Black and White: Issue 3

ISSUE 3 | SPRING 10 | FREE

www.sadmag.ca

SAD MAG

BLACK

and WHITE T

HE VERY CLEVER MINDS AT SAD MAG, our mostly ad hoc publishing society, formulated a fiscal responsibility strategy this season that was sure to decrease costs while maintaining productivity and leveraging our global brand. The strategy is comprised of this issue and that’s pretty much it. We’ve printed it in black and white and it was cheaper. Synergy!

But if ever the words of Karl Lagerfeld were truer, I know not when: “We’re experiencing a ‘credit crunch,’ not a ‘creative crunch.’” Well, we’re experiencing “our twenties” but that’s not going to stop us. In fact, limitations only encourage creativity, as evidenced by the gorgeous photography and illustration in this issue.

Cheers to the artists of Vancouver, for showing talent and promise even as you eat Mr. Noodles every day of the week. Sad Mag salutes you!

4

6

Lollipop Lady Sharole Taylor Makes It Sweeter Than a Walk Across the Street

10 Keeping Fresh For 90 Years Painter Gordon Smith Remains a Challenger of Tradition

14 Queen Of Sass Crystal Precious Sticks It to the Boardroom

19 My Sibling Marvel A Family’s Trial with Landau-Kleffner Syndrome

24 Zen And The Art Of Bicycle

Maintenance On the Simple Joys of Getting Your Hands Dirty

28 Person, Place & Thing Ok Vancouver Ok, South Main & DIM Cinema

Creative Director Brandon Gaukel on set with Issue Three cover girl Crystal Precious. Photo: Tina Kulic.

FEATURED CONTRIBUTORS Megan Renney | Writer My Sibling Marvel Megan Renney is a Victoria-born creative non-fiction writer working in Vancouver. Renney’s work has appeared publications such as Color Magazine, Pearls Anthology and Know?Mag. She studied creative writing at Douglas College and publishing at Simon Fraser University. Presently, she works with women in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside.

“Creating an ode to my brother’s journey with LandauKleffner came naturally through a desire to add to its small body of literature; offering his story in a public forum to families going through the same confusion puts a much-needed face to this syndrome.”

Korey Moran| Artist Cover Art Korey Moran lives and works in Vancouver and is currently completing a degree at Emily Carr University. Her work stems from an interest in the varied people who make this city what it is, and from their daily struggle to reconcile the unique contradictions experienced here. For her, painting is a way of exploring cultural identity, and a way of deeply considering how individuals exist from day to day. koreymoran.tumblr.com “For this cover, black and white allowed the dramatic lighting of the photo shoot and Crystal’s inner sparkle to shine through. I am drawn to people with strong personalities and unapologetic fabulousness when I make portraits, and she is no exception!”

Jonathan Taggart| Photographer Ok Vancouver Ok Jonathan Taggart is a Vancouver-born photojournalist interested in documenting environmental and social issues in British Columbia. His narrative approach to photography finds frequent expression in Vancouver’s music scene; in the past year, he has produced visualtour diaries for singer-songwriter Dan Managan and band Said The Whale. Jonathan received a BA in photography from Ryerson University in Toronto, and also teaches photography to at-risk youth as a volunteer with Vancouver’s Urban Native Youth Association.

“Black and white has an inherent grittiness that has always appealed to me. I find that the absence of colour places a visual emphasis on texture and light and form, creating photographs that are emotive on deeper and more subtle levels.”

Publisher Sad Magazine Publishing Society Editor in Chief Deanne Beattie Creative Director Brandon Gaukel Managing Editor Justin Mah Production Manager Megan Lau Copy Editor Ryan Longoz Lead Designer Lon Garrick Contributing Writers Rachel Chua, Will Graham, Agnes Gulbinowicz, Jeff Lawrence, Justin Mah, Megan Renney, Lauren Schachter, Shannon Smart Contributing Photographers and Illustrators Brandon Gaukel, Jimmy Hsu, Kristina Fiedrich, Justin Longoz, Christine McAvoy, Jonathan Taggart, Judit Navratil, Andrew Schick Cover Art Korey Moran and Brandon Gaukel Sad Magazine Publishing Society Board of Directors Deanne Beattie, Hubert Chan, Iris Dias, Brandon Gaukel, Robert Lutener, Matthew McGale Sad Mag would like to thank: Chandra Chinatambi, Sammy Chien, Darryl Cressman, Adam Cristobal, Nick Danford, DIM Cinema, Dollhouse Studios, DOXA Documentary Film Festival, East Van Graphics, Julia Hutchings, Stephen Irving, Tina Kulic, The Naam, Dean Parnham, Rebecca Slaven, Richard Sexton, Catherine Winters, Daniel Zomparelli Sad Mag is published four times a year by the Sad Magazine Publishing Society, 732 E. 11th Avenue, Vancouver B.C., V5T 2E5.

Email: hello@sadmag.ca.

Contents Copyright © 2010, Sad Magazine.

All rights reserved. www.sadmag.ca www.facebook.com/sadmag www.twitter.com/sadmag

5

LOLLIPOP

LADY Sharole Taylor Makes It Sweeter Than a Walk Across the Street

W

E’RE CALLED CROSSING GUARDS. Unless you come from England or Scotland—there, we’re called “lollipop ladies.”

I’m starting my twenty-fourth year now— I’m a fixture here. Everybody misses me in the summertime, and I miss them, too. In the summertime, we’re off for two months.

I started in 1986—it had to be in the As told to summertime because the lady who Photography normally did it, she was going away on holidays, and so they asked me if I’d do it for two weeks. And then she ended up getting another job with the elementary school, and that’s when I took over.

I’ve seen kids go from preschool, to kindergarten, to being graduated. They’re so adorable when they first go to kindergarten. If they look really good, I tell them—especially the young girls. I’ll say, “Boy, you’re sure looking good 6

today,” and they say, “Oh, thank you.” Throughout the years, the kids, they’ll tell me things I don’t think their parents even know; the kids know they can confide in me and that I’m not going to blab.

I’ve always given out treats for Christmas, Valentine’s Day, Easter, Halloween. I give out little things, whether they’re storebought or homemade. They see Justin Mah me with the bag, and they come

by Jimmy Hsu a-runnin’—they know I have treats for them. For Valentine’s Day I make cookies and pass them out to people, and they just love it; and I love it, too. Once on Halloween I did dress up out here—I wore a gorilla costume. It was nice and warm, that’s for sure! And I got honks, even from the truck drivers.

Even when I’m not here, I tell the kids: “When you’re crossing the road, make sure you wait a few seconds—make

EVERYBODY MISSES ME IN THE SUMMERTIME, AND I MISS THEM, TOO. sure they stop—and always look out for cars turning, always.” Then I think: “All my effort is not going to waste.”

Some days it got to the point where I didn’t even have to open my mouth: the kids would just say, “We know, make sure you watch for cars turning and wait a few seconds.”

Like I say, it’s just amazing how the kids grow into young adults. I knew this one little guy—I met him when he was three years old, and now he’s twenty-one. When I see these kids grow up so fast, I wonder: “Where did all the years go?” I used to always hear from my mother and other people: “As you get older, the years go by quicker.”

And they do.

It’s weird, especially when the kids come back a few years later after graduating and say, “You’re still here?” or, “I thought you would have retired by now?” But no, I just love the kids, you know? I’ve always loved kids. I come from a big family—I was the oldest of seven. I love the kids and I love the people, especially the exchange students who come here to learn English. I meet so many different people—I’ve met people from all over the place, and you get used to seeing them every morning.

If I didn’t love the people, and I didn’t love the kids, then I wouldn’t be doing it. Even when I’m sick, I come here. Even when I’m feeling grumpy or down, I still smile and greet people, even if they’re grumpy to me. I’m always waving, even to the bus drivers; I wave at everyone.

I try to treat everybody fairly, like how I would want to be treated. Even the ones who get upset with me, I just smile—which sometimes just makes them more upset— but I still just smile and tell them, “Have a nice day.” 

8

KEEPING

FRESH FOR 90

YEARS Painter Gordon Smith Remains a Challenger of Tradition

“

I

’VE BEEN DOING TANGLES,” GORDON a canvas. “Painting is saving my life right now,” Smith Smith says. He shows me a photograph of a confesses. Later, he says, cheekily, that it has taken him work-in-progress, an abstract oil painting comseventy years to finish this latest painting. In a sense, prising a labyrinth of crisshe’s right—that’s how long it’s crossing branches and splotches of been roaming around in his tangled leaves. The painting looks more consciousness.

By Lauren Schachter like the interior of the mind— No stranger to interviews, Smith lush with neural pathways—than Illustration by Kristina Fiedrich checks in with me every so often, askit does a forest landscape in West _____________________ ing if I’m getting what I want. As I Vancouver, but I can’t be sure and follow his squeaky running shoes into it’s this indeterminacy that makes me want to linger the smaller of his two studios, he even replaces a question of and stare. It is delightful listening to Smith, who, at mine with one of his own, asking, “If you had the opportunninety years old, flits energetically between subjects, ity to have two or three works of art, what would you have?” and then answering, “I change my mind every week,” all sometimes repeating himself as if layering paint upon 11

in the same breath. I look around the room, a busy den of photographs, books, DVDs and an unusually large bag of whole-shell peanuts on the floor, and I wonder if I’m going to be able to keep up with this man.

He calls artist Emily Carr a “tough cookie,” though he seems to be made of equally hardy material. After emigrating from England at the age of fourteen, Smith lived in Winnipeg and fought overseas before settling in Vancouver in 1944. “That was the most impressive time of my life ... being with a group of young Canadian soldiers in their early twenties—it was magnificent,” Smith says. Many of his friends in the military were killed in the war, but Smith remembers them as a “wonderful generation” who inspired each other and who have inspired him ever since: “I’ve been standing on the shoulders of giants all my life.”

Smith’s excitement for innovative art and the discussion it can spur has only intensified with the passing of time. Even the imminence of BC’s arts cuts hasn’t shaken his faith. In a letter of protest to the prime minister, Smith made the point that a country is known for its culture—that art is not a frill, but an indispensable part of our lives. Rather than waiting on the government to realise this, Smith finds optimism in young artists who he hopes will continue to make interesting art. “All these young people, they aren’t just creating pretty pictures to put on the wall; I do that,” he chuckles. Some names come up repeatedly, like Brian Jungen (“Who makes things out of stinky shoes”) and Rodney Graham (“A funny guy who turns everything upside down”), but Smith seems most effusive about his former students. “I loved teaching more than making art,” he says. Particularly, it was the time spent presenting his students with difficult art, as a way of helping them to “become better people,” that Smith enjoyed most. He sees beauty and design in things around him: everything from camouflaging animals to those “slightly old cars with the fins,” and he teaches mainly to communicate this awareness. “I’ve had good designers, good people who’ve gone into architecture, good people who’ve gone into teaching, and they’ve made a difference.”

In partnership with the North Vancouver School District, Smith and fellow artists Bill Reid and Jack Shadbolt started Artists for Kids in 1989, a program designed to encourage art education in BC through scholarships and enrichment opportunities like gallery visits and workshops. The venture stays alive through funds raised from the sale of original prints made by the participating artists. But West Vancouver, despite its affluence and high concentration of architects, artists and collectors, still has no city art gallery. Unsurprisingly, out of the diversity of images that were featured in Printed Pictures— Smith’s recent exhibition at the Burnaby Art Gallery, which ended early March—there emerges a consistent return to the people and landscapes of his North Shore home, a telling indication of the need for an art gallery in the area.

This past October, the district honoured a non-elected official for the first time, naming Smith the newest Freeman of the Municipality of West Vancouver. “I went to the council meeting, and I said to the mayor, you’ve selected not me, but art,” says Smith. Art, though, like Smith, has been

I’VE BEEN STANDING ON THE SHOULDERS OF GIANTS ALL MY LIFE. flourishing in West Vancouver for longer than the Freeman award has existed. Canada is the most beautiful country in the world to Smith: “When I first came to West Vancouver, I used to go out and sit up at Whytecliff with Lawren Harris ... I climbed to the top of that little mountain at Horseshoe Bay with W.P. Westin—a wonderful figurative painter during that time—where I would cut my Christmas trees and find sword ferns to take home and paint. It was wonderful.”

He still takes his camera and goes exploring around Ambleside or while sailing further afield around Howe Sound. Art-making is problem-solving for Smith—an exercise of rendering the world in emotionally truthful ways and responding to how others render their images too. “There’s lots of music I don’t understand, there’s a lot of writing I don’t understand, but I try to. It’s my lack.”

This humility fires his curiosity, as he maintains innumerable correspondences, attends art exhibitions all around the world, and paints in his studio every day. “KEEP FRESH: EVERY DAY IS A NEW BEGINNING” is written in spidery capitals on his calendar. When I mention his tangles again, he says he’s almost finished them. His latest work is a return to minimalism—a movement that prides itself on stripping down to the basic elements and using only simple forms and colours. “I’ve been doing a series of black canvases,” Smith reveals. “Now, no one says, ‘What is that? Just a black canvas?’ But I feel very strongly about these things, that I’m trying to lose the subject in my paintings.” His throat catches a bit as he speaks reverently about the “quality of pure white” of a Gerhard Richter painting displayed at New York City’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. This makes sense, as Smith isn’t starry-eyed when it comes to the controversial work of Damien Hirst—notorious for his diamond-encrusted skull that sold for fifty-million pounds—and is skeptical of the British artist’s strategic excess: “He’s got to be careful because the idea has to be made, and sometimes the cost is more than the idea is worth,” says

Smith. I get a moment to mull over this bit of wisdom as Anna, one of Smith’s caregivers, shouts goodbye. (“Do you need money?” Smith yells. I hear Anna laugh, “No, no, Mr. Smith. See you tomorrow!”)

Smith jokes that he doesn’t consider himself a teacher, even though he was paid as one: “I think back in horror at what—at how I taught. I’d love to do it all over again.” He realises now that you can teach technique but not the creativity or the full-time passion that great artwork demands.

“When I go to bed at night, I’m thinking about painting.

Being an artist or a writer like you, you’re thinking about writing all the time—you borrow, I borrow. Picasso said that a good artist borrows but a great artist steals. So I steal like crazy.” To little surprise, young artists also steal from him; a fact he laments as “just god-awful,” mainly because he doesn’t think his work is challenging enough. “That’s why I’m doing things now that are hopefully not too easy.” Even with Smith’s decades of experience teaching art, he resists the role of mentor. When asked for advice by a student applying for Emily Carr, he told her to stay away from pretty pictures and “write a dirty word or something.” Though he’d have been her age as the 1930s roared to a close, he is

Simon Fraser University Gallery

still eager to position himself as a challenger of tradition.

From the beginning, Smith is forthcoming, even blunt about what he admires, loathes or feels inadequate about.

“I’m not young,” he’d declared impishly at the interview’s outset. But his artistic passion and many of his stories suggest a man who is ambivalent about being a senior. At a recent awards ceremony in Ottawa, seated with “a bunch of old hats,” Smith says he was bored. It was a dinner-jacket affair, stuffed with ego-stroking speeches. Only Robert Morin, a filmmaker from Quebec, seemed different to Smith. “Here he was, this young guy, in a T-shirt, jeans and running shoes, and he wouldn’t speak to anyone—in English, that is. What a breath of fresh air,” exclaims Smith.

Smith takes me over to a bookcase before I go, and on the way, I am distracted by a black and white photograph of soldiers on a hillside, crouched around an injured man who I learn is Smith. But we don’t linger here because Smith is already flitting his fingers across book spines and film titles on a high shelf, looking for something. When he finds his collection of Morin films, he shows them off to me with the glee of a teenage fan. 

Become the Book

SFU Gallery at the BURNABY Campus Academic Quadrangle 3004

SOREL ETROG: The Link Paintings March 20 to May 8

The Things We Do

May 15 to June 30 Cindy Loehr, Karen Ostrom, Helen Eady, Marcia Pitch, Elizabeth Zvonar Teck Gallery at the VANCOUVER Campus 515 West Hastings Street

Half a million lives await you at

Bridge City Links for a Fragile Peninsula, 1895-1980 March 15 to June 22 SFU Gallery hours: Tuesday to Friday 10am – 5pm & Saturday 12pm – 5pm *Please note that the Gallery is closed Saturday on public holiday weekends

Teck Gallery hours: Open all day most days 778-782-4266 sfu.ca/gallery

www.bookman.ca

45939 Wellington Avenue, Chilliwack | 604 792 4595

13

QUEEN OF

SASS Crystal Precious Sticks It to the Boardroom

T

the Vancouver International Burlesque Festival, one of HE CONVERSATION TURNS TO SEX. the largest of its kind, in 2006. Precious served as festival In a bright pink room, the woman across from me shares an odd new discovery she’s made about president for a number of years. She’s also taught univerher childhood. “I actually have noticed that sity courses on burlesque and the evolution of sex-positive there’s a lot of photos of my friends sucking on popsicles feminism. and freezies,” she says. “For whatever reason, somebody The way she tells it is the way you would expect anyone to always snaps a picture of a kid sucking on something really speak about a failed television deal: bitterly. In a time when phallic.” She bursts with laughter. “Right?” I make a mental burlesque was still bubbling into the mainstream, the Sweet note to riffle through old photo albums Soul girls were trying to shatter the dam. “We were all really broke at when I get home. the time. We were fighting so hard This is Crystal Precious. Her huBy Jeff Lawrence to bring burlesque back,” Precious mour is as dark as her raven tresses; Photography by Brandon Gaukel says, valiantly choking back anger her bluesy voice as suggestive as her for the story that’s to come. When world-famous cleavage. Known in the the troupe began to be known internationally, executives burlesque world as Vancouver’s “Queen of Sass,” Precious from a well-known television network approached the group has risen through the ranks of the revitalized theatrical form about doing a reality show.

“Our motivations got weird at to secure her place in the city’s cultural textbook. Seven years that point.

We were tired and desperate and wanting to be on ago she formed Sweet Soul Burlesque with two friends. In top,” she recalls.

She quickly realized the network executives those seven years, the troupe has grown to six members and were only interested in living up to their own stereotype— has performed for outdoor music festivals, fashion designers, namely, not giving a fuck.

“It was like the boardroom scene and high-end corporate events. The ladies also co-founded 15

you see in any show,” she remembers. “They told us right to our face, ‘We don’t give a fuck about your politics. We are here to make money, and we think you can make money.’

But the weird thing was they kept talking about empowerment: ‘Oh Crystal, you’re such a good role model for little girls.’ It was like this total revelation to them that you can be a cool, chubby, hot bitch.”

The network liked her. But when it finally came time to sign the contract, Precious was told there wasn’t enough room on the show for all of them. She had to cut three girls— and either she could choose, or the network would. “At the end of the day it just wasn’t a common vision, and we had to say goodbye to it. They turned around and handed it to someone else.”

The whole experience not only brought the sisters closer, it reaffirmed why they got into this career in the first place: to be sexy, powerful, sassy women, not corporate shills. “We all found each other and we wanted to do this together. Fuck that. I’m not interested in that. I don’t need a fucking stupid TV show. Like, fuck you. That’s just not my steez. Do you want some water?”

She goes to grab two bottles of water from one of the many crates behind the bar. This is an after-hours electronic music club, I remember—bottled water must be in high demand. Forty-two West Eighth Avenue, Dollhouse Studios— it’s where we’ve been sitting, discussing network executives and dick-popsicles. The walls in the office are adorned with white peacock-feather headdresses, newspaper clippings and a giant painting of transsexual celebrity Amanda Lepore.

There are enough file folders lying around to counteract the zaniness, lest someone think actual work is not getting done. She returns with the water, crossing the stage upon which she has stomped, slinked and stripped on so many times. There are couches and beds and mirrors everywhere and a glittery red wall at the back of the room. The place resembles a childhood dream house.

In 2006, Precious and her burlesque sisters bought the 3,500 square foot space, realizing it could meet all their needs: rehearsal space, endless room for costumes and props, and eventually, a underground electronic music club.

“Basically we’ve got the okay from the City that we can do weekly events now,” she says. Up until now, The Dollhouse has made its money throwing enormous events featuring big name producers and DJs of drum and bass, dubstep and more. Now that the club can pick up more steady business though, Precious is doing the exact opposite of what you might think. She’s leaving it behind.

18

WHEN I’M ONSTAGE, I’M THINKING, ‘EVERYONE IN THE AUDIENCE IS GONNA BE MY BITCH.’ On June 1, Crystal Precious will walk away from The Dollhouse forever. But that doesn’t mean the dolls are done.

“It just means we’re moving on from that phase of our existence where we’re throwing a giant rager every two weeks.”

She’s moving on to focus on her troupe and her solo career.

Her time invested into this place has reached critical mass and it’s time to let someone else take over. But as far as Crystal Precious is concerned, The Dollhouse has been a smashing success. “I feel like what you do is you create a space for yourself,” she says. “When I came here, there was no scene, so I wanted to do as much as I could to create one.” It’s on its own now, and this is probably the last year she’ll be involved with the burlesque festival as well. “I’ll probably stay on the board as long as producing goes,” she adds.

It’s Crystal Precious’s turn now to show the world what she’s all about. Lately, it’s been fusing together different eras, like the ’80s with the ’40s. “I like just being the person no one expects onstage,” she says. In her act, Precious combines burlesque with her own slick, seductive rhymes— “strip-hop,” she calls it. “When I’m onstage, I’m thinking, ‘Everyone in the audience is gonna be my bitch right now.

You’re-gonna-be-my-bitch,’” she says, pointing out a new imaginary audience member with each word. “It’s all about the entrance and the exit. It has to be slow and deliberate.

Before I open my mouth or make any sort of dramatic movement, it’s all about drawing people in and creating energy around me.” And then, amidst the raucous howls of whatever sexually curious audience she’s entertaining, Crystal Precious begins.

Cash will come but we ain’t one for money grabs, I’m not tanning or perfecting my abs, in fact, I’m still me, I’m forever C.P. I’ll be killin’ it onstage as I’m meant to be. 

MY SIBLING

MARVEL A Family’s Trial with Landau-Kleffner Syndrome

M

OM WAS SITTING IN AN ARMCHAIR Kleffner syndrome was. My brother never complained next to the fireplace, at our home on Pheasabout his trips to the hospital nor questioned them; he knew ant Lane. My big brother was sitting on her something was amiss, that something was different about lap—his legs long him and that the adults couldn’t quite enough that his toes touched the carfigure it out either. The willingness

By Megan Renney pet on the floor. It was almost dinnerand ease with which he gave his body time, dusky outside and the air, sticky Illustrations by Andrew Schick over to CT scans and electroencephwarm—he must have known this talk alogram recordings made these tests was going to get serious. I was peekseem cool. I knew he needed them, ing through the crack in the space between the door and its yet caught in the throes of my sibling marvel, I assumed it frame, standing on the last of the unfinished wooden steps was because he was smarter and stronger than other kids’ that led to the basement. I wasn’t supposed to be listening; big brothers—any weakness he had was trivial compared to this was private. She was speaking to him about the testing what he was capable of in my eyes. As months turned into he was having at the hospital and describing what Landauyears, my parents explained to their son the things he was 19

able to understand (the things they were slowly coming to understand), and left the rest to fate and determination.

What took years to determine was the presence of this mysterious syndrome. Landau-Kleffner syndrome is a rare childhood neurological disorder in which the affected child suddenly or gradually acquires aphasia, plus the added susceptibility to seizures. Over two hundred accounts of this syndrome have been documented by global literature to date, but this number may be misleading as families often change their place of professional care when the treatments become too aggressive or a final diagnosis is prolonged. According to the National Aphasia Association, aphasia is an “acquired communication disorder that impairs a person’s ability to process language, but does not affect intelligence— [impairing rather,] the ability to speak and understand others.” Often described as “word deafness,” a child will begin, for no apparent reason, to misunderstand single words, which can escalate into mutism in extreme cases, a severe childhood anxiety disorder. My parents could watch my brother go from following a conversation, to misrecognizing the odd word in a sentence, to ending up finally in an inexorable state of confusion. His eyes gave him away as he struggled to piece together a conversation, or merely follow one. It was in this way that my parents and I grew accustomed to reading him, just as he honed his ability to read his environment, picking out the important clues with his eyes rather than ears. Silently, the four of us understood.

If a child has learned to write before the onset of aphasia, he or she may be able to communicate in written form, while other children often develop a form of sign language of their own making. Often misdiagnosed as epilepsy or autism, it can take years to siphon the symptoms down to those of Landau-Kleffner. California-based writer Sharon Cohen has had her share of experience with aphasia—her middle-aged husband Bruce acquired the same aphasia that took hold of my seven-year-old brother, after suffering from a stroke—which speaks to the diversity of people that aphasia can affect, young and old. Bruce often uses the phrase “I can’t read and write like I used to” whenever he can’t say what he wants to say. “Generally, the misunderstanding or miscommunication has absolutely nothing to do with reading or writing. In speaking, it means he cannot put words into cognitive thought, and when listening, it means he can’t generate cognitive thought from the words he is hearing,” explains Sharon. This simplified explanation of aphasia not only describes what Bruce experiences, but also the experience of those of who love and live with an aphasiac.

Children with Landau-Kleffner are put through a battery of tests when trying to determine the source of their symptoms. Frustration doesn’t begin to describe what these children feel due to their undesired acquisition of this neurological disorder, and this frustration can show itself in myriad ways. Imagine being on a bus in a foreign country, and you do not know the language—where the speech you hear around you doesn’t resemble anything you’ve heard be20

fore. You need to get off at your destination, so you look out the window and try and to guide yourself by geographical clues alone; you ask someone near you but cannot understand the directions they provide. Eventually you get off the bus at random and end up having to walk the rest of the way, feeling out where you think you need to get to, arriving there very late, but at the right spot. Nothing prepares a kid for the life-altering changes Landau-Kleffner brings, and at their young age it’s difficult to articulate to them the scope of what is happening.

WHILE THE MEDICAL WORDS PILED UP ON TOP OF ONE ANOTHER, MY FEARS DID THE SAME, BUT MY BROTHER SAT CALMLY. This, I know now, is what my mom was attempting to explain to my brother, those many years ago as I spied on them from the stairs. While the medical words piled up on top of one another—epilepsy, neurology, hospital, be careful—my fears did the same, but my brother sat calmly. She was trying to describe what a seizure was, just in case it happened in the future. It was during one of these cerebral storms—a state of high-level electrical brain activity—that you could see in my brother’s eyes how terribly lost he was for that short moment; when it eventually passed, he was a regular boy again. He never complained. With the patience of someone so much older, he took the unknown in stride and trusted himself.

For my parents, it was important to keep my brother in the know—nothing was hidden from him throughout their journey into the nuances of their child’s mind. If his body communicated to them in mysterious ways, they stayed awake at night trying to decipher them. At that time, there were no books to help my parents educate themselves, only a few grainy photocopies of medical text from my brother’s doctor. This, of course, was before the Internet, when there was next to nothing for them in terms of support. Letters were written to the Mayo Clinic in hopes that they might be cajoled into sharing any literature they had on

either Landau-Kleffner or aphasia. Recently, I spoke with Natali, an administrator and representative of the Londonbased Friends of Landau-Kleffner syndrome (FOLKS), a registered charity and support network for children with Landau-Kleffner. “Every child [with Landau-Kleffner] is different—it is bewildering and distressing for both the child and their family,” explains Natali. “Some children are very aware of their lost abilities and are very frightened and frustrated. These children are vulnerable to poor self-esteem and low mood.” Sharon Cohen herself reflects on this reality: “Feelings of frustration at the inability to communicate can lead to anger and depression. Persons with aphasia may tire easily and show extreme emotional fluctuations and inappropriate emotions.” She knew this all too well, being a buffer between her husband and the public, a role she had to take on whether Bruce was having a good or bad day. Natali and the other members of FOLKS see the toll this sort of responsibility takes, as families of kids with Landau-Kleffner tirelessly step up to the many challenges this neurological disorder presents. “For parents, there is the very painful experience of watching their child lose skills,” Natali empathizes. “In addition to the anxiety and distress 22

caused by visible seizures and the need for medication or other treatments, parents must find ways to cope with a child who suddenly cannot understand the world as they did before, who may be distressed and frightened, and who may have extremely difficult behaviors and apparent personality change—aggression and sleep disturbance being the hardest things to deal with.”

There was one other little boy who suffered from Landau-Kleffner syndrome in British Columbia at the time; he and my brother shared, among other things, a pediatric neurologist, an elderly Englishman who we referred to as simply, The Doctor. I thought that if the two boys could meet, they would be great friends for each other. I quickly learned the rules of doctor-patient confidentially. The Doctor was the family’s guide into the convoluted skein of child neurology. He moved delicately about his small office and had incredibly soulful eyes shaded behind thick light-brown frames. After the rounds of testing, my brother would be dismissed and join me in the playroom where we would conduct a game of which he would be the victor. Other times, he would keep me company while I looked at books.

Whatever the scenario, it would always end with The Doc-

tor giving us good and bad news—talking progress, and following up with additional questions. During one of these sessions he recommended a book to my parents, one that nicely sums up the information that was available to them during those uncertain days. He suggested that they read The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat by clinical psychologist Oliver Sacks. Published in 1970, the book is a compilation of accounts concerning the weird and wild capabilities of neurological syndromes and disorders. After reading these accounts myself years later, I came to sympathize with my folks, the young parents they once were, and how their life became preoccupied solely with the symptoms—with little time for asking questions, since answers were the hardest to come by back then. The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat dove into such inimitable realms of the human mind and its oddities, that their newfound optimism reassured them; though concrete answers were scarce, at least their son didn’t mistake his bike for an uncle.

Regardless of their condition, kids with Landau-Kleffner adapt, they work harder and learn through shrewd observation. In this vein, my brother developed an arsenal of survival skills that would get him through school. Teachers were a particular battle. Assuming that he was not paying attention or day-dreaming, the punishments came fast and furious.

Despite the many meetings my parents had with his various educators and principal, their personal battle to understand and help others understand Landau-Kleffner never wavered. Teachers in the public school system continue to be overworked enough, so the one-on-one time my brother needed to learn the curriculum was provided primarily by my working parents, secondarily by a teaching aide. “School provides a vital framework for a child’s recovery and management,” Natali says. “It is the key medium through which teachers and therapists can support the child’s learning and help make sense of their world, as well as providing a stable social structure.” Ironically, two years after my brother had a notably bad grade-three teacher, I found myself in her classroom. She immediately assigned me the same teaching assistant, assuming it was a “family thing.” She eventually realized I could hear her quite well, but that I just wasn’t paying attention.

Always active in school sports, the hearing aids that were prescribed to my brother did not last long. If they were

worn throughout the baseball or soccer game, they still did not treat the issue at hand; after all, he could hear things just fine—it was his brain that scrambled the message once it arrived there. It’s also no wonder why this syndrome can sometimes be misdiagnosed as autism. Children that find themselves in my brother’s position often introvert because communication with others is just too confusing. He became a master of the things he could do by himself; drawing things and dissecting pieces of working machinery helped him to teach himself about the way things are made. Sports allowed him to connect to other children in a realm where conversation was not paramount. The self-doubt that would have been his downfall never took hold; he wasn’t overthrown by his difference. As his personality formed and he grew up, he never thought to let the ever-looming insecurity or isolation close enough to get under his skin. The stability that we were afforded as kids, the abundance of love and the confidence of hard-working parents resulted in a gentle, organic development of a sense of self that left no room for insecurity. As is the case with most of us, our weaknesses become our biggest strengths if we allow them.

My brother was in a best-case scenario situation as he grew older: he regained all of his language skills, and slowly the conversations he had became less and less a task. But even after growing out of Landau-Kleffner, there remains a lifelong impression on the person it once profoundly affected. The person this syndrome leaves behind after its eventual exodus has been irreversibly shaped by its presence.

Always gifted with construction, my brother thrives today as a journeyman carpenter. He excels at action, at the completion of hands-on tasks. He has a work ethic rivaling that of a bloodhound, continually in motion when most of us are still thinking about the next step to take. Forever a man of few words, his words remain as they were when he was a child: carefully chosen, nothing gratuitous, no ambiguous statements. He observes his ever-changing environment in a way most do not; he is able to feel the overarching moods of those surrounding him without the aid of verbal cues and finds his place in a group situation before most. The child who tried to find a reason for the daily confusion now creates order in his life; listening was never the problem, creating order out of chaos was. 

23

ZEN AND THE ART OF BICYCLE

MAINTENANCE On the Simple Joys of Getting Your Hands Dirty

T

HE FIRST RIDE WAS EXHILARATING. in rough shape. My twenty-block walk home gave me plenty Sure, I can admit I was a skeptic, but what I felt of time to think. At least a week of parts matching, smashed now erased any doubt: I was flying. Building my knuckles and expletive-riddled adjustment sessions stood first fixed-gear bicycle was daunting; finding before me once again, but I was oddly keen to get started. parts that fit my ’60s Raleigh frame took weeks. But, soon This teardown, while sped by gravity and ineptitude, enough, it was complete and looked was inevitable. As a rider, a former perfect. Riding the bicycle I felt as if bike mechanic and a believer in the I could feel the street. Yet, little did I

By Will Graham importance of both preventative realize how literal that sensation was Photography by Christine McAvoy maintenance and aesthetics, I’ve about to become. learned that to be a happy cyclist, my My reverie broke as metal pins bicycle must be routinely remade. flew out and both my crank arms came loose at the crest of No longer paid to do it, I still find myself spending long a hill. The pedals fell apart beneath my feet. Instinctively, I evening hours trying to tune my bikes to perfection, trying to make the pedals spin friction-free, or searching for the leaned on my front brake, causing the whole bike to shudder and wobble. In my haste to get on the road, I hadn’t tuned perfect distressed leather seat. Such maintenance functions it properly. I managed to slow down enough to avoid losing at once as a meditative renewal, a sparring partner and an art canvas. my life in a back alley near Trout Lake, but the bicycle was

Opposite: Will Graham taking his fixed-gear bicycle out for a spin around East Vancouver.

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For Tyler Lepore and Nick Hart of Super Champion, a fixed-gear bike shop, the search for a two-wheeled Xanadu is a way of life as they customize bicycles for their customers.

They cater to a finite crowd of track enthusiasts, vintage aficionados and bike couriers, as well as the occasional run-of-

A STUBBORN BICYCLE OFTEN ENDS UP AS THE UNWITTING FOIL FOR OUR FRUSTRATIONS. the-mill scenester, like me. Tyler welcomes me into the shop and shakes my hand, and I notice his hands are covered in bike grease and cuts: an unavoidable facet of bike mechanics. Nick works as we talk, expertly setting up a new frame.

Friends pop in and out as we chat. The personalities of the store owners fill the space, creating a relaxed atmosphere.

Super Champion wasn’t exactly born of careful planning or fiscal consideration. “I had snowboarded professionally for ten years,” says Tyler, “And I didn’t know what I wanted to do. I didn’t have a resume. So I was like, oh, I like bikes, so I’ll open up a bike shop. So I did.” Risky? Definitely. But this

is how Tyler lives, and business has been good: Vancouver is a bicycle city. Capable of performing virtually any repair or modification, Tyler still finds that half his clientele prefer to learn to do the work themselves. Clearly, Vancouver also gets bicycles.

Even simple adjustments or repairs are innately satisfying. Maintenance can be time consuming, true, but a rushed repair will be a frustrating experience (smashed extremities are a likelihood). It’s best to take your time and focus on the simple joys of getting your hands dirty and investigating your machine inside and out. Beyond that, it is truly compelling to take component parts from a myriad of sources and piece them together into a functioning whole. Come hell or high water, nuclear winter or killer bees, I can still fix my chain and cruise The Drive.

Nick and Tyler agree. “Yeah, wrenching is the best part,” says Tyler. “Putting bikes together is what me and Nick like the most. If you’re even a small bit mechanically inclined, learning to do the small stuff on your bike is extremely gratifying.”

At this point, Nick asks us to stop for a second so he can adjust a set of forks. We quiet down, and he smacks a star-fangled nut into place with a hammer. In this craft, very often a hammer is your friend. He grins as he works. “It’s therapeutic—It’s nice to not be interrupted,” says Nick. A stubborn bicycle often ends up as the unwitting foil for our frustrations, and this is not a bad thing. Perhaps there is an element of man versus machine. A problem stands between you and the road, and measures of both precision and force are needed to overcome it.

In addition to the satisfaction that routine maintenance can bring, there is something indescribable in finding something old—something that looks like garbage—and making it beautiful again. The more work you put into restoring a bicycle and the more personalized the style, the more signifi-

cant it becomes. Tyler’s bicycular tastes are quite specific. “I got into really specific Canadian stuff, like twenty-eight inch, double bar CCM frames—just old Canadian stuff. Probably junk to most people.”

Both Nick and Tyler boast impressive private collections, and the walls of Super Champion are lined with vintage bicycles from around the world. Asked if he would consider selling them, Tyler hesitates: “Um, yeah, sure. They’re beautiful, I love looking at them—on the right day maybe.”

Even the Dürkopp that was raced in the Commonwealth Games? He winces. “To the right guy, you know?”

“To someone who wasn’t gonna turn it into a trick bike,” adds Nick, and Tyler nods.

I think I understand this; it’s the vintage appeal, the original craftsmanship and the work necessary to keep a bicycle running smoothly and looking clean that makes sense to them.

In the presence of these two seasoned mechanics, it was unnecessary to mention my early adventures in disintegrating bicycles, lest I spoil this moment of shared understanding. But should the unthinkable happen, I am comforted to know I will once again have the pleasure of reinventing my ride: cuts on my knuckles, grease on my hands and a swear word on my lips. 

Nothing is sadder than experimental cinema in Vancouver.

DIM Cinema is a monthly evening of contemporary short -form moving images and cinematic collaborations. Focused on expanding the visibility of Canadian and international experimental artists and their practices in the cinema, DIM seeks to illuminate underground moving image culture in Vancouver.

April 5 Naomi Uman Ukrainian Time Machine Legedzine, Ukraine

dimcinema.ca

cinematheque.bc.ca

May 27, 28, 29 Signal & Noise Media Art Festival

1131 Howe St.

7:30pm

June 21 Nathaniel Dorsky Poetics of Observation San Francisco, USA

$9.50/8 + $3 membership

27

Person, place

and thing 1. Ok Vancouver Ok

2. South Main 3. DIM Cinema

2.

1.

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3.

1. OK VANCOUVER OK

by Rachel Chua Photograph by Jonathan Taggart

A

S THE OFT-STATED SLOGAN GOES: “Art for art’s sake.” But how many artists today truly embody this? Enter Jeff Johnson—the reserved artist behind the one-man band Ok Vancouver Ok—whose passion for life and music marches without a care for fame or financial success.

“People make all their decisions based on money when it can only be used for such a small part of our life,” says Jeff.

As such, living life and wandering the world are the things that Jeff does best—aside from making music, that is.

Improvisation plays a large role in the type of music you can expect from Ok Vancouver Ok. This inclination began early on when, taking piano lessons as a child, Jeff found himself despising the rigours of practicing because it prevented the spontaneous flow of music and failed to reflect the creative energy of the moment. An integral part of his music is being able to make changes to it along the way at a moment’s notice.

Music strongly informs the way in which Jeff views the world. To Jeff, every single action in his day reflects this, from the way he answers my questions, to the subjects and feeling he injects lovingly into his songs. There’s something infectious about this: making it seem that music needn’t always be a struggle, and that music can be crafted by anyone with a little imagination.

S

2. SOUTH MAIN

by Shannon Smart Illustration by Justin Longoz

HARP, AMBER-COLOURED LIGHT FILTERS through cracked beams and charred, soggy drywall early on a Sunday on South Main. A few months ago these sidewalks would have been busy with happy, tired faces: last night’s bar stars—livers aching—marauding for gourmet grease, and locals humming, hunting for a coffee. There might even have been a few sated stragglers, blinking at the brightness of morning, just staggering out of the pink gate at Zocalo. Instead, the sidewalks are quiet; through Zocalo’s cheerful façade and the still-standing frames of broken-out windows, the blackened beams that built this neighbourhood institution lie splintered on the ground.

The warm morning sun, sifting through the filthy ruins, casts nearly the same light on these places as the fire that destroyed them. A crater now defines the corner of Main and Broadway, an ugly memorial to Slickety Jim’s, Kishu Island and Zocalo, the restaurants that burned down last November.

Almost comically, Zocalo’s gate stands—fake flowers and

all—defiant of the rubble that surrounds it. In a city where free space is at a premium and condo developments crop up like clover, this emptiness is jarring.

There is a danger here, as with any newly vacant corner within the city limits, that this space will hopscotch over tax brackets to become a condo development, a private island in the hipster heart of Vancouver. In the Sunday morning light though, the rebellious pink gate looks sturdy; it is laden with possibility, and seems to reassure passers-by that something beautiful will rise, phoenix-like, from the cinders.

3. DIM CINEMA

by Agnes Gulbinowicz Illustration by Judit Navratil

A

MY LYNN KAZYMERCHYK, AN EXPERImental filmmaker and curator, was captured by filmmaking at the age of sixteen. In that year, she was introduced to the craft by independent filmmakers teaching in a converted logging camp on Galiano Island. Her curiosity for media art—its history, vernacular and makers—later developed during her time at Emily Carr University, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and continues to do so in her current role as curator of DIM Cinema, a monthly evening of contemporary short films at the Pacific Cinémathèque.

Amy Lynn hopes that DIM Cinema nudges audiences to reflect on the idea of “going to the theatre” and on what the relevance of cinema-going is in a world of personal video recorders, home theatres, Internet streaming, and DVD rentals: what is it about going to a theatre that is different from any other experience? Part of DIM’s response to this question has been to provide an open, cross-disciplinary space for cinematic collaboration. The types of films showcased at DIM vary in form from 16- and 35-mm films to YouTube videos, and range in tone from nature imagery to character studies to alchemical images. What they all have in common is the ability to create a conscious awareness of the cinematic environment and experience. Sometimes the films shown are not so much a broadcast as a performance that becomes an interaction between the artist, projectionist, and audience.

Amy Lynn hopes to maximize audiences’ experiences with DIM Cinema and to engage artists who travel to Vancouver specifically for DIM by inviting the featured artists to speak and give workshop events on the Saturday before DIM. This gives the artist and the audience a chance to engage in critical discussion and allows the audience to discover the motivations behind an artist’s work before they actually experience it—a refreshing approach in the world of avantgarde art where audiences are often left to flounder and to wonder what a work means. To top it off, DIM nights often end in a social gathering at La Bodega, so you can come for the art films and stay for the food and conversation.  29

Documentary Film Festi val may 7–16, 2010 10 days

www.DoxaFestival.ca

75 films

vancouver, canada

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