Online Issue 3 (Feb. 2010)

SANDBOX MAGAZINE

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Boots by Calvin Klein (Town Shoes). Top and skirt from Connect Four. Necklace and tights from The Bay.

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WALK IT OUT NAVIGATE THE CITY STREETS IN THE SEASON’S BEST BOOTS

Words by JULIJANA CAPONE Photography by RYAN WIBAWA Styled by MADISON ROSAS Hair by CHANTAL HINCE Makeup by DAENA GROLEAU Shot on location at Resto Gare in St. Boniface.

There is, arguably, nothing on this planet that makes a woman feel more powerful than a good pair of boots. It’s something about that satisfying click of heels against the pavement that turns an ordinary stroll into a runway strut.

All women know of this power: Nancy Sinatra’s boots were made for walking (all over her man); Jennifer Lopez knows when it’s time to throw on her Louboutins; even Ke$ha has her priorities right—boots and boys.

‘70s-style stacked-heel riding boots: Every stylish girl should have a pair of this classic fashion staple, which can add an instant European sophistication to your wardrobe. The incredible part is that a lot of these gems are floating around many of your favorite thrift stores. I recently found a dream pair of these boots in black leather with wool lining for under $10. If you’re not as lucky as me, you can find these boots at various stores, in and around Winnipeg, that cater to throw-back looks.

Over-the-knee boots: Try flat leather styles reminiscent of Jane Birkin in the ‘60s. They’re chic and sexy, but also classic. What’s great is you’ll be able to wear these well past the fading of this trend. And because they’re flat, a short skirt or fitted dress isn’t out of the question.

Shorter women should skip these styles. They can make shorter legs look a bit severed and stumpy. Instead, try some of these other styles.

Platform ankle booties: This is a brilliant look, mainly because the cut draws attention to not only your shoes, but also provides a full showcase of your legs. The height given in the heel and platform actually elongate your legs, which gives you a thinner appearance. They also make your feet look smaller.

No matter how conservative your everyday look might be, these boots can instantly add a bit of edginess. If you’re into making a statement, there are some pretty radical options, from bird-caged to square-toed and sky-high that look more like works of art than shoes.

Biker boots: The key to this look is to not go too overboard. It’s all about the biker look as an accent piece, not as a lifestyle.

Forget about going out and buying a leather jacket to match. Put on a peacoat or duffle coat instead. Try tall or ankle length styles, with one or multiple buckles, depending on your personal preference. Best worn with cuffed boyfriend jeans and an oversized cardigan, or skinny jeans and a fitted turtleneck.

Boots from Town Shoes. Dress from Connect Four. Tights from The Bay. SANDBOX MAGAZINE

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LEFT: Boots by Steve Madden (Town Shoes). Dress from Connect Four. Tights, scarf and belt from The Bay. RIGHT: Boots by Calvin Klein (Town Shoes). Top and skirt from Connect Four. Necklace from The Bay.

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Boots by Steve Madden (Town Shoes).

Dress from Connect Four. Necklace from The Bay.

Boots by Town Shoes. Vest from Urban Outfitters. Dress from Connect Four. Tights from The Bay.

LEFT: Dress from Connect Four. Belt from The Bay. CENTRE: Boots by Coxx Borba (Town Shoes). Shirt, jacket and pants by Szoldier (The Nines). RIGHT: Boots by Town Shoes. Vest from Urban Outfitters. Shirt and skirt from Connect Four. Tights from The Bay.

LEFT: Boots by Calvin Klein (Town Shoes). Jacket from Connect Four. Tights from The Bay. RIGHT: Boots by DKNY (Town Shoes). Jacket from Aritzia. Dress from Connect Four. Tights from The Bay. SANDBOX MAGAZINE

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FEBRUARY 2010 | THE SOUND

THE SOUND SITTING DOWN WITH LOCAL CROONER J.P. HOE TO TALK ABOUT GIRLS, INSECURITIES, AND THE ELUSIVE ROAD TO STARDOM. Words by MAEGHAN HEINRICHS Photography by MATTHEW KRISTJAN Hair by MEGHAN KINITA Most girls would agree that there is something about a guy with a guitar and an incredible voice that lends him instant sex appeal. Although he has more than enough charm accompanying his good looks and sense of humour, and needs no help attracting the ladies, it was actually this very phenomenon that inspired a 16-year-old J.P. Hoe to first pick up his father’s guitar.

“I went to an all boys school and I was an outgoing guy, but I was pretty shy when it came to close interactions, and I wanted to find a way to meet girls,” Hoe says, explaining how his relationship with music began.

Eight years and three albums since his decision to pursue a career in music, the successful Winnipeg-based singer/songwriter sits in a quiet Corydon avenue bakery and, in between bites of a peanut butter cookie, he tells SANDBOX all about his career on and off-stage, his passion for music, and his love of food.

“There are [two different versions of] J.P.,” he explains, “I could be very comfortable not talking to anybody for a week, just hanging out. But on stage I have to be charming, and I have to be funny, and I have to be endearing.”

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charming, funny, and endearing could be anything but effortless for the handsome 28-year-old. But he explains that it was during his 2008 cross-Canada tour with Jan Arden that he realized the differences between J.P. Hoe, the regular guy, and who he refers to as “stage J.P.” “Once I do a show, I like to kind of just tuck away, but when I did the Jan tour I was—not forced, but strongly encouraged to go out and be sociable afterward. And I’m a little bit—well, not awkward, but I’m not really good at small talk. When you meet people you have to throw on the small talk, and even though it’s as sincere as small talk can be, that’s really difficult. There is a confidence that happens when you’re on stage, like the before and after effect that I don’t feel any other time in my life. I don’t know if it’s fake courage or if it’s just adrenaline talking, but I know that when I’m at home I’m just a quiet guy, and when its show time I’m forced to be a Chatty McCathy.”

Like “stage J.P.,” regular J.P. has a sense of humour that could charm the pants off a nun. Whether he’s describing his fashion transition as going from Zach Morris to Don Johnson through the addition of a sport coat, or poking fun at the reactions he gets when people hear his last name, he has no trouble seeing the humour in things.

But when he begins to talk about his love of music, and his creative process, it becomes evident how seriously

passionate he is about his art.

“I love to write the music, figure out how it makes me feel, and then apply it to something that’s around me.

Then, whenever I play it live, I’m able to spew it out, and it feels really real because it was like, an organic process,” Hoe explains.

All three of his albums, The Here in Review, The Live Beta Project, and his most recent, The Dear John Letters, feature a collection of songs he wrote entirely on his own.

“I like writing by myself. It takes a little bit longer and you have to have the right inspiration to use.”

After making this statement Hoe pauses to poke fun at himself.

“Man, ease off on the clichés, J.P.,” he laughs, “That sucks. I need to start reading a dictionary.”

Many of his tunes sound like ballads of a broken heart, but Hoe explains that his lyrics are not always what they appear to be. He actually draws most of his inspiration from those close to him.

“I like looking at other people—friends of mine or family members—and try to imagine, ‘what are you thinking about while this is going on?’ A lot of the time the songs are in first person, so people may not understand, or they might think it’s about me, and a lot of songs have a relationship vibe even though they don’t have anything to do with a relationship. That’s the instinctive thought that people have when they hear the words ‘I’ and ‘you.’ I’ve just tried to be really conscientious of everyone else in my life and just try to be as good of a friend as I can to everyone, and then watch them. And it works. For me it works really well,” says Hoe. When he’s not busy being “stage J.P.”, regular-guy J.P. enjoys a lot of, well, regular-guy things. After listing off an eclectic array of passions including cooking, food, watching TV box sets, laughing, playing frisbee golf, and video editing, he pauses. “I love doing a lot of stuff,” he says as though this is something he’s just realized at that very moment. “That’s such a fun question. I love everything.

Can you put that in? I just love doing everything.”

Given his immense talent and obvious passion, many of Hoe’s fans are surprised that, after eight years on the scene, his music hasn’t captured a larger following, but Hoe humbly explains that the kind of success he would like to achieve will be on his own terms.

“I would say… I hope… I have to believe… that I turned down a lot of opportunities that didn’t feel comfortable to me career-wise. There were a couple avenues that were offered to me to kind of skip some lines, but I didn’t feel like I was being very genuine doing that, and so I turned those down and took the long route.”

Hoe views his journey over the past eight years as one that was necessary for him to grow stronger as an artist, a progression he feels is evident in his new album, which he plans to release later this year. He hopes his patience will pay off. Things have already started picking up momentum. The first single off The Dear John Letters, “Start a War,” got major radio play on Hot 103 and tons of support from Ace Burpee, a long-time J.P. Hoe fan.

“The trick is to keep knocking. It’s so cliché, but keep knocking. And when someone opens that door, hopefully you are prepared to seize it. Back in the day I didn’t want to seize those opportunities because they didn’t feel good, and that makes me feel good, that I knew what I was doing. And maybe [if I had] I’d be in a different place right now, but maybe I wouldn’t be as happy.”

Check out J.P.’s music on iTunes, or visit his website for news, photos, and tour dates.

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FEBRUARY 2010 | THE STAGE

THE STAGE

TEGAN AND SARA, OUR FAVOURITE SINGING SISTERS, PASS THROUGH WINNIPEG ON THEIR NORTH AMERICAN TOUR. Words by COURTNEY BRECHT Photography by ANNA BORYS One sold out show wasn’t enough for a thirsty Winnipeg crowd. The Burton Cummings Theatre was packed to the rafters with excited, young, mullet-sporting, plaid-wearing concert-goers for two nights when Tegan and Sara passed through town in January. One of the Quinn sisters, in a somewhat cheesy but well-intentioned audience thank you, remarked that every time they cross through our notoriously frigid town, more and more faces turn up to sing along to their captivating tunes, and the payoff has been well worth it.

While some of us can barely stand a car ride with our siblings, identical twins Tegan and Sara claim that the ten years of touring they have achieved together is more gratifying than a sedentary, music-less life. During Thursday night’s show, Tegan compared the difference as “a person who hangs posters of their musical inspirations all over their place while they’re young, but eventually grows up and replaces photos of The Clash with pictures of barns.” She professed a hope to keep the metaphorical posters up for the rest of her life, an endeavour which their audience can only cheer on.

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The tiny twins played the entire set list off of their new collaborative album Sainthood. The songs are somewhat shorter than anything off of The Con, but the upbeat tunes added an element of danceability to the show that would usually be reserved to a few tracks. Sainthood’s style was beautifully juxtaposed with the second half of the set, in which the girls pulled out favourites like a xylophoneheavy rendition of “Back in Your Head” and the alwaysclassic “Living Room”. The girls never fail to translate their recorded stuff into a live show, as their refined talents combined with a variety of instruments and styles have offered them a sound that resounds deeply in their fans.

The real magic of a Tegan and Sara concert, however, lies in the witty banter between the sisters and the crowd.

Their adorably awkward personalities drive the experience.

We love them even if they’re threatening to carry unruly audience members out in their arms, or comparing the experience (in sarcastic Quinn fashion) with that of a New Kids on the Block show in the ’80s. Tegan even had the crowd sing “Happy Birthday” to the bassist, Sean, another example of how the twins want to include every person they play to in their musical experience. And we’re always happy to be invited.

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FEBRUARY 2010 | BEAUTIFUL MAN

BEAUTIFUL MAN

THE SEXIEST ACCOUNTANT WE’VE EVER MET

Words by JEFFREY VALLIS Photography by MATTHEW KRISTJAN At 6’2,” Troy Thompson stands well above the average. But for the rest of us, the view from down here is quite enjoyable.

Especially when the 23-year-old, brown-eyed babe stands in front of you wearing nothing but boxer briefs.

“Just picture a girl standing here, Troy, give her your sexiest bedroom eyes,” I coach him, during his first Beautiful Man photo shoot.

“Well, I can’t do it to you!” he answers, looking in my direction.

If only.

The budding businessman graduates from the Asper School of Business this spring, majoring in finance and accounting and going on to the Chartered Accounting School of Business.

What does this all mean? Not only does he have a smoking’ hot bod, but ambition, talent and brains to boot.

ARE YOU AS EXCITED AS WE ARE FOR YOU TO BE CROWNED THE NEW BEAUTIFUL MAN?

I would never describe myself as beautiful. I should have warned you that I know nothing about modeling, nor do I believe that I have any natural ability for doing so. However, I’ve pretty much got the “Blue Steel” look mastered and something I like to call the “Provocative Tiger Lily”. It’s out of this world.

PROVOCATIVE INDEED. YOU’VE JUST GOT ALL THE RIGHT MOVES. WORKS EVERY TIME, I’M SURE.

home, she was in my bed. I tried to wake her up, but she pretended she was sleeping. I woke up in the morning and she didn’t remember a thing. I just thought, ‘you’ve got to be kidding me.’

GIRLS CAN BE CRAZY. NOW GAYS, ON THE OTHER HAND… JUST SAYIN’.

Well, based on my luck with girls, I’ve almost considered switching teams.

ALRIGHT THEN, LETS GET YOU LAID. WHAT KIND OF GIRL DO YOU GO FOR?

I want someone who is smart, funny, easy to get along with, and not afraid to be themselves. I like it when girls are flirtatious and make the first move because it shows they’re interested. For me, the perfect girl listens to rock n’ roll, plays volleyball, and sings a mean karaoke.

A SEXY ROCKER CHICK, HEY? IS THIS A FANTASY OF YOURS?

I’m just really into music. I play guitar and I’m trying to teach myself the piano. It’s very similar to the guitar. Its something I’ve always wanted to play, but I never took in school, and I don’t really have time right now to take lessons, so I may as well teach myself.

YOU MUST BE REALLY GOOD WITH YOUR HANDS. HAVE YOU EVER WRITTEN A SONG FOR A LADY?

Well, not every time. Definitely not every time.

I’ve never written a song for a girl, but I have played songs for girls. Basically I find a song they like. It’s not that hard to pick up a song on guitar.

WHAT ARE YOU LIKE IN A DATE SITUATION?

YOU MUST DRIVE THE GIRLS WILD.

As long as I’m with a good person, I’ll have a good time. I could sit here and have coffee with somebody or I could go to the most extravagant place ever. But it’s more who I’m with than the actual date scenario.

I don’t know about wild, but I think girls are generally attracted to someone who plays a song for them, I guess.

WE’RE HAVING COFFEE, DOES THAT MEAN THIS IS A DATE?

Pretty much anything involving music is the only thing I really like doing. I should have been a rock star. I’ve played in a couple bands here and there, nothing serious, but I definitely wouldn’t try to make a career out of it. In reality, I want to own my own company because, lets face it, being the boss is where it’s at.

This doesn’t count.

THAT’S WHAT YOU THINK. SO HAS A DATE EVER GONE HORRIBLY AWRY?

I was once out with this girl and the night didn’t go so well. We left things on a pretty bad note, but when I got

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SO YOU’RE A ROCK STAR TRAPPED IN A BUSINESS SUIT?

ROCK ON, TROY THOMPSON. ROCK ON.

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FEBRUARY 2010 | TALENT & TITS

TALENT & TITS CONNIE MANFREDI: THE BOISTEROUS BEAUTY TAKES THE SPOTLIGHT Words by BRENLEE COATES Photography by CINDY TITUS Hair and Makeup by CHANTAL HINCE Ever since she opted to work backstage in her junior high play, Connie Manfredi vowed to never let the spotlight escape her again.

“I was the stage manager, and I didn’t want to be backstage—not that it’s not great—but I was like, ‘I need to be in it.’”

At 15, she was telling classmates and teachers to hold onto odd items she’d grazed like water bottles and pencils because she knew fame was her destiny. Her alter ego, and the name of her production company, Chi Chi Manfred, was invented when she quipped the name to a teacher who thought she didn’t have a star’s name.

Sitting down with her over lattes at Starbucks is like being treated to a private performance. I watch her feign smoking from a beatnik cigarette holder for dramatic emphasis and draw out her words in a faux-British or Shakespearean accent.

Now in her fourth and final year of studies in the University of Winnipeg honours theatre program, the bold and big-haired Manfredi has stolen scenes in five local Fringe plays, including two in 2009, which couldn’t have been more tonally opposing or distinctly challenging.

She directed, choreographed, and starred in Chi Chi Manfred Productions’ performance of Zombie Prom, and shared the role of lead character with four others in the University of Winnipeg student adaptation of A Doll’s House.

“Zombie Prom and A Doll’s House couldn’t have been more different. It takes a lot to prepare for that kind of trajectory (in A Doll’s House) and two hours earlier I

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was dancing with my friend Colin, like jazz hands,” says Manfredi.

Her efficient time management paid off. Zombie Prom was named Best of Fest by the Winnipeg Fringe Festival and both Zombie Prom and A Doll’s House were critically celebrated. (Zombie Prom was awarded 4½ stars from the Winnipeg Free Press.)

Although at the prime party age of 21, Manfredi is singularly focused. “My life is complete chaos—my room is a disaster, I live out of my car, I never see my family— but theatre is my tunnel vision.”

Her idea of a dream job stretches from any old gig at Saturday Night Live to playing a hasty villain or role in a Puerto Rican hip-hop musical. “I always joke with my friends that I’m racially ambiguous,” explains the secondgeneration, caramel-skinned Italian.

Although she’s hot for musicals, Manfredi says she doesn’t have the vocal chops or dancing finesse to make it professionally. “My focus and my passions lie in straight theatre acting,” she says pragmatically.

Besides her desire to attend the National Theatre School in Montreal next fall, Manfredi doesn’t feel the need to quit Winnipeg to pursue her dreams. “There’s a great, fantastic, thriving theatre community here. Our Fringe is growing. Winnipeg’s got it goin’ on right now,” she says.

Upcoming performances for Manfredi include her class’ production of The Diary of Anne Frank, in which she predicts her physical ambiguity may get her cast as the Jewish Mrs. Frank; and The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee in Fringe 2010, produced by Stage 16 and the well-established Winnipeg Studio Theatre (Altar Boyz, 2009), in which Manfredi will tackle a girl with two gay dads and a lisp. (And cigarette?)

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FEBRUARY 2010 | LIFE STORIES

LIFE STORIES LETTING GO OF A PAST FILLED WITH MISERY AND HEARTACHE

Words by MELODY ROGAN Photography courtesy of MELODY ROGAN I suppose in public we seemed like a normal family.

Husband, wife, two daughters. Average house, average car, average income. In public, we knew how to hide the pain, the fear, the fact that we hadn’t slept in days. In public, we played a part that everyone else was all too willing to accept.

When you live with a raging alcoholic, life truly becomes all about playing the part. You need to bury the truth in order to face each day and in order to relate to the rest of mankind.

The unfortunate part is that alcoholics can rarely play the part for very long before they slip up and the carefully constructed façade comes crumbling down around them.

Dad started drinking in his teens. When Mom met him at 19, she chalked the binge drinking and relentless partying up to his being young and wanting to have fun. He’ll change, she thought. Grow out of it. They dated for six years before she got pregnant. And in that time he hadn’t changed. Not a bit.

But, she thought, for sure everything would be different once she had the baby.

It never got better. Things never changed. Not after the first baby, not after the second, and not after buying a relatively nice home in a suburban neighbourhood.

In fact, it only got worse.

I was blissfully oblivious to what our home life was really like until I was about 10. Dad was able to play the part of the loving, silly, if somewhat disciplinary, father. Our relationship had not yet been tainted by the nights of alcohol-induced rage and terror that were a direct contradiction to what life was like during the day. Mom was careful to protect us from what

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was going on. And it worked, for a while.

But as we got older, it was harder for her to shield us from the man who came home at night, ranting (sometimes at people who weren’t even there), overturning tables, and smashing dishes. It was harder for her to hide the fact that he would verbally abuse her, drag her out of bed, threaten her.

Harder for her to explain the numerous wrecked vehicles, the dwindling bank account, the broken and bruised man in the bathtub after bar fights.

My sister and I caught on. It was inevitable. It was also inevitable that whatever relationship I once had with Dad would be destroyed and replaced by a strange reversal of roles—he, the child, and I, the parent. His immaturity and complete disregard for the consequences of his actions were astounding to me. I thought it was ridiculous that he tried to tell us what to do when he couldn’t even follow his own rules or advice.

I made a promise to myself more than once that I would never let my life get out of control, that I would make my life something so much better than what it was. I wanted it to be better than what my parents had.

More and more, all I felt for the man was disgust and frustration. Sometimes I thought I might be on the verge of truly hating him. My teenage years were spent trying to avoid him. He didn’t seem to understand why. He acted hurt, disappointed. All I wanted was for him to go away.

And, like a true cliché, I should have been careful what I wished for.

I came home from the movies one night to find Mom frantic. The police had been to the house and told her Dad had been in an accident and that he had run from the scene.

He was nowhere to be found. Had he come home, they asked?

Had she seen him? No. To make a long story short, Dad had been driving drunk and ran a stop sign, hitting another vehicle. He had been driving the five-ton truck he used for work. The cab had been completely crushed and he had struggled to get his legs out, losing his shoes in the process.

He ran, barefoot, to my uncle’s house and hid there, knowing he was in deep shit.

Meanwhile, the two young men who had been in the truck he hit suffered minor injuries, but injuries nonetheless. They were taken to hospital and were later released.

The accident made the news; shots of Dad’s truck were in the paper the next morning, along with brief descriptions of the accident. I was embarrassed. Horrified.

He came home that same day. He had turned himself in to the police. He had been to see a lawyer. He slept for days.

He fell into a deep depression, found God, and then tried to kill himself. Mom and my sister found him in the garage, trying to poison himself with carbon monoxide by leaving a vehicle running.

We went to see him in the psych ward. It was the hardest thing I had ever done. Leaving him there was awful. Because despite all of the damage and hurt he had caused, I still loved him. I was still part of him. And he, part of me. And I knew

how much it hurt him that he had caused someone else harm. Deep down, he had problems and didn’t know how to deal with them. He wasn’t really a cold-hearted monster.

But he was a determined man, at least when it came to ending his life. He was angry that Mom had saved him, and made sure the next time around she would find him too late.

And so, at 17, I said goodbye to Dad forever.

He laid stiff and wax-like in the coffin at his funeral. Mom and my sister touched his face, his hands, his hair. I couldn’t move. Frozen.

Wanting to retch. I couldn’t take my hand and place it on the chemically preserved flesh. This wasn’t my father. This wasn’t a human being.

We had to move out of our house into a much smaller one and made an attempt to get on with our lives. The strangest thing was being able to sleep at night without someone rampaging for hours on end. We were free, in a strange way.

I visit Dad’s grave when I get the chance. Life does go on, despite your best efforts to slow time down so that you can

grieve properly. I still feel a sting of jealousy whenever I see a father and daughter together, smiling, laughing, alive and able to enjoy the time they have together. It hurts to know I won’t ever have that again. I’ll never have my father walk me down the aisle, play with my children, grow old so that I can take care of him.

And yet, in some ways, I feel so lucky. Dad taught me exactly what not to do with my life.

The lessons I’ve learned from his mistakes are invaluable and I’ll keep them with me for the rest of my time here. His actions and decisions have ensured that I will keep the promise I made to myself years ago, and I know that he would be so proud to know that I have made his life more than just a brief tragedy.

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