The Georgia Straight - Going Green - August 13, 2020

AUGUST 13 – 20 / 2020 | FREE Volume 54 | Number 2742

HOUSING SALES Pandemic transforms market

Going

ORGASMIC CANNABIS

Weed enhances pleasure

Green Urban dwellers discover the joy of home-delivered plants ESPORTS

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ANGER MANAGEMENT

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QUEER FILMS

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LAMBRUSCOS

HEALTH

Angry Karen videos only tell part of the emotional story

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CONTENTS 9

By Janet Smith

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CALL FOR YOUR

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By John Lucas

Alejandra Proano urges people to understand emotions that may be hidden beneath anger.

and the person may feel doubt or shame. Yet an angry person may not understand what they’re truly feeling or trying to express.

As anger is a secondary emotion, Proaño said what may be hidden underneath are feelings of loss or abandonment, emotional or physical pain, fears, shame, being unheard, or unfulfi lled needs.

“The key is to talk about this,” Proaño said. If people don’t, she said, they may leave their emotions unresolved.

“That is very toxic,” she said. “It is great that women are starting to speak up about their anger because if not, they will show it in a very manipulative, in a very silent way, but it’s there. It’s not productive. It’s not good for any of us.”

Proaño said that a growing number of women want to learn about being in charge of their own anger because they’ve long been denied this emotion.

While everyone may seem stressed out during the pandemic, she pointed out that stress isn’t the problem.

“We need now to do a lot of work on healthy regulation of responses in the face of stressful situations,” she said. Proaño said it’s important to respond with compassion—to one’s own anger. g

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Donald Trump wants to ban WeChat in the U.S., which is worrying gamers because of owner Tencent’s stake in the ESports industry.

MICHAEL JOGIA PRIVATE VIEWING

COVER

Home greenery removes toxins from the air, so it’s no wonder that urban residents are ordering plants to be delivered while they’re spending so much time indoors.

by Craig Takeuchi

t’s an uneasy time to be named Karen.

Online videos, articles, and comments shaming Karens, the slang nickname for angry, privileged white women verbally abusing people in racist ways or throwing tantrums, abound. What is in short supply are explanations about what exactly is going on.

By phone, registered clinical counsellor and psychotherapist Alejandra Proaño of Healing Anger, who runs anger-management groups for women in Vancouver, suggested several contributing factors. Proaño explained that the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns are “like going into a deep meditation that we cannot run from”—people are forced to face their “internal landscape”.

Also, she pointed out women are participating in the #MeToo movement “telling the stories that previously we were not allowed to tell”. Add to that Black Lives Matter, which Proaño said makes some deeply uncomfortable, and the current zeitgiest is priming people to blow a fuse.

But the issue isn’t anger itself—it’s whether a person chooses to express that anger in a firm, respectful manner or in an offensive or harmful way. And a survival-based physiological response complicates things further.

When someone perceives something as threatening, Proaño explained, a trauma response kicks in, and the prefrontal cortex of the brain—involved in decision-making and moderating social behaviour—switches off.

She said this causes the individual to withdraw from social engagement. Tunnel vision, with black-and-white thinking, ensures.

Pain receptors stop working. Fear and anxiety prompt a shift into attack mode.

“During this state of high arousal, you’re going to say the most horrible things,” she explained. But after the adrenalin high subsides, the body, she said, undergoes physical and emotional depletion.

The prefrontal cortex also reboots, she said,

August 13-20 / 2020

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Salsa, sandwiches, and salads recalled due to links with tainted onions.

Rising COVID-19 case numbers threaten to undo work over past few months.

Real estate: what $1 million can buy in Canada’s most expensive city.

Cranbrook, B.C.—born Broadway star Brent Carver dies at 68.

Vancouver park board will reopen a dozen fitness centres in September. @GeorgiaStraight

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3

ESPORTS

Trump’s WeChat order leaves gamers concerned

The U.S. president is taking on the company that owns Riot Games, the publisher of League of Legends

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by Charlie Smith

ith a U.S. presidential election less than three months away, Donald Trump appears to be pinning his reelection hopes on taking on China. And there’s a chance that this could be highly disruptive to gamers and ESports players.

That’s because one of the Chinese companies that Trump has set his sights on is Shenzhen-based Tencent Holdings. It’s an entertainment and communications empire worth about US$644 billion on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.

Tencent describes its cloud products and services as performing the role of a “digital assistant”. This integrates big-data analytics, artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things, security, and cloud computing for a long list of clients, including big banks and insurance companies.

In addition, Tencent helped launch the Global Esports Federation, which is based in Singapore. One of its vice presidents is Tencent vice president Cheng Wu. Another vice president is Vancouver’s Charmaine Crooks, an International

Olympic Committee member. She was a silver medallist with Canada’s 4 X 400-metre relay team in the 1984 Los Angeles Summer Games. Crooks chairs the federation’s Athletes and Players Commission.

On August 6, Trump issued an executive order “addressing the threat posed by WeChat”, which is one of many entities owned by Tencent.

“WeChat, a messaging, social media, and electronic payment application owned by the Chinese company Tencent Holdings Ltd., reportedly has over one billion users worldwide, including users in the United States,” Trump declared in the order.

“Like TikTok, WeChat automatically captures vast swaths of information from its users,” the president continued. “This data collection threatens to allow the Chinese Communist Party access to Americans’ personal and proprietary information.”

Trump’s order states that within 45 days of its issuance, any transaction with Tencent “or any subsidiary of that entity, as identified by the Secretary of Commerce”, will be prohibited in the United

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With a U.S. federal election looming, incumbent President Donald Trump has decided to take on Tencent Holdings, the Chinese parent company of League of Legends publisher Riot Games.

States. The order refers specifically to WeChat. However, it also raises concern about “the spread in the United States of mobile applications developed and owned by companies in the People’s Republic of China (China)” and how that “continues to threaten the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States”.

This presidential declaration coincided with the signing of a separate executive order banning TikTok. It’s a Chineseowned video-sharing app used by about 100 million Americans.

That has generated speculation that Trump’s next target could be video games owned by Tencent. It’s the world’s largest video-game publisher by revenue.

The Shenzhen-based company has a 40 percent stake in Epic Games, creator of Fortnite. In addition, Tencent owns Riot Games, which makes League of Legends.

A recent report by TEO PC Games declared that League of Legends is the “most impactful” PC game in the world for the fifth straight quarter. Riot Games has three others in the top 15: Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:Go), Valorant, and Teamfight Tactics.

According to the Los Angeles Times, Tencent also owns five percent of videogame giants Activision Blizzard and Ubisoft. In March, Tencent announced that it had purchased a 10 percent stake in Universal Music Group from Vivendi.

Noah J. Nelson, founder and publisher of Los Angeles–based No Proscenium, speculated that Trump could face a political backlash with his executive order on Tencent.

“There’s a reading of this that means that @realDonaldTrump just declared war

on League of Legends, Fortnite, and Valorant. That he basically declared war on gamers as a whole,” Nelson tweeted. “I’m sure that will work out nicely for him.”

Los Angeles Times reporter Sam Dean, on the other hand, insisted over Twitter that video games owned by Tencent will not be captured by the order.

“White House official confirmed to the LA Times that the EO only blocks transactions related to WeChat,” Dean stated, not naming his source. “So Riot Games (League of Legends), Epic Games (Fortnite), et al are safe (pending updates)”.

Meanwhile, TikTok’s owner, ByteDance, is planning legal action against the Trump administration, according to U.S.-based National Public Radio. Citing an unnamed source, NPR reported that the company will argue that the president’s decision to base a ban on national security is “baseless”.

There’s no word whether Tencent will join that court action. But earlier this year, it tried to brush up its image as a good corporate citizen by establishing a US$100million Global Anti-Pandemic Fund to help hospitals and health-care workers respond to COVID-19. This came in the wake of a US$211-million fund that it had created to address this issue in China. g

MORE ESPORTS ONLINE AT ECENTRALSPORTS.COM

CANNABIS

Female cannabis users may have better orgasms

by John Lucas

note that other researchers have suggested that the endocannabinoid system plays a role in female sexual function.

“Whether the endocannabinoid system represents a viable target of therapy through cannabis for female sexual dysfunction requires future prospective studies though any therapy has to be balanced with the potential negative consequences of cannabis use,” the authors conclude.

A “REVERSE GATEWAY” DRUG

A survey of female dispensary customers showed improved sexual function with increased cannabis use. Photo by Love portrait and love the world / iStock / Getty Images Plus.

D

o women who use cannabis have better sex lives? One recently published study suggests that the answer is yes.

Between October 20, 2019, and March 12, 2020, researchers invited female adults who visited a cannabis dispensary’s locations to participate in an anonymous online survey.

According to the research results, published on July 23 in Sexual Medicine, the survey “assessed baseline demographics, health status, cannabis use habits as well as

used the validated Female Sexual Function Index (FSFI) to assess sexual function”.

A total of 452 women responded to the survey. “Our results demonstrate that increasing frequency of cannabis use is associated with improved sexual function and is associated with increased satisfaction, orgasm, and sexual desire,” the study’s authors wrote.

The researchers acknowledged, however, that they don’t know what accounts for this improved sexual function. They

According to a peer-reviewed research paper published on July 28 in the medical journal PLOS One, “street-involved” young people use cannabis as a method of harm reduction.

Researchers interviewed 56 young people in Vancouver between 2017 and 2019. The majority of study participants engaged in “daily, intensive cannabis use”.

During the same period, they cycled on and off alcohol, fentanyl, heroin, and other substances perceived as more harmful.

The authors write that most participants derived significant pleasure from the use of cannabis. However, no participants in the study described using cannabis for purely recreational purposes.

Instead, participants framed cannabis

use as a form of mental-health and substance-use treatment.

The authors assert that their findings demonstrate what one could refer to as a “reverse gateway effect”. Among some street-entrenched youth, “cannabis use was associated with the intermittent reduction, elimination or prevention of more harmful forms of drug use such as meth and opioid use.”

The study was supported by the Canadian Institute for Health Research, SickKids Foundation, and Vancouver Foundation.

In May, the CannCentral website reported on another study of cannabis use in Vancouver. It found that people who use cannabis for pain relief and other therapeutic reasons may be at lower risk of overdosing on opioids. That research also appeared in PLOS One. g

MORE CANNABIS ONLINE AT CANNCENTRAL.COM

AUGUST 13 – 20 / 2020

THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT

5

EDUCATION

Associate degree opens doors for VCC students

A

by Charlie Smith

n associate of science degree is a fairly common credential in the United States. But according to Jennifer Kelly, department leader of science at Vancouver Community College, it’s not nearly as well known in Canada. B.C. offers these degrees under its Degree Authorization Act. VCC’s associate of science degree program accepts new students three times a year—in September, January, and May. Students complete two years of undergraduate science to earn a standalone credential, enabling them to analyze and interpret data collected through research or in the lab. This can be applied to address real-world problems.

“It can be used either to transition into a career or just to transfer into the third year of a four-year bachelor’s program,” Kelly explained to the Straight by phone.

She said that people who graduate from the two-year program will be qualified to work as a computer-support specialist.

They might also be hired in a junior capacity in software development.

“SFU actually gives preferential admission to associate degree holders,” Kelly noted.

That’s because SFU bumps up the student’s grade-point average by a quarter of a

Associate degree holders can get a job or transfer to university science programs. Photo by VCC

point in the admissions process.

“UBC doesn’t do that, but they do guarantee full transfer credit for 60 credits for the associate degree,” she said. “That can save students quite a lot of hassle in the transfer process.”

Due to COVID-19, most VCC classes are being delivered remotely. According to Kelly, instructors have worked exceptionally hard to keep classes as interactive and engaging as possible over Zoom.

LEARNING

VCC’s first associate degree is in computing science. “In computing science, luckily, it is working very well,” Kelly said. “The students can share their screens, follow along with real-time changes to the code that the instructor is making, and so on.”

In the first year, there are 24 science credits—including biology, chemistry, and physics—along with six math credits and six English credits. Second-year students take one introduction to statistics course and 24 more

science credits. In addition, the second-year students are required to obtain six credits in arts courses other than English.

“We’ve got the go-ahead to do in-person chemistry labs, thank goodness,” Kelly said.

She pointed out that those with an aptitude for math, computing, and engineering might be interested in this program. “It’s really about problem-solving and critical thinking as much as it is about practical training,” she said.

VCC offers small class sizes, with no more than 40 students. And students pay significantly lower tuition than what’s charged at B.C.’s research universities.

Kelly emphasized that VCC faculty love teaching. In the past, she added, mature students have often done very well in math or science. “They tell us later on that they didn’t think they were any good at math and science before they came to us,” she stated. “But we have this very supportive environment and show students what they’re capable of, which is quite gratifying.”

VCC’s diverse student body demonstrates to Kelly that a wide range of people like studying at its two campuses.

“Feeling like you belong is important to succeeding in education,” she noted. g

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AUGUST 13 – 20 / 2020

EDUCATION

Mature student achieves the dream of a lifetime

B

by Charlie Smith

usinesswoman Rozy Karim will never forget her early days in Canada after arriving as a refugee from East Africa. She was staring outside a bedroom window in wintry Toronto after arriving penniless with her husband. They lost everything after escaping violence and chaos in Burundi in the 1970s.

“The rooftops were white, the trees were white, and the branches liked like stalagmites of ice,” Karim told the Straight by phone. “The snowflakes looked like a string of pearls from the soft, dim early streetlights. It was magical.”

She ran outside, spread her arms wide, looked at the sky, and stuck her tongue out.

She had never seen snow in her life.

“I was spinning in joy and singing to her, my big mom—Canada,” Karim recalled.

“She had spread her arms and hugged me to safety. Her crisp windy voice was serenading me: you are safe.”

Suddenly, she was grabbed by the arm and dragged back inside by her husband, who told her never to go out in the snow in her nightgown. “For god sake,” he said, “you are nine months pregnant.”

But Karim retained a dream of attending university in Canada, even as

My time at SFU was the most amazing experience…

– Rozy Karim

One of Rozy Karim’s grandchildren looked on as she celebrated earning her bachelor’s degree.

she began at the bottom of the economic ladder. She loaded boxes onto trucks and cleaned floors and the washroom in an automotive store. She also recalled dodging

snowballs on her way home, thrown by racists who told her to “go home”—but not to her residence in Toronto.

“Although not easily forgotten, the new meaning of living happily ever after was not going to stop me from keeping my dream alive,” Karim said.

Karim later become a single mother to three sons, eventually moving to the Lower Mainland and opening her own business.

She began volunteering at the Ismaili Centre in Burnaby, helping seniors and children.

And on her 59th birthday, Karim told her sons that she was going to pursue a bachelor’s degree at Simon Fraser University.

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“They were indeed shocked and did not understand why I would want to go back to school at my age,” Karim said. “I told them that the little girl who used to read fairy tales in East Africa had to fulfill her dreams of going to university.”

She began by taking evening and weekend courses at SFU. Later, she took two days a week off from her business and took two courses per semester. And the day after her 65th birthday in June, she graduated with a major in international studies with a specialization in comparative world politics, culture, and society. Her minor was in education, with a focus on early learning.

“My time at SFU was the most amazing experience that one can ever imagine,” Karim said. “I was not given a special preference because of my age, or anything like that. I had to compete equally with the rest of my classmates who were so much younger—the age of my children.”

She credited several SFU faculty and staff members for making her academic journey such a pleasure, including Heesoon Bai, Anisha Arora, Amyn Sajoo, and Ellen Siew Meng Yap. “My dream had come true,” Karim declared. g

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AUGUST 13 – 20 / 2020

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THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT

7

EDUCATION

Concordia University pivoted quickly to virtual ed

L

by Charlie Smith

ike all Canadian postsecondary institutions, Concordia University went into crisis mode in March. The COVID-19 pandemic caused the cancellation of all classes, creating a mad rush to deliver courses and exams online.

But according to Concordia’s manager of student recruitment, Cindy Tam, it went far more smoothly than some might have expected. That’s because the Montrealbased university could rely on its Centre for Teaching and Learning, which promotes evidence-based approaches to everything from decolonizing the curriculum to promoting effective digital-teaching approaches.

“Some professors were really tech-savvy and were already into flipped classrooms,” Tam said “And then some of them were maybe a bit more traditional, but we’ve had a lot of support for them through the Centre for Teaching and Learning.”

One section of its website advances best practices for virtual learning. It encourages professors to include captioning in videos. It also urges a wide range of student-engagement activities to minimize their data usage while maintaining a teaching presence. Then there’s advice on how to protect students’ privacy and instructors’ intellectual property.

8

THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT

Concordia University is one of Canada’s largest postsecondary institutions, but it takes pride in its small class sizes, ranking first in the Times Higher Education Impact ratings for “quality education”.

“For example, just having live sessions during your regular class time in lieu of an in-person lecture isn’t good enough,” Tam explained. “How are students from different time zones going to access it?”

Last year, the Times Higher Education (THE) Young University Rankings named Concordia the top university in Canada among those that are less than 50 years old. The 2020 THE Impact Ratings ranked

AUGUST 13 – 20 / 2020

Concordia first in the “quality education” category, which measured everything from lifelong learning, pedagogy research, and commitment to inclusive education.

Concordia was created in 1974 by the merger of Loyola College and George Williams University. Engineering, computer sciences, and the John Molson School of Business are some of the programs offered at the downtown campus in Quartier

Concordia. Journalism and athletics are housed at the historic Loyola campus.

B.C. residents can enroll at Concordia, enabling them to take advantage of Quebec’s lower tuition fees. Then they can move to Montreal when more classes are offered face to face.

“A lot of our French courses are subsidized at the Quebec tuition rate, so they’re even lower,” Tam said.

Even though Concordia is a large university, it prides itself on its small class sizes to ensure greater interaction between students and instructors.

In fine-arts programs, there will be some hybrid offerings. For example, sculpture students will observe instructors doing demonstrations. But in photography, students will be able to submit all of their work online.

Tam noted that surveys have shown that about 80 percent of students have said that the university’s transition to digital learning has been “really seamless”.

“They were still engaged,” she said.

“They thought it was still a quality education. That’s what we’re focusing on.”

When next year’s Times Higher Education Impact Ratings come out, she hopes that Concordia remains first in this category. g

LIVING

Home deliveries meet surging demand for plants

by Janet Smith

O

Studies have shown that houseplants—such as the snake plant (left), Zamioculcas (middle, photo courtesy Plantsome), and the fiddle-leaf fig—can reduce stress and detoxify indoor air in a day.

nline house plants brought to your doorstep: the new area of home delivery has seen fresh growth as homebound urbanites gravitate toward green.

Striped, curvy snake plants and brightgreen fiddle-leaf fig are in demand not just because they’re the hot new décor trend but because they offer benefits to a population coping with the stress of a pandemic.

“We’re coming out of a 20-year struggle,” Kevin Tholenaars, of the new Plantsome Canada estore, says of the business.

“If you talk to some of the nurseries and second- or third-generation growers, there’s been a lull for the last 20 years. But it’s really reinvigorated now.

“There have always been people who are into plants, but it’s definitely attracting a wider audience now,” he continues. “I get questions every day from people saying, ‘I’ve never had a plant; what should I get?’

And because people are spending so much more time at home, they want a more calming environment.”

Tholenaars points out that people are wanting to elevate the look of their home— something even more important as Zoom brings your coworkers to your living room.

“People are sharing more of their personal space onscreen and plants help elevate the entire look,” Tholenaars says.

Over at Vancouver’s Plant Therapy, Narin Ramcharitar and Elaine Simandl have seen similar demand. They set up their bricks-and-mortar shop in 2019, when they were already seeing the beginnings of an uptick in the home-greenery business, but they had to shut it down due to COVID-19 this spring and move everything to an online estore that offers pickup

and delivery.

“We didn’t know what to expect; we weren’t sure what we’d be doing,” Ramcharitar says, “but it’s helped people and they’ve opened up and told us how much they’ve loved the plants.”

“It’s therapeutic watching a new leaf open,” Simandl adds.

She’s right. Science has shown several reasons for why houseplants are helping us cope right now. NASA research has revealed that home greenery can remove up to 87 percent of air toxin in 24 hours.

Other academic studies have proven indoor plants reduce stress levels and boost your mood. They are even supposed to improve concentration and productivity by up to 15 percent—a plus during the pandemic’s work-from-home mandate.

Then there are the less quantitative reasons for the rise in plant geekdom.

Let’s start with Yoga With Adriene, the YouTube sensation that has shot up to 6.6 million subscribers since COVID-19 hit.

Who doesn’t covet her majestic Monstera deliciosa (Swiss cheese plant) and spikey Dracaena marginata (dragon tree) as they try to stretch away their home-office aches and pains?

You can also thank social media, which has been driving the plant trend.

The Facebook group House Plant Hobbyist has more than 327,000 members from across the globe, and free apps like GardenTags and GrowIt encourage users to interact with other green thumbs. Just search houseplants, indoor jungle, or simply Monstera on Pinterest for an idea of how leafy home décor has become.

Online retailers, too, have been able to leverage the digital sphere to connect

people and plants. Plantsome, which launched in Canada in March—nerverackingly, right as COVID-19 was hitting—delivers AAA-grade plant babies from local nurseries throughout B.C. and delivers them to your door. The easyto-navigate site features little icons over photos: a cat for pet-friendly, snapping fingers for ease of care. It also has its own app that monitors local weather (temperature, humidity, and more) to let you know when and how much to water, plus when to give it fertilizer. Plants arrive in a specially engineered box that keeps your new green friend intact. “There’s a little more that goes into a plant than shipping a laptop or something,” Tholenaars says.

Plant Therapy, on the other hand, relies on its own team of couriers to give the plants the care they need for the journey.

“We couldn’t really be doing what we’re doing right now without social media and an online store. We don’t even have a store phone number; we find it easier to respond by social media or email,” Ramcharitar says.

Making plant-care info easy and accessible is also key. “We want people to have success with their first and second plant. It goes back to mental health as part of it as well, just seeing success,” Ramcharitar explains.

“One thing we try to express is there’s basic care tips for every plant, but every home is different. Some people keep the house warmer; some keep it cooler. So we do a lot of follow-up with our customers as well, utilizing social media and technology.”

With those variables in mind, here are two of the easiest-care varieties recommended by the home-delivery experts, followed by one for slightly more advanced plant lovers.

SNAKE PLANTS

There are more than five dozen species of this sleek, serpentine, and ridiculously easy-to-care-for plant. Coming in different shades of green, snakes have vertical yellow or horizontal white stripes. “They are very, very hardy and can take heat or take cold, low light or bright light,” Tholenaars says. Seek out the Sansevieria trifasciata, so dramatic it has served as prominent set decoration in cult flicks like Being John Malkovich and Blue Velvet. Or try the demure S. laurentii, with its dappled graygreen leaves.

ZZ

The Zamioculcas zamiifolia adds height to empty corners, sprouting dark-green, shiny leaves. It can handle even the most dismal of light. “It’s great for people starting to join the plant community who want to have something new in their home,” Simandl says. Dubbing it the “camel of plants”, Plant Therapy includes it on its Easy Care Plants list with this straight-to-the-point Owners Status description: “I’ve never owned a plant before / I kill everything (Novice).”

FICUS

The Ficus lyrata, or fiddle-leaf fig, is all the rage these days, its burst of large, shiny leaves a gorgeous foil to minimalistic, allwhite décor. “They’re stunning to look at.

However, they do require you to spend a little more time and care to make sure the plant is thriving,” Tholenaars warns. “You don’t want to overwater or underwater.”

And from Simandl: “We call it the Goldilocks of plants: it doesn’t want too much wet; it doesn’t want too much light. It’s pretty finicky.” g

AUGUST 13 – 20 / 2020

THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT

9

DRINKS

Herbs help add complexity to classic cocktails

A

by Mike Usinger

ssuming your name isn’t David Hunter, Jolly Green Giant, or Little Green Sprout, August is the month where gardens start to look less than picture-perfect.

The colour-saturated pop provided by spring flowers is a distant memory—like the soothing monsoons of Juneary and a world where COVID-19 hadn’t ruined almost everything.

If you’re lucky enough to have grass, chances are that right about now it’s a wasteland shade of dead brown. If you’re one of those urban survivalists convinced the apocalypse is not only imminent but indeed is actually upon us, you’ve probably been growing your own food, including herbs.

And whether you’ve got basil, thyme, or oregano growing on a three-acre spread in Surrey or a 5-by-5-square-foot balcony in the River District, now is the time to use it or lose it. You’ve been cultivating the perfect herb patch for months. Time to reap the rewards.

There’s only so much homemade pasta sauce you can make once the herbs start bolting and the tomatoes begin dropping.

Luckily you’ve got options if you’ve got a liquor cabinet.

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THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT

For years, pineapples, oranges, grapefruit, coconuts, bananas, limes, and any other fruit you could think of were the big building blocks in North American cocktail culture.

They gave us everything from the margarita, daquiri, and screwdriver to the chi-chi and squashed strawberry alley cat.

Something revolutionary happened around the middle of the last decade, though, when bartending went from something you did to put yourself through college to a rock-star profession.

For centuries, herbs were used in liquor production—giving us everything from Jägermeister and Chartreuse to Bénédictine and Verveine du Velay. Suddenly innovators from New York to Vancouver were using herbs behind the bar in everyday cocktail creations.

At first it was hard to wrap one’s head around. Rosemary is something you’re supposed to use to bring out the best in lamb, not take a gimlet in a thrilling new direction. But think about why you use herbs in cooking—for flavouring, accenting, and freshness—and then ask yourself why mixology should be any different.

There’s a line of thinking that suggests you think carefully about what herb goes in what drink.

Mint is subtle enough that it goes with pretty much anything—starting, of course, with a classic straight-outta-theSouth mint julep. Gently bruise five or

tarragon patch for a tarragon Negroni or culling the sage for a honey sage bourbon cocktail, your drink will often start with a simple syrup. Make a tea by boiling a small handful of herbs in a cup of water for 20 minutes, then add a cup of sugar and you’re pretty much done.

For added flavour kick and brightness, start your cocktail by muddling a few sprigs of herbs in a shaker. Remember you’re bruising them gently rather than pounding them into a green paste.

Summer can be cruel for those trying to maintain the perfect garden. Do your part to keep things rolling along to the fall.

Here’s something you can make after getting at the garden with a pair of clippers: Sprigs of tarragon will add kick to a classic Negroni cocktail. Photo by Isabella Mendes

six sprigs in an old fashioned glass, add a heaping teaspoon or two of sugar, a heap of crushed ice, and a tablespoon of water, and transport yourself to a majestic veranda in Athens, Georgia.

With other herbs, some bedfellows are better than others. Savoury and strong rosemary goes great with sweet citrusforward cocktails like the gimlet, basil is delicate enough that it won’t overpower things in a vodka smash, and cilantro has a vaguely tropical exoticness that adds an extra complexity to a classic margarita.

Whether you’re raiding the garden

TARRAGON NEGRONI

2 oz gin 1 oz Campari 1 oz Lillet 1 oz fresh lemon juice 1/2 oz tarragon simple syrup (as per above) 3 sprigs fresh tarragon Muddle two sprigs of tarragon in a cocktail shaker and add gin, Campari, Lillet, lemon juice, and simple syrup. Strain into a chilled rocks glass, add fresh ice, and garnish with the tarragon sprig. g Mike Usinger is not a professional bartender. He does, however, spend most of his waking hours sitting on barstools.

Fizzy Lambruscos pair with summer food

I

by Gail Johnson

f you’re a wine lover seeking something delicious to sip during summer’s remaining gloriously sunny days and want to try something other than a crisp white or refreshing rosé, now’s the time to turn your attention to Lambrusco.

A fizzy red wine from Italy’s EmiliaRomagna region named after a family of brightly coloured grapes, it’s just keeps getting more and more popular.

Before you dismiss the stuff as being too sweet, hear us out: the level of sweetness and dryness of the purple bubbly can vary tremendously.

Emilia-Romagna is known as the Valley of Food, and, in keeping with the saying “what grows together goes together”, classic pairings include Parmigiano-Reggiano and Prosciutto di Parma. (Make it a charcuterie board with other cured meats, crusty bread, and grilled peppers drizzled with extra-virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar from Modena.) The fruit-forward, lightly sparkling frizzante is extremely food-friendly, so you could also serve it with pizza, pasta, pho, sushi, or berry pie.

AUGUST 13 – 20 / 2020

Here are three to consider. Serve each chilled in a white-wine glass or tumbler.

CLETO CHIARLI VECCHIA MODENA PREMIUM LAMBRUSCO DI SORBARA

($32.99, Liberty Wine Merchants) The Chiarli family name is at the very heart of Lambrusco’s history. In the mid-1800s, its namesake, Cleto Chiarli, ran a Modena restaurant where he sold his own wine made of Lambrusco grapes. He went on to found Emilia-Romagna’s first wine-producing company and what was once the largest private Lambrusco producer. The family is also credited for making the shift to the Charmat (tank) method for Lambrusco, resulting in the clear (rather than foggy) sparkling it is today. At 11 percent alcohol by volume (ABV), this wine has notes of strawberry, raspberry, cherry, and vanilla. Pair it with takeout from Juke’s Fried Chicken.

SOLCO PALTRINIERI LAMBRUSCO DELL‘EMILIA FRIZZANTE

(Marquis Wine Cellars, $34.89) The family-run Paltrinieri winery is situated

in the heart of Sorbara in the province of Modena, the wine taking its name from the Italian word for furrow. This medium-dry Salamino Lambrusco bears a deep purple hue, has an ABV of 11.5 percent, and is fresh and delicate on the palate. Winemaker Alberto Paltrinieri recommends it as an aperitif or paired with salami, tagliatelle with ragu, or a sour-cherry tart.

MEDICI ERMETE ‘PHERMENTO’ METODO ANCESTRALE LAMBRUSCO DI MODENA

(B.C. Liquor Stores [5555 Cambie Street], $29.99) Dry, lively, and frothy with a raspberry aroma, this pink grapefruit–coloured sparkler is made from Sorbara grapes and comes in at 12.5 percent ABV. Run by the fourth-generation Medici family, the Medici Ermete winery prides itself on the multiple awards it has won for its Lambrusco wines. While you’re on Cambie Street, pop into the excellent new Potluck Hawker Eatery and pick up some seafood nasi goreng, sambal eggplant, and Hawker fried chicken wings (with fishsauce caramel) for a perfect pairing. g

FOOD

Sweet summer corn plagued by misconceptions

F

by Gail Johnson

or a lot of local food lovers, summer is the most wonderful time of the year. From succulent strawberries to sweet peaches, the bounty from urban and nearby farms is impressive and resplendent. And one of the most popular types of produce now in season is corn.

First things first: sweet corn, Chilliwack corn, supersweet corn. What’s in a name?

They’re one and the same, according to Charlotte Lepp, whose family members are the owners of and farmers at Lepp Farm Market in Abbotsford.

“Chilliwack corn is not a variety of corn,” Lepp tells the Straight. “It’s just corn grown in Chilliwack, and we grow all the same varieties as the Chilliwack farmers do.

“I’m pretty passionate about this, as we get asked the question all the time: ‘Is your corn Chilliwack corn?’ ” she says. “It springs from the Chilliwack farmers being the first ones to grow corn on a large scale, and the name stuck.”

There are other misconceptions about corn that Lepp can clear up. For instance, there’s no such thing as Peaches and Cream corn or Jubilee corn. However, there are hundreds of varieties of sweet corn that have been developed through years of hybridization (not to be confused with genetic modification) to hold their sugar content, making for a longer shelf life than the corn of years ago, she explains.

“These are divided into two main groups: supersweet and sugar-enhanced,” Lepp says.

“The supersweet varieties germinate better in cooler temperatures and so these are the first varieties that we plant and they make up the bulk of what you find on the market today. While you may argue that you find the all-yellow sweeter than the bi-colour, it

Rob and Charlotte Lepp grow and sell corn in Abbotsford and often come up against the notion that corn from nearby Chilliwack is a superior variety. Photo courtesy Lepp Farm Market

really comes down to whether it’s a sugarenhanced or a supersweet variety. But try telling that to someone who has made up their mind about their favourite corn.”

What makes growing corn here challenging is waiting for the soil to be warm enough to plant the seed, says Andrew Arkesteyn-Vogler, co-owner and farmer at Abbotsford’s Crisp Organics.

“If you plant it too early, the seed will rot in the ground,” Arkesteyn-Vogler tells the Straight. “Sweet corn loves heat, so that why it grows so well in the Fraser Valley.

“Sweet corn takes a long time to fully

mature, so it isn’t ready to harvest at the beginning of summer,” he adds. “But it is well worth the wait.”

The hardest thing about growing corn is the weather, just as it is with every other crop, according to Lepp.

“This year we planted earlier than we’ve ever done before, in late March,” she says.

“April was warmer and drier than usual, giving us hope for an early season, and then May and June walloped us with rain and cold weather. “So all the corn that was out of the ground stalled in their growing process and caused one of our latest starts to the season,”

Lepp says. “You just never know what Mother Nature is going to throw at you.”

You can, of course, source locally grown sweet corn at Vancouver Farmers Market locations and grocery stores.

Once you’ve picked up your freshly picked corn to take home, what are some ways to cook and prepare it?

Arkesteyn-Vogler loves encouraging people to try eating it raw, right off the cob, when it’s fresh. Beyond that, he likes to keep it simple.

“I like sweet corn very lightly cooked and served in tacos or added to a warm tomato salad,” Arkesteyn-Vogler says. “Corn is only in season for a short period of time, locally, so it’s a great choice to eat during the peak of the local growing season.”

For boiled corn, Lepp suggests a straightforward approach. “Bring water to a boil.

Don’t ever add salt, as that toughens the corn. Add the corn, return to a gentle boil and cook for five minutes. Turn heat off, and if you’re not serving it immediately, leave it in the hot water until serving time.”

The Lepps also take an afternoon to freeze corn for the winter. Details for that are on the farm’s website, along with recipes for dishes like Mexican Street Corn Salad (with cilantro, Cotija cheese, poblano or jalapeno peppers, and more) and Tomato Corn and Cheese Galette (with Gruyère and basil).

We’ll leave you with a fun fact: the tassel of a corn plant is where the pollen is produced and it’s spread by the wind to the silks of the ear, which means that each silk will produce one kernel. “If you could count the silky strands, you would know how many kernels there should be on the cob,” Lepp says. “That one always wows people.” g

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THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT

11

FINANCE / REAL ESTATE

Economists add historical perspective to pandemic

T

by Charlie Smith

he housing market is sizzling in the Lower Mainland. There’s a great deal of talk about a V-shaped recovery. And the media consensus is that the worst economic impacts of COVID-19 are behind us.

Sure, there will be more deaths, according to this narrative. However, the prevailing view is that we should be back on our feet economically in a reasonable amount of time. One indication is the high volume of real-estate transactions. (See article below.)

But what if the story doesn’t end here?

Two high-powered U.S. economists, Carmen Reinhart and Vincent Reinhart, recently wrote a disturbing article entitled “The Pandemic Depression: The Global Economy Will Never Be the Same”. It appears in the September-October issue of Foreign Affairs.

In it, the Reinharts point out that the World Bank has forecast a 5.2 percent decline in global economic output in 2020.

“The pandemic has created a massive economic contraction that will be followed by a financial crisis in many parts of the globe, as nonperforming corporate loans accumulate alongside bankruptcies,” they declare. “Sovereign defaults in the developing world are also poised to spike.

“This crisis will follow a path similar to the one the last crisis took, except worse, commensurate with the scale and scope of the collapse in global economic activity. And the crisis will hit lower-income households and countries harder than

People lined up for relief in the 1930s, but now it comes via direct deposit. Photo by Dorothea Lange

their wealthier counterparts.”

Foreign Affairs is published by the Council on Foreign Relations. Carmen Reinhart is chief economist at the World Bank. Vincent Reinhart is chief economist and macro strategist at Mellon.

One of their key points is that a “rebound” should not be confused with a “recovery”. That’s why they argue in favour of continued fiscal and monetary stimulus.

“Public sentiment matters to the economy, and it is hard to imagine that attitudes toward foreign travel or education abroad will rally quickly,” they note. “More generally, trust—a key lubricant for market transactions—is in short supply internationally. Many borders will be difficult to cross, and doubts about the reliability of some foreign partners will fester.”

Although there’s no guarantee that this will undermine Vancouver’s housing market, it could elevate the risk over the medium term, given how dependent B.C. is on tourism. Our university and K-12 school systems rely on international students to help balance their budgets, so if these people are reluctant to cross borders, it will have an impact.

To promote economic stability, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has extended the federal wage subsidy for businesses until December. And going into this crisis, Canada’s debt-to-GDP ratio was far lower than where it was in the mid 1990s.

But as the Reinharts emphasize, we’re still in perilous economic waters. In fact, their piece is one of the most pessimistic that’s been published in a mainstream newspaper or magazine since April.

“Most analyses project that the U.S. unemployment rate will remain near the double-digit mark through the middle of next year,” they write. “And the Bank of England has warned that this year the United Kingdom will face its steepest decline in output since 1706. This situation is so dire that it deserves to be called a ‘depression’—a pandemic depression.

“Unfortunately, the memory of the Great Depression has prevented economists and others from using that word, as the downturn of the 1930s was wrenching in both its depth and its length in a manner not likely to be repeated,” they continue.

“But the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were filled with depressions. It seems disrespectful to the many losing their jobs and shutting their businesses to use a lesser term to describe this affliction.”

Moreover, countries that are more dependent on trade, including Canada, could face an even more difficult challenge than nations with large populations.

“The World Trade Organization estimates that global trade is poised to fall by between 13 and 32 percent in 2020,” the two economists write in their article. “If the outcome is somewhere in the midpoint of that wide range, it will be the worst year for globalization since the early 1930s.”

It’s something to keep in mind as you watch the stratospheric rise of several tech stocks, as well as the seemingly insatiable desire for Vancouver housing. g

Seasonal buying patterns change due to COVID-19

R

by Carlito Pablo

eal estate sales follow seasonal patterns. Homes sell well in the spring. Then the market slows down in summer as buyers and sellers, typically, go on vacation. Activity picks up in the fall, the second-busiest time of the year after spring. Things quiet down in winter.

The 2020 market looks a bit different due to COVID-19.

As seasoned realtor Wayne Ryan notes, the traditionally strong spring market did not happen because of the pandemic.

Ryan works as managing broker of two Vancouver West Side offices of RE/MAX Crest Realty. He supervises about 100 property agents.

He said that 2020 was off to a good start, from January to the first half of March.

“Then COVID hit and, overnight, the market just died,” Ryan told the Georgia Straight in a phone interview.

The market struck a low point in April. The Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver (REBGV) reported that sales for the month were 62.7 percent below the 10-year April sales average. It was the lowest total for the month since 1982.

However, in early June, as pandemic restrictions were eased, things started to turn around. Compared to previous summers, Ryan said, this year is proving to be an exception.

“It’s much busier so far,” the manager said.

In its latest report, the REBGV noted that activity in July 2020 “exceeded historical levels”.

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THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT

AUGUST 13 – 20 / 2020

Normally, there’s a rush to buy homes in early spring, but that didn’t occur this year. Photo by Paul Bradbury / Getty Images

Last month’s sales were 9.4 percent above the 10-year July sales average. Sales were 22.3 percent higher than July 2019, and 28 percent over the number sold in June 2020.

The question now is whether or not this level of action will carry on through the autumn months.

Last year, the REBGV reported increases in home sales in September and October before slowing down in November. Deals in October 2019 surpassed those in September by 22.5 percent. Because of this, the board noted that

the market was “experiencing a fall pickup”.

The same could happen in autumn 2020.

According to Ryan, two things bode well for the market. One is unmet demand from the spring market weakened by COVID-19.

“You know the term ‘pent-up demand’, and that term gets overused, but I think it’s applicable here that you have a lot of buyers and sellers that want to get going,” the RE/ MAX executive said.

The second is continued low interest rates. Ryan said that although rates were about 3.5 percent last year, current lending costs stand at about 2.25 percent.

The Straight asked Aimal Pamir, mortgage broker with Dominion Lending Centres, to illustrate what these rates mean in dollars. Pamir calculated that a mortgage of $900,000 with a 25-year amortization and a rate of 2.25 percent translates to a monthly payment of $3,920.51.

At 3.5 percent, the same loan results in $4,493.43 in payment per month. According to Pamir, the monthly difference totals $572.92.

In March 2020, the Bank of Canada slashed its trendsetting key rate three times as a response to the pandemic.

From a rate of 1.75 percent at the start of that month, the central bank brought it down to 0.25 percent. That’s the lowest level that can be set. g

MOVIES / MUSIC

Lingua Franca reflects Sandoval’s delicate approach

The savvy trans filmmaker delivers a complex tale of identity, love, compassion, and justice in America

by Janet Smith

L

Isabel Sandoval (left and centre) will be the first trans woman to write, direct, and star in her own movie at the Vancouver Queer Film Festival with Lingua Franca, which also features the late Lynn Cohen.

ast year, Isabel Sandoval became the first trans woman of colour to screen in competition at the Venice International Film Festival.

She went on to get her film Lingua Franca picked up by Ava Duvernay’s Array company, and she’ll continue to blaze a trail on Netflix later this month.

When Lingua Franca finally screens here at the digital version of the Vancouver Queer Film Festival, in its Centrepiece Gala, Sandoval marks a milestone as the event’s first trans woman to have written, directed, and starred in her own movie.

But what may be most groundbreaking about Lingua Franca is that it focuses on far more than just the trans experience, touching on immigration woes and an increasingly xenophobic U.S. “I think this kind of complex storytelling with trans films is so rare,” remarks Queer Film Festival artistic director Anoushka Ratnarajah. “And while that character’s identity and being trans is part of the story, it’s not the most important part of the story. She gets to have other experiences.”

The film follows an undocumented Filipina trans woman named Olivia (Sandoval). She works as a live-in caregiver for Olga (the late Lynn Cohen), an elderly Russian woman in Brooklyn’s Brighton Beach, wiring money back home to her family in the Philippines while desperately trying to secure a green card. At first she’s willing to pay a stranger to marry her to ensure her immigration, but then she meets and falls for Olga’s adult grandson Alex (Eamon Farren), who’s fresh out of rehab.

Olivia has a quiet power in the film as

she works through the stress of trying to both find love and secure a green card in a country where the anti-immigrant rhetoric and ICE raids are almost as fierce as its transphobia.

Reached in the Carolinas, where she’s hiding out from the COVID storm in her home city of New York, the self-taught Sandoval relishes the way her new film has defied expectations.

“I think Lingua Franca is a different film in that, although it touches on typical subjects like immigration and the trans experience, it can’t be reduced to a message movie,” she tells the Straight. “Because of that, it’s divisive, with some audience members or critics who expect it to be miserable, with indignity upon indignity put on the trans woman. I like to think of it as a story of her agency.”

Lingua Franca is Sandoval’s third film; her last, 2012’s Apparition, focused on Filipina nuns during the Marcos regime.

Though socio-political undercurrents run through all her work, her movies may be most memorable for their delicate, understated character studies.

“My films reflect who I am as a person.

I tend to be laid-back—that’s my own approach and my style as a filmmaker,” Sandoval says. “There’s dialogue but also silences and these pauses for what the characters hold from each other. They reveal as much truth as what they say to each other. That’s why people think of my films as interior dramas. I want my films to invite people to be closer and pay more attention to the characters…. Filmmaking is an act of empathetic imagination.”

Lingua Franca is just one in a strong ros-

ter of programming dedicated to BIPOC voices within the LGBTQ community at this year’s fest. Look to the event’s opener, Pier Kids, about the displaced queer and trans youth of colour who congregate at Greenwich Village’s Christopher Street Pier. Queer Black filmmaker Elegance Barton makes an appearance at a Q&A with Ratnarajah; like Sandoval, he knows his subject intimately, as a former homeless gay teen who used to hang out at the pier. Elsewhere, look for Goodbye Mother, which follows a man named Van’s return to Vietnam with his boyfriend, Ian, under the guise of friendship.

“Because I’m a woman of colour and

queer, when I grew up there weren’t a lot of stories that reflected my own life or goals or imaginings,” says Ratnarajah. “I really try to program from that perspective and look for the films missing from the queer canon.”

And while that diverse programming feels like it reflects this moment of activism, there’s another way to look at it.

“The community I intersect with have always been talking about these things,” observes Ratnarajah. “If it feels timely, I think it’s because the awareness has become a little more there.” g The Queer Film Festival takes place from Thursday (August 13) to August 23 via queerfilmfestival.ca.

M usic NEWS OF THE WEEK

entertainers will be joining from a variety of locations. Sainte-Marie, a Juno Hall of Fame member, is known for the antiwar anthem “Universal Soldier”, but she was also the first Indigenous artist to win an Academy Award, for cowriting “Up Where We Belong”.

LEGENDARY MUSICIAN AND ACTIVIST Buffy Sainte-Marie will

headline what’s being billed as B.C.’s premier feast of contemporary Indigenous music. The entirely free 2 Rivers Remix will be livestreamed from September 4 to September 6.

Normally, this festival is based in ’Q’emcin (a.k.a. Lytton), but this year

Sainte-Marie’s career blazed a trail for generations of Indigenous musicians across Turtle Island. They include two other headliners at 2 Rivers Remix: Juno winner Kinnie Starr and hip-hop stars Snotty Nose Rez Kids. The Juno-winning Inuit throat-singing duo, PiqSiq, will also perform as a special guest, along with two-spirit singer-songwriter Shawnee.

For more information, visit VirtualFest.com. g

AUGUST 13 – 20 / 2020

by Charlie Smith THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT

13

ARTS / SAVAGE LOVE

Vines fest short films showcase bodies in space

by Janet Smith

Left to right: Shana Wolfe and Rosemary Xinhe Hu perform in Hadden Park to a meditative soundtrack by Taj Sunga (photo by Tom Hsu); Janice Laurence (above) is part of an All Bodies Dance Project that explores disability, supplemented with an audio description for the blind (photo by Tom Hsu); Anya Saugstad’s choreography is on display in Ocean Roaring, which takes place at dusk.

I

n the Vines Art Festival’s streamed performance Fluidity: Bodies, Sound, and Land, a mixed program of dancers interact with trees, water, wind, and grass—all in Hadden Park.

“It’s interesting how a small park can look so different with the various dance pieces,” remarks Vines artistic director Heather Lamoureux. “I think what each artist is really exploring is their bodily relationship to the land. These films are as much capturing the body as capturing the space.”

Choreographer Anya Saugstad’s dancers, for instance, perform Ocean Roaring

on the shore at dusk, accompanied by live violin. The piece centres around a group of women and highlights the sea as a scarce and vital resource.

Elsewhere, Shana Wolfe and Rosemary Xinhe Hu meld words and dance in a piece about home—as they put it in their synopsis, “our bodies’ histories on this land and lands we long for”. Taj Sunga has composed the meditative soundtrack.

“There are two trees that are quite tall and the two bodies are mirroring that,” explains Lamoureux. “It’s about their relationship to their mother tongue and the

countries where their parents grew up and their relationship to the land.”

Sarah Wong, meanwhile, integrates her study of tai chi with her contemporary dance practice in the improvised pliant spaces, and All Bodies Dance Project creates a work that explores delicately navigating the land and living with disability. (The latter, featuring dancer Janice Laurence in a work choreographed by Harmanie Rose, provides audio description for the blind.)

And Woody Morrison brings Haida storytelling to the array of work.

These short films and several others

make for an evening of movement and sound that takes you out to the park from the comfort of your safely socially distanced sofa.

“It’s interesting, because when we’re in that park we usually move place to place to place as an audience,” says Lamoureux, “and with these, you’re also taken on a journey around the space, So as [the] audience you also have a sense of fluidity.” g Vines Art Festival presents Fluidity: Bodies, Sound, and Land via YouTube and Facebook Live at 7 p.m. on Thursday (August 13), with Closed Captioning.

Sometimes ultimatums are needed with affairs

by Dan Savage

b I’M A 38-YEAR-OLD bi woman who has been sleeping with a married male coworker for the last eight months. We’re a walking cliché: I’m a nurse, he’s a doctor, and one night he ended up spilling a lot of personal information about his marriage to me (sexless, nonromantic, she might be a lesbian) before asking if he could kiss me. I declined. Three months and many text messages later, I met him for drinks. The next thing I know we are falling in love and spending as much time together as we can manage. Even though he is married and has kids, this has been one of the best relationships of my adult life. He loves me in ways I never thought possible.

(He even savours my COVID-19 curves.) The obvious problem here is that he is married and his wife allegedly doesn’t know about his unhappiness in their marriage. We have to arrange our dates around his work schedule and his lies to his wife. I find myself becoming increasingly jealous of the time he spends with his wife and his inability to spend more time with me. I want him to confront the issues in his marriage and I want him to at least attempt being honest with her so we can figure out if it’s even possible for us to move forward.

My question is this: how do I have this conversation with him without it seeming like an ultimatum? I don’t necessarily want him to get divorced, Dan, as I fear it would cause him to resent me, but that would, honestly, be my preference. What should I do?

- Outside The Home Exists Romance

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THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT

AUGUST 13 – 20 / 2020

An affair with a married coworker can present problems if one participant wants change. Photo by Dainis Graveris/Unsplash What are you willing to settle for, OTHER?

If you can’t live without Dr. Married and you can only have him on his terms—terms he set at the start, terms designed to keep his wife in the dark—then you’ll have to accept his terms. You can only see Dr. Married during office hours; you can’t call or text him; and you’re on your own if you have an emergency outside office hours. But agreeing to his terms at the outset doesn’t obligate you to stick to his terms forever. Terms can be renegotiated. But unless you’re

willing to issue an ultimatum, OTHER, Dr. Married has no incentive to renegotiate the terms of your relationship.

To get what you want, OTHER, you’re gonna have to man up: feel entitled, act entitled, make demands. And you gotta be willing to walk. You have to go in fully prepared to use the leverage you actually have here—your presence in Dr. Married’s life—or nothing will change. His circumstances have required you to live in the shadows if you wanted to see him, and maybe that worked for you once. But it doesn’t work for you anymore, and Dr. Married needs to understand that if his circumstances don’t change—if he doesn’t change them—then he’s going to lose you.

There’s a middle ground between divorce, your preferred circumstance, and things staying exactly as they are. Dr. Married’s wife is surely aware that her marriage is sexless and nonromantic—assuming he’s told you the truth—and if his wife is actually a lesbian, well, perhaps she’d like the freedom to date other women too. If they want to stay together for the kids—or if they have a constructive, low-conflict, loving partnership and it would be possible to daylight you without anyone having to get divorced—maybe you could settle for those terms. g Email: mail@savagelove.net. Follow Dan on Twitter @FakeDanSavage.

On the Lovecast, it’s Millennial versus Boomer with Jill Filipovic: www. savagelovecast.com.

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Perm, F/T job, Wage - $ 22.00 per/h Requirements: high school, good English, previous clerical experience 1-2 years Main duties: Provide general administrative and clerical support; Answer calls and emails, take and deliver messages; Establish and improve office’s day to day procedures; Open, sort and distribute incoming correspondence, co-ordinate the flow of information; Create, save and modify documents; Organize, schedule and coordinate meetings and appointments; Order office supplies.

Company’s business address and job location: 101-5595 Roy St, Burnaby BC V5B 3A5 Please apply by e-mail: 8diamondsgroup@gmail.com

Electra Fix Appliance Repair LTD

is currently seeking an Appliance Service Technician. Greater Vancouver, BC. F/T, Perm (40 h/w), Wage: $22.50 /h. Main duties: Review work tasks; Refer to product manuals and disassemble appliance; Diagnose faults and conduct appliance assessment; Adjust, repair or replace parts and components; Perform routine maintenance work; Reassemble appliance, ensure that it is working properly; Report to the Manager and prepare documentation.

Requirements: High school, completion of apprenticeship program or over four years of work experience, good English.

Business address and job location: #224, 17 Fawcett Road, Coquitlam BC V3K 6V2 Please apply by e-mail: electrafixappliance@gmail.com

Pacific Breeze Cleaning LTD

is looking for Cleaning supervisor. Greater Vancouver, BC. Perm, F/T (35 h/w).

Salary - $23.00 per/h. When needed, commuting to job locations is paid for by employer.

Requirements: High school, good English, previous experience as a cleaner or similar position. Main duties: Supervise and co-ordinate the activities of cleaners;Establish work schedules and procedures;Hire and train new staff;Resolve work-related problems and customer complaints;Occasionally inspect job locations;Follow the rules and guidelines of our company. Company’s business address: 18935 69 Ave, Surrey BC V4N 5K1 Please apply by e-mail: hrodessacleaning@gmail.com

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o/a Kozak Homemade Ukrainian Food is looking for 2Production & Catering Service Managers. Perm, F/T, Shifts, Weekends, Wage: $ 25.00 /h, Extended Health Benefits.

College program in a related field, 3-5 years of experience, good English.

Main duties: Manage day-to-day operations and catering services; Develop and implement policies and procedures;Manage staff and assign duties, hire and train of new employees; Resolve work-related problems; Set work schedules;Plan and control budget, negotiate prices;Meet with clients to discuss catering services. Please apply by e-mail: employment@solodko.ca Our locations: 5077 Victoria Drive, Vancouver BC, V5P 3T9 444 Sixth St, New Westminster, BC V3L 3B3

Long-haul Team Truckers Needed

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JUNE 2 / 2020 GEORGIA AUGUST 13 –25 20– /JULY 2020 THE THE GEORGIA STRSTRAIGHT AIGHT 15

We’re here for you, Vancouver.

Find the Georgia Straight throughout Vancouver, online at straight .com and on your favourite social media channel @georgiastraight .

Here’s what’s upcoming:

Aug 20 • Gym safety • Low-alcohol wines • Personal finance

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AUGUST 13 – 20 / 2020

Aug 27 • Student housing • Upskilling • Affordable décor