The Georgia Straight - Chill Out - January 21, 2021

JANUARY 21 – 28 / 2021 | FREE Volume 55 | Number 2762

TAXING FOREIGNERS

CHILL OUT

HOME PRICES BARELY CHANGE

WHAT’S IN A NAME?

UBC WINS FIGHT WITH DONOR

In our winter entertainment guide, dancer Vanessa Goodman (above) and musician Caroline Shaw reflect the cycle of life in Graveyards and Gardens WARM COCKTAILS • DAN SAVAGE • WINTER JAZZ • KIM’S CONVENIENCE

FINANCE

UBC donor’s gift agreement raises thorny tax questions

CONTENTS

January 21 – 28 / 2021

9

COVER

The PuSh International Festival for the Performing Arts and Music On Main will present Caroline Shaw and Vanessa Goodman’s Graveyards and Gardens.

by Charlie Smith

By Charlie Smith Cover photo by David Cooper

4

FOOD

Grit Studio may be the only café in the region where customers can enjoy a coffee and pastry and then order the chair beneath them to go.

By Carlito Pablo

6

REAL ESTATE

As the federal government lays a foundation for a foreign-buyers’ tax, there’s not a lot of evidence that it has enhanced affordability in B.C.

By Carlito Pablo

12 The Peter A. Allard School of Law at UBC received its name after a former student, the son of a Canadian broadcasting tycoon, donated $30 million to the university. Photo by Martin Dee/UBC.

O

n January 22, 2015, a UBC lawschool alumnus, Peter A. Allard, Q.C., made a whopping $30-million donation to the faculty.

In a ceremony that day, the university announced that the law school was being renamed the Peter A. Allard School of Law. “My gift supports pillars of excellence in human rights, and international integrity and ethics, and my hope is that the law school will become a beacon for justice, and the promotion of human rights and the rule of law around the world,” Allard said in a statement on the UBC website.

With his gift, Allard, a nonpractising lawyer and son of Canadian broadcasting tycoon Charles Allard, became the largest donor to any law school in Canada.

Under the law, a person can only receive a charitable-donation receipt if they voluntarily transfer a “gift” for no consideration.

In 2016, the Income Tax Act offered a tax-credit rate of 33 percent to donations above the first $200 when a person’s taxable income exceeded $200,000.

“A gift must be given freely. If a gift is made as a result of a contractual or other obligation (for example, a court order) a receipt cannot be issued,” the Canada Revenue Agency states on its website.

In recent years, these charitable tax receipts have been issued in connection with naming rights for buildings. There are several of them at UBC. But Allard wanted his gift to go further than just having his name on a building.

He has maintained that his “gift agreement” with UBC also required campus officials to put his name on all degree certificates from the law school.

These included graduate degrees for students based on recommendations from the faculty of graduate and postdoctoral studies.

2

THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT

UBC disagreed, and it went to arbitration.

In 2019, the arbitrator ruled in UBC’s favour. Allard’s name would only appear on certificates that mentioned the “faculty of law” and would not appear on graduate degree certificates that don’t include the words “faculty of law”.

Allard and the Allard Prize Foundation then sought leave to appeal the arbitrator’s ruling in B.C. Supreme Court. Justice Karen Douglas dismissed their petition.

CANADA REVENUE AGENCY RULES

There are questions arising from the litigation with respect to Allard’s $30-million donation to UBC. Was this indeed a gift made for no consideration? Or was it part of a contractual obligation?

In other words, is the “gift agreement” a “contract”? If the Canada Revenue Agency were to conclude that Allard viewed this as a binding contract, would that have any tax implications for him personally or for the foundation that bears his name?

The Canada Revenue Agency website states that gifts provided in exchange for advertising or sponsorship generally do not qualify for charitable tax receipts. If Allard wants his name on degrees, could that be construed as advertising his good name? According to the Canada Revenue Agency, when a donor receives an “advantage” for a donation, some or all of the contribution may no longer qualify as a gift.

One thing is clear: Allard made a bargain with UBC. If UBC faculty, staff, or students—or any member of the public—are bothered by Allard’s litigation, they have an option. They could ask Canada Revenue Agency to issue a ruling on whether any money that flowed from this gift agreement met the legal test of being a “gift” under Canadian tax law. g

JANUARY 21 – 28 / 2021

TELEVISION

Cast members of the hit comedy Kim’s Convenience talk about Season 5, Marvel, Star Wars, and filming in the COVID-19 era.

By Norman Wilner

e Online TOP 5

e Start Here

8 10 15 14 2 11 7 13 5 14

ARTS BOOKS CLASSIFIEDS CONFESSIONS FINANCE GALLERIES LIQUOR MUSIC RESTAURANTS SAVAGE LOVE

Vancouver’s News and Entertainment Weekly Volume 55 | Number 2762 1635 West Broadway, Vancouver, B.C. V6J 1W9 T: 604.730.7000 F: 604.730.7010 E: gs.info@straight.com straight.com

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EDITOR Charlie Smith SECTION EDITORS Mike Usinger (ESports/Liquor/Music) Steve Newton SENIOR EDITOR Martin Dunphy ASSOCIATE EDITOR John Lucas (Cannabis) STAFF WRITERS Carlito Pablo (Real Estate) Craig Takeuchi SOLUTIONS ARCHITECT Jeff Li ART DEPARTMENT MANAGER Janet McDonald

Here’s what people are reading this week on Straight.com.

1 2 3 4 5

Three local restaurants identified with potential COVID-19 exposure events.

COViD-19 in B.C.: More than 30 flights with exposures to the virus.

Here’s where you’ll find four healthy New Year’s resolutions for 2021.

Enbridge, Keystone XL, and Dakota Access pipelines come under scrutiny.

Trump tower condos in Vancouver have a tough time finding buyers. @GeorgiaStraight

GRAPHIC DESIGNER Miguel Hernandez PRODUCTION SUPERVISOR Mike Correia PRODUCTION Sandra Oswald ADVERTISING REPRESENTATIVES Glenn Cohen, Catherine Tickle, Robyn Marsh (on leave), David Pearlman CONTENT AND MARKETING SPECIALIST Rachel Moore CIRCULATION MANAGER Giles Roy CREDIT MANAGER Shannon Li ACCOUNTING SUPERVISOR Tamara Robinson

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3

FOOD

Grit Studio dishes local works of art with its coffee

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by Carlito Pablo

rit Studio is probably the only café where visitors can enjoy a latte and pastry, then order the unique chair they’re sitting on to go.

While they’re at it, they can also purchase art works on the walls and sculptures on display at the Port Moody spot.

Clients can likewise find handcrafted soaps, honey, ceramics, and clothing at the café, art gallery, and lifestyle shop that opened last summer amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

In addition, customers can pay for vintage items they fancy, from old cameras to typewriters, rotary phones, and radios.

Grit is a partnership between Cezar Salaveria, a designer and furniture and lighting craftsman, and Rosette Samaniego, the restaurateur behind the Kulinarya Filipino Eatery in both Vancouver and Coquitlam.

“Imagine a place where people can walk in and, literally, just buy anything,” Salaveria told the Straight in a phone interview.

An artisan by trade, Salaveria made most of the furnishings at Grit, a place that he designed to feel almost like a home.

As an art gallery, the Port Moody establishment seeks to celebrate works of local artists.

“Here you can have your coffee and relax and look on the walls and see some new art,” Salaveria said.

The colourful canvases of visual artist Kimberly Blackstock of Port Coquitlam were the first to be featured at Grit.

The creations of “sculptural woodworker” Chris Wong were also there.

On display at present until February are the works of young artists Kai Liu and Yuan Wen. Starting in March, Tony Durke of New Westminster and Shannon Thiesen of Abbotsford will have their pieces shown.

It makes Salaveria happy to notice visitors rarely on their phones and electronic devices

A pandemic didn’t dissuade restaurateur Rosette Samaniego and designer Cezar Salaveria from opening a café–art gallery–lifestyle store along Port Moody’s historic Clarke Street.

and just being in the moment at Grit.

“People are actually having real conversations and connections,” he said.

The experience also validates Grit’s mission of making art more accessible. “It resonates with more people from the community to be actually seeing art in a more casual setting,” Salaveria said.

Salaveria and Samaniego want to meet more artists, makers, artisans, and craftspeople so Grit can showcase their work.

Grit opened its doors last August, a move that may have seemed counterintuitive, as many establishments were struggling in the face of the pandemic.

But as Salaveria related, he and Samaniego couldn’t think of a better time. “People need a place to feel good,” he said. “It might sound really strange, but, yeah, I guess call it a mission, a commitment.”

Grit is located at 2419 Clarke Street in the original commercial centre of Port Moody. It occupies the space of the former Silk Gallery. It’s a heritage property, one

described by the Canadian Register of Historic Places as a rare surviving example of a “boomtown” commercial building.

The two-storey wood-frame building was originally built for the P. Burns and Co. Butcher Shop circa 1908 to 1909.

Salaveria recalled that he and Samaniego had always wanted the place. When it became available in 2020, the business partners made a go for it.

“We thought if there would be any good time to open, it would be now,” he said.

Salaveria added that he and Samaniego couldn’t imagine bringing to life their concept of a café, art gallery, and lifestyle shop in a brand-new building.

Grit is also a testament to the courage and determination of immigrants. Before moving to Canada with his family, Salaveria directed short films and music videos in the Philippines. He also worked in commercial advertising.

“What if you have one lifetime and the question to myself was, would I prefer to

live that one lifetime in one place or is it possible to also live other lifetimes in a different place?” Salaveria asked.

In 2009, he and his wife and their two children made Canada their new home. “It worked really good for the kids. I see them thriving,” Salaveria said.

Salaveria pursued his passion for creative work in his adopted country. For his first job, he landed a position as artisan and finisher with 3DS (Three Dimensional Services), a design and fabrication company where he continues to work today.

As a 3DS craftsman, he worked with the installations of giant bear, wolf, and heron sculptures at the Tsawwassen Mills shopping centre in Delta.

Samaniego, for her part, opened Kulinarya in Coquitlam in 2009. She and her family are originally from Manila. She followed up with a Commercial Drive location in Vancouver in 2017.

Salaveria met Samaniego while he was at Kulinarya in Coquitlam about five years ago.

“We instantly became friends,” Salaveria said, “and talked of collaborating on a project: a gallery and lifestyle store where I and other artists and artisans can showcase their works, [and] a café where Rosette can expand her talent and skills with food—basically a creative hub where art can be more accessible to the community and a catalyst for creative minds and pursuits.”

Salaveria noted that Grit was not originally conceived as a business plan. He said that it was more of imagining the kind of place into which he and Samaniego would want to walk.

“It was initiated by a personal need: a yearning for something more than just a café or an art gallery or a lifestyle store,” Salaveria said.

For more details: www.Gritstudio.ca. g

Beefless Korean bulgogi reduces carbon footprint

I

by Rachel Moore

f you’ve been on a downward spiral since reading the article on Straight.com suggesting that it may be time to give up beef with broccoli, we have a solution.

Beef production has some serious detrimental impacts on our environment, but many foodies can’t fathom giving it up for good. According to the World Resources Institute, beef requires 20 times more land and emits 20 times more greenhouse-gas emissions during production compared to plant proteins.

As an on-and-off-again vegan but a dedicated vegetarian for more than five years, I’ve become very comfortable cooking with meat alternatives. Last night, as I panicked to find something to make for dinner, I stumbled upon a vegetarian beef bulgogi recipe.

I deeply enjoy cramming every dish I make with a concerning amount of vegetables, even if the recipe doesn’t 4

THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT

JANUARY 21 – 28 / 2021

Hail the power of veggie meat substitutes—this Korean bulgogi was created with soy proteins, not beef. Photo by Rachel Moore.

call for it. So I figured that I would lean into the concept of classic beef with broccoli. I finely chopped up a head of the green stuff and mixed it in.

This recipe is a great start for meat lovers hoping to reduce their carbon footprint. The garlic and ginger sauce amply coats the morsels of soy proteins (I used Yves Original Ground Round), making them a dead ringer for real beef.

After two helpings, I posted the recipe on my Instagram, where I received heaps of messages from others also proclaiming their love for this dish. I felt disappointed that I wasn’t the first person to discover this recipe gem. But I’ll rest easy knowing that others are being proactive in saving intelligent cows and our vulnerable environment.

My creation—slightly less photogenic but still tasty as hell. g

FOOD

West Van dining beats weekend bridge gridlock

E

by Charlie Smith

very weekend this winter, the live cameras on the Cypress Mountain website seem to be showing a large number of people on the West Vancouver ski hill.

This means that immediately after darkness descends, outdoor adventurers inevitably find themselves caught in long lineups to cross the Lions Gate and Ironworkers bridges. In fact, winter North Shore traffic tie-ups in the late afternoon and early evening have been among the worst in the region since the pandemic began.

Who knew that it could be bumper to bumper going down sleepy 11th Street in West Van? That’s become the reality as après-ski motorists try to stay off the even more crowded Taylor Way. But there’s a way to ease the pain of gridlock, and that’s by avoiding the bridges during rush hours and going out for a bite in West Van. Here are four recommendations.

SWAD INDIAN KITCHEN

1734 Marine Drive If you like your Indian cuisine on the spicy side, it’s offered here in an elegant darkened room. Owner Kamal Mroke has been in the business for decades and

HEIRLOOM AMBLESIDE

1390 Marine Drive Across the street from Chez Michel is an ideal casual eatery for vegetarians and vegans. Just belly up to the counter and place your order.

Recommended dish: The meatless cheeseburger may be a little messy to eat but it’s delicious.

BEACH HOUSE RESTAURANT

Steak Frites at the Beach House Restaurant in West Vancouver comes with a piece of sirloin resting on top of tasty garlic bread. It’s one of several spots that cater to the après-ski crowd.

he always greets customers with a smile.

Recommended dish: You can’t go wrong with the Lamb Korma, which is cooked in a cashew-nut gravy.

CHEZ MICHEL

1373 Marine Drive Those who prefer French food and white tablecloths can drop by Chez Michel. Here,

LET THE

too, the owner, Michel Segur, is a veteran restaurateur with a proper French pedigree, hailing from a village near Toulouse.

Recommended dish: Why not try the Roast Duck Breast in Orange Sauce? Duck may be high in fat and it’s been known to increase cholesterol levels, but hey, it’s also a great source of protein and iron, making it ideal for some after a day at Cypress.

150 25th Street If you’re in a carnivorous mood after a day on the mountain, there’s always the Beach House Restaurant. It’s not cheap, and there’s not much of a view at night, but the portions will kill any snowboardinginduced hunger pangs.

Recommended dish: It’s pretty basic, but the Steak Frites is as good as it gets, with a juicy piece of sirloin served on top of garlic bread, accompanied by a heaping plate of fries.

By the time you finish dining at any of these establishments, the traffic will have melted like the snow in spring, making for a much more pleasant drive home over the bridges. g

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5

REAL ESTATE

Taxing foreign buyers hasn’t boosted affordability

T

by Carlito Pablo

he chief economist of the B.C. Real Estate Association (BCREA) says that homes did not become more affordable after the province started taxing foreign buyers.

Brendon Ogmundson noted that although prices saw some oscillations since the levy was introduced in 2016, and later increased and expanded in coverage in 2018, little changed.

“In terms of overall affordability, we’re clearly not in any better place now than where we were in 2016,” Ogmundson told the Straight in a phone interview.

In July 2016, amid strong anti-Chinese sentiment, the B.C. Liberal government of then-premier Christy Clark announced a tax on home purchases by foreigners.

It was a 15 percent levy on residential properties in Metro Vancouver. The tax was intended to make homes more affordable for local buyers.

In that same month, the typical prices of homes in the region were as follows: condo, $533,000; townhouse, $676,100; and single-family detached home, $1,574,100.

Meanwhile, the average price of all homes in the province at the time was $662,667.

Obviously, there’s a lot more driving the market than external factors.

– BCREA economist Brendon Ogmundson

A national foreign-buyers’ tax could be coming in the spring. Photo by Mallorca/Unsplash.

The 2017 provincial election came, and Clark’s B.C. Liberals were banished from power. John Horgan and his New Democrats took over.

The B.C. NDP government unveiled its first budget in February 2018 and announced that it was increasing the foreignbuyer tax to 20 percent.

In addition, the tax was expanded outside Metro Vancouver to cover the Fraser Valley, the Capital Regional District, the Nanaimo Regional District, and the Cen-

tral Okanagan. Again, the purpose was to make homes affordable to locals.

In that same month of February 2018, the benchmark prices of homes in Metro Vancouver had increased since the first tax was announced in 2016.

Specifically, a typical condo at the time was $700,300; townhouse, $807,700; and single detached, $1,588,200. As for the average price of all B.C. homes, the amount had increased to $747,315.

Later, in the fall of 2018, the B.C. NDP also introduced a speculation and vacancy tax, which was again directed at

foreign homeowners.

Meanwhile, in the previous year of 2017, the City of Vancouver implemented an empty-home tax, a levy that took aim at supposedly unoccupied homes owned by foreigners.

Look ahead to December 2020, though, and the numbers are slightly different.

As of last month, a typical condo in Metro Vancouver had a benchmark price of $676,500; townhouse, $813,900; and detached home, $1,554,600.

Meanwhile, the average price of all B.C. homes in December 2020 was $847,600.

“Obviously, there’s a lot more driving the market than just external factors,” BCREA’s Ogmundson said.

On November 30, 2020, the federal Liberal government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau indicated that it will introduce a tax on “Canadian housing by foreign nonresident owners”.

Again, the declared intent is to achieve affordability for local buyers.

“Too often,” the federal government stated in a budget document that talked about the tax, “the price of homes is out of reach for Canadians, in particular for those looking to buy their first home.” see next page

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LIQUOR

Winter is for cocktails that are simple and warming

W

by Mike Usinger

hen it comes to winters on the West Coast, one might legitimately ask whether those of us living in Lotusland deserve to be envied or pitied.

As of this writing, it’s a sun-drenched January day in Vancouver. Should you be out of organic kale chips, sodium-free granola, or beet-infused soy milk, you’ll see purple crocuses, snow drops, and grape hyacinths poking their little flowered heads out of the ground on the walk to the East End Food Co-Op. Try to not to hate us, Calgary, Winnipeg, Saskatoon, Waterloo, Quebec, and—let’s face it—every city east of Hope. And take some solace in the fact that, as much as the sun might be beaming and the birds singing today, we’re not strangers to endless days of unrelenting West Coast winter grimness. Think black sheets of rain, tombstonegrey skies, leaf-clogged storm drains, and endless mud.

But back to the question of whether we deserve to be envied or pitied.

As the more ignorant among us—i.e. Americans—on the planet are well aware, Canada is often perceived by others as an endless winter wonderland. A country where every snowmobile has a block heater, folks either crosscountry ski or skate to work, and nine out of 10 people live in igloos.

That’s true for rest of the country, but it’s not the case on the West Coast, where it snows about as often as the Vancouver Canucks make the NHL playoffs. And for that, we deserve to be pitied, at least when it comes to the classic cocktails of winter.

From afar, endless days of snow and ice seem like a pain in the ass, even if you’ve got a snowblower or a teenager willing to put down the goddamn Oculus Quest 2 for 10 minutes to shovel the walkway.

But there’s also something wonderful about looking out the window and see everything covered in a pristine white blanket. The city somehow seems more peaceful. And changing out of your COVID-19 pyjamas and getting outside is something you want to do rather than something you should do but couldn’t be bothered.

When it snows, that’s a green light to go tobogganing down Oak Street into False Creek. To build snowmen and snow forts on the roof of your 360-square-foot condo’s building in Yaletown. And, in an East Van tradition that dates back to the days of the Clark Park gang, throwing

Moreover, “Speculative demand from foreign, non-resident investors contributes to unaffordable housing prices for many Canadians.”

In order to “make the housing market more secure and affordable for Canadians”, the government will ensure that “foreign, non-resident owners, who simply use Canada as a place to passively store their wealth in housing, pay their fair share”.

Hence, “The government will take steps over the coming year to implement a national, tax-based measure targeting the unproductive use of domestic housing that is owned by non-resident non-Canadians, which removes these assets from the domestic housing supply.”

The national foreign-buyer tax is expected to be introduced in the federal

West Coast winters are for basking in the sun and using rum, maple syrup, and fresh lemon to make a quick and easy toddy.

hard-pack snowballs at the folks in the peasant wagons and proletariat chariots that roll along Broadway.

The great thing about this physical exercise? When you get back home and strip off the Burton Gore‑Tex Duffey pants, Burberry monogram-print cashmere scarf, and Hunter Balmoral side-adjustable rain boots, you’ve earned a cocktail. And because you’re colder than Melania Trump at Christmas time, nothing less than a warming winter cocktail will do.

Think Hot Toddy, Irish Coffee, or Clarence Odbody–

budget this spring. If the budget fails in the House of Commons, Canadians will head to an election.

BCREA’s Ogmundson noted that hardly anything is known yet about what a foreign–home buyer tax means to British Columbia.

What Ogmundson knows is that demand-side taxes like this prospective national levy can only “buy some time”.

“We keep enacting these policies that buy us time, and then we don’t do anything with that time,” he said.

According to the economist, there is a “lot of demographic demand” in B.C. because of its young and growing population.

“The problem is that every time demand is on an upswing, it’s hitting a very undersupplied market,” Ogmundson said.

approved Flaming Rum Punch. And here’s the great thing about warm cocktails for cold nights—they are almost always idiotically easy to execute.

Generally, we’re talking nothing but liquor, a sweetener (maple syrup, cinnamon- or clove-infused simple syrup), and a hot liquid (coffee, hot chocolate, apple cider, or tea).

Hot drinks tend to be less nuanced than their shaken and stirred counterparts. Why? An obvious reason is—being frozen to the bone—you want something el pronto.

Forget shaving seahorse scales into a rum muddled with sliced ginger and bruised pine needles, it’s all about executing things quickly.

Another reason is that the most classic of hot drinks have been around forever, which is to say pre-dating the first golden age of cocktails in the 1920s.

As stated on the excellent and informative European website Mixology: “These drinks don’t require special ingredients, tools, or skills to make. In that sense, they’re pre-bartender. Anyone can make them at home. In fact, it’s telling that the most popular hot drink invented in Jerry Thomas’s time was the Blue Blazer—pouring burning alcohol between two cups is something people would much rather pay someone to do for them. In comparison, traditional hot drinks aren’t so impressive. They’re not difficult to get right and they’re so ordinary, they don’t seem exotic. They’re just part of the cultural furniture. They get taken for granted, and when people think about them at all, these drinks tend to be considered boring.”

But sometimes boring is just another word for comforting. And speaking of comforting, a toddy is just that, a great thing being that it doesn’t have to be boring. Here’s a recipe you can make. And as much as the sun is shining on the West Coast as this is written, next week we’re supposed to get snow. Just like true Canadians. Envious as you might be, get ready to pity us.

SAGE, THYME, AND MAPLE HOT TODDY

1.5 oz Gentleman Jack bourbon 1/2 oz fresh lemon juice 1/2 oz maple syrup 4 oz sage-thyme tea (boil three fresh sage leaves and three fresh thyme sprigs in a cup of water). Let steep for 10 minutes then strain.

Combine everything in a glass or clear mug and garnish wit a cinnamon stick. Serve hot. g

Ogmundson also had something to say about the persistent antiforeign sentiment in B.C. that led to the housing taxes.

“We have a thriving pan-Asian population for a long time, but even people who have been of second-, third-generation are still sort of seen as foreign because of their names or something silly like that,” Ogmundson said.

Ogmundson didn’t mention any such “silly” example, but one may come to mind.

That was in 2015, and it’s recalled in an online post by former Canadian MP Garth Turner, now an economic commentator.

On his blog The Greater Fool, Turner recounted that David Eby, B.C. NDP MLA for Vancouver–Point Grey, “pulled land records for 172 sales in one small area of Vancouver (on the ultra-expensive Westside) and handed them over to a researcher for analysis”.

Turner noted that the 172 sales represented 0.52 percent of the 33,116 residential properties that changed hands in the province in 2014. These are also about 0.4 percent of the number that were expected to trade in 2015.

“In other words, it’s statistically meaningless,” Turner wrote in a piece titled “Yellow Peril”.

Turner went on: “Eby’s guy then looked at the names of the 172 buyers, screening them for ‘non-anglicized’ Chinese names, which is a racist little thing some people do in Vancouver to try and ferret out Asians who might be more Asian than the vast number of locals of Asian heritage.”

After the 2020 election, B.C. premier Horgan named Eby minister responsible for housing. g

JANUARY 21 – 28 / 2021

THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT

7

ARTS

Winter Jazz gets ready to roll out free livestreams

T

by Steve Newton

he Coastal Jazz and Blues Society will present three days of free livestreamed performances next month as part of its annual Winter Jazz event.

Kicking things off on February 19 are DJ Kookum and Sierra Baker. Kookum is an open-format Indigenous DJ from the Cold Lake First Nations who grew up listening to EDM and hip-hop music. She’ll be accompanied by movement artist Baker, who combines circus arts and contemporary dance with First Nations values and protocols.

DJ Kookum’s set will be followed by a performance by Missy D, an emcee who fuses hip-hop, rap, and R & B styles. This is be-

DJ Kookum and Sierra Baker will mix EDM and hip-hop as part of the Winter Jazz series.

ing presented in association with the PuSh International Performing Arts Festival.

The afternoon of February 20 will see two performances by the Jamie Lee Trio, led

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ON LI N E LIVE FROM TORONTO

by drummer and composer Jamie Lee, and also featuring pianist James Dekker and bassist Marcus Abramzik. Also performing two shows on the afternoon of the 20th will be the Bruno Hubert Trio with Brad Turner.

Pianist Hubert pilots medley-style journeys through jazz standards, soul, rock, and popinfluenced pieces, while Turner’s talents as a trumpeter have made him one of Canada’s most in-demand horn players.

The evening of the 20th will feature a concert by the Gordon Grdina Trio, which will have Juno-winning guitarist and oud player Grdina in the company of bassist Tommy Babin and drummer Kenton Loewen.

The final day of Winter Jazz (February 21)

SANCTUARY: THE DAKOTA BEAR ANCIENT FOREST EXPERIENCE FEB 3–7, 2021

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JANUARY 21 – 28 / 2021

will include two afternoon performances by Alvaro Rojas’s Gran Kasa. Rojas is a Vancouver guitarist-composer whose latest project, Gran Kasa, features an all-star lineup of Canadian musicians from the jazz, improv, and world-music scenes.

Following Gran Kasa will be two afternoon performances by Dalannah Gail Bowen, a singer of African-Canadian and Cherokee heritage who has been a fixture on the Vancouver music scene—making blues, rock, and soul music—for more than 40 years.

As mentioned, all Winter Jazz performances are free, and you can find more details at www.coastaljazz.ca. g

ARTS

Graveyards melds movement with music and tech

by Charlie Smith

forms in a really balanced way. And I hope we still achieve that, even though Caroline won’t be with us live, performing.”

While the show is inspired by greenery and the cycle of life, the actual presentation will incorporate a whole lot of technology.

Shaw said that people who watch the show will hear pieces of a song and observe how it’s developed over time.

She also revealed that the show includes a mix of old sounds, including from the archives of Thomas A. Edison, who invented the phonograph in 1877.

“You hear an old piano through a wax cylinder,” Shaw says. “It almost sounds like static. That’s blended with the sound

Dancer Vanessa Goodman navigates around 120 metres of cables and lots of musical gear in Graveyards and Gardens, which she created with musician Caroline Shaw. Photo by David Cooper.

G

raveyards and gardens. They each connote radically different sentiments to many people. A graveyard is a home for the dead, a barren landscape full of tombstones and crosses. A garden signifies life, providing sustenance for living, breathing human beings.

But to Pulitzer Prize–winning musician and previous Kanye West collaborator Caroline Shaw, graveyards and gardens have been nourishing her soul for many years.

“When I was a little bit younger, I would seek out places to walk that are quiet,” Shaw tells the Straight by phone from her home in Connecticut. “Cemeteries are actually some of the most beautiful parks, beautiful gardens.”

She cites one that she loves in New Haven, Connecticut, and another in her home state of North Carolina. Then there’s the Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn.

“They’re just really beautiful spaces that I think are underappreciated and underloved.”

Graveyards and Gardens is also the name of a new show created by Shaw and Vancouver dancer Vanessa Goodman.

Melding Shaw’s original music with Goodman’s choreography and dance, it’s being presented as four separate livestreamed events by Music on Main and the PuSh International Performing Arts Festival.

“We’ve always been talking about the idea of soil as a receiver of things that decay and a giver of things that can grow out of it,” Shaw says. “That’s also a kind of a metaphor for the music… The idea of things decomposing and becoming part of a fabric that ultimately yields something new—and sort of seeing the beauty of a graveyard as a kind of garden, and thinking about that musically.”

Goodman has also spent a fair amount of time in graveyards, often riding her bike through the Mount Pleasant Cemetery in Toronto, where she grew up. Nowadays, she periodically walks through Vancouver’s Mountain View Cemetery, which isn’t far from where she lives.

According to Goodman, the choreography and sound in Graveyards and Gardens are intended to do the same things, in parallel, as a plant might do, producing leaves or flowering as seasons change and then returning to the earth and decomposing. “So a lot of the movement is generated from that idea,” she explains over the phone.

AS WITH MANY other artistic endeavours, the pandemic introduced challenges for the project. Foremost among them were the travel restrictions. Prior to the outbreak of COVID-19, Shaw worked with Goodman at SFU Woodward’s, then at the Banff Centre for the Arts, and later in artists’ residence on Galiano Island, adding up to about five weeks. But they were unable to spend several weeks together in Troy, New York, at the Curtis R. Priem Experimental Media and Performing Arts Centre, which is a commissioning partner.

The pair also missed out on a planned residency in Montreal.

“We’ve been working through the summer and fall remotely on this project,” Goodman says. “We had, I think, four or five weeks in total, prior to that, in person together.”

Shaw was planning to dance in the show, but this won’t occur because the pandemic has kept her from coming to Vancouver for the PuSh festival. But Goodman still plans to sing in Graveyards and Gardens.

“It was meant to be that we were blurring the lines between forms,” Goodman explains. “And the work lived between both

of the ocean. As it kind of goes on, there are lots of layers: my own voice singing, sometimes solo and sometimes harmonized with an electronic device called a helicon.”

Bits of music on a vinyl record from her string quartet also pop up, as well as house beats, deep synth bass lines, and the sound of a cassette player.

“That kind of forms a real bed of rhythm underneath a lot of the piece,” she adds.

Then there are the orange sound cables—120 metres of them—that form their own sort of garden perimeter for Goodman’s choreography. Goodman see next page

Explore genre-bending d i g i ta l a n d i n - p e r s o n P u S h Pa r t n e r P r e s e n tat i o n s this winter.

Find out more at

JANUARY 21 – 28 / 2021

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ARTS

Kaija Pepper’s memoir doesn’t hold anything back BOOKS

FALLING INTO FLIGHT: A MEMOIR OF LIFE AND DANCE

By Kaija Pepper. Signature Editions, 168 pp, softcover

d OFTEN, MEMOIRS skip along the surface of the author’s life even when they provide juicy insights into past events. This is especially so with books written by retired politicians, business leaders, or film stars.

It’s far rarer to come across a memoir that delves deeply into the author’s feelings, both in the past and in the present, while maintaining compassionate insights about others who may have caused them pain. And that, along with terrific storytelling, is what makes Dance International editor Kaija Pepper’s new book, Falling Into Flight: A Memoir of Life and Dance, so utterly compelling.

The Vancouver writer bares all about her five years in therapy. Pepper reveals her bumpy relationships with men. She shares how she felt, as a Concordia University student, when noted film professor and Jesuit priest Marc Gervais kissed her unexpectedly after a day of cross-country skiing. There are tales of hitchhiking and nearly being raped. And her vivid descriptions of her parents, including their deaths, will make any reader revisit their own upbringing.

There’s something eerily voyeuristic about reading this book. It’s so damn intimate. from previous page

says that all of it was custom-made locally, delineating the space. That’s in addition to other musical contraptions of the modern era, including looping devices, as well as plants.

“People can expect to see, maybe, references to mechanical gestures and growth and development, but also something organic emerging from the body

Vancouver dance writer Kaija Pepper’s Falling Into Flight is full of deeply personal reflections on her life. Photo by Steven Lemay.

There’s similar candour about why Pepper was so attracted to writing about dance. She bluntly states that dance doesn’t receive nearly as much respect from other artists as other areas of creative endeavour. Again, more honesty.

Then there are stark revelations from her family history, which are at the core of the memoir. Her father immigrated from Finland as a child; her mother immigrated from Siberia via China.

into the space,” Goodman says.

She first collaborated with Shaw on a short improvised piece in 2016 when Shaw was the composer in residence at Music on Main.

“I actually found new ways to access my body through what she was doing with her voice,” Goodman recalls. “And it became a whole new kind of compositional tool and inspiration for me.” This

PuSh Fest TIP SHEET

on addressing governance issues facing nonprofit groups.

LIKE MANY CULTURAL organizations, the PuSh International Performing Arts Festival has been forced to innovate because provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry has banned social gatherings until February 5. Here are four ways this is being done.

c BOARD TABLE DISRUPTION (February 3, online) Marcus Youssef, Martha Rans, Yvette Nolan, and Mark Friesen will hold a roundtable discussion online

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c SOLIDARITY FOREVER (February 4 to 6, online) Music Picnic artistic producer Njo Kong Kie (photographed) created I Swallowed a Moon Made of Iron, which brings together voice, piano, and video in a multimedia cry of protest for workers, set to the poetry of Xu Lizhi. c PUSH WALKS (online at all times) Artists have recorded audio for one- to twokilometre journeys around areas of the city that have inspired them. c SANCTUARY (February 3 to 7 at Performance Works) Environmentalist Damien Gillis, Indigenous storyteller Cease Wyss, and 360-degree video pioneer Olivier Leroux join forces to enable visitors to experience an ancient forest inside a geodesic dome. g

JANUARY 21 – 28 / 2021

This isn’t Mommie Dearest—Pepper has too much empathy for others to simply trash her mother. But there are moments in Falling Into Flight when her mom’s lack of consideration helps explain how Pepper’s life unfolded.

Through therapy, she learns that family dynamics of a mother and daughter competing for a father’s attention contributed to her lifelong eagerness to seek approval.

“I would never be free of my parents’ influence,” she writes. “Our relationship remained a source of psychic energy I couldn’t seem to mature beyond, the need to please was too deeply embedded: not just in my interactions with other people, but also in the creative drive I began for the first time to question. My work as a writer was apparently no more than a way to gain approval, a stupidly onerous way.”

In the acknowledgements, Pepper praises Vancouver writer Evelyn Lau for providing a second professional edit, noting that “her poet’s expertise in looking deeply into language, structure and the human spirit were humbling”.

For readers who relish Lau’s courage in dissecting her life in books, magazine pieces, and poems, they’ll find a fellow traveller in Pepper.

Falling Into Flight certainly enhances one’s literacy about dance. But even more importantly, it opens one’s mind to the freedom that comes from true self-awareness.

Pepper demonstrates how this can be achieved through deep introspection while maintaining a tremendous capacity to identify with others. Bravo!

experience inspired her to buy a microphone and a loop pedal, and she started singing for the first time. She described Shaw as an “incredible teacher”.

“Throughout this creative process, she’s really been fostering my vocals and helping me find ways to interact with the sound score on a deeper level by contributing with my voice.”

That, in turn, has opened up Goodman’s body to moving in different ways. “It’s just expanded my practice in such a huge way,” she says. “I’m so grateful for her.”

Goodman emphasizes that Graveyards and Gardens has always been intended to be an iterative show—and audiences can expect to see Shaw dancing in future performances after the pandemic is over.

In fact, Goodman says it could live on as an album, an artistic installation, or a performance.

“We were always thinking of this work shifting in terms of its needs and our needs as artists,” she notes.

Shaw says that a longer-term goal is, indeed, to release it as an album. But she also likes how the set for the show ref lects the feeling of living in the midst of so much technology.

“All of these materials that are part of our world—the cables, the casings from things, and the plastic—all of this is ultimately left behind,” she points out.

She prefers highlighting, rather than hiding, all this technology, includ-

by Charlie Smith

Musician Caroline Shaw has often found solace in graveyards. Photo by Dayna Szyndrowski.

ing record players, amps, speakers, and cassette players. It’s a way of showing how people can metaphorically become wrapped in a coil of cabling.

“It also looks really cool,” Shaw adds with laugh. g Music on Main and the PuSh International Performing Arts Festival will livestream Graveyards and Gardens four times online next Thursday and Friday (January 28 and 29).

ARTS

Gallery Crawl: What’s on around town this winter

by Carlito Pablo

“Indigenous community members are now reconnecting with these objects and rebuilding their past,” the museum notes about the exhibit.

Artists interpret life and the world they live in. This exhibition provides their view of their times.

OBLIQUE TRAJECTORIES

Burnaby Art Gallery until April 18 As an artist, Gary Lee-Nova produced a substantial body of work, showcasing his versatility in various mediums. He is a painter, sculptor, printmaker, and filmmaker.

Lee-Nova rose to prominence during the 1960s and 1970s. He is often referred

to as an important figure in the so-called West Coast Scene during that time.

He also guided numerous aspiring artists, having taught for 25 years at the Emily Carr University of Art + Design, where he is currently a professor emeritus. It’s worth noting that as a young person, he got his education at the university’s forerunner, the Vancouver School of Art. The exhibit Oblique Trajectories presents almost a half-century of Lee-Nova’s works. These include large-scale paintings, sculpture, lithographic prints based on paper collages, silkscreen prints, and digital collage. The show is by appointment only. Call 604-297-4422 to book a visit. g

Marisa Kriangwiwat Holmes created the chromogenic print Car Sports, 2020, which is part of the Everything Leaks exhibition talking place at the Polygon Gallery in the Lower Lonsdale area.

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ue to provincial health regulations, a ban on live performances will continue until at least February 5. But it’s still possible to visit local art galleries and museums. Here are a few exhibitions taking place in Metro Vancouver.

SELECTED STORIES: 1980–2020

Richmond Art Gallery until January 30 To celebrate its 40th year, the RAG has mounted an exhibit from its permanent collection, reflecting, in part, its journey.

The show features early works by established B.C. artists like Wayne Ngan, Susan Point, and Gu Xiong. Also on display are prints by Anna Wong from her series Great Wall, which pays homage to the landscapes of China, where the parents of the Canadian printmaker were born.

The gallery has included two abstract works from Toni Onley. Painted in the 1960s, they helped to establish Onley as an important B.C. artist, and this is the first time that they have been shown in public.

EVERYTHING LEAKS

Polygon Gallery until February 7 Vancouver artists Marisa Kriangwiwat Holmes and Maya Beaudry took separate paths as students at the Emily Carr University of Art + Design. The Hong Kong–born Holmes majored in photography, with a minor in curatorial studies; Beaudry went into sculpture.

The two artists collaborate in Everything Leaks, an exhibit described as a response to the current “era of visual information overload”.

“Produced in response to an increasingly digital and dematerialised culture, the artist’s works are demonstrably tactile, incorporating fabrics, sculpture, and printed photographs,” reads a media release from Polygon Gallery.

Together, according to the exhibit’s blurb, Holmes and Beaudry “construct an imagined architecture of the mind, speculating on the ways in which photographic images entrench themselves and live within our psyche”.

Put on your headphones and take a walk with artists.

VICTOR VASARELY

Vancouver Art Gallery until April 5 When David Bowie released Space Oddity in 1969, the album’s cover featured his portrait on top of an art work with blue and violet spots on a green background. That work was the creation of Victor Vasarely, celebrated as the father of Op Art (or optical art).

BBC recalled the legacy of the Hungarian-French abstract artist when Vasarely’s works were exhibited at the Pompidou Centre in Paris in March 2019.

According to the British broadcaster, Vasarely “watched his pioneering geometric designs and hypnotising optical illusions come to represent his generation” by the early 1970s.

“Vasarely’s carefully calibrated patterns of bright squares and luminous circles, which make his paintings’ surfaces appear like warping space-time webs—now rippling and concave, now spinning and convex—was the hottest of hot demands,” the BBC reported.

IN A DIFFERENT LIGHT

Museum of Anthropology at UBC until spring 2021 This inaugural exhibit by the museum’s Elspeth McConnell Gallery of Northwest Coast Masterworks presents a meaningful archive for reconciliation. This is because it is much more than simply mounting historical works by Indigenous artists for display as creative objects.

More importantly, the 110 pieces of work serve as a nexus to stories in the past that were lost through time or, worse, obliterated by colonization.

This special series features

guided audio journeys through the urban spaces that have inspired the featured artists.

More info at

JANUARY 21 – 28 / 2021

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TELEVISION

Star Wars and Marvel discover Kim’s Convenience

Simu Liu and Paul Sun-Hyung Lee scored choice outside roles while pandemic delayed the new season

O

by Norman Wilner

n Tuesday (January 19), the award-winning CBC television series Kim’s Convenience returned for its fifth season—and its first since 2020 turned everyone’s lives upside-down. It’s not just that COVID-19 was a thing, delaying the start of production by several months: Simu Liu also went to Australia to star in Marvel’s Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, and Paul Sun-Hyung Lee appeared in the second season of The Mandalorian, fulfilling his lifelong dream of being part of the Star

Wars universe. (Full disclosure: Paul and I are friends, and I could not be happier for him.)

In advance of the show’s return, I had a virtual sit-down with Lee, Liu, and costars Jean Yoon and Andrew Phung to discuss what has changed this year, starting with how the pandemic affected everyone.

“Our producers—especially Sandra Cunningham—really thought thoroughly through the way we work and every single possible way of mitigating COVID,” Yoon says. “Everything from

LISTENING. TOGETHER.

GRAVEYARDS AND GARDENS VANESSA GOODMAN & CAROLINE SHAW WORLD PREMIERE LIVESTREAM $15 TICKETS AT MUSICONMAIN.CA

JANUARY 28 & 29, 2021

LIVESTREAM 4:30PM & 7:30PM

Music on Main is supported by:

...and donors like you!

This co-presentation has been generously supported by Jim & Lisa Peers, and an anonymous sponsor.

This co-presentation has received generous support from the Downtown Vancouver Business Improvement Association (DVBIA).

musiconmain.ca | @musiconmain | 604.879.9888

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JANUARY 21 – 28 / 2021

CBC sitcom Kim’s Convenience had its Season 5 return delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic while stars Paul Sun-Hyung Lee (third from left) and Simu Liu (left) pursued prime outside gigs.

strategic testing, policy, masking, [and] obviously PPE, but also in terms of the traffic in the studio so that different departments didn’t comingle.”

The cast wore masks right up until the cameras were rolling—at one point, Liu had to call “cut” on himself because he’d walked into a scene still wearing his.

“There was a high level of off-set COVID protocols and on-set trust,” Yoon continues, “and because everybody was so diligent and so prepared and so committed… we didn’t have any COVID on-set at all.”

Lee picks up the thread. “We also had a fantastic COVID protocol officer, Cher Merlo,” he says. “She did a fantastic job.

And it was tough for her because she often had to be the bad guy, enforcing all these rules, making sure people were wearing the proper PPE, following the protocols and stuff. She was the beat cop, making sure we were following the rules.”

Lee allows that he wasn’t always the best team player.

“At the beginning, specifically, I was kind of pissed off that I had to wear a mask.

‘We’re being tested; we’re only being exposed to each other; why do I have to wear a mask?’ And it came to that point where I thought, ‘I can either fight it and make life really hard for her and for everybody else or I can lean into it and make it easy. Just sort of put up with it because I’m doing it for everybody else.’ And everybody adopted that attitude, which was fantastic to see.

And it really did make things easier if you lean into the protocols instead of fighting

them all the time.”

However conscious the production might have been about COVID-19, the world of the show is untouched by the virus.

For the...public to know our names and our faces is incredible.

– Andrew Phung

“People have had enough COVID in their lives; they worry about it when they turn on the news, when they walk on the street,” Liu says. “I don’t think it was something our producers thought we needed to specifically address on the show… However, like Paul and Jean said, that doesn’t mean that the protocols weren’t observed and that the six of us did not collectively become really, really good at powdering ourselves. The male cast members, especially,” he says with a laugh.

“I wore makeup for this interview!”

Phung adds. “Like, I’m used to it now! It’s a new skill I’ve learned.”

The spread of COVID across the globe impacted the show’s production schedule see next page

MUSIC

Local guitar ace slides into new musical territory

Former Wide Mouth Mason singer-slinger Shaun Verreault devised “tri-slide” method seven years ago

O

by Steve Newton

ver the last few months the Straight has been checking in with Vancouver’s top guitar players to find out how, as professional musicians, they’ve been coping with the COVID-19 pandemic. Back in October, Scott Smith of Terminal Station explained how he was recording artists at his home studio and doing more teaching via Facebook; in November, we learned how shredder par excellence Dave Martone has managed to help pay the bills through his role as a music-technology and guitar instructor at Douglas College.

The latest local six-string ace under inspection is Shaun Verreault, whose name you may recognize for his many years as singer-guitarist with Canadian bluesrockers Wide Mouth Mason (which has released eight albums, two of which went gold, and toured with the likes of AC/DC and ZZ Top). As Verreault explains on the line from his Yaletown home, he was mostly immune to pandemic-induced financial fallout because of his full-time day job.

“I’m counting myself extremely fortunate that, alongside my career as a writing and recording and touring musician, for the past five years I’ve also worked at an amazing local guitar-based business called Graph Tech Guitar Labs. We design and manufacture and provide pretty much every guitar brand you can think of with the nut and saddles that they use and machine heads and bridges and piezo pickups and stuff.

“So I’ve been very grateful that—after releasing a record and then having all of the gigs go away for what’s looking now like two festival seasons, not just one—I haven’t had to worry about where my mortgage payments were gonna come from. It’s interesting that along with bread makers and Zoom, the guitar business has actually had a thriving last year. I think people—as they were at home wondering what they’re gonna do after they’ve watched everything on Netflix—have really found themselves

It made me feel stupid and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to keep doing it.

– Shaun Verreault

After many years as singer-guitarist with Canadian blues-rock band Wide Mouth Mason, Shaun Verreault went “down a wormhole of experimentation”. Photo by Christopher Edmonstone.

picking up their instruments again. People have rediscovered the joy, even if it’s just in their bedrooms by themselves, of playing their guitars.”

While the global pandemic may have resulted in increased sales of Strats and Les Pauls, it has basically obliterated anyone’s ability to use those instruments in a concert setting. Verreault has used much of the time he would have spent on-stage developing his “tri-slide” technique, which involves using three slides on his fretting hand while playing lap-steel guitar and dobro. He first tried the triple-slide approach about seven years ago.

“A friend of mine had given me a lap steel,” he recalls, “but playing standard style with one bar in my hand, everything I did sounded like an out-of-tune version of something that somebody else could do better. It just was really befuddling, because it’s a totally different set of muscles and a totally different way of moving than playing bottleneck slide, which I had been doing for maybe 15 years at that point. It

in a number of ways. Liu, who went to Australia to shoot Marvel’s Shang-Chi after Season 4, found himself stuck there when Season 5 started up.

“In an ideal world, things in Australia would have wrapped up super nicely and I would have come back in time for the start of Season 5,” he says. “But, obviously, the universe had other plans for all of us.”

Liu flew back to Toronto as soon as Shang-Chi finished principal photography, quarantining for two weeks. Then he caught up to Kim’s production timeline with what Lee calls “an almost crazy boot camp–esque period of like nine straight days, where he [shot] all the stuff that he missed out on. He just stepped in…right back into the frying pan.

And he killed it.”

dawned on me that if I had more than one slide, I could do more things, and it really sent me down a wormhole of experimentation and just making stuff up.

“It reminded me of when I was 10 and I first got an acoustic guitar. It hurt my fingers and it made me feel stupid and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to keep doing it. And then I remember one day home with a fever I just stopped looking at it as extra homework that I had to do and looked at it like a toy and brushed the strings and blew on ‘em and smacked the guitar and heard the sound that it made. I really started looking at it as just a thing that I could do creative stuff on.

“And so doing that with the lap steel, I went, ‘Well, what if I put a slide on my thumb and a slide on my ring finger and I pivot back and forth between those two and see what happens?’ And once I started realizing that I could have one note slide in one direction while another note slid in the other direction—with maybe one in between that’s staying the same—then it got really exciting for me.”

“Simu has the greatest ability to micronap,” Phung says.

“You’ve heard of the one-inch punch: Simu’s one-minute nap is epic. And then dude pops up like Michael B. Jordan in Creed, like, ‘I’m ready to go.’ It’s so impressive.”

“You’re right,” Liu says, laughing. “It’s the same.”

“Can you teach us how to do that?” Yoon asks.

“It’s easy,” Liu says. “Never sleep enough. That’s the real secret.”

Liu’s entry into the Marvel universe happened about the same time Lee made his own pop-culture breakthrough, playing a New Republic pilot in two episodes of the Disney+ series The Mandalorian. Playing a character in the Star Wars universe was a life goal of Lee’s, and the fact that his appearance made national news in Canada last fall was

And not just for him. It’s amazing to see Verreault deploy three slides at once to explore new ways of creating music. He often posts short clips of himself on social media covering bits of songs he loves by the likes of guitar legends Stevie Ray Vaughan, Steve Vai, Eddie Van Halen, and Eric Johnson. The clips are rarely longer than two minutes.

“Part of the reason I’ve kept the videos so short,” he explains, “is that I know a lot of our fan base is at the same point in their lives as I am, and you don’t necessarily have an hour and a half to sit down and watch a thing in between homeschooling and working from home and home stuff. So I thought these easily digestible little bits of entertainment for people that I could offer could keep our connection there.”

Hopefully, it won’t be too long before guitar freaks—and music fans in general— will be able to safely leave their homes and see concerts again. If the pandemic were declared over today, Verreault knows where he’d want to experience live music tonight.

“Oh, man, I have floated back in my head many times to shows that I’ve either played or seen at the Commodore, and I cannot wait for the next one of those, whatever that can be. Whether it’s been sitting in with my friends or the nights that the Masons have played there or just going there as a concertgoer, I’m counting the minutes until that is a thing again.” g

one of the highlights of a truly miserable year. And it all comes from the way people respond to Kim’s Convenience.

“Outside of Jean and Paul, no one really knew who we were,” when the show premiered in 2016, Phung notes. But everyone knows them now.

“The world has seen us,” he says. “I got to watch Simu fly high in a Marvel movie; I haven’t seen much [footage], but I’m excited about it. And we all saw what happened when Canada saw Paul show up in The Mandalorian—like, we lost our minds. And in an industry where for so long we’ve heard that there’s no star system…for the Canadian public to know our names and our faces is incredible. And so I get to cheer on my brothers and everyone just doing their thing right now. It’s awesome.” g JANUARY 21 – 28 / 2021

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SAVAGE LOVE

Is HIV disclosure unreasonable with new meds?

by Dan Savage

b I COULD REALLY use your advice. I recently found my boyfriend’s HIV meds while I was house-sitting for him and went into his cupboard for a multivitamin. We’ve been dating for a year, and I had assumed he was negative. I’m negative myself and on PrEP and he is undetectable, so I know there is essentially zero risk of me getting infected, but we agreed to some degree of “openness” at the start of the relationship—having threesomes together—and I recently found a guy we’d like to invite over.

I’m trying to get over the feeling of betrayal from the fact that my boyfriend hid his status from me for so long, but I’m fine with continuing the relationship know-

ing his status now. The thing is, he told me that only five people on earth know, and his mother, who he talks to almost every day, isn’t one of them. He says being poz has really fucked with his self-esteem and that he has had suicidal thoughts because of his status.

Is it unreasonable for me to expect him to disclose his status to guys who join us in bed? What about asking him to share with a therapist or “come out” as poz to his mother? I really love him and just want him to be happy and healthy.

- Wannabe Ethical And Supportive Slut

about HIV at the moment, WEASS, you’re worrying about the

If you’re worrying

The Georgia Straight Confessions, an outlet for submitting revelations about your private lives—or for the voyeurs among us who want to read what other people have disclosed.

Scan to conffess Cleanup time

I was in the wrong crowd and nearly lost myself. I got mixed up with a lot of stupid people who were all about alcohol, drugs and partying. My life headed into a downward spiral. I’m way too old for the party lifestyle so I simply gave it up. Partying is something you do when you’re in high school and there comes a time when you need to grow up and get your head straight. My head has become a lot more clear since I’ve been clean and sober. I can’t stress enough just how awesome it feels to finally get rid of all the useless garbage that could have ruined my life. I lost a lot of weight, got back into my fitness and have been eating healthier foods. Alcohol and drugs have nothing to offer. Life is too short to be surrounded by leeching scumbags or fill your body with poison. Don’t follow the herd of sheep to the edge of a cliff. You are who you hangout with.

Stuck In The Middle With You I moved here right before the outbreak last March and it’s been difficult to make friends. The people I knew dropped me like a hot potato in lieu of their spouses or existing friends. The only person that’s in my “bubble” from my past treats me like a drinking buddy. They just want to smoke and swear about their life & lack of ambition then shut down when I try to start a meaningful intelligent conversation. Normally I would discourage this kind of friendship but they’re all I have got right now.

Covid CRAZY... Or am I ?

I have been watching my roomie (since Covid started) keep randomly hooking up with various people on sites like Tinder and Grinder. I have tried to be very diplomatic about the risks he takes in meeting and sleeping with randoms., and how I want him to be careful coz we live together... I live by the rule “Live and let live” However, he doesn’t seem to care that he is taking a huge chance... (con’t @straight.com)

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to post a Confession JANUARY 21 – 28 / 2021

wrong virus. Unless you’re lucky enough to live in New Zealand, you and the boyfriend shouldn’t be inviting men over for threesomes right now.

Assuming you do live in New Zealand…

I don’t think your boyfriend is morally obligated to disclose that he’s HIVpositive to a casual sex partner, WEASS, but in some states he is legally obligated to disclose that fact. While rarely enforced, these HIV-disclosure laws almost always have the opposite of their intended effect.

Instead of creating a culture of testing and disclosure, these laws disincentivize getting tested—because someone who doesn’t know they’re HIV-positive can’t get in trouble for failing to disclose.

These laws were passed decades ago, back when contracting HIV was perceived—mostly accurately—as a death sentence. But they don’t reflect what it means to have HIV today or to sleep with someone who has HIV today. Having even unprotected sex now with someone who is HIV-positive and has an undetectable viral load is less risky than having protected sex with someone who hasn’t been tested. Condom or no condom, the HIVpositive guy with an undetectable viral load—undetectable thanks to meds like the ones your boyfriend is taking—can’t infect someone with HIV. Undetectable = untransmissible.

But a guy who assumes he’s HIV-negative because he was the last time he got tested or because he’s never been tested?

That guy could be HIV-positive and could infect someone with HIV—even if he does use a condom, which could leak or break.

(There are lots of other STIs out there we should be using condoms to protect ourselves from, including a nasty strain of antibiotic-resistant gonorrhea, but we’re just talking HIV here.)

In answer to your question, WEASS, I think it would unreasonable for you to force your boyfriend to disclose his HIV status to the person you want to invite over for a threesome—but, again, HIV-disclosure laws might require your boyfriend to disclose.

Now, if the presumably sexually active, sexually adventurous gay man you’re thinking about having over to your place in Christchurch isn’t an idiot, WEASS, he’ll know that your boyfriend—the guy with the undetectable viral load—presents no threat to him, at least where HIV is concerned. And while you absolutely shouldn’t out your boyfriend, WEASS, you could raise the general subject of sexual safety and see how this guy reacts.

If he seems reasonable—particularly if he mentions being on PrEP too—he’s probably not gonna freak out about your boyfriend being HIV-positive for the exact

same reason you didn’t: there’s zero chance your boyfriend could infect him with HIV. (We’re both assuming this guy isn’t HIVpositive himself, WEASS, which he might be.) If he seems reasonable, you should encourage your boyfriend to disclose to him.

Being told it’s no big deal from someone your boyfriend wants to fuck before he fucks him could help your boyfriend feel less insecure about his HIV status.

Finally, you can’t order your boyfriend to come out to his mom about being HIVpositive, WEASS, but you might inspire him to. He obviously worries that people will judge him or shame him for being HIV-positive; that’s one of the reasons he hid it from you—and, yes, he should have disclosed his HIV status to you sooner.

He obviously underestimated you: you didn’t reject him when you stumbled over his meds after tearing apart the cupboards in his absence while you were searching for… What was it again? Oh, right—a multivitamin. (Sure.) Anyway, WEASS, tell your boyfriend he’s most likely underestimating his mother in the same way he underestimated you—then let him make his own decisions about who to tell and when. b I’M A SUBMISSIVE straight guy who finally—finally—met a woman who is open to my main kinks: bondage and cuckolding.

I’m into handcuffs and leg irons, so the bondage part was easy (she didn’t have to learn to do shibari), but the cuckolding part is a lot trickier to realize during a pandemic. She ended a long-standing FWB arrangement with a coworker when we began to get serious a year ago. Her former FWB is a safe choice, emotionally speaking, since there was no romantic interest on either side, and he’s safe where COVID-19 is concerned, since they are in a “pod” at work. (And they’ll both be vaccinated soon!)

She keeps saying he’s the perfect bull, but he’s not right for me—which is a weird thing for me to say, since I’m not the one who’ll be sleeping with him. I don’t want to sound conceited, but I’m much better looking than he is and I’m also better hung.

My cuckold fantasies revolve around my girlfriend fucking a guy who’s hotter than me and better hung than I am.

I worked with a therapist for a long time—not to “cure” me of my kinks but to better understand them. And what I came to is this: it’s both deeply threatening (in an erotic way) for my girlfriend to fuck someone who’s “better” than me and deeply reassuring (in an emotional way) when she chooses to be with me when she could be with a “better” man.

- Better Example Than This Erotic Rival

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guy works for your girlfriend—there’s a reason she keeps bringing him up—and if you want to have a future with this woman and you want cuckolding to be a part of that future, BETTER, then going with someone she’s comfortable with the first time/few times she cucks you is a really good idea. And while he may not be better looking than you or have a bigger dick, BETTER, he’s gotta be “better” than you are in some other objective sense—better educated, makes better money, better at eating pussy, etcetera.

Surely there’s something about him your girlfriend can throw in your face that tweaks your insecurities (when she heads off to fuck him) and meets your need for reassurance (when she comes back to you).

And how do you know your dick is bigger than his? Because your girlfriend told you it was. You might want to ask her if she lied about his dick being smaller than yours, BETTER, because that’s definitely the kind of lie women tell new boyfriends about their exes and old FWBs. Given a chance to walk that back, BETTER, your girlfriend very well might—and it might even be true.

tual consent, that’s fine. But if an individual is seeing a “girl,” that isn’t right.

Something about this

Although HIV medications can render a person’s viral load undetectable, some jurisdictions require HIV-status disclosure. Photo by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

b WHILE WE ARE discussing the social ramifications, etymologies, synonyms, etcetera, of ejaculate (noun and verb) and orgasm, can I throw in a request to alter the course of popularity for another word as well? It’s this: girl. I cannot stand to see that word used to describe a woman.

“I’m seeing this girl…” Oh, you’re seeing a “girl”? Is she 12? If an individual is seeing a “girl” and that individual is 30, that is pedophilia. Now, if an individual is seeing a woman, and she happens to be approximately the same age (or older or younger within legal parameters) and there is mu-

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is seeing a prepubescent minor, that’s pedophilia and child rape. If an individual is seeing a pubescent minor, that’s hebephilia and either child rape or statutory rape. If a person is seeing an adult and casually refers to that adult person as a girl, that’s not pedophilia or hebephilia or child rape or statutory rape. I mean, come on. There’s a huge difference between someone affectionately referring to a new partner as a girl/girlfriend—or a boy/boyfriend—and someone, say, dismissively and intentionally infantilizing adult female coworkers or political leaders.

Just as I wouldn’t hear “girls’ night out” and assume that meant underage drinking, I wouldn’t assume someone who said they were seeing a girl—or dating a boy— was sleeping with a 12-year-old child. But that’s just me. g

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