FREE | MAY 27 – JUNE 3 / 2021 Volume 55 | Number 2780
RACISM IN DANCE
Project born from trauma
INDIAN SUMMER
Festival unveils stellar lineup
BUILDING BOOM
The province plans thousands of new rental units; plus, a UBC prof tracks the appeal of tall, skinny towers
BOB D’EITH
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EAST VAN TACOS
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LINDA LINDAS
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VANCOUVER SPECIAL
REAL ESTATE
Residents who live on water lack B.C. tenant protections
CONTENTS
May 27 – June 3 / 2021
6
COVER
UBC associate prof Matthew Soules’s new book explores how the forces of contemporary capitalism are influencing the shapes of buiidings in big cities.
by Carlito Pablo
By Charlie Smith Cover illustration by Marcus Hynes
10 DANCE
Choreographer Esie Mensah brought together 14 Black dancemakers from across Canada to elevate awareness about racism in her art form. By Charlie Smith
13
MOVIES
The dazzling movie adaptation of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s breakout musical, In the Heights, succeeds despite a less than stellar storyline. Author Marc Edge has written five books while living on his boat, Markenurh, but the manager of the Riversbend Floating Home Village has told him that he must vacate the site by July 1.
M
arc Edge got a going-away present along with the notice to vacate that his landlord gave him. It was a $25 gift card for Earls restaurant. That works out to $1.25 for each of the 20-plus years that the author and media scholar has been a tenant at the Riversbend Floating Home Village in Richmond. Edge lives aboard Markenurh, his 40foot sailboat on which he also wrote five books. Four of these were about the media industry, and one was about hockey. “Is this a joke?” Edge recalls telling Omar Lalani, the marina manager who wrote him that he has until July 1 to leave. Lalani confirmed to the Straight that Edge didn’t like the gift. He said the gift card was a gesture of appreciation for the man’s long stay at the Annacis Channel marina. “I told him, ‘Hey, I didn’t mean to offend you. I’ll cancel it,’ ” Lalani said in a phone interview. Edge, who is also a former Vancouver journalist, was working on a new book when he got the notice to vacate dated May 7, 2021. “I’ve been here for 20 years, and I’ve seen them all come and go,” Edge told the Straight by phone from the Markenurh. “I never thought I’d be, you know, thrown out and sold down the river like this.” Edge knows there’s nothing he can do about the situation. Neither the Residential Tenancy Act nor the Manufactured Home Park Tenancy Act covers people living in float homes and boats moored at marinas. “I think that people who decide to live on the water need to know that they have no protection,” Edge said. “And if lots of people are going to be living on the water, maybe they should have some sort of protection.” Edge said he is paying a $505 moorage fee per month at Riversbend. He also said that before receiving the notice to vacate, Lalani told him on the phone that the marina is raising his moorage to $1,400.
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THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT
“I said, ‘You can’t do that.’ And he said, ‘Yes, we can,’ ” Edge said. “Apparently, there’s nothing to prevent them from raising the moorage as much as they want or even kicking you out…if they don’t like you or they’ve got somebody who can pay more.” Edge said he told Lalani that he will talk to the founder and chair of the Tri City Group of Companies, which owns the marina. “I know the owner, Michael Goodman, who’s a big fan of my books. So I said, ‘Well, I want to talk to Michael.’ I said, ‘Does Michael know about this?’ And he said, ‘Oh, yes,’ ” Edge said. Before he got in touch with Goodman, Edge received the notice, which also stated that the marina is leasing his berth to a float home for $1,400 a month. Lalani offered another version, saying he gave Edge a chance to match the rate for a float home. The marina manager said Edge initially refused but later said that he was willing to pay more. Then, supposedly, Edge changed his mind and suggested that the marina should instead increase the moorage fee for float homes. Lalani said that it was all about the marina making a business decision. Edge provided the Straight a copy of the letter sent to him by Lalani. In it, the marina manager wrote: “Due to increased taxes and a major increase in our lease payments to the Port of Metro Vancouver and other rising costs, we are no longer able to offer moorage at rates below the float home rate for spaces that can fit floating homes.” In the letter, Lalani also told Edge that he had located an available moorage spot for the author at a nearby marina. Lalani told the Straight in the interview that there has been an increased demand for float home spots, noting that it’s an affordable housing option. He said that Edge is the only remaining sailboat tenant at the marina. Edge said he hasn’t written a new word for the book he’s working on since he received the May 7 notice to vacate. g
MAY 27 – JUNE 3 / 2021
By Radheyan Simonpillai
e Start Here
11 15 14 8 9 4 12 2 14 10
ARTS CLASSIFIEDS CONFESSIONS EDUCATION FOOD HOUSING MUSIC REAL ESTATE SAVAGE LOVE VISUAL ARTS
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EDITOR Charlie Smith GENERAL MANAGER (ACTING) Sandra Oswald SECTION EDITORS Mike Usinger (ESports/Liquor/Music) Steve Newton SENIOR EDITOR Martin Dunphy STAFF WRITERS Carlito Pablo (Real Estate) Craig Takeuchi SOLUTIONS ARCHITECT Jeff Li
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Here’s what people are reading this week on Straight.com.
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Home prices on street rise sharply with new six-storey condo on the way. Antimasker Chris Sky urges local police not to enforce health orders. COVID-19 in B.C.: Government unveils fourstep reopening plan. GoFundMe page created to help Heritage Grill owner after devastating fire. Five exhilarating hikes to scenic destinations near Vancouver. @GeorgiaStraight
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HOUSING
Eby promises thousands of affordable rental units
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by Charlie Smith
he B.C. government has an ambitious plan to offer long-term housing to former tent-city residents in Vancouver. On May 20, the minister responsible for housing in B.C., Attorney General David Eby, said at a nonprofit-housing conference that this is part of a broad-based plan to offer a road map to permanent homes for former campers from Strathcona and Oppenheimer parks. He described this as “complex care housing”. “In Vancouver, B.C. Housing—in partnership with Atira, Portland Hotel Society, and Lu’ma Native Housing—housed 296 people out of the encampment at Strathcona Park,” Eby said.
According to Eby, more than 80 percent of those “decamped” from Oppenheimer Park are being housed now after the government bought hotels. He’s hoping that “far in excess of 80 percent” of those from Strathcona Park will also remain housed. “The challenge is that a hotel, while it’s significantly better than a tent, is not purpose-built housing,” Eby explained. “So we are in partnership with the City of Vancouver to build about 1,500 units of housing over the next 18 to 24 months.” In 2017, the B.C. NDP promised 114,000 affordable homes over 10 years. Eby told conference attendees that so far, “we’ve opened or begun work on more than 26,000 homes”.
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MAY 27 – JUNE 3 / 2021
In a presentation to a nonprofit-housing conference, Attorney General David Eby revealed that his government has a deal with the City of Vancouver to build 1,500 housing units in the next two years.
“So we are on track, but we still need your help in partnership in delivering the housing that we’ve pivoted to deliver,” he said. One of the “key goals” in the Ministry of Attorney General and Minister Responsible for Housing service plan is that British Columbians have access to “safe, affordable and functional housing”. According to the service plan, B.C. Housing has a target of completing 4,500 affordable and supportive housing units this fiscal year, followed by 3,000 in each of the two following years. “The response to Strathcona Park was definitely a crisis response because it is a crisis when people are living in tents and makeshift shelters in a park,” Eby said at the conference. “When they’re trying to stay warm and setting their tents on fire accidentally—when people are incredibly vulnerable to predators and they’re getting sick—it is a humanitarian crisis. “And our government responded accordingly, buying hotels and urgently deploying—in partnership with our nonprofit partners, without whom we couldn’t have done it—the housing required to support people getting inside.” Meanwhile, the provincial government plans to spend $1.9 billion on 14,000 new affordable rental homes over 10 years. Eby told the nonprofit-housing conference attendees that 6,100 homes are at some stage of development through the province’s Community Housing Fund. “And in the coming weeks, we will be announcing thousands of new affordable rental homes funded by this,” he said. Eby also pointed out that B.C. Housing’s affordable-rental and homeownership division, HousingHub, received a $2-billion investment in the recent provincial budget. This money will provide lower-interest construction-financing loans to encourage developers and community groups to build housing for middle-income households. According to Eby, this helps provide “affordable housing for the middle class
It also reflects a fairly dramatic shift…that we need to go upstream. – Attorney General David Eby
for [family] incomes of up to $117,000”, though he added that it has been targeted at family incomes of $60,000. “With this investment, it is our hope and expectation that 9,000 new affordable housing units are funded through this investment,” he said. Eby emphasized that as loans are repaid, money will cycle back through B.C. Housing, offering opportunities to develop more homes in the future. “It also reflects a fairly dramatic shift on the part of government to recognize that there is clearly a connection between affordable middle-class rental housing and homelessness—that we need to go upstream,” Eby said. “We need to provide housing for people to take pressure off the rental-housing market.” At the conference, Eby assured people that there will still be a public-engagement process for B.C. government–backed housing projects. However, he noted that in the City of Victoria, existing rezoning and public-hearing processes would delay the development of modular housing by six to eight months. Meanwhile, OneCity Vancouver councillor Christine Boyle has introduced a motion to allow social-housing projects up to 12 storeys in many Vancouver neighbourhoods without a public hearing. Eby made no mention of this motion in his presentation—nor whether scrapping public hearings for social-housing projects is required under the province’s partnership with the City of Vancouver for 1,500 new purpose-built homes. g
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MAY 27 – JUNE 3 / 2021
THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT
5
EDUCATION
Prof probes impact of finance on built environment
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by Charlie Smith
fter 2008’s global economic meltdown—triggered by reckless lending practices, the bundling of mortgages into toxic financial products, and sky-high oil prices—there was a flurry of academic interest that involved a variety of disciplines. University faculty in public policy, finance, real estate, sociology, and law schools all dug into the roots of what had happened. But according to Matthew Soules, an associate professor in the UBC School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture, there was very little exploration in his field about the impact of the financial bubble on the design of buildings. “That’s for good reason,” Soules told the Georgia Straight in a phone interview. “That’s because we often don’t think of architecture [as] being that significant to economics and politics.” Soules was not trained as an economist: his undergraduate degree was in history and fine arts before he studied architecture. But he has a long-standing interest in the economic dimensions of his profession. He took a finance course at the Sloan School of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and studied
UBC scholar Matthew Soules says it’s sheer folly to look at housing through a racial lens.
real-estate development at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard
University. And as the years passed, he wondered if architects could offer a unique perspective on the global financial crisis, given their role in configuring the built environment. So in 2012, he applied for a research grant from the federal Social Science Research Council to study this. His application was accepted, enabling Soules to hire student research assistants to visit areas of the world where the speculative construction bubble burst most spectacularly. They started in Ireland in 2013 before travelling to Spain and then to four American states: Florida, Arizona, Nevada, and California. “We took a drone and went into these wastelands of overdevelopment and documented them,” Soules recalled. Along the way, they spoke to local architects, real-estate developers, planners, academics, and sociologists. Soules also studied what happened in Melbourne, London, Paris, and cities in China. He
went on to publish papers and speak at conferences before coming to a realization: the behaviour patterns that led to the 2008 meltdown never went away. In fact, it seemed to him that the products of architecture were increasingly being marketed as financial investments. The built environment was being tethered to financial markets through real-estate investment trusts, securitized mortgages, and the entry of multibillion-dollar private equity groups, such as the Blackstone Group, into the housing market. That led Soules to write his new book, Icebergs, Zombies, and the Ultra Thin: Architecture and Capitalism in the TwentyFirst Century, which was just published by Princeton Architectural Press. He told the Straight that too often the conversation about real estate is incorrectly framed around race, which he called “misguided” and a “complete misdirection”. To demonstrate his see next page
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point, he said that he knows people who live in Point Grey with investment properties in Kitsilano. “The reality is British Columbians are huge investors in our own real estate—and Canadians from elsewhere in Canada— Canadians of all races and Americans of all races. Then, of course, the global community of all races,” Soules said. So what are the “icebergs” in his book title? That refers to a recent phenomenon in wealthy areas in the U.K.—such as the Chelsea and Knightsbridge districts in London—where the super rich build “very large subterranean basement expansions for their homes”. In some cases, Soules said, these underground bunkers have many floors, featuring swimming pools, movie theatres, or space for car collections. “This…is one of the things that happens in this era as more and more wealth seeks to store itself in architecture,” he said. “So these are kind of these subterranean storage vaults, these iceberg homes.” “Zombies” refers to sections of cities where there are empty homes sucking the vitality out of neighbourhoods. “Pieds-à-terre and secondary homes existed for a long time,” Soules acknowledged. “But more and more numbers of people are buying them in this era—second homes, third homes, and fourth homes.” He noted that this is done for a variety of reasons, but the upshot is that these secondary homes are often underutilized.
There are numerous zombie cities in China, where a speculative land rush led developers to create entire neighbourhoods without any residents. Photo by Tim Franco/Princeton Architectural Press
Meanwhile, “ultra thin” refers to the pencil-thin towers being developed in many cities. Vancouver was an incubator for these projects, though its height restrictions prevented them from reaching the sky like those in other cities. “These towers in New York are almost the zenith of this thinking, but it’s everywhere in varying degrees,” Soules said. Once upon a time, he added, the credo was that all real estate is local. But nowadays
it’s becoming increasingly global. And his book points out that in this era of financial capitalism, there’s inherent pressure to make real-estate markets more “liquid”— i.e., more easily traded like other financial assets, such as stocks and bonds. To make it liquid in the interest of finance, real estate is becoming less local, he said. “I think one of the main ways it becomes less local is it becomes less socially entangled.”
And one way to reduce social entanglements is to reduce contact between residents of buildings, either by having one or two units per floor or by constructing vast underground living areas beneath mansions. “We’re slowly, incrementally building a less socially vital society where we’re literally delocalizing by diminishing our contact with other humans,” Soules maintained. The B.C. Real Estate Association’s second-quarter housing forecast stated that the “outsized appreciation of home prices over the past year should continue to spur strong residential construction”. About 40,000 new units are expected. “That adds up to an already large pipeline of units under construction, the timely completion of which is desperately needed in supply-starved BC housing markets,” the BCREA noted. But as more supply continues being built, it doesn’t seem to sufficiently address the demand from real-estate investors. Prices keep rising, even after immigration levels crashed and the economy contracted during the pandemic. Soules hasn’t altogether lost hope, pointing out that architects know how to create spaces that support vibrant communities. But he also admitted that the financialization of real estate is so complex that architects alone cannot solve this on their own. “It’s going to involve developers, financiers, politicians, and the public at large,” Soules said. “I think what’s great is that there are people talking about it.” g
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MAY 27 – JUNE 3 / 2021
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7
EDUCATION
Scholarship fund honours former school trustee
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by Charlie Smith
ongtime educator Allen Blakey was a champion of public education. The four-term Vancouver school trustee and former B.C. Teachers’ Federation president could always be counted on to advocate against inequality in the school system. He spoke out whether kids were being shortchanged through provincial grants to districts, fees imposed on lowincome families, or parental fundraising that benefited wealthier schools over their poorer counterparts. “While the motivation may be pure, it adds to inequities in the system since all school neighbourhoods don’t offer equal fundraising potential,” Blakey wrote on Straight.com in 2011 when he was seeking reelection with the Coalition of Progressive Electors. “Teachers providing financial assistance for the needs of students in their class has become the norm and will continue to grow as teachers try to meet their students’ unmet needs. “One teacher has even made a public plea for socks, shoes, snacks, and a wide array of goods to meet personal and educational resources for inner city kids.” On May 6, Blakey died at the age of 84. One of his former colleagues on the
Recently deceased ex–trustee Allen Blakey resisted pressure from a past B.C. Liberal government to close schools, including Xpey’ elementary (photo by Patti Bacchus) on East Hastings Street.
Vancouver school board, trustee Allan Wong, is the point man for a scholarship fund being created in Blakey’s name. Wong, the longest-serving trustee on the Vancouver school board, can be reached at al.wong@telus.net. Blakey’s legacies included preventing the closure of five East Vancouver schools. This came in 2010, when he voted with other Coalition of Progressive Electors and Vision Vancouver trustees to resist pressure from the then–B.C. Liberal government to shutter them in the face of a budget shortfall. One of the saved schools was Sir Wil-
liam Macdonald elementary at 1950 East Hastings Street. It later became an Aboriginal-focus school and has since been renamed Xpey’ elementary. Sir Guy Carleton was another one that was kept open. The others were Champlain Heights Annex, Sir Richard McBride Annex, and Queen Alexandra. In a BCTF video, Blakey said his father was a shipyard worker and Labour Party supporter who moved to Canada in 1923. His mother, a nurse, came five years later and they met in Winnipeg, where he was born in 1936.
In 1955, Blakey began his teaching career in Cranbrook, B.C. He recalled overseeing a class of 25 kids from grades 4 to 7 that included one student with special needs: a girl with Down’s syndrome, dwarf structure, and epilepsy. In the clip, he revealed that he “learned one hell of a lot” from the girl. Blakey became president of the Vancouver Elementary School Teachers’ Association in 1968 and served as the BCTF president from 1979 to 1981. “Al was a pioneer of the teachers’ union movement in B.C. and played a key role in the BCTF becoming a strong union with strong values,” the BCTF said in a statement on social media. “Our condolences go out to his loved ones.” Blakey was also on the organizing committee of OneCity Vancouver, which elected two municipal politicians in 2018: Coun. Christine Boyle and school trustee Jennifer Reddy. Reddy tweeted that Blakey joined her on many mornings as they met families. She also revealed that he taught her the importance of using every opportunity to be “fiercely anti-racist”. “When we did politics together I felt strong,” Reddy declared. “Thank you Al.” g
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MAY 27 – JUNE 3 / 2021
FOOD
Taco Ding Dong pays homage to a fast-food staple
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by Mike Usinger
ometimes the last thing you want from a taco is extra-fancy. There’s no denying the appeal of seared Ahi tuna with wasabi mayo, pickled onion, and chipotle-dusted Carabao mango. But when it’s 2 a.m. and you’re six cans of Superflux Fountainbier Orange Cream into your evening, nothing hits the spot like, say, Taco Bell. Which is too bad if you live in hipstercentral East Van, because Taco Bell’s three Lower Mainland franchises are all in the ’burbs. And the last time we checked, the only time you’re getting across the border to America—where there’s a Taco Bell on every second block—is to re-create scenes from the last reel of The Heartbreak Kid. Enter Taco Ding Dong, brought to you by the folks at the Narrow Group, which you know from Slim’s BBQ, Uncle Abe’s, and Key Party. In the spirit of the American fast-food chain founded by California’s Glen Bell, the driving philosophy of Taco Ding Dong is that no one needs to be paying $15 for a taco. While the Superfab Cheese Nachos will run you $15, all mains and starters are between $4 and $6, with meat, chicken, and Beyond Meat a couple bucks more.
Taco Ding Dong specializes in the food you crave while wasted at 2 a.m. Photo by Kyle Humeny.
In a further homage to Taco Bell, the thinking at Taco Ding Dong seems to be that no one need feel bad for going to town on an order that would make nine out of 10 nutritionists, fitness trainers,
and Food Network hosts blanch. Inspired by Taco Bell’s menu, Taco Ding Dong is serving up offerings like the Cheesy Gordita Crunch (hard taco with cheese, wrapped in a soft tortilla) and
Rock’n Super Crunch Wrap (beans, three cheeses, guacamole, lettuce, tomato, and sour cream). Sound like you might need something a little more hefty? The 7-Layer Blaster Burrito features rice, beans, lettuce, three cheeses, guacamole, tomato, and sour cream with the option to add chicken, beef, or Beyond Meat.) The downside for those who love nothing better than stumbling into a Taco Bell bleary eyed after a night at the bar is that there’s no actual brick-andmortar Taco Ding Dong. But considering that we’re in the middle of a pandemic and all, there are certainly worse things than the ghost-kitchen concept, especially considering that Skip the Dishes and Uber Eats will deliver your takeout. Hours of operation are seven days a week from 4:20 p.m. (fire up that roaster!) to 11:30 p.m. (nothing wrong with one more shot of Sons of Vancouver Chili Vodka as a pre-dinner warm-up). And don’t forget to check out the Taco Ding Dong merch, which ranges from Tshirts to buttons, all emblazoned with an East Van Taco dog that looks like the Taco Bell Chihuahua’s straight-off-the-meanstreets cousin. Ahhh, East Van. g
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MAY 27 – JUNE 3 / 2021
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9
ARTS
Black dancemakers share experiences of racism
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by Charlie Smith
ast year’s police murder of Minneapolis resident George Floyd prompted tremendous soul-searching within the arts community. But even as expressions of good intentions were being widely articulated, Toronto dancer and choreographer Esie Mensah felt that more needed to be done to shine a light on racism within her art form. “A friend of mine had said to me, ‘It feels like people are finding out that racism existed for the very first time,’ ” Mensah told the Straight by phone from Toronto. “You know, we would joke and we would kid about it, but we knew that there was still a lot of truth in that.” So last January, Mensah decided to bring together 14 Black dancemakers from across Canada, including herself, for seven hours of frank conversation on race. The result is a short film, “TESSEL”, which documents the experiences of Black dance artists through judicious editing of voice and movement. The virtual premiere will be presented for free across Canada on June 1, a year after Blackout Tuesday. That’s when screens went dark and businesses ceased activities for eight minutes and 46 seconds last June in memory of Floyd. “This has never happened in Canadian dance history— that so many presenters have come on board for a project like this,” Mensah said. She emphasized the importance of people recognizing
Choreographer and dancer Esie Mensah brought together dance artists from across the country for “TESSEL”. Photo by Mikka Gia.
that the seeds of this project came from trauma. And she noted that the audience will not know which dancer is speaking at any given time in the film, offering the dance
artists full freedom to express themselves. “Everyone says something that’s needed,” she stated. “Everybody says something of value.” Participants include Vancouver dance artists Livona Ellis, Kevin Fraser, and Gabrielle Martin. The music was overseen by Vancouverites Alessandro Juliani and Meg Roe, who was also in charge of sign design. “There’s a lot of truth and honesty, but also I think [there’s] an idea of a way forward in terms of healing,” Mensah said. For those wondering about the title, tesselations are flat geometric patterns on tiles that include more than one shape and have no gaps. By calling the film “TESSEL”, Mensah hopes to help people understand the enduring pattern of racism and recognize how to interrupt it by creating a new foundation. “I did not want to give a film at the space where everybody else would be comfortable,” she said. “I needed to have the conversation in the space where we were at as artists. And for people to meet us where we are—and not necessarily us meeting other individuals where they are at.” g Fall for Dance North and Harbourfront Centre produced “TESSEL”, which is copresented by the Vancouver International Dance Festival. It premieres for free on Tuesday (June 1) at www.tessel.film.
Artist combats stereotypes with turban blueprint
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by Carlito Pablo
imranpreet Anand peels layers of meaning from the folds and creases of the turban. The Vancouver artist investigates themes of identity, shared traditions, and cultural resilience, which are embodied in the headwear. Anand exposes the results of her exploration through an old photography technique for a textile installation. Her creation is included in a new exhibit by the Vancouver Art Gallery, opening Friday (May 29). “The work itself was created through a number of interactions that I had with friends and family members,” Anand told the Straight in a phone interview. “And so I learned how to tie a dastaar, which is a Punjabi word for ‘turban’.” The turban is a traditional headwear among various peoples in parts of Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and Europe. For those who trace their origins from the Punjab region of the Indian subcontinent and are members of the Sikh religion, the dastaar is an article of faith. Required for men and optional for women, the turban goes back centuries, and it has become the most visible symbol of Sikhism. Although it is a common headdress, the dastaar becomes a unique fabric for each person through the daily ritual of putting it on. 10
THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT
Vancouver artist Simranpreet Anand used a vintage photographic printng process called cyanotype to create textile “blueprints” that show the different ways people tie their turbans.
“Everyone ties a turban in a slightly different style,” Anand explained. “They have their own way of doing it.” To express this individuality, Anand utilized the cyanotype process on different fabrics. The cyanotype procedure was an early form of photographic printing that used chemicals to produce blue prints of objects placed on treated paper and exposed to sunlight.
MAY 27 – JUNE 3 / 2021
“Basically, what I did was sensitized these turban fabrics with cyanotype and tied each of the dastaars in the ways that my friends and family members taught me,” Anand said. When exposed to ultraviolet light, the resulting textile shows traces of how it was layered, tied, and worn. As for its colour, Anand said that one can see “indigo and cerulean streaks” as well as “spots tracing the exterior folds of the fab-
ric and crown of the head, periwinkles, and fainter blues fading with each layer”. Anand is a daughter of Punjabi immigrants. Born and raised in Canada, the multimedia artist earned her fine arts and psychology degree at UBC. She is currently an artist and curator in residence at SFU Galleries. As someone brought up in a diasporic community, Anand has committed herself to fostering inclusion and fighting racism. On that level, she said that her work confronts tendencies to “conflate the image of the turbaned, bearded man with terrorism and religious extremism, especially since the Air India bombing of 1985 and 9/11 [September 11, 2001 attacks in the U.S.]”. “There are a lot of hate crimes toward people wearing turbans,” Anand said. Anand’s textile installation carries a Punjabi title with an English translation that reads “blueprints for tying a dastaar”. Anand is one of 32 artists participating in the Vancouver Art Gallery’s Vancouver Special: Disorientations and Echo. The exhibit, which runs from May 29, 2021, to January 2, 2022, features contemporary works from artists in Greater Vancouver. The works were curated by Phanuel Antwi, Grant Arnold, Jenn Jackson, Jeneen Frei Njootli, and Christian Vistan. Details: www.vanartgallery.bc.ca/ exhibitions/ g
ARTS
Indian Summer Festival lures world-class talent by Charlie Smith
hip-hop Jhalaak project. That led Singh on a musical odyssey to India culminating in a nine-song package featuring Chugge Khan, who formed Rajasthan Josh in 2009, along with rap interpretations of Sufi music. A documentary about Jhalaak, which was made with assistance from composer and DJ Adham Shaikh, will premiere at Indian Summer on July 8. At this event, Singh will join local musician Khari Wendell McClelland and the Inuit throat-singing duo PIQSIQ in conversation. Rao is also proud of how Indian Summer has nourished and provoked diaspora communities. He readily acknowledged that South Asia “is a very, very complex beast, and even within that, there are complex identi-
ties”. And that offers bountiful opportunities to present fresh literary voices, such as authors Kamila Shamsie and Mohsin Hamid, who will appear at this year’s festival on June 24 in conversation with Rao. The festival will also present two-time Dora Award wining playwright Anosh Irani’s new work, Transcendence, featuring Lois Anderson, Munish Sharma, and Laara Sadiq. In addition, the Naadaleela Ensemble and Mohamed Assani & Friends will close the festival with a digital performance from the Orpheum Theatre. “I think that what we’ve been able to do is find a place that holds complexity but also is very welcoming,” Rao said. g Indian Summer Festival runs from June 17 to July 17.
Vancouver’s Ruby Singh has created rap interpretations of Sufi music (photo by Kristine Cofsky), and Anoushka Shankar will tell tales of her life at the Indian Summer Festival. Photo by Laura Lewis.
T
his has been a tough year for Sirish Rao, cofounder and artistic director of the Indian Summer Festival in Vancouver. He planned his “festival for the curious mind” in the midst of a pandemic while experiencing the shock and grief of losing people he loves in India to COVID-19. Despite these obstacles, Rao has still managed to program 10 imaginative COVID-safe digital events for 2021, including two with in-person components, over an entire month, from June 17 to July 17. “This year’s theme is ‘shapeshifting’,” Rao told the Straight by phone. “It’s something that we’ve all had to do in the last year.” Among the shapeshifters in this year’s lineup is sitar player and composer Anoushka Shankar. According to Rao, the seven-time Grammy Award nominee will not only perform music from her home on June 19 but will also share stories from her life. And what a life it’s been. She’s the daughter of Indian sitar master Ravi Shankar, who was a friend of the Beatles, and assisted him on an album produced by George Harrison. Then Shankar went on in adulthood to enjoy spectacular success as a solo classical Indian musician, touring the world. Along the way, Shankar has lived on three continents and made music with her half-sister, Norah Jones, as well as with Sting, Lenny Kravitz, Herbie Hancock, and many others. Shankar performed her first public concert, at her father’s 75th birthday celebration in New Delhi, with tabla superstar and composer Zakir Hussain, who is scheduled to perform at a June 26 Indian Summer event. It also features his longtime friends, legendary Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart and bansuri master Rakesh Chaurasia. The June 26 show will open with an interview with Hussain, who performed on albums by Harrison, Van Morrison,
and Earth Wind & Fire. In addition, Hussain starred in the Merchant Ivory fi lm Heat and Dust and his tabla could be heard in Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now. Now entering its 11th year, the Indian Summer Festival has blossomed magnificently since it was launched in 2011 with Rao sharing an SFU Woodward’s stage with Bollywood film star Tabu and author Yann Martel. They were at the Goldcorp Centre for the Arts to discuss an upcoming film, Life of Pi, which was based on Martel’s bestselling book about an Indian boy who survives a disaster at sea with wild animals. Two years later, with Tabu playing the survivor’s mother, Life of Pi won seven Oscars, including best picture and best achievement in directing for Ang Lee. As fondly as Rao recalls that event, he feels that some of Indian Summer’s greatest contributions have come from being a catalyst for unexpected things to occur in Vancouver. “Festivals can act as beacons or like fireworks or moments of possibilities,” Rao told the Georgia Straight by phone. “I think we’ve been that.” To cite one example, Rao mentioned the time that Rajasthan Josh, an energetic collection of Manganiyar musicians, performed years ago at Indian Summer at SFU Woodward’s. “There was so much electricity in the air because people hadn’t heard this sound before,” he said. Afterward, they headed off to an afterparty at the East Is East restaurant, where owner Mustafa Reza invited them on-stage. “Suddenly Mayor Gregor Robertson was up there. And then Grimes was there and, you know, a whole bunch of people,” Rao recalled with a laugh. “The second concert broke out. We kind of knew something was happening.” Rao pointed out that a performance by Rajasthan Josh musicians at another Indian Summer event was the spark for Vancouverbased DJ-producer-poet Ruby Singh’s Sufi MAY 27 – JUNE 3 / 2021
THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT
11
MUSIC
Bob D’Eith helps B.C.’s artists survive COVID-19
The rocker-turned-politician uses his hands-on knowledge of the music biz to keep the industry afloat
I
by Steve Newton
f you were into the Vancouver altrock scene in the early ’90s, you no doubt heard about the local quintet called Rymes with Orange. You may even have seen the video for their indie single “Marvin”, which starts off with black-and-white footage of some guy screaming/laughing maniacally while others spread yucky unknown substances all over his head. That would have been the band’s 23-yearold keyboardist Bob D’Eith, who’s currently holding down the position of B.C. parliamentary secretary for arts and film. In this role, he’s responsible for helping the province’s musicians and artists—as well as music venues and arts organizations— survive the pandemic that has been bleeding them dry for over a year. He’s come a long way from playing a gooed-up weirdo in a Rymes with Orange video. D’Eith—who is also the NDP MLA for Maple Ridge-Mission—stopped being a touring member of RWO in 1994, instead focusing on his role of comanager along with Peter Karroll, who has also guided the career of Bif Naked. The politician and part-time entertainment lawyer, now 56, still has some awesome memories of his days on the road, though. “As you probably know, touring can be a real slog,” says D’Eith—pronounced “deeth”, not “death”, fortunately—on the phone from his Maple Ridge home. “You might have this image of what touring is all about, but it’s 90 percent drudgery; it’s tough. So here we are, we’re in Toronto for Edgefest, and the Barenaked Ladies were on Stage One and we were on Stage Two. They finished their set, and just when they finished we started, but there was nobody there—’cause they were all at the other stage. “And then [Barenaked Ladies frontman] Stephen [Page] said, ‘Hey, go check out Rymes with Orange on the other stage!’ and it was the best thing. I was sitting there on the keyboards and I could see these thousands of people coming over these grassy berms, and it was like something out of—I don’t know—some Scottish war movie or something. Thousands of people coming towards us as we played our first song, and by the time we finished our set it was just packed. It kind of made all the touring worth it.” Before stepping into politics, D’Eith spent 14 years as executive director of Music B.C., a nonprofit association advocating for the music industry. His time as a working musician, band manager, and entertainment lawyer had given him an
12
THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT
Bob D’Eith’s roles as NDP MLA for Maple Ridge-Mission and parliamentary secretary for arts and film keep him busy, but in his spare time, there’s nothing he loves more than making music.
I have to create as part of the balance in my life…if you’re a creator, you need to create. – Bob D’Eith
unobstructed view of what the industry and its artists require. “The passion I had as an artist I was able to translate into the advocacy role,” he says. “But dealing with the frustrations I felt as an advocate, both federally and provincially—trying to get funds for the industry, get support for the industry, even get recognition that it was an industry—was really difficult. So after hitting so many brick walls, I realized the best way to make change was to get on the other side of the glass. “So there were three motivators for me to get into politics,” he points out. “One was cultural-industry support, another one was education—because I have five kids—and the other one was mental health, because I have a brother who suffers from significant mental-health issues. All those things sort of added up into, ‘Look, I’ve got to get involved.’ So that’s when I started running [for office].” D’Eith threw his hat into the political
MAY 27 – JUNE 3 / 2021
ring in 2012, and five years later he became elected as the NDP MLA for Maple Ridge-Mission. Four years after that, COVID-19 hit and, in response, he was also named parliamentary secretary for arts and film. “When the pandemic first happened, what the premiere [John Horgan] did was he looked at everyone’s skill sets—and it didn’t matter which party they were from, it was all hands on deck—and he saw me and my background in the creative industries and said, ‘Look, Minister Beare [thenminister of tourism, arts, and culture Lisa Beare] is gonna need help.’ The film industry was having to be shut down, the music industry was getting shut down, tourism was getting shut down. So last spring he asked me to come in and find out, ‘What do you need? How can we help?’ ” With D’Eith’s input, the provincial government set about to pivot funding in response to the toll the pandemic-driven lockdown was taking on music venues, fes-
tivals, and arts organizations, with money coming from programs like Amplify B.C. and distributed through agencies like the B.C. Arts Council. D’Eith was thrilled when, last month, Amplify B.C. got renewed for three years at $22.5 million, which means three years of locked-in funding for the most necessary aid. “I’m in the middle of consultations, as parliamentary secretary right now, with the entire industry, with all parts of the sector, to find out what we need to get back. And then also there’s $35 million in B.C. Arts Council recovery funding. So I think the government has done a remarkable job in terms of supporting arts and culture and the creative industries.” When asked if there’s any particular B.C. bands or artists he wants to give a personal shout-out to in these trying times, D’Eith doesn’t hesitate before aiming the kudos at B.C. indie-rock outfit Mother Mother. “I’m a huge fan of Ryan [Guldemond] and the rest of the group,” he notes. “I noticed that they’re out in Chicago in September and have a huge tour planned. So shout-out to Mother Mother, because they’re a group that I think deserves international success.” In between trying to rescue the province’s music and arts industries, D’Eith still finds time to get his own musical licks in. The other act he is noted for besides Rymes with Orange, the atmospheric, mostly instrumental duo Mythos—which has earned its own fair share of international success—recorded an album this year featuring five new tracks. And like gig-deprived musicians across the globe right now, he also yearns to get back onstage—at least once in a while. “I’d love to play live more,” he confides. “My buddy Marc LaFrance, who plays with Randy Bachman, has a group called Cease & Desist, and I sit in with him sometimes. And one of my sons is the drummer in a funky soul-rock band called Raincity, and they sometimes let me sit in too.” D’Eith says that “the best thing ever” was when another of his sons, the 20-year-old indie-pop singer-songwriter who performs under the artist name Cam Blake, asked him to help write a tune for Father’s Day. “I’m like, ‘Hell yeah!’,” D’Eith says, “because I have to create as part of the balance in my life. It’s very difficult to find the time, given the job of being an MLA, but I do my best to find that time, because if you’re a creator, you need to create.” g
MOVIES / MUSIC
Sunny In the Heights succeeds despite its storyline by Radheyan Simonpillai
MOVIE REVIEW IN THE HEIGHTS
Starring Anthony Ramos and Melissa Barrera. 143 minutes. Available on Friday, June 11, on digital and VOD services.
d IN THE HEIGHTS is so joyous, vibrant, and visually wondrous that it mostly gets away with having next to no plot. The film adaptation of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s breakout musical, In the Heights, is a loving bachata and hip-hop swan song to the Latinx community in New York City’s Washington Heights, who are largely Dominicans, Puerto Ricans, and Cubans. The movie is overloaded with a winning cast and knockout musical numbers, all celebrating the culture in a community feeling the strain of gentrification. A win for some of these characters is their ability to find themselves in the exact same place, from beginning to end, which is also what makes the movie so dramatically inert. The main conflicts involve characters watching clocks or calendars, wondering how much longer they’ll continue living or working in the neighbourhood, which can be rather trying when the movie itself is two-and-a-half hours long. At least Broadway has intermissions. Melissa Barrera’s Vanessa doesn’t know whether she can or
Anthony Ramos and Melissa Barrera show off their chemistry—and their moves—in New York City’s Washington Heights in the film adaptation of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s breakout musical.
should get an apartment downtown. Singer Leslie Grace’s Nina has to decide whether she should stay in Stanford or move back to Washington Heights. These people and others orbit Anthony Ramos’s Usnavi (the role Miranda played on-stage). He runs the corner bodega but plans to pack it in and
realize his lifelong dream of moving back to the Dominican Republic and setting up shop on the beach. Their individual dilemmas stretch things to the limit, but there are enough personalities in the mix to keep it involving. Chief among them are Ramos and Barrera. The
two magnetic leads have a chemistry that draw us in and keep us invested in what’s between Usnavi and Vanessa—whether its sexual tension or the subway stops and airports after they make their moves. Corey Hawkins is a cheerful blast of energy with excellent flows as Usnavi’s best friend and Nina’s old boyfriend. As Nina, Grace is a bit too poised. In an easily overlooked role, Jimmy Smits as Nina’s warm, loving but overbearing father is astonishing. But even the slow moments or the numbers that don’t quite get your blood flowing have something to catch your eye. Jon M. Chu, the director who set the Step Up franchise on the right path with its second installment, doesn’t slouch when it comes to making the movie stand out from the stage. And it often feels like In the Heights is about to bust loose from the screen. Chu amplifies every moment, big and small, tossing around animations and special effects—like a maintenance hole that spins like a turntable—with incredibly choreographed dances and numerous setups. Some numbers are bigger and better than others: namely, the pool-party eruption of “96,000”, the rousing, comic, and melancholic celebration in “Carnaval del Barrio”, and the jawdropping table setter, “In the Heights”. The movie is too long, to be certain. But we’ll be playing our fave numbers on a loop all summer. g
Linda Lindas send a message on multiple fronts
A
by Mike Usinger
t its purest and most undiluted, punk rock is all about channelling legitimate rage and unbridled anger. Which is to say that Green Day and the Offspring obviously missed the memo. The Linda Lindas from Los Angeles, on the other hand, clearly know their history. The group is made up of four young women. And by that, we’re talking really young: drummer Mila is 10 years old, with her bandmates Eloise, Lucia, and Bela ranging from age 13 to 16. But proving that age is just a number, the Linda Lindas have already built an impressive résumé, playing pre-pandemic shows with Bikini Kill, Best Coast, and legit L.A. punk icon Alice Bag. But past accomplishments isn’t why we’re here today. Last week the Los Angeles based upstarts—who describe themselves as “a half Asian/half Latinx band featuring ‘two sisters, a cousin and their close friend’ ”—found themselves playing the Los Angeles Public Library as part of Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month.
The Linda Lindas ignored repeated requests from the L.A. Public Library librarian to “Shush.”
There’s an easy way to describe the band’s set: Holy. Fucking. Shit. Covers included The Muffs’ “Big Mouth” and Bikini Kill’s essential “Rebel
Girl”. But it was an original that has set the Internet on fire. And attracted raving accolades from everyone from Rage Against the Machine’s Tom Morello to
Paramore’s Hayley Williams. The song is called “Racist, Sexist Boy” and it sounds like Pretty on the Inside–era Hole in a bloody no-holds-barred cage match with L7 and Tribe 8. Which is to say part scorched earth punk and part scarily feral grunge. While the title pretty much says everything you need to know, Mila nonetheless added a bit of additional background during the Linda Lindas library set. “A little while before we went into lockdown, a boy came up to me in my class and said that his dad told him to stay away from Chinese people,” Mila noted before the song. “After I told him that I was Chinese, he backed away from me. Eloise and I wrote this song based on that experience.” Before this whole lockdown business, a popular narrative was that rock—punk or otherwise—was finally, and officially, dead. Against all odds, it somehow just got off the mat. Again. Duck and fucking cover. And thank the Linda Lindas for the greatest thing you’ll see this month. g
MAY 27 – JUNE 3 / 2021
THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT
13
SAVAGE LOVE
Betrayal by best friend merits permanent exile by Dan Savage
b I NEED YOUR advice. My partner of 27 years has been sleeping with my best friend. This has been going on for a year and a half. As far as I knew, we had a monogamous relationship, even if things had gotten stale between us in recent years. And my best friend is everything to me. I confide in him for a lot, including advice on my relationship. We spoke recently about how my partner wasn’t interested in sex. He looked me straight in the eye and said how his partner wasn’t interested in sex either. Little did I know that he was doing my partner. What is weird is that my friend isn’t even close to my partner’s “type”. My friend, however, has turned into an absolute whore in recent years. His partner
knows nothing about it. I feel so betrayed by them both. I am gutted. I also fear being alone. I am 56 years old. The four of us did a lot together: Thanksgiving, Christmas, dinners, brunch, everything. I don’t see how we can continue now. What should I do? - Going Under Thanks To Extreme Deceit
I don’t know what to tell you.
If you find what your partner and best friend did—over and over again—intolerable and unforgiveable, GUTTED, then don’t tolerate or forgive. Burn it all down. Dump your partner of nearly 30 years and cut your best friend out of your life. Then you get to decide if you’re gonna go quietly or if you’re gonna let people know why you 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 Glass Half Full, I Insist
People I admire in life particularly older folk try to concentrate on positive side of things always. I want to be like them as I get older. Its not possible to not see bad side of things particularly if one is somewhat intelligent but its important to not dwell on them and certainly its not badge of honor to do so.
Needing a support group for living with an alcoholic. Everything online seems to be 12 step like al anon or na, which I haven’t found to be helpful. Or rehabs advertising their facility, also 12 step. Any other suggestions for help or support? Living apart in our own places isn’t possible, we can barely afford the suite we’re in.
Livin The Dream I spent 11 years dreaming about someone, checking their social media, waiting around (just in case...). Anyway, don’t do like me. There’s nothing to show for it all, and at this point I’m so bitter I wouldn’t even stoop to speak to the someone any more.
I Don’t Like Who I Am Becoming! After years of loneliness, failed relationships, and other life dramas I am becoming angry and bitter. The crazy lady muttering obscenities behind her mask. The things I use to be able to laugh at or just shake off now I get so annoyed or angry. I have built a wall so high around myself, no one will ever get in. This is not a good way to live.
Visit 14
THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT
to post a Confession MAY 27 – JUNE 3 / 2021
ended both these relationships. And if you make your reasons public, GUTTED, which you have every right to do, the details will instantly get back your best friend’s partner—assuming you don’t tell him yourself—and your ex-best-friend’s relationship will most likely end. Which means when the dust settles—and new leases are signed—you and your best friend’s ex will be alone and your former partner and your former best friend will be free to go public with their relationship. But you can’t stay with your partner just to prevent that outcome. You can’t stay in this relationship out of spite. Which is not to say you can’t stay in this relationship. You could stay—if you wanted to, and your partner wants to—but it’s going to be a very different relationship going forward. You don’t say much about your relationship other than how long it’s gone on, GUTTED, that things went stale some years back, and how upset you were to discover this affair. But if there’s still good in this relationship and you have reasons to stay other than (or in addition to) not wanting to be alone, GUTTED, then get into couples counselling with your partner. Things will never be the same, GUTTED, but you know what? It’s deeply irrational for us to expect things to stay the same as the decades grind on. And having to pretend things are the same puts an avoidable—but not easily avoidable—strain on our longterm relationships. Because even as both partners know things have changed, acknowledging that fact feels risky because it often involves renegotiating the terms of the relationship. (Like a monogamous commitment made decades ago.) And the longer you’re together, the higher the stakes can seem. So two people don’t talk about what has changed (even if both parties know things have changed), and some people decide to do what they need to in order to stay married (or partnered) and stay sane. (Where do people get that idea?) Ideally, this going and doing—contingencies, allowances, carve-outs—are discussed in advance and agreed to by both parties. But just as often as not, GUTTED, difficult conversations are avoided and affairs begin and then much more difficult conversations can’t be avoided once affairs are discovered. Finding out you’ve been cheated can be deeply traumatic. I say “can”, GUTTED, because it’s not true in all cases; some people don’t give a shit who their partners are sleeping with after three decades together so long as they come home. It’s not that sex and faithfulness (which is not to be confused with monogamy) aren’t important. They are. They were obviously important to you. It’s just that other things—like a long history together or a deep-if-notpassionate intimacy or both—can become
Longtime relationships can often survive cheating. Photo by Srdjanns74/Getty Images.
more important over time, and monogamy, flawlessly executed over decades and decades, is not the only way a person can demonstrate faithfulness to a partner. Once you’re in couples counselling—assuming your partner is willing to go—I would encourage you to squarely face questions like how important sex is to you as an individual now and how important sex and sexual exclusivity are to you as a couple now. Sexual passion and sexual exclusivity may have defined your relationship at the start and may have helped you cement your bond. But other things—valuable things like familiarity, intimacy, and security— may have overtaken them in importance. Just because your partner may not be interested in sex with you anymore or sex with you exclusively, GUTTED, doesn’t mean your partner isn’t interested in being your partner anymore. He may still love you, and other things—perhaps more important things than sex—cement your bond now. Or not. Your partner could want out and the affair was his way of blowing it all up. But if he wants to stay in this relationship too, GUTTED, it would, again, be a different kind of partnership going forward. Perhaps a companionate one, perhaps one with a revived sexual connection. There’s definitely a path forward if you both want to be together. It’s a steep and a rocky path, GUTTED, but it’s one that countless other couples have walked together. And navigating it would require a huge effort from both of you, sincere contrition from him, and heroic powers of forgiveness from you. As for your best friend, GUTTED, you should tell that guy to go fuck himself for all eternity. P.S. You toss the word “whore” around like it’s a bad thing. It’s not. Deceit and betrayal are bad things. What your best friend did was bad; what your partner did was bad. But whoring around—safely, ethically, consensually—is a good thing, GUTTED, and a lot of my readers are looking forward to doing some safe, ethical, consensual whoring around once they’re vaccinated. And, yes, even recently single gay men in their midfifties can get their whore on. (Put “daddy” in your Instagram bio, GUTTED, and watch the DMs pour in.) g
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253–/JULY THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT 15 3 MAY 27 –JUNE JUNE 20212 / 2020 THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT
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THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT
MAY 27 – JUNE 3 / 2021
