQuade culture rising westland gallery LUCAN DONNELLY MUSEUM DAVID’S BISTRO white oaks mall memory lane antiques ELGIN COUNTY MUSEUM WIMPY’S DINER ELGIN COUNTY RAILWAY MUSEUM Michael Gibson Gallery WOODSTOCK ART GALLERY muldoon’s pizza Forest City Surplus YO YO’S YOGHURT

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nly a few times in your life will you meet someone truly inspirational. Dr. Colin Forbes, now in his mid-eighties, has just published his memoir, From The Bottom Of My Heart. Born in Jamaica, and spending most of his career as a doctor in Africa, Forbes came to London because it was fairly safe, had minimal racial prejudice, and didn’t experience the harshest that the Canadian winter had to offer. His daughters scouted the city for him to make sure it met these specifications. A paediatrician by profession, Doc was still practicing until very recently. “I didn’t really take to e-medicine,” he said. Doc has a life story that combines Indiana Jones with Jonas Salk. I first met him when I was asked to direct his autobiographical play All Aboard! about the summers he spent as a sleeping car porter on the Canadian Pacific Railway, enduring racism and sleepless nights in an effort to pay his way through McGill’s medical school. As far as he knows, Doc is the last survivor of that hardworking, pillbox-hatted, and bleary-eyed crew. Before he went to McGill, Doc briefly attended Taylor University in Uplands, Indiana where he was the only black student on campus.

He was refused haircuts and service at lunch counters suffering so many “humiliating and terrifying experiences” that he swore he would never set foot in the United States again. It was very difficult for Doc Forbes to become a physician. In addition to the hardships of the CPR, he worked as a janitor and at the Wonder Bra factory in Montreal. He spent some time as an officer in the Canadian Army. His first act on graduating

I told Doc that his life story would make five or six good plays, let alone one

medical school was riding a roller coaster for the first time. Once certified, Doc spent time in West Germany and at the Hospital for Sick Children in London, England, the institute that the royalties of Barrie’s Peter Pan help to fund. He met his wife Margaret at St. Mary’s Hospital in Montreal where she was the acting night nursing supervisor. They had so many children together that Doc learned how to hold a baby in each arm and turn the pages of a medical textbook with his tongue. It’s the quirky details that really make Doc Forbes’ memoirs worth reading. He has fought snakes. He delivered one of his own children. He has barely

escaped dictatorial regimes. He has been bitten by a rabid child. The main part of Doc’s life-work has been providing essential medical care to some of the poorest regions of Africa. Working in Nigeria and Nairobi, Doc’s clinics sometimes had dirt floors. Many children would die of simply treated ailments like measles, diarrhoea, and whooping cough, all for lack of resources. Doc became an advocate of preventative medicine and took his portable clinics into some of Africa’s most isolated areas. These efforts were often discouraged by his colleagues: “They have too many children anyhow, allow them to die in peace.” Doc was angered by such expressions of indifference. “Are we doctors or undertakers?” he sometimes wondered to himself. Doc was given beaded stethoscopes and other gifts by grateful villagers. He was the private paediatrician to Meryl Streep’s kids when she was filming “Out Of Africa.” Doc’s interest in intervention and public health soon drew the attention of worldwide medical organizations. As a member of the Christian Medical Commission, Doc spoke all over the world. He happened to be in Vietnam during the Tet Offensive, hiding in a hotel that the proprietor won in a poker game. He became very familiar with the

Doc Forbes and the cast of All Aboard!

necessity of graft in some countries. The title of his book comes from an incident when he was forced to pay a substantial bribe to get to Bali. “I will accept this,” says the extorting official, “but only if it comes from the bottom of your heart.”

oc has faced numerous life challenges. One of his African homes was attacked by a small army of sixteen men. Many of his good works and publications were thwarted by new African regimes

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because Doc was considered a foreigner. Now a healthy octogenarian, Doc found himself approaching fifty years old as a chain-smoker, a problem drinker, and fifty pounds overweight. These problems were overcome with a regime of running and doing a push-up for every year of his life, a practice he continued up until he was seventy. When Doc arrived back in Canada after forty-five years, he had to renew both his driver’s license and his license to practice. He had to learn to work on a computer. He was working in a walk-in clinic up until very recently. He wrote his play All Aboard! while practicing medicine on Walpole Island. “I did not intend to spend my retirement on my hands and knees as a mendicant – an old, angry, disappointed doctor,” says Doc in his book. I have told Doc many times that his life story would make five or six good plays, let alone one.

His memoirs are certainly inspiring: the detailed presentation of a hard but good life of service. Doc does not fudge the facts when it comes to his own mistakes and his many times of trouble. He was able to return to Jamaica recently and it was there, in the land of his birth, that he wrote down his life story. From attending grammar school with Harry Belafonte, to practicing medicine from a flying ambulance, to treating a very young Hawaiian-born President of the United States, Doc Forbes has never really got off that roller coaster. At 85, he is still an active member of the community and currently serves on the Fugitive Slave Chapel Committee. A dear friend of mine, I was able to read the very first copy of From The Bottom Of My Heart. It is very seldom that one meets a man like Dr. Colin Forbes. We should be so happy that after traveling all over the world he has landed in London.

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t h ea tre spa c e

Your Fringe Sommelier Guide Variety is the spice of the Fringe — but some theatre-goers like to find plays that complement each other by Adam Corrigan Holowitz

here is no argument that the London Fringe Festival is London’s biggest week in theatre every year. Though remember – London’s theatre scene is active all year round. The first London Fringe Festival was in 2000. I was at the first one. I started Fringing when I was five years old, and have never missed a festival. It is remarkable to look back to the roots of London’s Fringe and realize how much it has grown. What I also find remarkable is that the spirit and atmosphere of the festival feels relatively the same as the first one. There is a sense of celebration in the air. There is adventure in the delight of being able to dash around the downtown seeing as many plays as you can. Variety is the spice of the Fringe – but some theatre-goers like to find plays that complement each other. For such a theatrical palette, I have compiled a Fringe “sommelier guide” of plays that might go nicely together.

The Historical Selection

London Fringe always has a number of history plays on the bill, which is unusual in the Fringe circuit. Do not for a moment think that means you are getting something dusty and bland. A Fringe history play tends to highlight events that the history books have forgotten. This year we have two such plays. First

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is Jason Rip’s Mr. Richardson Was Jesse James, which is a play about a summer that Jesse James may have spent in Princeton, Ontario. It might be legend, it

Chris McAuley as Jesse James in Jason Rip’s Mr. Richardson Was Jesse James Photo: Echo Gardiner

might be true. The cast is headed up by Chris McAuley as Jesse James. McAuley last year did a wonderful job playing Chet Baker in Last Blast. The second history play is by Aimee Adler, who was profiled in the last Yodeller, performing her new solo show Madame Curie about French physicist Marie Curie.

Dockery to make another London stop. But we are lucky to have Brader in London this year with his new play Smoker, which is on the top of my must-see list. It is a play about Brader’s love affair with smoking and trying to quit. Also we have Brader’s wife and director Suzanne Bachner’s new play The Good Adoptee. Bachner and Brader are a Fringe power couple, bringing us such great works as Circle, Spitting in the Face of the Devil and Preparation Hex. The Good Adoptee is about Suzanne’s search for her birth parents and the bureaucratic road blocks she must fight. Another show that will contain great storytelling is A Minor Midcareer Retrospective by James Judd. Judd draws heavily from his personal life to create funny, entertaining and somewhat poignant monologues. Judd most recently was in London in 2014 with Killer Quack – a story about a plastic surgeon who is caught for malpractice. This time around Judd will be performing three different stories in his 60 minute play. These are stories from past hit shows. What makes this show unique is that for every performance, Judd will pick a different mix of stories and announce the lineup that day. On the Canadian side of things is London’s own Passionfool Theatre’s production of Here Lies Henry by great Canadian, Nova Scotia-born, playwright

The Spalding Gray Connection

The late great Spalding Gray, in my opinion, revolutionized the solo theatrical monologue. Gray created monologues about his personal life – all put across with a huge dose of wit. His work is synonymous with New York indie theatre. So it should come as no surprise that you can spot the Spalding influence at any Fringe Festival – a theatre circuit that features a good number of solo works. If you have a hankering for that ever delicious mix of humour, biography and a tad of anxiety in a solo show, may I point out these choices? We are wonderfully lucky that London Fringe has a long relationship with several of New York’s top solo theatre artists. Two of my favourites are Martin Dockery and Bob Brader. Some sort of petition needs to be started to get

Photo: Chloe Ziner

Jessica Gabriel in Vancouver based Mind of Snail’s new shadow puppet play Curious Contagious.

Daniel MacIvor. This play is performed by Justin Quenelle who has a great track record with MacIvor’s solo works including

Lara Loves Lightfoot, a “storied concert” by Stratford singer/songwriter Lara MacMillan is interspersed with Gordon Lightfoot songs

House and Monster. MacIvor’s own writing is heavily inspired by Gray’s work – in fact his newest play is called Who Killed Spalding Gray (on at Canadian Stage this December).

Puppets a Plenty

Puppet plays have started making an appearance in the Fringe in recent years. This year there are two, both at the McManus Studio. Both are perfect for all ages. The Geography of Hope is a table top, Banraku style puppet show. It has been created by London theatre maker and educator Kim Stark. The story is an odyssey of a girl trying to recapture her ability to have hope, generosity and spontaneity. After last year’s hit crow-themed play Caws & Effect, Vancouver based Mind of Snail are back with a new shadow puppet play Curious Contagious. This new show is about viruses! The puppeteers Chloé Ziner and Jessica Gabriel use several different light sources, including two overhead projectors, to create beautiful shadow puppetry. The puppets are painted transparencies. The overheads of your high school days just got way cooler when you see what they can do with them.

Some Night Music

This year at the Fringe’s smallest venue, The Bank, just down the street from the Palace, there are several solo music pieces being performed. Two that

jump out to me are both one-woman shows that are personal and intimate – but in very different ways. The first musical play is Shirley Gnome: Real Mature. Shirley Gnome is a comedian and singer songwriter. Her music, and this show, is about sex. Her work has been described as frank, funny and insightful. It is certainly not a PG show – but it looks to be the kind of the edgy experience you expect at the Fringe. Her music is a country/folk style. Lara Loves Lightfoot is described as a “storied concert” – part one-woman show and part cabaret. The show is created and performed by Stratford singer/ songwriter Lara MacMillan. The show tells the story of the year she spent in Banff when she was 19, interspersed with selections of Gordon Lightfoot songs that she performs.

The Bard Platter

Shakespeare always manages to find his way into a Fringe. This year there is Breakneck Hamlet performed by Chicago actor Tim Mooney. He very, very quickly gives the audience a “recklessly sliced” fifty-nine minute, fifty-nine second version of Hamlet. There is also

Photo: Pinup Perfection Photography

Shirley Gnome: Real Mature features the comedian & country/folk songwriter in her frank and funny show about sex.

the Fringe classic Teaching Shakespeare which has been touring since 1999. The play, performed by Keir Cutler, is a parody of a college English class.

These are just some of the 45 productions on offer at eight locations from May 31 to June 11. Take in this fine theatre feast in all its glory and embark on your very own www.londonfringe.ca Fringe adventure.

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fr i n g e f ea t u re

Behind the Scenes at London Fringe With the Fringe, part of the spirit is that it’s meant to be experimental. It’s meant to be edgy, to be raw. by Shane Delear

oe Recchia has been a member of London’s theatre scene for seven years. He first got involved with Musical Theatre Productions and is now president of their board of directors. Then after a few years with London Community Players at the Palace Theatre he was hired at the Original Kids Theatre and has been there full time for three years. This is his fourth Fringe festival. As the venue technician for the Spriet Family Theatre in Covent Garden Market, Joe is running the tech, lights and sound for six different shows which all have multiple performances.

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You must be really organized... Being a venue technician definitely keeps you on your toes. You only get two or three short hours to set up, program and rehearse a show you have never seen before and then put it up in front of an audience. This would be daunting for one show but you have to do it for six shows over two weeks with only four days to learn them all. I try to be very organized with schedules and what each show requires because you want to do well for the artists and do their shows justice for the audiences who come to enjoy them. It’s a fun experience that can be fairly stressful at times. Are there any shows this year that are standing out for you? We have Here Lies Henry staged by a local group, Passionfool – a one man show, written by Daniel MacIver. It opens with Henry saying “I’m a liar” – you spend the rest of the play trying to decipher what part

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of his story is the truth. There have been years where we’ve had shows that were not so good but everything that I’ve seen so far that we have at the Spriet Theatre looks great.

What does the Fringe mean for you as a member of London’s theatre community? One of the great things about the London Fringe is that – aside from the great exposure to international artists and people from across the country, which is what a lot of fringe festivals do – there’s always a very strong local presence. It’s a tremendous opportunity for newly formed or nonprofessional companies to get themselves out there in a way that’s a little bit lower risk. There’s already this crowd of people who are going, so you’re not pulling people in off the street, you just have to focus on attracting an existing audience to your particular show. That Fringe audience as well is a great thing for

Joe Recchia is running tech and sound for six different Fringe productions at the Spriet Family Theatre in the Covent Garden Market

those newer companies. They’re more adventurous, partly because of the kinds of shows the Fringe does. There’s that feeling of going to see capital ‘T’ Theatre; it doesn’t matter if it’s brilliant or not, I’m going to love the experience. Whereas I find if you go see a show at the Grand, there’s a bit more of an expectation of “this had better be worth finding a baby sitter and parking downtown”. With the Fringe, part of the spirit of

it is that it’s meant to be experimental, it’s meant to be edgy, to be raw.

Any anecdotes that you’d like to share from your time with the Fringe? One thing in particular that sticks out – it was my first Fringe so it must have been four years ago – – 2 for Tea – they’re back actually with the same show this year – they were performing in the market and about three quarters of the

way through the show, I started to hear a strange blaring, buzzing noise. I was frantically checking all of my equipment to see what was causing it and then I realised – the fire alarm was going off. I had to stop the show: “Sorry everybody, that noise you are hearing is the fire alarm, could you please follow me this way?” Of course, one of the things that’s so awkward about the Fringe is that you can’t just go back in and run late; it’s so tightly scheduled that somebody’s already spoken for the space. We evacuated everyone out into the alleyway over by Fanshawe and the actors said, “Well, we’re all here, lets finish the show.” And they just did it in the street. It’s already a show that has audience participation, so they had that rapport – it was a show that really lent itself well to that kind of on-thefly spirit. Definitely a case of the show must go on.

LONDON FRINGE 2016 LONDON’S LIVE ARTS FESTIVAL REVIEWS Theatre in London is pleased to partner for another year with the London Fringe Festival and the London Yodeller to produce the TiLee reviews. Since 2009, a band of reviewers from the London theatre community has committed to see and review every show in the festival by the end of the opening weekend. On June 10 the team will also present the fourth annual TiLee Awards, recognizing outstanding Fringe festival productions, performers, and participants. The full text of all reviews submitted by the review team, as well as the award winners, will be found on theatreinlondon.ca. — Peter Janes

Venue 6 Palace Theatre James & Jamesy Vancouver BC

Playwrights: James & Jamesy

Venue 3 McManus Studio Tim Motley Melbourne, Australia

Playwright: Tim Motley

Venue 5 Good Foundation Theatre Funeral Pyre Theatre London ON

Playwright: Julia McCarthy

Site The Bank Mystic Music Productions Toronto ON

Playwright: Ananta

2 for Tea

is hard to classify James & Jamesy’s 2 for Tea. It is at once a physical comedy and a touching story of friendship and love. It’s at the same time a paean to precision and an exercise in controlled chaos. It is an homage to the great comedy duos of the past while remaining a contemporary delight that keeps getting better. The easiest way to classify

2 for Tea is to say that it’s a must-see production on this year’s Fringe circuit. 2 for Tea is a masterpiece of physical comedy. It’s one that has been refined and showcases the duo’s talents to great effect. Despite being theatrical and flamboyant, the brilliance of 2 for Tea comes in its execution. — Jay Ménard

6 Quick dick Tricks: A Dirk Darrow Investigation

aving seen Tim Motley perform last year, I know he’s a talented performer, but this show just wasn’t to the calibre of his past work. The mentalism itself was good and fans of audience participation will have a good time, but the show was missing the clever writing of last year’s effort and Motley really struggled to bring the story to life,

stumbling on lines throughout. This is the first time he’s performed the show, so while it was certainly rough around the edges, I’m sure it will improve. But…it might be best to wait and catch this one next time around.

— Jeff Preston

Almost Alice

ased loosely on the story of Alice in Wonderland, the audience sees grown-up Alice dealing with her first loss. The characters of her childhood re-visit her to remind her she cannot run to her secret memories all the time. Sometimes, standing up to your fears is the best way to move on. The cast in this production is extremely strong with amazing characterizations of the Cheshire Cat, the Flower, the

Mad Hatter and the Glow Worm. There were sections however where the plot was confusing to the audience. Since the characters in Alice in Wonderland are confusing, you are unsure if this was the director’s actual intention. Almost Alice is still a good show, but more time and practice can make this an excellent production. - Shelley Carr

Ananta

nanta means “infinite, endless” in Sanskrit. It represents both masculine and feminine forms. The subject matter of this play touches on this idea and many more spiritual and philosophical ideals. The show and its solo performer share the name Ananta — and this is just the beginning of the strange quirkiness in which the viewer will be bathed over the next hour. The show follows a routine of storytelling followed by

musical numbers further explaining the story. I found everything Ananta said to be humorous whether it was presented in a deep linguistic construct or just a plain old pun — the whole show kept me smiling. Overall this is a great show if you like a grab bag of philosophy, spirituality, and banjos! — Melony Holt

bad rabbit

Venue

c n a C

christache.plays Vancouver BC

Playwright: Christache Ross

Be I am

Venue 5

Good Foundation Theatre

reath in Movement stretches the meaning of “dance” in Be I Am almost beyond recognition. At times it’s like coming in on the middle of an intricate jazz solo; you have no idea what’s going on, and it can sound like noise. Eventually, though, the structure begins to make itself clear, and the ensemble jumps back in with a recognizable melody. There’s a lot of physical contact, including dancers literally climb-

Breath in Mvmt London ON

Playwright: Melisa Boose

ing over one another, and in yet another departure there’s a series of vignettes where each individual simply expresses an emotion for the extent of a brief flash of light. It’s an impressive piece of work, almost brutal (in the architectural sense) but also beautiful in its own way.

— Peter Janes

Best Picture

Venue 1

Spriet Family Theatre

this hilarious piece, three very talented actors take us through all of the films that have won the Oscar for Best Picture since Wings in 1927. The pace is brisk, often frantic as we move via clever transitions from Ben Hur to My Fair Lady to Spotlight. Some films are merely mentioned; others are delightfully lampooned — there is a wonderful riff on Forrest Gump’s famous line about chocolates; and others give

RibbitRePublic Jersey City, New Jersey, USA Playwright: Kurt Fitzpatrick

rise to very funny impersonations of film icons like Marlon Brando and Jack Nicholson. Mixed in throughout are displays of superb physical comedy, sharp observations about the racial and other stereotypes of Hollywood and a seemingly inexhaustible creativity that never lets the show become stale or repetitive. An excellent soundtrack of effects and music enhances — Barry Brown the flow and the fun.

Big Black Dog

Venue 1 Spriet Family Theatre

his interesting one man show asks us to ponder the existential dilemma of finding ourselves suddenly and without explanation in the wrong body. In fact, in the body of the wrong species: the central character, a big black dog named Humphrey Bogart, finds himself in a man’s body while shopping at Walmart. During the course of his attempts to find his own body — Humphrey hates

Purple Theatre Company Windsor ON

Playwright: Joey Ouellette

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d e l el

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being a human (“all these rules”) — he visits a doctor, a psychic and even is briefly jailed. All of these encounters give Joey Ouellette a chance to offer some very funny impersonations. The story is presented through a combination of performance and narration without the aid of props (except a clipboard) or sound effects. — Barry Brown

Venue 6 Palace Theatre Stephanie Morin-Robert Montreal QC

Playwright: Stephanie Morin-Robert

Venue 7

BLINDSIDE

tephanie Morin-Robert’s BLINDSIDE is the story of seven-year-old girl with a glass eye. Physically, the story takes place in Timmins and Porcupine, ON. Emotionally, the story has greater reach. MorinRobert’s greatest strength is she makes you fall in love with her. She tells her story in an intoxicating way — bringing the audience to a crescendo of laughter, only to knock the wind out of your emotional sails,

leaving you on the verge of tears. The production is simple: Morin-Robert at a microphone, telling her story, peppering dramatic moments of empowerment with coy asides and humorous interludes. The show compares favourably to Spalding Gray’s work, and rivals Tonya Jone Miller’s Threads as one of the best performances of any kind to grace a London stage in — Jay Ménard years.

Breakneck Hamlet

Procunier Hall Timothy Mooney Repertory Theatre Chicago, Illinois USA Playwright: William Shakespeare, recklessly sliced by Timothy Mooney

Venue 6 Palace Theatre British to British Montreal/Vancouver Playwrights: Alastair Knowles & Stephanie Morin-Robert

Venue 3 McManus Studio Mind of a Snail Puppet Co. Vancouver BC

Playwrights: Chloe Ziner & Jessica Gabriel

“T

hough this be madness, yet there is method in’t.” A retelling of Hamlet in just under an hour? Madness indeed! But Tim Mooney’s hypercharged Hamlet is a perfect gem both for people who love the Bard, and those for whom an hour of Shakespeare is an hour too long. As promised, he delivers the entire tale in under 60 minutes,

with many of the familiar set pieces and Polonius’ platitudes intact, and he does it well, with power and grace and humour and entertaining asides. It’s well worth finding an hour in your schedule for this show. — Laurie Bursch

Bushel and Peck

lmost immediately as it opens, Bushel and Peck encapsulates the semi-absurd feeling of trying to be playful as an adult. The characters attempt to reconcile the silly, angsty, and sexual aspects of themselves that each feel distinctly separate from each other — often while their counterpart tries to move them in the opposite direction. It’s a compelling mix of comedic and thoughtful, which

allows it to defy the clichéd depictions of humour and emotion that are frequently present in physical comedy. If you’re looking for a straightforward, digestible show, Bushel and Peck isn’t it, but if you want to see a play that embodies the quirky and creative spirit of Fringe, it just might be what you’re looking for. — Emma Blue

Curious Contagious

his show, created and performed by Chloe Ziner and Jessica Gabriel of Vancouver’s Mind of a Snail Puppet Co., truly embodies the spirit of Fringe, bringing together an experience unlike any you will find in mainstream theatre. With a simple story that feels like an ‘80s school science movie, there are moments in this show that are literally breathtaking, both in beauty and execution. For a show based on rear

and front projection of images and colours, this playful show makes full use of the space provided, delivering a deep multimedia spectacle that’s both fun and mesmerizing. Highly recommend if you’re looking for something a bit off the beaten path. — Jeff Preston

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Venue 6 Palace Theatre

Dancing on the Dark Side

was Whodini who stated, “The Freaks Come Out at Night.” And not only were the freaks on display in The London Dance Ensemble’s Fringe production entitled Dancing on the Dark Side, so were the fairies, fighters, and even a feathered Mohawk. The production features 18 dancers, ranging in age from eight to 17. The show itself is a collection of production numbers, loosely tethered

London Dance Ensemble London ON

Choreographers: Victoria Carter & Jessica Pardy

by the concept of “night.” It offers a smorgasbord of dance styles: acro, ballet, tap, jazz, lyrical, and contemporary. It’s not what you would call a cohesive collection of performances, but it’s more a series of vignettes. In essence, it’s a recital. And if you enjoy amateur dance recitals in general, you’ll enjoy Dancing on the Dark Side. — Jay Ménard

Don’t Make Me Take My Pants Off

SITE The Bank

you come to Don’t Make Me Take My Pants Off with an open mind and a desire to learn about amateur improv, this production will meet your expectations. There were some awkward pauses and stale scenes with the long form improv, but the activities that involved audience participation helped break up the flow of the show when it felt repetitive.

Real Life Only Better Stratford ON

Playwrights: Stratford Improv Conservatory

Kristen Keller is a skilled host and director, and I enjoyed watching the actors and feeling like, with some training and practice, I would be able to do what they were on stage. If you want a Fringe show that is lighthearted and will pique your interest in doing theatre, this might be the one for you. — Emma Blue

Everybody Dies in December

Venue 7 Procunier Hall

his is the newest show from Nancy Kenny, who performed Roller Derby Saved My Soul in a previous London Fringe festival. That show was good. This one is... amazing. Despite being a brand new show — this Fringe is its debut — this is a polished piece that fits her like a well-tailored black suit. Everybody Dies in December showcases Kenny’s strengths

Broken Turtle Productions Ottawa ON Playwright: Nancy Kenny

as a writer and performer — Kenny puts the “fun” into “funeral,” along with intelligence, honesty and sheer sweetness — and her performance is riveting. Unlike some of the other one-person shows at Procunier, this one may not be entirely true, but it feels that way. This is a magnificent show, and not to be missed. — Laurie Bursch

Fake Nerd Girl

Venue 3 McManus Studio

didn’t love this show, but that doesn’t mean you won’t. An (at times) physical/gag comedy that walks in the path of popular shows like The Big Bang Theory, this show is certainly well executed by Chloe Payne. My biggest critique is the lack of any substantial story. The show seems primarily focused on barraging us with trendy nerd culture references instead

Wild Talk Toronto ON

Playwright: Chloe Payne

MYKONOS

of developing a fully-formed character to care about and, as such, was missing the depth it really needed to succeed. The show is at its best when it stops playing for laughs and takes a more serious turn. It engages with an important idea, absolutely, but there needs to be more meat on the bone.

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VENUE MAP VENUE 1 Spriet Family Theatre • Covent Garden Market VENUE 2 The ARTS Project • 203 Dundas St. VENUE 3 McManus Studio • 471 Richmond St. VENUE 5 Good Foundation Theatre • 137 Dundas St. VENUE 6 Palace Theatre • 710 Dundas St. VENUE 7 Procunier Hall • 710 Dundas St. SITE SPECIFIC The Bank • 762 Dundas St. SITE SPECIFIC St. Paul’s Cathedral • 472 Richmond St.

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twitter @LondonFringe

Falling Awake

Venue 2 The ARTS Project

atthew “Poki” McCorkle and Nayana Fielkov are breathtaking physical actors, masters of sleight-of-hand tricks, miming, and creating illusions. Their talent and this incredible play serve to create a dream-like experience from which the viewer really won’t want to wake. The play is set in Nayana’s modest home, featuring only a bed, a table, a bare lightbulb, and a clothesline. Poki seamlessly enters Nayana’s

RAGMOP Vancouver BC Playwrights: Nayana Fielkov & Matthew “Poki” McCorkle

world unbeknownst to her. She wakes up and begins her day — or does she? The chemistry between these two characters is riveting, as is the way they connect with the audience. Their ability to combine their various talents is natural, entertaining, and breathtaking. The whole story may just be Nayana’s dream — but if that’s the case, it’s one that I’d be happy to never wake from. — Melony Holt

The Geography of HopE

Venue 3 McManus Studio

lthough I’m not typically a fan of puppetry, this show was too charming not to like. A creative and engaging story that really does strike a great balance between youth and adult audiences, The Geography of Hope was elevated by the talent of the four young actors — Faewyn Stark, Mika Little, Miryam Haworth and Christian

Solla Sollew Productions London ON

Playwright: Kim Stark

Venue 6 Palace Theatre

Haworth — who brought the characters and stage to life. Endearing to the core, this show is worth giving a shot if you want some lighter fare that is both playful and thought-provoking. — Jeff Preston

God is a Scottish Drag Queen III

or someone who takes to the stage barefoot, Mike Delamont’s ability to slide into the character of God is as comfortable as a favourite pair of wellworn shoes. Delamont is back in London for his third iteration of his God is a Scottish Drag Queen series. It is a well-crafted examination of contemporary issues illuminated with local references and historical analysis. He takes back the Bible and the Church from

Mike Delamont Victoria BC

Playwright: Mike Delamont

those who have manipulated them for their own means, and lays out what he really meant to say. You may not genuflect before this “God” but there’s a good chance you’ll at least be doubled over with laughter at some point. Do yourself a favour; make a Palace pilgrimage to see God is a Scottish Drag Queen. — Jay Ménard

Probing the Tender Heart of Brassy Show Tunes MICKEY AND JUDY Created and performed by Michael Hughes at Procunier Hall (Venue 7)

rom the moment Michael Hughes steps onstage and begins to sing the Judy Garland classic You Made Me Love You, the audience is enchanted by his performance. Hughes is a fantastic interMichael Hughes in Mickey and Judy preter of the classic Garland songs he sings in this show. His voice can soar and also observe the subtlest nuances, and in his open hearted commitment to it all, you recognize his affinity for this music. Marque Smith provides skillful accompaniment on piano. This play is part cabaret and part solo show. Hughes tells the story of growing up with the music of Judy Garland and his love for musicals. Garland was an inspiration for him. She was a balm and an escape when he was bullied in high school. The story Hughes’ tells also highlights how much our culture’s ideals of what is “gender appropriate” is changing. Hughes tells of being a young boy wanting to play with dolls and try on dresses and as a result being taken to a child psychologist. With the progress we are making, I would like to think that a boy wanting to play with what have traditionally been “girl” toys would no longer be cause for such concern today. There’s a warmth to Hughes’ storytelling and a genuine connection with his audience. This is thanks to his perfect mix of humility and earnestness. He makes you root for him and cheer for his triumphs. This is one of the most polished and endearing Fringe shows I have seen in recent memory. Go and share in this experience. — Adam Corrigan Holowitz

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A MASTER CLASS IN ACADEMIC CONDESCENSION teaching shakespeare Written & performed by Keir Cutler at the McManus Theatre (Venue 3)

ontreal-based actor and writer Keir Cutler’s simultaneously hilarious and touching portrait of a self-serving professor at the end of his tether, is purest theatrical gold. A failed Shakespearean actor who changed horses, the English prof who drives this one man show is now flaming out as a teacher as well, thanks to a stack of merciless student evaluations which has scotched his dim hope of ever getting tenure. His wife read those evaluations too and is now agitating for divorce. The audience, in effect, plays the role of his students though we are free to laugh out loud as he rants on about the glories of the Bard which only he fully appreciates. Actors, directors, scholars and critics all fall short: “Every production of Shakespeare is a misrepresentation,” he says, and, “If it can’t work on the page, it works in production. And if it doesn’t work in production, then it was a poor production.” His students’ complain about his unceasing self-regard,

Keir Cutler in Teaching Shakespeare

the way he flogs his own demented theories, his inability to stay on topic and the impossibility of following the downward spiral of his so-called logic. He lauds Shakespeare’s mastery of “the image of the unidentifiable,” then helpfully points out that, “things are not what they seem; nor are they otherwise.” The man is impossible but here’s the spooky thing. We come to care for him and wish him well. And amidst the pompous showboating and score-settling of his lecture, he also offers up some startling and provocative insights of real value. In one unguarded moment he calls Shakespeare his “only friend,” and we shudder to think how utterly lost and alone he would be without him. — Herman Goodden

A Stunning Series of Hyper-Physical Dream Sequences FALLING AWAKE Written, directed and performed by Nayana Fielkov and Matthew “Poki” McCork At The ARTS Project (Venue 2)

he physical prowess, inventive clowning and stunning illusions in Falling Awake are worth every penny of your ticket. The scenes of this performance are a series of dreams that one woman has of a man – possibly her husband and certainly her lover. Through the course of these dream scenes we are given clues to what has happened to this man. The first scene is a wonderful routine, performed by Matthew McCork, of a man being blown off his feet by the wind. Later on when the man appears at the woman’s breakfast table she says “I thought you were dead”. But the plot is not the important part of this play. There may not be one definitive right interpretation as to who these characters are and what has happened to them. This performance is a meditation on loss, loneliness and love. These

Photo: Kai Hou

Matthew “Poki” McCorkle and ] Nayana Fielkov in Falling Awake

themes are examined with a deft lightness of touch through magic and clowning. Laughter was in abundance at the performance I saw. Each scene could be its own little play. The way the show flows from scene to scene is the same way a person drifts from dream to dream in sleep. Each scene or dream is a variation on a theme. I was reminded of the Cirque du Soleil format, where the theme or plot is only a vehicle for fascinating physical performances. On a smaller scale Falling Awake is similar to that form. Nayana Fielkov and Matthew McCork’s mastery of physical theatre garnered the laughs and awe. These two are sure to please and delight audiences. — Adam Corrigan Holowitz 06.09.16

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The Good Adoptee

Venue 2 The ARTS Project

’m a sucker for strong openings. When a show immediately starts off with clever writing and astute directorial decisions, I’m putty in its hands, ready to completely surrender to the rhythm of a quality story. However, The Good Adoptee soon lost the trust it earned due to its slow, plodding middle and uneven timing. Towards the end, there are a few skilled mo-

JMTC Theatre New York, NY

Playwright: Suzanne Bachner

— Emma Blue

Good Game in “Bing Bang Boom, There Ya Go.”

Venue 5 Good Foundation Theatre

he Good Game crew, featuring Nick Chenosky, David Horn and Craig Corgie, is no stranger to the Fringe Festival. Ultimately popular in previous shows, this show is no different. Skits such as “The No Bones Fight Club”, “The Man with an Incredibly Specific Sense of Smell”, and of course “Horse Related Deaths at the Pool”, are

Good Game London ON Playwrights: Nick Chenosky, David Horn & Craig Scorgie

Guilty Pleasures

Venue 2

The ARTS Project

uilty Pleasures tries very hard to be a wacky sex farce with a message. A message of female empowerment and ownership of one’s sexuality is wrapped inside an over-dramatic series of kooky mishaps. The show’s saving grace is Kiersten Rozell’s performance as Laurel, a writer who embraces her sexuality and refuses to compromise to fit someone else’s ideals. She effectively shows passion and anger

New Twist Theatre Productions London ON Playwright: Jessica McAuley

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ments where it strikes a balance between smart and sentimental, but it never quite redeems itself compared to the brilliance of its start. However, if you’re someone who’s fascinated by discussions of adoption and genealogy, or you like being able to dissect the plays you see, you’ll likely still enjoy this.

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sure to make you laugh. The skits are poignant as they are just as likely to happen as to not. You just need the right time and circumstances. A must see! — Shelley Carr

with moments of calm and introspection. The cast as a whole is adept at physical comedy but their volume was consistently too overzealous; loud doesn’t always equal emotion. There is a good message in this play with potential for it to be developed. But the manic pace and lack of variety in the supporting actors’ performances needs to be addressed to ensure the message and proper emotions don’t get drowned out — Melony Holt in the future.

Venue 1 Spriet Family Theatre Passionfool Theatre London ON

Playwright: Daniel MacIvor

Venue 2 The ARTS Project Smith & Somers Ottawa ON

Playwrights: Kate Smith & Will Somers

Venue 7 Procunier Hall The Factory Culture Collingwood ON

Playwright: Anne Raciunas

Venue 3 McManus Studio 2hoots Productions Melbourne, Australia

Playwright: Jon Bennett

Here Lies Henry

ow do you tell someone something they don’t already know when you don’t even know what you know? Passionfool Theatre’s production features Justin Quesnelle reproducing Here Lies Henry, a 1995 play written by Daniel MacIvor. Quesnelle delivers a masterful collection of nervous tics, stutters, and telling moments. Are we witnessing a man at the end of the road? Or is it a man at the end of his

rope? Quesnelle delivers in a commanding stream-ofconsciousness style, attacking each story with a force that demands the audience’s attention. Many of the lies are clear. But how much of the truth is real? You are tasked with finding the answers. It’s a production that’s well worth experiencing even if the experience leaves you exhausted. — Jay Ménard

HOOTENANY!

ootenanny! is performing in its final world tour – but only one of the ‘famed’ Australian children’s duo knows that the ultimate end is so near. Smith and Somers light up the stage with an infectious brand of seemingly child-friendly music, but the bouncy tunes and plastic smiles hide a much darker – and much more hilarious – true message. Songs like Do Your Chores, Little Possum Oliver, and one about

the fact that grandma’s too old to change her racist, inappropriate ways (and so you might as well wait out her death because that’ll come before change) are hilarious parodies of traditional children’s sing-a-longs. Hootenanny! is a hilarious show that embraces the melancholy of becoming an adult and making tough choices. — Melony Holt

Ichabod

here are so many things that are easier to do with assistance, whether that second person is holding the ladder, or driving the getaway car. However, doing everything yourself can make the process less complicated; for instance, when you’re creating a solo show solo, your entire production team and cast is always available. But that doesn’t give you a sober second opinion. Anne Raciunas’ show has ghosts

and a cat named Gary, idyllic Christmases and sudden deaths, various species of Cucurbita, one slightly disturbing prop and odd costume decisions. The end result is a rambling shambles that I can only describe as a whole lot of “WHAT!!??!” covered in a thick sauce of “WHY??!!?”

— Laurie Bursch

Jon Bennett: Fire in the Meth Lab

unny, tragic, and introspective, Fire in the Meth Lab is deployed by a tremendous storyteller who has this peculiar ability to be both hilarious and heartbreaking all at the same time. Jon Bennett also combines pictures, video, and music with his storytelling to give the show an added texture not often seen in one-man shows. In

short, this is a clever, relentless, and deeply human show with moments, both happy and sad, that will stick with you for days to come. For all of these reasons, I highly recommend you take the time to see it! — Jeff Preston

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SITE The Bank

Lara Loves Lightfoot

ara Loves Lightfoot is the autobiographical story of nineteen-year-old Lara MacMillan’s youthful experiences and indiscretions, punctuated by relevant Gordon Lightfoot songs ranging from “Alberta Bound” to “Carefree Highway”. Arriving in Banff, Alberta, with eight dollars to her name, she has a series of serendipities and vicissitudes with the local residents, including Bert, two Peters, and even a Gumby. A stal-

gypsyWASPproductions Stratford ON

Playwright: Lara MacMillan

Venue 2 The ARTS Project

Madame Curie

he basic facts of Marie Curie’s life can easily be found in a cursory web search: her two Nobel prizes, her naming to a professorship at the University of Paris, her discoveries of radium, polonium, and radioactivity. But who was she? That question is the focus of Madame Curie. Aimee Adler inhabits Curie, alternating between the curiosity of a born academic and the veiled frustration of a woman

Aerie Theatre London ON

Playwright: Aimee Adler

A Magic Show

Venue 2 The ARTS Project

ou’ll want to catch Keith Brown’s A Magic Show at this year’s Fringe Festival because, thanks to the mastery he displays and his engaging stage presence, it’s not inconceivable that he’ll make himself disappear for bigger and brighter stages around the world in the not-too-distant future. A Magic Show is a wonderful mix of new tricks and revised versions of some old favourites. Brown’s show is a constant stream

Keith Brown London ON

Playwright: Keith Brown

Venue 7 Procunier Hall

apoplectic at gender politics. Adler penned the play, giving Curie a voice of her times, both formal and yet passionate; director Martha Zimmerman serves Adler nicely, moving her across the stage from scene to scene and from emotion to emotion. Madame Curie is a powerful piece of work, both in the writing and especially the performance of Aimee Adler. Not to be missed. — Bob Klanac

of close-up “How did he do that?” moments, but his greatest trick is how he gets the audience to eat out of the palm of his hand. He’s dynamic, engaging, and affable, a master of interacting with the crowd and improvising with his audience participants. Combining sleight of hand, card tricks, mentalism, and genial humour and conviviality, Brown’s show is a magical experience for anyone who loves to be challenged, amazed and mystified. — Melony Holt

Mickey & Judy

ou know that bumper sticker that says “WWJD”? Think of Mickey & Judy as ‘What Would Judy Do?’, and you have the starting point for this delightful cabaret show. Michael Hughes is a charming and instantly likeable performer, and while his stories don’t have the drama of Garland’s life — thankfully, there are neither drug overdoses nor divorces — these are tales that many of us share, of being bullied and

Random Hero Entertainment Toronto ON Playwright: Michael Hughes

Venue 3 McManus Studio

not fitting in, although perhaps with more dressing up. Hughes augments his tales with well-chosen and beautifully performed show tunes, ably accompanied by Londoner Marque Smith. The joy he has in performing is infectious, and you’ll enjoy your time with him. I suspect that even Dr. Birnbaum would agree.

— Laurie Bursch

A Minor Midcareer Retrospective

James Judd San Miguel, California USA

skilled and funny storyteller, James Judd has returned to share a smattering of his favourite stories from past triumphs and tribulations. While the show on opening night was certainly funny and engaging, my biggest complaint is in the format — each show will be unique, featuring two or three stories from previous performances. While the stories were

Playwright: James Judd

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wart Fred doesn’t get his own song, but is the unexpected hero of one of the stronger vignettes. A very different piece from Lara Loves Leonard, last year’s recital of Leonard Cohen tunes, Lara Loves Lightfoot never actually reveals why she loves the artist (practically, it’s one of a “Lara Loves L---” series that also includes John Lennon) but that’s not a flaw; it’s a better Fringe show and an interesting personal tale. — Peter Janes

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all entertaining, they didn’t collide in any interesting or thought-provoking way; there wasn’t an overarching “point”. Of course, sometimes theatre is supposed to just be ‘fun,’ but this show could have been stronger with the pieces woven together.

— Jeff Preston

A Seemingly Personal Story with Universal Resonance

Smoker

SMOKER Written and performed by Bob Brader. Directed by Suzanne Bachner at The Good Foundation Theatre (Venue 5)

Adam Corrigan Holowitz

ob Brader has long been a staple of Fringe festivals and the reason why is evident in his newest work, Smoker. This play feature’s Brader’s signature mix of humour, autobiography and his fantastic gift for telling a story. The play is his autobiographical account of his love affair with smoking and love affair is exactly the right way to describe it. Brader introduces us to his relationship with smoking by dovetailing it with a relationship breakup he had. Bob’s affair with smoking is a lot like breaking up with a girlfriend. There are times when he thinks he is free of cigarettes, then the urge to smoke reemerges. It is the concern of his wife (and director of the play) Suzanne Bachner that spurs him to start the journey toward quitting smoking. Many of the themes that Brader introduced in his earlier work, Spitting in the Face of the Devil, appear again in Smoker.

Bob Brader in Smoker

He further explores the troubled relationship with his abusive father and highlights a specific and significant detail in that relationship – that smoking was the one thing they as a family would do together. One of Brader’s gifts is that he can take what seems a personal story and make it universal. Smoker is very much an American story, in the tradition of Arthur Miller. By exploring his own abusive childhood, he reveals the trauma that existed in many homes in post-war America. This play sets the high bar for Fringe theatrical experiences – go and take it in. — Adam Corrigan Holowitz

Innovative, Elemental Theatre CURIOUS CONTAGIOUS Written, directed and performed by Chloe Ziner & Jessica Gabriel (Mind of a Snail) at McManus Studio (Venue 3)

he Vancouver based shadow puppet company, Mind of a Snail, has returned to London with a visually beautiful, funny work which is emotionally and politically complex. The story is deceptively simple; a unicorn who works for a big corporation is given the assignment of bulldozing swamp land in order to build a giant coffee shop. Through a bite, the unicorn contracts a virus that infects its horn. There is a parallel between the environmental degradation and the unicorn’s own health. There is often a political current in shadow puppetry. Throughout history many regimes have outlawed it in order to prevent rebellion. This is one of the earliest forms of theatre. There is a beautiful ancient quality to shadow puppets. It would not have been long after flint was struck that someone in a cave would have cast their hands in the light and projected an image on the wall. Mind of a Snail takes

Photo: Chloe Ziner

Jessica Gabriel and Chloe Ziner in Curious Contagious

the same principles and applies it with modern tools. Instead of a fire they use overhead projectors. In this new work you can tell that they are advancing their technique and craft. This means that this new show features their signature elements but excites returning audiences with new innovations. Like last year’s Caws and Effect the start of the play is whimsical and grows increasingly more – I won’t say dark – but urgent. This play is speaking to us here and now. We are the unicorns, we are destroying our own health, while destroying the environments of other life. Will we only realize our mistake when it is too late and we risk becoming as non-existent as the unicorns? — Adam Corrigan Holowitz 06.09.16

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Venue 6 Palace Theatre Theatre Nemesis London ON

Playwright: Jason Rip

Venue 7 Procunier Hall Diane M. Barnes San Rafael, California USA

Playwright: Diane M. Barnes

Venue 1 Spriet Family Theatre Ethereal Fantazy Production London ON Playwrights: Joshua Salzman & Ryan Cunningham

Venue 2 The ARTS Project What’s at Stake Windsor ON Playwrights: Billy Chandler & David Hudyma

Venue 7 Procunier Hall Squirrel Suit Productions London ON

Playwright: Carlyn Rhamey

Mr. Richardson was Jesse James: An Ontario South-Western

espite the legendary shooting acumen of its title character, Mr. Richardson was Jesse James either misses the mark or may not be sure what target it’s trying to hit. The play bills itself as an Ontario South-Western. The script is filled with stilted content and corny jokes, reminiscent of those family-friendly serials that would have been at home on network television in the 50s and something you’d see at a modern

pioneer village as part of an amateur re-enactment. Jesse James has elements of a historical drama. It also has elements of a made-for-kids “educational” program. But it embraces neither and comes across more as a series of vignettes, illustrating a story but never getting deeper than a surface recitation. — Jay Ménard

My Stroke of Luck

hat I love about one-person shows is the opportunity to learn what it’s like to be another person. Diane Barnes is two things I’m not, and one I hope not to be: parent, physician, stroke survivor. And she has an amazing life story that involves these three things. Her tale demonstrates strength and bravery, intelligence (as well as some stubborn stupidity), and sheer force of will — just being able to create and per-

form this show with a brain injury says so much about who she is. Unfortunately, what she is not is a great storyteller. But come to this show with the knowledge that the tale may not be in the telling, and Barnes is a wonderful woman to spend 75 minutes with. — Laurie Bursch

Next Thing You Know

ext Thing You Know is a bold attempt to present a Broadway-style musical on a Fringe stage. As if to emphasize that tradition, the story focuses on a young couple in New York who are torn between pursuing their dreams of showbiz stardom and accepting the reality of regular work — all while trying to decide if they are right for each other. Although the music and lyrics sometime lack the originality neces-

Out of Our Hands

pening to the pulsating beat of a heart monitor, Out of Our Hands is a story of two people, with two different situations, facing the impacts of disability. David Hudyma is an epileptic with debilitating seizures, who is pondering whether or not to get surgery; Billy Chandler is a gay poet who is questioning how to share his gift for oral presentation with his now-deaf boyfriend. Though the two exist separately, they are

sary to successfully reanimate this familiar story, there are several musical numbers — such as “How ‘Bout You” and “She’s Not Coming Home” — that are delightful and will have you humming their tune as you leave the theatre. Olivia Ulrich stands out in the role of Waverly. It’s easy to imagine hearing her voice on the soundtrack of the next Disney musical.

— Barry Brown

bound by a common poem – a poem about a “fighter” battling round by round through epilepsy. Both actors are equally strong and compelling in their very different performances. Hudyma is much more physical and exudes energy and frustration; Chandler is more reserved, but equally tormented, and his ability to emote both through words and through sign language is riveting. It’s a story of struggle, challenges, and the lengths we go to — Melony Holt overcome them.

Saor (free)

arlyn Rhamey seems like she’d be a great friend – she’s energetic and enthusiastic, and loads of fun to be with. And this tale of her travels has some delightful vignettes, and great characters. Unfortunately, the elements come together to create the theatrical equivalent of her Irish one-euro meal — it’s palatable, but just barely. Despite the intervention of a director (at least according to the program), Rhamey’s

performance is full of physical tics and distracting gestures, and the story’s timeline is a jumbled mess (do we ever learn what Mr. Darcy says on that last day?), with an unnecessary framing device. There’s a good show in here, somewhere; I’m hoping she finds it.

06.09.16

— Laurie Bursch

www.londonyodeller.ca 46

SCREWTAPE — A STIMULATING HOUR IN A LECTURE HALL OF HELL

SCREWTAPE Adapted from C.S. Lewis by John D. Huston. Directed by Michael James Burgess. Performed by John D. Huston at St. Paul’s Cathedral

Lewis reflected that while he’d never found a book easier to write than 1941’s Screwtape Letters in which a senior devil counsels his nephew, a tempterin-training named Wormwood, on how to corrupt a young man and yank him away from a proper apprehension of God, “it was not fun. The strain produced a sort of spiritual cramp. The world into which I had to project myself . . . was all dust, grit, thirst and itch.” Indeed Lewis waited nearly 20 years before he dared Photo: GORDON F. McKENZIE pen its shorter sequel, Screwtape Proposes a John D. Huston in Screwtape Toast. I wonder whether in performing his own adaptation and ingenious update of the Letters and the Toast (‘letters’ become ‘e-pistles’ and, just as you suspected, the digital world is indeed the Devil’s playground) actor John D. Huston doesn’t also long for some sort of post-show fumigation of the spirit to bring him back to his true self. Yes, this is a comedy but of the very darkest and most disturbing kind. Huston, best known to London audiences for his electrifying presentation of Charles Dickens’ One Man Christmas Carol at Aeolian Hall each December (his Van Dyke beard suits Dickens and a senior devil to a T) is adept at playing tightly wound characters of immense power. The presentation couldn’t be simpler: a sinister man in an elegant suit (but no socks) and a Google Glass headset advises his nephew and rehearses his toast for that night’s dinner at the Tempters’ Training College for Young Devils. It is a diabolically witty lecture – and a warning – about human weakness and our susceptibility to manipulation. — Herman Goodden

Venue 1 Spriet Family Theatre Solid Fiction Toronto ON

Playwright: Sawyer Bullock

SITE St. Paul’s Cathedral By the Book Productions Toronto ON Playwright: John D. Huston adapted from C.S. Lewis

Sawyer: An Experience of Mystery, Trickery And Wonder

uring this one man show, Sawyer Bullock entertains the audience with a variety of feats of “magic” — from sleight of hand card tricks to guessing the colour of an audience member’s underwear — while maintaining an engaging and often self-deprecating banter designed, no doubt, to both amuse and to distract. All of the tricks involve audience participation. Audience members are invited, for example, to select

playing cards which will later turn up in Sawyer’s shoe and to shred a newspaper into bits in order to isolate a word that, it turns out, he had earlier written down and hidden in a box being held by yet another member of the audience. Although Sawyer had some difficulty establishing a rapport with the audience, they obviously enjoyed and appreciated his clever and engaging combination of humour and illusion. — Barry Brown

SCREWTAPE

crewtape is a fantastic one man show based on the writing of C.S. Lewis. featuring John D. Huston. The scene opens with Screwtape preparing for a toast for Slubgob, the Principal of the College of Tempters. Extremely verbose and Google Glassdependant, Screwtape prepares with the help of his faithful secretary, Turnpike. Constant interruptions come digitally from his nephew Wormwood, request-

ing assistance in turning a potential victim for hell in the right direction. Screwtape, as a Senior Tempter in Hell’s LowerArchy expounds on the foolishness of the human form, how easily we are turned to temptation and the fallacies of faith. An extremely smart, thinking production mounted tongue-in-cheek at St Paul’s Cathedral. Be prepared to think, laugh and ponder human weakness. — Shelley Carr

SITE The Bank Heartichoke Arts Vancouver BC

Playwright: Shirley Gnome

Venue 6 Palace Theatre The Dance Movement London ON

Choreographer: Ashley Morrow

Shirley Gnome: Real Mature

hirley Gnome: Real Mature very clearly outlines what kind of show it is from the moment you read the Fringe program, and it certainly delivers on its promises. Shirley is an exceptional performer, with both a gorgeous singing voice and an easy charisma that allows her to connect with her audience despite the raunchy subject

matter. Her piece is funny, crass and oftentimes politically incorrect, but if you’re looking for what the description advertises, you definitely won’t be disappointed with what Shirley and her music offer. — Emma Blue

Sit Still Look Pretty

ow does one carve their own identity, embrace their own idea of femininity and humanity in a world that has structural biases in place that serve to help hold back individuality and encourage conformity? That’s the question The Dance Movement’s company dancers ask — and demand — of its audience. Sit Still Look Pretty challenges the concepts of body perception, the impact of advertising ideals,

cosmetic surgery, the struggle to speak up, and the pressure to conform through a series of interpretive dances. Sit Still Look Pretty may not be as precise or refined as a production performed by older dancers, but that’s part of its appeal. The minor rough edges only serve to add impact to the message being delivered. — Jay Ménard

Venue 5 Good Foundation Theatre Bob Brader New York NY

Playwright: Bob Brader

Venue 5 Good Foundation Theatre A Lively Moment Theatre Production London ON

Playwright: Vivien Adler

Venue 1 Spriet Family Theatre Rabbit Moon Theatre London ON

Playwright: Phil Arnold

Venue 3 McManus Studio Doctor Keir Co. Montreal QC

Playwright: Keir Cutler

Venue 7 Procunier Hall That’s Enough Drama Dorset UK Playwright: Gerard Harris

Smoker

ounting his first comedic production, Bob Brader brings his audience deftly into the smoke rings of his life. Smokers will appreciate the honesty of Brader’s treatment of the subject of addiction. Former smokers will identify with the love of the cigarette and the struggles of quitting something you love. Non-smokers will be given an inside view of the struggles of wanting to quit while fighting what you

have always been. Everyone will enjoy how Bob’s story smoulders its way through our naive youth, empowered young adulthood, and current love relationships. Note: 10% of all profits from this production will be going to the Canadian Cancer Society.

— Shelley Carr

Submerged

ivien Adler mounts a touching one person show about the hopes and dreams of Jessica. Her characterization of Jessica will awaken memories of the fancies of childhood and friendships from your own youth. Her careful and excited planning for the future brings forth the idyllic memories of youthful ambition. You hope that Jessica becomes all of the

The Tale of Two Tailors

he Tale of Two Tailors is a raucous romp through a familiar fable that’s sure to delight young and old alike. Hans Christian Andersen’s The Emperor’s New Clothes has been told and retold countless times, but the dynamic acting, the winkand-nod asides, and the general enthusiasm of three actors presenting this well-known tale ensures that The Tale of Two Tailors feels fresh and engaging. It’s a

things she plans for. However, the viewer knows with age and wisdom plans change. Sadly, Jessica’s dreams are lost but her spirit lives on. This a beautiful tribute to a life gone too early. — Shelley Carr

play targeted towards youth and is bright and vibrant, with enthusiastic call-and-response opportunities, sparkly flags, and bombastic humour that kids are sure to love, but adults also find themselves immersed in the experience. It’s a play designed for children that can be silly and frivolous, but it never becomes childish. And don’t worry – as the program says, there’s no full-frontal nudity. But there are sparkly heart boxers — Jay Ménard a-plenty!

Teaching Shakespeare

he Venn diagram of people who will adore this show are those who a) enjoy layered and dense prose, b) want a flashback to university, or c) are Shakespearean super fans wanting to revel in their passion. While the concept is simple — a professor running a lecture — the true joy of this play is the intricate and slowly unfolding character study of a man

(tragically) devoted to Shakespeare. Humorous, cryptic, and well-researched, Cutler’s energy and presence truly needs to be seen to be fully appreciated. Warning: this show may induce existential crisis for current or past college/university professors.

— Jeff Preston

A Tension To Detail

erard Harris begins his show with a warning: “I don’t know what’s going to enter my head and come out of my mouth.” He also says that he loves the unexpected. If those two statements excite, rather than alarm, you, then you’re in for an entertaining time, albeit with lots of tangents. Harris’ stories are not the stuff of legend — wanking, running

away and sobbing figure prominently, while larger life events rate barely a mention — but he’s an engaging, beguiling storyteller, performing possibly at a higher RPM than most of us, and he’ll make you laugh and think and feel. And you may learn a thing or two about crustaceans....

— Laurie Bursch

thur J UNE 9 th - w e d J une 2 2 nd Send us your listing (25 words ma x): info@londonyodeller.ca Deadline for JUNE 23rd - July 6th issue is Wed the 8th

music & c lu b s THURSDAY 09 JUNE ALL SAINTS ANGLICAN CHURCH Fundraising concert for the church. 7pm PWYC · light refreshments being served 249 Hamilton Rd LONDON MUSIC CLUB Tim Woodcock Band wsg Cheryl Lescom · 7pm · $10 adv · $15 door / Larry Smith 8pm · $5 THE WORTLEY Frank Risdale · 8-12pm FRIDAY 10 JUNE CALL THE OFFICE Millennium · 9pm $5 · 19+ EASTSIDE BAR & GRILL Shawn Cowan Band · 9pm LONDON MUSIC CLUB Stu Hamm 8:15pm · $15 adv · $20 door NORMA JEANS Zen Blender · $5 THE WORTLEY Tom Cat Prowl · 10pm YUK YUK'S Darryl Orr · 8pm · $19.92 19+

SATURDAY 11 JUNE BYRON/SPRINGBANK LEGION Soul Sausage · 8pm-12am · $5 for all nonbranch 533 members CALL THE OFFICE CJ Ramone/ Broken Gold/ The Isotopes 9pm · $15 · 19+ EASTSIDE BAR & GRILL Dave's Not Here · 9pm LONDON MUSIC CLUB The Neil Young'Uns · 6pm · $17.50 adv · $20 door LONDON MUSIC HALL Northcote 7pm · $15 NORMA JEANS Juice · $4 THE WORTLEY Tom Cat Prowl · 10pm YUK YUK'S Darryl Orr · 8pm · $19.92 · 19+ SUNDAY 12 JUNE CALL THE OFFICE Gob/ Selfish Things/ tba · 6pm · $15 adv · $18 door LONDON MUSIC HALL Smirnoff Sound Collective · 8pm · 19+ WEDNESDAY 15 JUNE AEOLIAN HALL Brad Roberts · 6pm $30 adv · $35 door

BISHOP CRONYN PLACE El Sistema Aeolian Summer Concert · 6pm · free FIRST ST ANDREW'S UNITED CHURCH The First-St Andrew’s Strings/Brian Joyce · 7:30pm · free ST ANNE'S CENTRE June Tunes & Bargoons · 7:15pm · $20 · St Thomas THURSDAY 16 JUNE AEOLIAN HALL Matthew Barber & Jill Barber · 7pm · $30 adv · $35 door LONDON MUSIC CLUB Steve Strongman · 7pm · $20 adv · $25 door / Nicholas Wolf/ Head & Tail/ Sarah Botelho · 7:30pm · $5 THE WORTLEY London Jazz Orchestra 8-12pm FRIDAY 17 JUNE AEOLIAN HALL Matthew Barber & Jill Barber · 7pm · $30 adv · $35 door CENTENNIAL HALL The Naked Magic Show · 7:30pm · $49.50 - 81.50 · 19+ EASTSIDE BAR & GRILL Funk Eh · 9pm LONDON MUSIC HALL Elephant Man 9pm · $30 / #TheLateShow · 10pm · $5 NORMA JEANS Two Clever · FREE THE WORTLEY Rumblefish · 10pm YUK YUK'S Keith Pedro · 8pm · $19.92 · 19+ SATURDAY 18 JUNE AEOLIAN HALL Camp it Up! with Wendake · 6:30pm · $30 adv · $35 door BUDWEISER GARDENS Yoga Shack Gives Back 6 · 9am · FREE EASTSIDE BAR & GRILL EH440 · 8pm LONDON MUSIC CLUB Sam Taylor 6pm · $25 adv · $30 door NORMA JEANS Geoffe Masse Band · $4 THE WORTLEY Rumblefish · 10pm YUK YUK'S Keith Pedro · 8pm · $19.92 · 19+ SUNDAY 19 JUNE LONDON MUSIC HALL Adam Baldwin 7pm · $7 MONDAY 20 JUNE CALL THE OFFICE Screaming Females/ tba · 9pm · $10 · 19+ TUESDAY 21 JUNE CALL THE OFFICE Voivod/ Child Bite/ King Parrot · 9pm · $20 · 19+ WEDNESDAY 22 JUNE AEOLIAN HALL June Garber CD Release Celebration · 7pm · $30 adv · $35 door CALL THE OFFICE Agnostic Front/ The Black Donnellys/ Alliance · 9pm · $18 adv · $20 door · 19+

t h e at r e ARTS PROJECT PAUL HUTCHESON'S HOMECOMING III Keith Brown’s magic skills will leave you in awe. With burlesque sensation Sharon Nowlan. 8pm · $20 BLYTH FESTIVAL OUR BEAUTIFUL SONS: REMEMBERING MATTHEW DINNING The love of family, the search for bravery, and the always complicated paths to manhood, motherhood, and peace · Jun 15 - Aug 6 / THE BIRDS AND

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06.09.16

THE BEES Sarah, a turkey farmer, has just left her husband and moved back home with her mother Gail. Nowadays, Gail raises bees. And Earl is still a cash cropper. Gail rents Earl her fields... but neither of them can really stand each other. Sarah, sick of feeling trapped in a loveless marriage, and tired of spending her days walking around artificially inseminating turkeys, is back under Gail's roof · Jun 22 - Aug 6 INGERSOLL THEATRE OF PERFORMING ARTS Unger and Madison are at it again…. that is Florence Unger and Olive Madison in Neil Simon’s hilarious contemporary comic classic. Instead of a poker party that begins the original version Florence has invited the girls over for an evening of Trivial Pursuit and a little gossip. The original Pigeon sisters have been replaced by the entertaining Constanzuela brothers… but the mishaps and mayhem remain the same. With this delightful romp, your summer will start off with a bang. 2pm & 7:30pm · $18 · Jun 17 - 19 · Jun 23 - 26 PORT STANLEY FESTIVAL THEATRE THE LADIES FOURSOME Take four ladies, 18 holes, a friendly wager, and watch the sparks fly! Margot, Tate, Connie and Dory spend a day on the links to pay homage to a departed friend. It sounds harmless enough, but fueled by competition, revelations, and recriminations, the outing becomes more than anyone bargained for. 2pm & 8pm · $32.50 - 35.50 · Until Jul 2 STRATFORD FESTIVAL THEATRE A CHORUS LINE On stage, they move as one. But each member of that glittering line has a unique history of hope and heartbreak, revealed in the life stories they share in this inspiring musical masterpiece. 2pm · $25 - 139.05 · Til Oct 30 / SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE A young playwright named Will Shakespeare comes down with writer’s block – until he finds a muse. Art mirrors life in a hilarious and passionate tale of

romance and backstage fun. 2pm & 8pm · $20 - 97.34 · Til Oct 16 / MACBETH Surrender to a haunting story of ambition and its dark consequences, as a military hero and his wife conspire to seize the throne of Scotland. 2pm · 7:30pm · & 8pm · $20 - $139.05 · Til Oct 23 / AS YOU LIKE IT Romance goes undercover in this beloved comedy of surprises, disguises and cross-dressing antics – and you get to play too. 2pm & 8pm · $12.50 74.93 · Til Oct 22 / A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC On a magical midsummer night, lovers old and new are swept up in a dizzying whirl of romance. 2pm & 8pm · $25 - 113.75 · Til Oct 23 / BREATH OF KINGS: REBELLION Lust for power leads to political turmoil in this fast-paced new distillation of Shakespeare’s epic histories of a nation and its rulers – their lives, their battles and their deaths. 2pm & 8pm · $35 - 100 · Until Sept 24 / BREATH OF KINGS: REDEMPTION Can victory abroad resolve crisis at home? Henry IV and his charismatic son, Henry V, are the major players in this second of two new distillations of Shakespeare’s great dramas of kingship. 2pm & 8pm · $50 - 137.50 · Until Sept 24 VICTORIA PLAYHOUSE PETROLIA A MIGHTY FORTRESS IS IN OUR BASEMENT The lovable church basement ladies return to take us back to the early 60’s for the best Church Basement Ladies yet. Whether you’ve seen them before or are brand new to their crazy basement antics, you’ll enjoy watching these ‘bulwarks never failing’ serve up their special brand of fun with great new songs and more lessons learned! 2pm & 8pm · $34 - 36 · Til Jun 19

ga ller ies & museums ELDON HOUSE FAMILY PHOTOS: THE HARRISES AT HOME Western Archives holds a huge collection of historic photographs attributed to the Harris family who lived at Eldon House. This exhibit will

allow visitors an intimate view of the family, their home and their gardens. Throughout 2016 / THE LOST ART OF BOBBIN LACE Generations of women, such as those in the Harris family of Eldon House were “brought up to the pillow” creating intricate pieces of handmade lace that were soon replaced with machine-made products at the end of the Victorian era. As the first in a series on “women’s work”, this exhibit explores the rise and fall of an elaborate art form and illustrates the complicated process of creating bobbin lace. Til Jul Interpretive Centre / TEDDY: A MILITARY GENTLEMAN The exhibition is the second in a threepart series that explores the life of Edward Montgomery Harris. Beginning in 1900, after leaving school and joining the Commonwealth Armed Forces, this exhibition explores “Teddy’s” travels, through Britain, India and Canada and observes the life changes wrought by the loss of his mother and his marriage in the era leading up to the outbreak of World War I. Second Floor, Til Jul / THE FENIAN CONNECTION An illustration of how the “Fenian Raids” impacted those living in Upper Canada, through the diaries and letters of the Harris Family, while highlighting their own involvement in the defence of the empire. Til Sept FANSHAWE PIONEER VILLAGE Spend a day in the 19th century at Fanshawe Pioneer Village opening for the 57th season. The past comes alive through daily demonstrations of trades, farming practices, domestic chores and social pastimes by costumed interpreters. Our 16 feature events celebrate the unique history and rural roots of this region during the 2016 season. Now open FOREST CITY GALLERY THE INTROVERTS Featuring Mélanie Myers, Robert Taite, Dave Woodward Jun 17 - Jul 29 FRINGE CUSTOM FRAMING & GALLERY SUMMER FLING An eclectic collection of one of a kind original art from over 20 regional artists. In the gallery for display and sale · Spring and Summer 2016 · Til Jun 26

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Uncle Bruce is Unwell . . . Having walked into a sliding door at his local LCBO (lawsuit pending), Uncle Bruce is feeling under the weather and is unable to provide his usual scintillating copy this week. He is sitting up and taking a little nourishment, however, and provided he gets some good, meaty questions, should be back at his counselling post next issue dispensing wisdom to a lost world that so desperately needs it.

LAMBETH GALLERY PENCIL CRAYONS...BREAKING BARRIERS AND MISCONCEPTIONS featuring Christine Johnson. Her work shows her passion in her human portraits, endangered animal drawings, nature and spiritual works! Til May 30 LUCAN AREA HERITAGE AND DONNELLY MUSEUM Open May - Oct, $5, Family (2 adults 2 children) $15, 171 Main St MCINTOSH GALLERY REPRESENTING WILDERNESS: COMMUNITY, COLLABORATION AND ARTISTIC PRACTICE featuring Michael Farnan. Exploring Canadian representational history and discourses surrounding colonialism, wilderness, nature and nationhood. Til Jun 25 MICHAEL GIBSON GALLERY ROY HEENAN’S CURNOE COLLECTION Rarely seen works by Greg Curnoe and 3 paintings by Charles Gagnon, both from the collection of Mr. Roy L. Heenan. Jun 2 - 25 MUSEUM OF ONTARIO ARCHAEOLOGY SOUTHWESTERN ONTARIO: 13 000 YEARS IN THE MAKING Explore what life would have been like 13 000 years ago in Southwestern Ontario. Take the journey from the end of the ice age all the way through to contact with the European settlers. Ongoing exhibition / DECOLONIZING FRAMES Questioning, critiquing, and celebrating indigenous representation, Til Aug 29 MUSEUM LONDON PLAY TIME This exhibition will take visitors back to another time and remind us about the messages toys communicate. Til Aug 7 / A RIPPLE EFFECT: CANADIANS AND FRESH WATER A Ripple Effect examines the larger story of Canadians’ relationship with fresh water by focusing on the Thames, Speed, and Eramosa rivers. To Aug 14 / CHRONOLOGUES Issues of memory and time, through personal narratives and larger, shared histories. Works in diverse media re-visualize specific experiences or invite viewers to construct their own associations. Til Aug 21 / TOMORROW EVERYTHING WILL BE ALRIGHT By Akram Zaatari. Unearthing, collecting and re-contextualizing documents that represent his country’s complex history. Til Sept 4 / REMEMBER WHEN An exhibition of souvenirs and mementos. Til Sept 11 MUSEUM STRATHROY CARADOC CHARLOTTE RAPLEY The new Charlotte Rapley Gallery hosts a local history exhibition detailing the history of StrathroyCaradoc .Mon - Fri: 10am - 8:30pm · Sat: 10am - 4pm · Sun: Closed · free · suggested $2 donation for guided tours · 34 Frank Street, Strathroy PETER ROBSON STUDIOS Renowned artist Peter Robson and custom framing centre. In the historic village of Sparta. 7 days a week. 519-775-2522 robsonstudios@ rogers.com peterrobsonstudios.com ROYAL CANADIAN REGIMENT MUSEUM 701 Oxford St. E. Enter the base off Oxford at Elliot St. and turn right at the stop sign. Tues–Fri: 10am–4pm / Thurs to 8pm, Sat & Sun Noon–4pm, closed Mondays and statutory holidays. Free admission & parking. 519-6605275 ext. 5102

ST THOMAS ART CENTRE COLOUR THEORY The blending of colours are a delight to the eye as your gaze moves from one artwork to the next. Colours have a language of their own, and just as humans have relationships with one another, the same is true for colours. Til Jun 11 / NEW CANADIAN CABINS Featuring Aidan Urquhart. Doors have no handles and floors tilt at odd angels. Wild colours clash with architectural elements that might seem functional but perhaps are just to off kilter to meet building "code" · Jun 18 - Jul 30 THIELSEN GALLERY REVOLVING GROUP EXHIBITION Featuring Tony Urquhart. Recent works on paper. Also included are works by Frank Caprani, Ron Milton, Toni Onley and Gordon Smith. Jun 2 - 29 WESTLAND GALLERY TIM STEVENS & PAT GIBSON May 31 - Jun 18 / REVISION Featuring Erica Dornbusch. Reception: Jun 24, 7:30pm · Artist Talk: Jun 29, 7pm · Jun 21 - Jul 9 WOODSTOCK ART GALLERY LASTING IMPRESSIONS: HISTORICAL EUROPEAN PRINTS A strong overview of the practice and skill of printmaking over the last 200 years. Til June / JOE LIMA AND WALTER REDINGER: UNLIMITED POSSIBILITIES Til Jul 2 / JOANNE VEGSON EXPLORATION WITH STILL LIFE Closing Reception: Jun 29, 5pm, Til Jul 2

FRIDAY 10 JUNE FENIAN PUB NIGHT In commemoration of the 150th Anniversary of the Fenian Raids, join Steve Hollowitz, Nick Wells and Celtic Shift in song and dance as well as stories and poems of the Irish Brotherhood. This event will be licensed. 7-9pm · $25 · Rain date · Jun 18 · Eldon House CIRCUS OF THE STARS This is the show of all shows – Fringe performers take to the big stage and entertain you. Honestly, we don’t know what the show will be about or what will happen or who will make it happen. We just know that every year this is the performance that closes out the Festival! Afterward, join all of the performers, volunteers, and staff at Club Fringe to close out

the 2016 Fringe in style · 10:30pm · Venue #6 · Palace Theatre WEDNESDAY 15 JUNE LONDON & MIDDLESEX HISTORICAL SOCIETY MEETING Speaker Cindy Hartman on automotive businesses in London from 1900 to 1935 · 7:30pm, free · Old Courthouse SATURDAY 18 JUNE - SUNDAY 19 JUNE A DAY ON THE FARM Come to Fanshawe Pioneer Village and meet our sheep, pigs and poultry and discover how they contribute to the farm. Learn all about sheep and wool with a sheep shearing demonstration in the fields. Then, try your hand at carding and spinning in Elgie Log Cabin. On Saturday, visit the ‘sheep to scarf’ demonstration hosted by the

London District Weavers & Spinners to learn all about processing wool. Enjoy a horse drawn wagon ride around the village and help us make cheese, butter, and rope and grade eggs at Jury Farm. Make your own farm animal at our craft station and play some Victorian games on the green. Treat Dad to a delicious Father’s Day Buffet in the Pioneer Village Cafe featuring Roast beef with baked potatoes, seasonal vegetables and fresh strawberry shortcake! $7 · Buffet: $16 · $8 for children 12 and under · Fanshawe Pioneer Village SUNDAY 19 JUNE STRAWBERRY TEA Join us for our annual “Strawberry Social,” celebrating the coming of summer’s harvest. Fresh fruit, whipped cream and tea will be served on the beautiful lawn

of Eldon House, weather permitting. By reservation only. 1pm & 3pm · $15 · $8 children · registration required · Eldon House MONDAY 20 JUNE COMIC BOOK JAM For those of you who have never been to a comic book jam the jist of the evening is to collaborate with other artists. Comic book panel pages will be provided to all and together we create a one or two page story. You can start by drawing the first panel and then slide it across the table and see what the next person adds to the story. The results are always amazing and many times downright hilarious. Cash bar available and prizes to be won each night too! 6-9pm · free · The Arts Project

special events

EVERY MONDAY MONDAY NIGHT PINBALL Everyone is welcome at our weekly pinball tournament approved by the International Flipper Pinball Association. 8 - 11pm, No Cover, bring $ for pinball, Call the Office EVERY WEDNESDAY EUCHRE Prizes, Everyone Welcome, 1:15pm, 2755 Crumlin Rd. N. Royal Canadian Air Force Association FREEBALL Unlimited play on our wall of pinball machines & classic arcade vids. Guest DJs, drink specials each week too! $5, 9pm, 19+ Call the Office THURSDAY 09 JUNE HEAR HERE / LONDON GIRLS ROCK CAMP FUNDRAISER The London lineup: Never Betters, Shhh, Kenneth, So Young. All proceeds from admission/door will go directly to the London Girls Rock Camp in hopes of empowering another generation of guitar-wielding, confident, kick-butt girls. Lead by a team of female musicians and industry contributors, London Girls Rock Camp is focused on confidence building. Camps will be taking place in London during July and August 2016. 8pm, $5, cash bar, Forest City Gallery KIDS FIRST DAY Children learn and have fun while they explore Eldon House with a scavenger hunt and engage in a variety of activities, historical games and crafts. Children must be accompanied by an adult. Drop in between 1 - 4pm, free, Eldon House TILLEE AWARD A night of laughter, celebration of the FRINGE Live Arts Festival, a few tears and plenty of antics. 11pm · Club Fringe 06.09.16