The Georgia Straight - TOGETHER at TAIWANfest - August 25, 2022 by The Georgia Straight

DREAMWEAVERS • GAIA’S RESPONSE • BEN HARPER • IDAN COHEN FREE | AUGUST 25 – SEPTEMBER 1 / 2022 Volume 56 | Number 2839 MANAGINGGROWTH RealtorBroadwayopposesPlan PNE SUMMER NIGHT CONCERTS Steve Miller and Chaka Khan Vancouver singer-songwriter Lefan’s new album explores identity, displacement, environmental justice, and the shared experiences of ancestry TOGETHER AT TAIWANfest

Two dead after serious vehicle crash at West Vancouver wedding.

4 ESTATE Real-estate agent Param Nijjar is running for city council with TEAM for a Livable Vancouver because he wants to manage growth.

Ben Harper lost a dear friend with the death last year of his longtime bassist Juan Nelson, but he found a musical way to deal with the grief.

By Steve Newton

REAL

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5 Singer-songwriter Van Lefan has put storytelling at the forefront of her new album, What Holds Us Together?, which reflects her passions for ancestry, environmental justice, and plant medicine.

August 25 - September 1 / 2022 CONTENTS Reserved tickets are required for all shows. Tickets start at $15 + fees plus PNE Fair admission. BOOK NOW AT TICKETLEADER.CA 8:30 Nightly PNE Amphitheatre

17 MUSIC

2 THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT AUGUST 25 – SEPTEMBER 1 / 2022 EDITOR Charlie Smith SECTION EDITORS Mike Usinger (Liquor/Music) Steve Newton SENIOR EDITOR Martin Dunphy STAFF WRITERS Carlito Pablo (Real Estate) SOLUTIONS ARCHITECT Je Li ART DEPARTMENT MANAGER Janet McDonald GRAPHIC DESIGNER Miguel Hernandez PRODUCTION SUPERVISOR Mike Correia ADVERTISING REPRESENTATIVES Glenn Cohen, Luci Richards, Catherine Tickle, Robyn Marsh, David Pearlman (On-Leave) MANAGER, BRANDED CONTENT AND MARKETING LEAD Rachel Moore SALES & MARKETING ASSISTANT/BRANDED CONTENT WRITER Rayssa Cordeiro CREDIT MANAGER Shannon Li ACCOUNTING SUPERVISOR Tamara Robinson e Start Here 13 ARTS 8 BOOKS 18 CLASSIFIED ADS 9 COMMENTARY 7 HERITAGE 20 MOVIES 15 MUSIC 6 RELIGION 17 SAVAGE LOVE #300 - 1375 West 6th Avenue, Vancouver, B.C. V6H 0B1 T: 604.730.7000 E: gs.info@straight.com DISPLAYstraight.comADVERTISING: T: 604.730.7020 E: sales@straight.com CLASSIFIEDS: T: 604.730.7000 E: classads@straight.com SUBSCRIPTIONS: 604.730.7000 DISTRIBUTION: 604.730.7032 Vancouver’s News and Entertainment Weekly Volume 56 | Number 2839 e Online TOP 5 Here’s what people are reading this week on Straight.com. @GeorgiaStraight Poll suggests Ken Sim may put Kennedy Stewart’s reelection in jeopardy. Petition to reinstate Lisa LaFlamme inches closer to goal of 150,000 names. Martyn Brown: A sober look at the LDB’s boozerationing Economists“crisis”.expect Bank of Canada to raise interest rates by 0.75 percent.

By Carlito Pablo

COVER

By Charlie Smith

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A separate April 25, 2022 city staff report notes that the city collected a total of $47 million in 2021 in cash-in-lieu CAC pay ments and density bonus contributions.

“That’s thanks to my yoga practise,” Nij jarNijjar,noted.now a father to a young boy, came to Canada from India with his parents when he was 16. He said he is running with a team that represents a wide selection of skills and expertise.TheTEAM slate for council also in cludes Cleta Brown, Sean Nardi, Grace Quan, Stephen Roberts, and Bill Tieleman. Running for park board with TEAM are Kathleen Larsen, Michelle Mollineaux, James Buckshon, and Patrick Audley. g by Carlito Pablo

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“Her voting position underscores the failed business model of growth promo tion and CAC-revenue addiction at city hall,” he said. On June 22 this year, Hardwick voted against the Broadway Plan, arguing that it would make Vancouver less livable. She said the plan, which will pave the way for more development in four city neighbour hoods, will encourage land speculation, in crease rent, boost housing prices, and lead to the eviction of thousands of tenants.

“Don’t get me wrong: there’s a place for high-rise towers as well,” Nijjar explained. “If the neighbourhood wants high-rise towers and there’s genuine meaningful input from the neighbourhood, great, all the power for them.”

Would-be city councillor wants to manage growth

To illustrate, a June 11, 2021 city staff re port to council stated that $115 million in DCLs were paid by developers in 2020. The report also said that DCL receipts from 2011 to 2022 represent an average of 8.7 million square feet of developments annually. Moreover, the DCL program has gen erated a total of $1.1 billion, including ac crued interest from 1993 to 2020. CACs are in-kind or cash contributions made by property developers in exchange for rezoning properties for higher densities.

Nijjar has been a realtor since 2007; he ventured into home building a few years later. One of his first projects was a laneway house at his parents’ home in East Vancouver.

ancouver realtor and home builder Param Nijjar’s name will be on the ballot for city council as part of this year’s October 15 municipal election. Nijjar is running under the TEAM for a Livable Vancouver banner, the party of councillor and mayoral candidate Colleen Hardwick.Inaninterview, Nijjar explained his party’s position about growth in the city. “TEAM is not antidevelopment,” Nijjar told the Straight by phone. That said, there is a distinction to be made. “TEAM believes in managing growth as op posed to promoting growth,” Nijjar said. He noted that city hall’s reliance on fees from development projects has led to a “growth-promotion model”. “That’s un sustainable. That’s bad for home buyers, bad for tenants, bad for developers.”

“Having been a home builder and a real tor, I’ve dealt with issues firsthand,” he said.

Nijjar said that he has demonstrated his capacity to tackle “high-stress situations” in his professions—which, he noted, will serve him well as a city councillor.

– City council candidate Param Nijjar

Realtor and home builder Param Nijjar will be running for city council with TEAM for a Livable Vancouver in the October 15 municipal election. He says TEAM wants to manage city growth. That’s bad for home buyers, bad for tenants, bad for developers.

Nijjar also said that Hardwick has been pushing for “evidence-based decisionmaking rather than the aspirational num bers used by staff”. In 2020, Hardwick called for a recali bration of the city’s housing targets in a motion. The Vancouver Housing Strategy provides for a goal of 72,000 new homes between 2018 and 2027. However, Hardwick noted that the histor ical growth in the city’s population requires only the building of about 30,000 additional homes in the same 10-year period. Nijjar trained as a software engineer at UBC, so he should know the value of data. He said that the city needs a housing dash board that will provide online information to the public and policymakers in a trans parent way. The information will include, among other data, existing homes, zoning capacity, and development permits that are in the Nijjarpipeline.alsosaid that Hardwick “values neighbourhood input and decades of care ful community planning work”. He said there is demand for homes, and TEAM seeks to “provide forms of housing that are done in a nice, organic, democratic fashion that respects official community plans”.

Broken down, this came out to $38 million in cash from CACs and $9 million in cash from density bonusing.

4 THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT AUGUST 25 – SEPTEMBER 1 / 2022 REAL ESTATE

Nijjar noted that TEAM mayoral can didate Hardwick’s background in urban geography and land economics is reflected in her council track record.

The city collects a lot of money from the development industry. City hall gets com munity amenity contributions (CACs), de velopment cost levies (DCLs), and density bonus zoning contributions (DBZs).

Hardwick noted that real-estate compan ies have started advertising low-rise build ings as future sites for high-rises in the area. She pointed out that the neighbour hoods along and near Broadway provide 19,600 rental units, representing 25 per cent of the city’s total inventory. In addition, the area is home to 4,000 nonmarket units, composed of social, sup portive, and co-op housing.

It’s an approach “where existing com munities don’t have to be ripped out to plant high-rise buildings on them”.

“The last song on the album, ‘Medicine’, is an ode to psychedelic experiences,” sheLefanreveals.is also a keen environmentalist. And last summer, she joined the antilog ging protests in the Fairy Creek watershed.

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“Sometimes when you talk to them really logically—to their brains—it doesn’t work because they’ve already shut off,” she says. “With music and art, there’s a way that you can speak to hardened spirits and shift some thing that’s beyond the conscious mind.

Lefan acknowledges that some of the things that occurred in Fairy Creek were “not great”. Police used heavy-handed methods, drawing the ire of a B.C. Supreme Court judge. But she remains impressed by how ingenious the protesters were in com ing up with contraptions to prevent the logging of ancient trees. “People were willing to put their bod ies through so much—hike in with heavy things—just to take care of each other but also the trees and the place,” Lefan says. “We were all so driven to push past our regular limits in service to a community.”

“So definitely, the intention of mine is speaking to people’s inner children, speak ing to people’s hearts of, ‘Maybe this will land and help you in some way and make the world a little bit of a better place.’ ” Lefan credits her parents for nurturing her love of the arts.

Lefan’s music reflects journey for self-discovery V ancouver musician Van Lefan, a.k.a. Lefan, has spent years pro cessing the impact of immigrat ing to Canada. Born in northern Taiwan, she moved with her family to Maple Ridge in 2006 as natural areas in her home town were being converted into factories. She was only 11 years old, and it was quite the culture shock to be uprooted from her predictable life and dropped into a mostly white and unfamiliar world.

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To her, it was a humbling experience. She also likes to bring that sense of service to her music. She describes art as a “sacred practice” that involves trying to plant seeds into people’s psyches and consciousnesses to bring about positive change. In this regard, she compares art to a “Trojan horse” that can win over people’s minds without them necessarily even be ing aware of what’s happening.

“Storytelling, I feel, is at the very fore front of my artmaking,” Lefan explains. It’s represented in the opening track, “I am Le Fan”, in which the singer-songwriter thanks her ancestors for their hundreds of years of hard work leading up to her happy childhood in Taiwan. The song closes with an explanation of how a stream once full of fish, shrimp, and clams ended up lifeless due to industrialization. For many years, she shied away from her name “Lefan”, preferring to go by “Van essa” in school. Only recently has she re claimed her original name. The second track on the album, “The Lesson”, is a folk-oriented composition about asking an eagle for advice on how to spread one’s wings and take a leap of faith. It’s reminiscent of those change-the-world tunes by ’60s folk artists. In various other songs, there are lyrics in English, Mandarin, and Taiwanese, re flecting Lefan’s heritage. “I wanted to put my full self in it,” Lefan says. “My full self is all of these things.” Lefan’s full self is also informed by her keen interest in psychedelics and plant medicines. Magic mushrooms have not only helped her process the trauma of im migration but also influenced her music.

“So singing has been a way of expressing and communicating love and joy and sad ness in my family ever since I can remem ber,” Lefan recalls. “I think that’s what they wanted for me because they saw that I loved it so much.”

5AUGUST 25 – SEPTEMBER 1 / 2022 THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT TAIWANFEST by Charlie Smith

Lefan wrote all the chord progressions and lyrics, then she collaborated with producer Thomas Hoeller on the arrange ments. They worked with a large team of studio musicians to complete the album, with Lefan singing all the songs and play ing almost all of the flute pieces and one guitar track. She’s also a visual artist, with her expressive, nature-oriented pieces ap pearing in the booklet and on her website.

“There were thousands of people in volved, but what I personally got out of being on the frontlines is how powerful people can be when they are united by a single cause or an idea,” she says.

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TAIWANfest presents Lefan in concert at 12:30 p.m. on September 5 on the plaza on the north side of the Vancouver Art Gallery. Singer-songwriter Van Lefan recently released her first album, What Holds Us Together?, which demonstrates her firm belief that storytelling must be at the forefront of any art that she creates.

“I think I carried around a lot of shame at being different,” Lefan recalls in a Zoom interview with the Straight. “Going from a Taiwanese farm town to Maple Ridge was like a weird experience. It took me a long time to find my sense of self and belonging.” She chronicles this journey in a 40-page booklet, which is a companion piece to her recently released first full-length album, What Holds Us Together?. In 11 mostly autobiographical songs, Lefan explores the roots of her identity, ecological justice, an cestral knowledge, and nature’s medicines.

“It was very much inspired by a lot of the protests that have been happening in the past few years,” Lefan says. “So What Holds Us Together?, I think, is an invitation for people to reflect upon the things that we all have in common. To me, in this kind of globalized world, it’s ancestry. We all have a connection to our ancestors.”

“My mother was in choir her whole life and she would always sing around the house,” she says. “Karaoke is a huge part of myHerculture.”father liked singing lullabies to her as a child before she went to sleep.

“I asked each of them, ‘Do you think wearing a hijab is an obligation?’ Almost all of them answered that it depends on if you’re convinced that this is an obligation,” she says. Huang was also intrigued to learn that every woman seemed to have her own hi jab story. Some told her that they didn’t want to wear it when they were young be cause they thought it was too traditional and conservative but changed their minds as they Anothermatured.woman who had a deep rela tionship with Allah told Huang that she did not want to wear a hijab because she wasn’t interested in publicly demonstrat ing her faith, preferring to keep it private.

“I also like the unique beauty of dif ferent languages,” she adds. “I think [through] the languages, I can know the thinking, the logic, and the values from different cultures.” She has learned words from many lan guages but considers herself fluent in English and Mandarin and speaks a fair amount of Japanese and Arabic. “I learned Spanish, but I almost forgot it,” Huang quips. She is relearning Taiwanese, which is spoken by her grandparents. With a laugh, she reveals that they say she speaks it with a foreign accent. She knew nothing about Arab culture until she began preparing for university en trance exams to study the Arabic language. At that time, she became conscious about unfair stereotypes about Arabs in Taiwan, sometimes associating them with terror ism. This reminded her of stereotypes about the Indigenous people in her country.

Kai-Chun Huang is a rarity in Taiwan: a native-born Mandarin speaker with a love of the Arabic language

“In Taiwan, religion doesn’t connect so closely with life like Islam,” she says. She shares her articles and talks about Islamic culture for the people of Taiwan on a website called “Islam Has No Veil”. She is also coauthor of Songs Blowing Over the Island

TAIWANFEST

As an example, she points out that not everyone is required to fast during the holy month of Ramadan if it’s extremely diffi cult due to personal circumstances. Huang herself tried to go without food from sunrise to sunset during Ramadan after returning to Taiwan from Egypt. Her fast lasted for about 20 days. “What surprised me is I didn’t feel hun gry that much,” she reveals. “I felt tired more than hunger.”

In Egypt, she also became fascinated about the relationship that women had with the hijab. She interviewed several women about this, including some who chose not to wear it.

“I feel that this religion is very friendly,” Huang says. “Also, they are very flexible.”

I t makes sense that translator and au thor Kai-Chun Huang will be part of this year’s TAIWANfest celebrations in AfterVancouver.all,she’sbecome a popular com mentator in her native Taiwan on Islam—a faith embraced by only 0.3 percent of the country’s population (not counting Mus lim guest workers). And this year, as part of its annual Dialogues With Asia series, TAIWANfest is shining a spotlight on the country with the largest number of Mus lims—Indonesia. It’s home to about 231 million Muslims, accounting for 13 per cent of all followers of Islam in the world. So how did Huang—who translated Karen Armstrong’s Muhammad: A Proph et for Our Time into traditional Chinese script—become so keenly interested in this topic to the point where she delivers speech es on Islam in schools and universities? It actually started with her love of learn ing languages, which she traces back to a very young age. In an interview with the Straight over Zoom, Huang says that mas tering the mother tongues of other cultures has always given her a sense of accomplish ment and made her happy.

“I feel like Arabs and the Indigenous people in Taiwan are similar,” Huang ex plains. “They’re both misunderstood.” It made her curious to learn more about the context behind what created this stig ma about Arabs in Taiwan. One of her professors told her that Islam is not just a religion but a culture. It wasn’t until she travelled to Egypt to study Arabic, though, that she truly experienced this reality. “It’s part of their daily life,” Huang says. “For example, every day when you go to Muslim countries, you can always hear Adhan—the calling for prayer—and you can also see Muslims praying at all sorts of places.” She also gained a great deal of under standing about dietary rules in Islam, including what is permissible under Halal. In addition, she gained insights into Zakat, which is a form of obligatory charity that literally means “to cleanse”.

6 THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT AUGUST 25 – SEPTEMBER 1 / 2022

“I think the best way to fight stereotypes is not just to deny it but to know the story behind it,” Huang emphasizes. g As part of TAIWANfest’s series of Hope Talks, KaiChun Huang will deliver a presentation called “The Things That Language and Dialogue Taught Me” at Granville 700 at 3:30 p.m. on September 4. She will also be part of a panel discussion called “Making Taiwan Relevant in Canada” at the Annex on September 5 at 3:30 p.m. by Charlie Smith

d WHEN THE INDIGENOUS Taiwanese band Kanatal appeared on the cover of the Straight last month, it came near the beginning of their two-month trip to Canada. Little did the four band members know then that it would lead to some memorable collaborations with Indigenous musicians in Canada. At the Mission Folk Festival, they met members of Good Medicine Songs/ Éy St’elmexw St’elt’ílém, who create bilingual songs in Halq’eméylem and English. And on August 30, they’re going to get together again to record two songs in the studio. According to TAIWANfest organizer Charlie Wu, one of them will include Halq’eméylem and four Indigenous languages from Taiwan. Kanatal’s four members—Masaw Ali, Suana Emuy Cilangasay, Abus Tanapima, and Vangacu Kalevuwan (photographed above) also collaborated with Colombian Indigenous musician Beny Esguerra at a Small World Music event in Toronto before visiting the 34th annual Three Fires Homecoming Pow Wow and Traditional Gathering in Hagersville, Ontario. The band’s name, Kanatal, means “island” in the Amis Indigenous language of Taiwan. Two members, Cilangasay and Tanapima, are of Amis heritage. Cilangasay also traces his roots to the Sakizayan people and Tanapima is also Bunun, whereas Ali has Atayal ancestry and Kalevuwan is Paiwan. At 8 p.m. on September 3, Kanatal will play a free concert on the north side of the Vancouver Art Gallery as part of TAIWANfest. Expect them to perform their only English-language song, “Peace”, which decries greed and promotes conservation.

“Canada is very multicultural,” Cilangasay told the Straight through a translator in advance of Kanatal’s gig at the Vancouver Folk Music Festival last month. “So even though everyone comes from different places and has their own musical experiences, there’s still harmony because they are performing here on the same land in the same space.” g by Charlie Smith

anatal FINDS CONNECTIONK

“This decision is like their inner jour ney,” Huang says. All of this was very different from the folk religions practised in Taiwan, she notes. Often, she says, Taiwanese people visit temples because they need something or they want to improve their luck.

Translator shatters stereotypes about Muslim world Kai-Chun Huang’s love of learning languages led to her fascination with Islamic culture, and she will share her insights with Vancouver during TAIWANfest over the Labour Day weekend.

T aiwanese heritage advocate Eden Liu has a simple philosophy: do what you love and the money will follow. It has led him on a remarkable journey to the historic section of the port city of Semarang on the north coast of There,Java.heand his wife, Jade, have over seen the restoration of the two-storey Soes mans Kantoor colonial building. It used to be the office of the Soesmans Emigration, Sale and Commission Office, which sup plied labourers when the Dutch controlled Java and Sumatra. Now the building is home to a social enterprise run by the Liu family, one that hosts cultural events as well as activities and employment for Indonesian women, including in Taiwanese-owned businesses. “I love the old culture, the old build ings,” Liu tells the Straight over Zoom from Semarang. “I do what I love. I believe the money will come.” Through their “Soesmans 1866” project, Liu and his wife have built a bridge be tween Taiwan and Indonesia. He has even offered advice to municipal politicians in Semarang, Indonesia’s ninth-largest city, as they try to have the historic Dutch sec tion declared a UN World Heritage Site. “Semarang presents an example of multicultural trading towns in Southeast Asia,” Liu says. He points out that the port city has been a home to Javanese, Chinese, Malay, and Arabian cultures for centuries. For a fair amount of that time, they were under the by Charlie Smith

Taiwanese couple finds joy helping others in Java

Eden Liu took on a major challenge of restoring a 19th-century Dutch colonial building in the Indonesian port city of Semarang—and it was enough to persuade his girlfriend to marry him.

Taiwan’s buried Japanese literature brought to light

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“I spent the whole year systematically reading Taiwanese literature from 1895 until now,” Chen tells the Straight over Zoom. “I read about 355 books last year.” She was able to do this with the Readmoo app, which makes Taiwanese literature avail able online. One of her teachers, Hao-Wei Sheng, offers several courses focused on Japanese-language literature by Taiwanese writers. “He spent a lot of effort to translate and to document all that,” Chen says. Taiwan was a Japanese colony from 1895 to 1945, when a great deal of this literature was created. But after Chinese nationalists under Chiang Kai-shek imposed martial law on Taiwan after the Second World War, the Japanese language was suppressed and this literature disappeared from public consciousness. It’s only emerging now through the efforts of Sheng and others.

Another of her instructors, Yu-Hsun (Chuck) Chu, is the author of When They Were Not Writing Novels: Portraits of Novelists From Taiwan Under Martial Law, which reveals what novelists did during Taiwan’s four decades of dictatorship after the Second World War. Chu will speak in Mandarin about this book at the Vancou ver Public Library as part of TAIWANfest.

invited to apply. For more information charles.leibovitch@jsalliance.org 778-840-4949 grace.hann@jsalliance.org 778-828-1917 ARE

If you know of a Stefan Stanton or of the circumstances surrounding one or more of the forged cheques belonging to Ajay Sharma, please provide such information to counsel for Ajay Sharma, Alfonso Chen, at 604-423-2646 M any people think of Taiwan as a Mandarin-speaking is land nation south of Japan. In fact, its literary tradition includes a great deal of writing in Japanese, which has escaped the attention of many bookVancouverlovers.

In the proceeding, the Claimant, Ajay Sharma, claims the following relief against you:

resident Iris Chen, curator of the Taiwan Bookstore at TAIWANfest, only discovered this after enrolling in online courses offered through a private school in Taiwan.

TAIWANfest launched the Taiwan Bookstore in 2016 to draw attention to books that are banned in China. Chen operated it at the festival in subsequent years, putting many of her favourites on the“Myshelves.taste is a little bit on the quirky side,” she admits. “I don’t usually read really popular novels or articles.” This year, the festival is fo cusing on connections between Taiwan and Indonesia and Ma laysia. As a result, the Taiwan Bookstore will feature a display called Painting With Words in the 700 block of Granville Street on September 3, 4, and 5. Visitors are encouraged to bring a flashlight and discover literature from the three coun tries.“I think Malaysia, Indo nesia, and Taiwan all share one thing in common: we need to deal with the trauma after colonization,” Chen says. g

TAIWANfest presents Yu-Hsun (Chuck) Chu at 1:30 p.m. on September 3 in Mandarin in the Montalbano Family Theatre at the Vancouver Public Library central branch. His talk will be available later with English subtitles on YouTube. by Charlie Smith

Yu-Hsun Chu has written a book focusing on the courage of Taiwanese writers under martial law.

1. damages for amount misappropriated from cheque fraud and for mental distress; and 2. disbursements incurred in identifying and locating you. You must file a responding pleading within the period required under the Small Claims Rules, failing which, further proceedings, including judgment, may be taken against you without notice to you. You may obtain, from the Surrey Registry, at 14340 57 Ave, Surrey, BC V3X 1B2, a copy of the Notice of Claim and the order providing for service by this advertisement.

8 THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT AUGUST 25 – SEPTEMBER 1 / 2022 TAIWANFEST

“I hope this compilation helps readers get reacquainted with the spirit, will, and courage of earlier Taiwanese writers,” Chu says on the TAIWANfest website. “I also hope that those less in clined towards literature can realize that the lives of these people, and their passion and commitment to this world, are just as exciting as a novel, even if they have never read litera tureHisbefore.”newest novel, The Testi monies Will Be Denied, is set in 2067 after China has invad ed Taiwan. It’s a subject that deeply trou bles Chen, given China’s desire to annex her“Forhomeland.me,I’m so afraid to read the book because it’s like a prophesy,” Chen says.

Monday, September 12 / 5pm - 8 pm Thursday, September 15 / 5pm - 8 pm Monday, September 19 / 5pm - 8 pm Thursday, September 22 / 5pm - 8 pm Monday, September 26 / 5pm - 8 pm (All sessions are via ZOOM with Trainer Grace Hann)

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“So, basically, we have to relearn every thing in Mandarin,” Chen says. “When I looked at this, I thought, ‘That’s ridiculous. We have such a rich culture.’ ”

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To: Stefan Stanton

It’s why both Indigenous knowledge and western science are needed to understand how to live better on this small, wonder ful planet. While taking things apart and examining how the pieces work is useful and important, we have to look at how those parts interconnect with everything else, to see the whole—as Indigenous Peoples who have lived in place for millennia have done. This more holistic way of seeing under pins much of climate science today, as it’s clear the climate is connected to all systems that affect Earth and that they all help regu late the whole. Lovelock noted that Earth’s surface temperature is determined mainly by radiant heat from the sun, but temper atures have “remained relatively stable thanks to Gaia: forests, oceans, and other elements in the Earth’s regulating system, which kept the surface temperature fairly constant and near optimal for life”. We’ve now upset that balance, burning coal, oil, and gas in our automobiles, fac tories, and homes and pumping massive amounts of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and more into the atmosphere at accelerating rates. At the same time, we’ve hindered Earth’s ability to absorb and sequester excess car bon from the atmosphere by destroying and polluting wetlands, peat bogs, forests, grasslands, waterways, and seas. Gaia is responding. Our understanding of the climate crisis and its causes—and solutions—is growing by leaps and bounds, although basic know ledge about greenhouse gases is at least 200 yearsButold.mainstream forest ecology has only recently started seeing the forest and the trees. Reductionist, capitalist think ing made many see forests as little more than stands of valuable timber—with a few “weed” species in the way—each individual tree worth more cut into boards or pulped into chips than an interdependent life form playing its role in a forest ecosystem. As with Lovelock, when forest ecolo gist Suzanne Simard suggested that for ests are more than just their parts, that they’re intricately connected systems that communicate and share and strive toward equilibrium, her ideas were initially derid ed and mocked. We now have a much greater under standing of forests and the fungal networks that connect trees. Through intricate my celial webs, fungi and trees redistribute and share nutrients and water, and they send almost instant recognition and warn ing signals to each other.

9AUGUST 25 – SEPTEMBER 1 / 2022 THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT COMMENTARY

Lovelock, who died on his 103rd birth day July 26, was correct. As he pointed out, climate disruption and rainforest destruc tion show that humans are affecting the global environment, which is responding in ways that aim toward some kind of equi librium—with or without humans. He also understood that a major drawback to west ern science is reductionism, the tendency to compartmentalize phenomena, often obscuring how components interconnect and interact as part of something larger.

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For Lovelock, separating the climate and forest-biodiversity crises “is as much of a mistake as the error made by univer sities when they teach chemistry in a dif ferent class from biology and physics. It is impossible to understand these subjects in isolation because they are interconnected”.

In Braiding Sweetgrass, Robin Wall Kimmerer writes that Indigenous elders have long spoken of trees communicating. “There is now compelling evidence that our elders were right—the trees are talking to one Ouranother.”majorcrises stem largely from ways of thinking that are limited to parts and im mediacy that fail to see how the whole is af fected by and affects everything that inter acts with and within it. The climate and biodiversity crises, growing mainstream recognition of the importance of Indigen ous knowledge, and increasing understand ing of ecosystem interconnectedness all point to the necessity of embracing and act ing on this increasing awareness quickly if we want to avoid catastrophe. As Lovelock wrote before he died, “hu mans must learn to live in partnership with the Earth, otherwise the rest of cre ation will, as part of Gaia, unconsciously move the Earth to a new state in which hu mans may no longer be welcome”. g

Gaia high priest Lovelock was a prescient genius

hen scientist James Love lock suggested more than 50 years ago that Earth regulates itself like a living organism, many in science and academia ridiculed his idea. As he later wrote, “the mainstream view then was the neo-Dar winist one that life adapts to the environ ment, not that the relationship also works in the other direction, as we argued”.

Pioneering scientist James Lovelock recognized that the forest-biodiversity crisis—Amazon clearcutting (above) is a prime example—was connected to the climate crisis. Photo by Getty. Aarm Dental Group We’re in your neighborhood to make you smile…

David Suzuki is a scientist, broadcaster, author, and cofounder of the David Suzuki Foundation. Written with contributions from foundation senior writer and editor Ian Hanington. Learn more at davidsuzuki.org. by David Suzuki

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TAIWANfest will present Silaturahmi in the 600 block of Granville from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. on September 3 to 5.

“We all agreed that it’s better that we directly collaborate with the Indonesian fishers,” Lan says. “That’s how this process began.” g

Cultural activist Ting-Kuan Wu and writer Yu-Chen Lan collaborated with Indonesian seafarers in a Taiwanese port town on an installation that will be on Granville Street during TAIWANfest.

“Some fishers from Indonesia don’t join this community because they spend most of their time on the fishing vessels on the sea,” Wu acknowledges. Every year, TAIWANfest highlights important human-rights issues in Asia in addition to celebrating arts and culture. This year’s theme, Stories of Independence, focuses on the bonds between the people of Taiwan, Indonesia, and Malaysia.

12 THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT AUGUST 25 – SEPTEMBER 1 / 2022 TAIWANFEST 604.873.4525 • ��.��.��.�� Become a Big Sister. Become a Study Buddy. Become a friend. by Charlie Smith Silaturahmi reflects lives of migrant fishers in Taiwan

Wu, who lives in the large southern city of Kaohsiung, met some Indonesian fishers while participating in a festival in Tangkáng in 2015. Four years later, as the coordinator of Trans/Voices Project: Indo nesia-Taiwan, he collaborated with Indo nesian artists and learned more about the lives of Indonesian migrant workers. More recently, he cocurated a project in the Kao hsiung Museum of Labour on the human rights of migrants in southern Taiwan.

F or Taiwan-based human-rights researcher and cultural activist Ting-Kuan Wu and writer YuChen Lan, Silaturahmi is a beauti ful Islamic idea. “It means people taking care and con necting and mending their relationships— the bond of relationship—with each other in daily life,” Lan tells the Straight over Zoom in a joint interview with Wu. “If you go to Indonesia or to any Indonesian community, you will find out this word is beyond the concept of a religious idea. It’s alreadySilaturahmisecularized.”takes effort, she adds, something she and Wu have done in forging connections with migrant Indo nesian fishers in the Taiwanese port of Tangkáng. That will be on display dur ing the TAIWANfest celebrations in Vancouver in a large installation that they created, called Silaturahmi , with the help of Indonesian fishers in Tangkáng. It will be in the 600 block of Granville Street from September 3 to 5. “The first thing you will notice is the huge piece of tarpaulin—the white and blue tarpaulin,” Lan says. “You can see it; you can even lie down or walk around on theThetarpaulin.”installation includes handicrafts, fishing nets, and other aspects of migrant Indonesian fishers’ lives. Because they don’t have permanent spaces on the docks in Taiwan, these fishers lay down tarpau lins when they want to sit together. Tangkáng is home to Taiwan’s largest Indonesian seafarers’ organization, which includes the word Silaturahmi in its name. According to Wu, there are about 2,000 Indonesian fishers in Tangkáng and more than 10,000 licensed and unlicensed fish ers from Indonesia and the Philippines in Taiwan. He notes that human-rights issues on the high seas, including forced labour and human trafficking, have generated a great deal of international attention in recent years. And in Taiwanese ports, he says, there are still not sufficient facilities for the fishers, pointing to a lack of showers as one example. But Wu and Lan have also been touched by the solidarity that Indonesian fishers have demonstrated in Tangkáng as they’ve formed a vibrant community. To these two cultural navigators, it’s Silaturahmi writ large. “They represent their culture in the lo cal festivals and raised funds to build their own mosque there,” Wu says.

The Chutzpah! Festival presents Ne.Sans Opera & Dance’s Take This Waltz in partnership with Pacific Opera Victoria and Vancouver Opera at 8 p.m. on September 10 and 11 at the Norman & Annette Rothstein Theatre.

In Take This Waltz, which is choreographed by Ne.Sans artistic director Idan Cohen, dancer Ted Littlemore (left) gets equal billing with bass-baritone Daniel Okulitch. Photo by Victoria Bell. soutien de With the support of

Cohen reveals that later in the piece, Litt lemore will join the music ensemble on-stage and play the accordion while dancing. Nowadays, it disappoints Cohen to see the arts confined to silos. It bothers him when musicians and theatre artists focus only on their art forms rather than taking in more dance shows and when dancers neg lect attending the theatre or art galleries.

A production NewmontSTALLONECentquatre-ParisofSeptember13–14,2022BMOTheatreCentreStage–7:30pm English surtitles info & tickets seizieme.ca Avec le

“I kind of insisted to add two songs that I thought were very relevant and import ant for the piece,” he says. “Those were ‘Everybody Knows’ and ‘Hallelujah’.”

“Ted is such a wonderful collaborator and such a brilliant dancer and beautiful musician,” he explains. “I thought that this would add something very minimal and— at the same time—rich to the production. I wanted both performers to be equal with what they have to offer to the production and to the audience.”

“I find it’s a real pity because we’re los ing so much,” he says. “And when I think of artists that inspired me, I am always think ing of the German choreographer Pina Bausch, who basically reinvented dance theatre in the late ’60s.” Bausch was certainly an admired dance artist, but according to Cohen, she also gave tremendous thought to costumes, set design, music, and other elements, even working with actors to create pro found scenes. Cohen points out that both he and Bausch choreographed Christoph Willibald Gluck’s Orfeo et Euridice, dem onstrating their shared love of opera. (In Cohen’s 2021 version in partnership with Vancouver Opera, Littlemore played the role of “SheOrfeo.)hadsuch knowledge of classical music,” Cohen states. “And I think she’s a huge inspiration to us all.”

Cohen imposed one condition before proceeding with this production. Pacific Opera Victoria’s concert featured “stun ningly beautiful” arrangements, he says, but quite a few of the songs were among the singer-songwriter’s least known.

Namesake’s music inspires Cohen’s choreography

13AUGUST 25 – SEPTEMBER 1 / 2022 THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT ARTS by Charlie Smith

That vision, according to Cohen, is to create a new form of hybridity that show cases all the arts as equals. In this regard, Cohen says that Ne.Sans Opera & Dance is following the tradition of opera.

V ancouver dance artist Idan Co hen practically gushes with en thusiasm as he shares his passion for the music and poetry of a de ceased Canadian who shares his surname.

When Okulitch gave this the green light, Cohen was all in. Cohen describes Take This Waltz as a duet, with Okulitch’s singing being paired with Ted Littlemore’s dance artistry. Little more is the first dancer that Cohen worked with when he moved to Vancouver a few years“Oneago.of the many reasons I love work ing with Ted is because in his background, he’s also a musician,” Cohen says. “We speak the language, and also he’s such a valuable part of my vision for Ne.Sans Opera & Dance.”

“Daniel wanted to create something a bit richer out of this and had the vision of creating choreography and staging that into a concert,” Cohen recalls. The choreographer says that he has been an admirer of Okulitch’s work since he first saw him singing on-stage in Vancouver Opera’s Dead Man Walking in 2017. So, nat urally, he agreed to collaborate. The result will be on display next month in the world premiere of Ne.Sans Opera & Dance’s Take This Waltz, which is billed as “Celebrating the Music of Leonard Cohen”. It’s being presented as a Chutzpah! Festival special event in advance of the annual Jewish arts and cultural fest this November.

“I’ve always loved Leonard Cohen’s work,” Cohen tells the Straight by phone. “How could you not?” Cohen, the founder and artistic direc tor of Ne.Sans Opera & Dance, goes on to describe the singer-songwriter as “monu mental” in the way he injected such sensi tivity and wisdom into his songwriting and“Theperformances.wonderful lyrics paired with bril liant music is just something you don’t get to experience every day,” Cohen says. So it’s easy to imagine how delighted Co hen was when he was approached by bassbaritone Daniel Okulitch to collaborate on a project involving the master’s music. By that time, Okulitch had already presented an arrangement of Leonard Cohen’s songs in a concert commissioned by Pacific Opera Victoria and Vancouver Opera.

I n the mountains of the southern Phil ippines lives an Indigenous commun ity with a unique weaving tradition. A spirit called Fu Dalu is believed to inspire the design of the tnalak (also spelled t’nalak and tinalak), a hand-woven cloth both native to and sacred to the Tboli (T’boli, Tiboli).

Fu Dalu not only communicates with Ofong through the Tboli woman’s dreams—she guides her with the design of her tnalak. “In her dream, Fu Dalu some times takes on the form of a lizard, frog or snake. Barbara will incorporate the skin pattern of the animal into the design of the tnalak. Sometimes Fu Dalu takes on the form of a person in the dream.” Gillis related that making a tnalak is a lengthy process, sometimes taking up to three or four months to finish a six-metrelong piece of fabric. “When the weaving process runs smoothly in every step, Barbara knows her spirit guide has helped her,” the Vancou ver author writes. The Tbolis consider the uplands of South Cotabato, a province in the south ern Philippine region of Mindanao, as their traditional territory. They are known for their colourful costumes, as well as for original music and metalwork.

Sandie Oreta Gillis has written a book about “dreamweavers” in the southern Philippines.

Gillis became interested about the Tbolis from her conversations with Fran cis Herradura, a Surrey artist who has visited the community. Herradura would later design and illustrate the book.In a phone interview, Gillis said that she wants to share the story of the Tbolis through their art. “Art brings us all together,” Gillis told the Straight The author explained that art provides a bridge among different peoples. “When we understand the art of another, we also get to know each other more,” she said. Gillis was born and raised in the Phil ippines. She moved to Canada in 1983 and has remained connected with her heritage. Herradura also hails from the Philippines. The two met when Herra dura joined Dimasalang III Internation al Artist Group, a Filipino artists’ group in Vancouver that includes Gillis. In 2021, Gillis and Herradura founded the Narragila Culture and Arts Foundation in Vancouver. The nonprofit’s name com bines narra, the national tree of the Philip pines, and agila, the Philippine eagle. “Diverse cultures offer distinct creative expressions seen in their art and daily way of life,” Narragila states on its website. “Learning and appreciating differ ent cultures and traditions through their art forms broaden our understand ing of societies and of people. By celebrating each other’s uniqueness, we foster a sense of belong ing and a sense of pride.” In the interview, Gillis said that while writing the book, she often thought of her nieces who were born in Canada.

14 THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT AUGUST 25 – SEPTEMBER 1 / 2022 ARTS by Carlito Pablo

Indigenous Philippines people weave by dreams

Fu Dalu is the goddess of the abaca plant, whose fibres are used for the tri colour fabric. She supposedly enters the dreams of Tboli women. These women are calledOne“dreamweavers”.ofthesedreamweavers is Barbara Ofong, whose story is told in a new book by Vancouver author Sandie Oreta Gillis. “Barbara was fifteen when she first en countered Fu Dalu in a dream,” Gillis writes in Weaving Our Dreams: The Tboli People of the Philippines (FriesenPress).

“I hope to make them proud of their Filipino heritage too,” Gillis said. Weaving Our Dreams: The Tboli People of the Philippines also features Maria Todi, a Tboli musician who has established a cultural centre called Lake Sebu School of Living Traditions in the Philippines to pre serve the community’s traditions. g

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A quick YouTube search for “Patti LaBelle and Chaka Khan” easily unearths a 2016 clip of the two performing Aretha Frank lin’s “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman” together, which, clearly, wasn’t a memorable highlight of Khan’s career. But the nixing of any possibility of a Khan/ LaBelle duet happening isn’t all that hard to take knowing that Khan’s set will include such funky Rufus gems as “Ain’t Nobody”, “Tell Me Something Good”, and “Do You Love What You Feel”. She says it’s “the old standbys” that go over best at her shows. “We do ‘Do You Love What You Feel’ as our opening,” she says, “and people are still there for that. I got, like, five generations of music, easily, in my set, and I see five gen erations of people in the audience, which is amazing. I’m so blessed, and that is such a blessing to see that. I mean, if I didn’t have to sing, I’d be happy to just come and show up and look at ’em.”

That theme of female empowerment comes through loud and clear on Khan’s latest single, “Woman Like Me”, which was released just last month. “She’s more than a body, more than an ass in some jeans let’s be clear,” Khan sings in the opening verse.

Chaka Khan was raised in a musical household

“More than her makeup, more than the lace front that she chose to wear / She is your sis ter, she is your mother, your daughter, your girl / Better remember, it was the woman who brought you in this world.” Khan says she hopes to have “Woman Like Me” included in her set by the time she plays her upcoming Labour Day show in Vancouver. The fact that her concert is a double bill with fellow American soul crooner Patti LaBelle might make you think the two will perform a song or two together, but that ain’t gonna happen.

15AUGUST 25 – SEPTEMBER 1 / 2022 THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT MUSIC

Anyone who’s heard Khan sing— whether with her ’70s funk band Rufus or as a multiplatinum solo artist in the ’80s— would likely agree that she must have en tered this world with a God-given gift. It didn’t hurt that she was heavily influenced early on by the likes of Aretha Franklin. “She was one of the many singers that in fluenced me,” Khan points out. “My mother and father were very well versed in their music stuff, and they both loved a lot of dif ferent genres of music, and I heard every thing from opera to, you name it, to jazz. And [Peruvian soprano] Yma Sumac—you probably don’t even know who she is. Bird lady,” she adds with a laugh. “I heard a lot of amazing artists from my mother and father ‘cause I was born into that. “And we’d always sing together,” she says. “What I recall about that is we would all be cleaning up the house on Saturday after noons—everyone had a chore—and they’d put on something. My father loved jazz— Ella, Billie, Sarah, whatever, Nat, whoever— and my mother put on some opera singers, and she put on some jazz, too. And then somebody would put on some funk, and rock. I listened to everything. And we all used to sing together and clean up.” Over the course of her musical career, Khan has received 10 Grammy awards and sold an estimated 70 million albums worldwide. So what would she say is the most important quality about herself that has led to that success? “Oh, I’m sure it took more than one qual ity,” she replies. “Ya gotta really have intui tiveness in your decisions, and you have to follow your heart, and you gotta trust that. You know, my coming of age in my career, for the most part, was really motivated by men—I mean, more men than women— and so I had to fight through a lot of psycho logical, musical, and physical battles with men, you know, in order to sustain.”

n the phone from her home in Santa Monica, Chaka Khan ponders the question of when she first discovered her love of music. It doesn’t take her long to decide that she can’t remember, exactly. “I must have been born with that,” she says. “I think I’ve always had it, uh-hmm.”

“I don’t do anything with Patti LaBelle,” Khan confirms. “She has her show; I have my show. I mean, what would we sing together? It’s like, ‘What would that sound like?’ I don’t think we’ve ever sung togeth er, that I can recall.”

Chaka Khan performs on a bill with Patti Labelle at the PNE Amphitheatre on September 5 as part of the PNE Summer Night Concerts series. by Steve Newton

Early in her career, star vocalist Chaka Khan had to fight many battles in the male-dominated music industry, but her latest single, “Woman Like Me”, is all about female empowerment. I see five generations of people in the audience, which is amazing. – Chaka Khan

Young showed up, and I said, ‘Man, would you come over and play B3 [organ] on ‘Fly Like an Eagle’ ”? He was such a great, great player, you know. And he said, ‘Sure’, so he came over and did a session, and every now and then there’d be different people that would come in and do session parts and pieces. I was working on about 25 songs, and I worked on it for about 18 months, so I had different people over that time.”

The Steve Miller Band performs at the PNE Amphitheatre on Tuesday (August 30) as part of the PNE Summer Night Concerts series.

16 THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT AUGUST 25 – SEPTEMBER 1 / 2022

“I grew up playing blues in Texas; that was pop music in Texas when I was a kid. I had a blues band when I went to college, and then when I went to Chicago I was play ing blues with Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf and Buddy Guy. Played rhythm guitar for Buddy Guy for a while; did all of that. “And then I got a chance to get a record ing contract in California, and that was a completely different world. When I went out to California, I just wanted to write my own music, you know. Now, Les Paul had, I think, 25 top-10 singles or something, so I knew what a hit single was, and I knew what radio airplay was, and I knew about all that. I wanted to make a really great album, and I also wanted to make really great singles, so I wanted to do it all.”

One might be tempted to ask Miller if the switch from blues to rock was a natural progression for him or whether he was consciously trying to get hit songs. “Well, a little bit of all of it,” he replies.

Live at the CentennialTheatre Sept 16 “Manx’s real talent lies in creating a place where Blues and Indian Classical are a seamless fit” ~ Downbeat Magazine. “Canada’s most expressive Blues player” ~ Billboard Magazine. Tickets: TheatreManager/1/online?performance=2940https://tickets.centennialtheatre.com/

“Basically, what happened was we re corded all the basic tracks with the three of us—with [bassist] Lonnie Turner and [drummer] Gary Mallaber. We went to a studio, and in about eleven days or so we cut 21, 22, 23, 24 songs, and then I took those tapes to where I had my own eight-track tape recorder, in my living room, and start ed working on my lyrics and my arrange ments and my vocal parts and all that stuff.

Of course, with all that material in hand, it would have been entirely possible for Miller to release both Fly Like an Eagle and Book of Dreams as a double LP—one huge, hit-packed monster of an album—but he’d learned a thing or two from the Beatles about not blowing your creative wad.

MUSIC by Steve Newton

One of the more interesting facts about the Steve Miller Band’s windfall of mid’70s radio hits is that all the songs from both albums were created at the same time.

“And then somebody else would come into town, like [keyboardist] Joachim

A s a youngster, Steve Miller had the best music teachers you could ever ask for. I mean, Les Paul and T-Bone Walker? Are you kid ding? That’s like the ultimate fairy tale for a guitar-crazed kid in the 20th century. “I grew up in a family where music was on all the time,” the 78-year-old rocker emphasizes on the phone from his home in the Hudson Valley, about 90 minutes north of New York City. “My mother was a singer, her brothers were jazz violinists, and Les Paul was my godfather—so I was sur rounded by music and thrilled and fascin ated by it, and that’s all I ever wanted to do. Once I saw Les Paul play, I was hooked.” Paul taught Miller his first chord, and Walker showed him how to play guitar be hind his head and do the splits at the same time, which, as Miller quips, “is a very handy thing to know if you’re gonna be in show business”. Walker was a family friend of the Millers who used to come over to their house and play. “T-Bone was the bridge between blues and jazz,” Miller notes. “B.B. King and Freddie King and Albert King and every body that plays guitar listened to T-Bone. He was the guy who set the basics for play ing lead guitar—he and Charlie Christian. So it was really just unbelievably lucky that I was around all these people. And it made a huge difference in my life.” During the early part of his career, in the 1960s, Miller wholeheartedly em braced the blues world that Walker had turned him on to. But by the mid-’70s, he turned more to rock, releasing two al bums—1976’s Fly Like an Eagle and 1977’s Book of Dreams—that would certify him as a genuine music legend. Between the two of them, those discs would spawn the sin gles “Take the Money and Run”, “Rock’n Me”, “Fly Like an Eagle”, “Serenade”, “Jet Airliner”, “Jungle Love”, and “Swingtown”.

“I had spent some time in London, and I had got to be in the studio with them while they were recording,” he explains, “and I was absolutely amazed to see that they probably had 40 songs in the can that were mixed. I had never run into anybody that was that far ahead of the game, and up to that point it had always been kind of a world where you’d work really hard to make an album, and then you’d go out and tour—and be exhausted—and then you’d come back and go in the studio and make another album. “It was a very hard way to work,” Miller adds, “and I quickly realized after meeting the Beatles and watching them work that it was much smarter to take some time off and get ahead of the game and have some thing in the can that worked a lot better on many levels. You were ready to release your next song when the market was ready for it, not when you were ready for it. You know, it used to be like, ‘Well, the boys just had a huge hit and they’ve been in the studio for two years and they’re trying really hard to follow it up.’ I didn’t want to be like that. I wanted to just be releasing material. Once I got the barn door open, I wanted to keep it open.”

Steve Miller (centre) learned how to play guitar from Les Paul and T-Bone Walker, and those skills served him well when it came to crafting his stunning array of rock hits in the 1970s.

Hitmaker Steve Miller kept the barn door open

Harry Manx

It’s not the first time the singer, song writer, and multi-instrumentalist has han dled the bottom end, however. He grew up in a music store, where knowing your way around a four-string came in mighty handy. “You have to learn to play bass because someone always shows up that doesn’t play bass,” he says. “You know, everyone’s al ways showin’ up with a handful of songs, and they’re usually playing a guitar or piano, so bass is the fallback in a small set ting. And growing up in retail music has never been harder than it is now, but back then, you know, one of my grandfather’s sales tactics was that if you could play a couple of songs on every instrument in the shop, you were sure to sell it. So that lent itself towards me learning upright bass at a young age. And I’ve always loved it. “Juan actually played upright bass every so often,” he adds, “but I just needed to play bass—electric, upright, whatever. I needed to feel that rumbling low end of Juan Nel son so I could actually somehow grieve..”

17AUGUST 25 – SEPTEMBER 1 / 2022 THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT MUSIC / SAVAGE LOVE

On his latest album, Bloodline Maintenance, Ben Harper played all the bass as a way to help deal with the death last year of his longtime bassist, Juan Nelson. Photo by Michael Halsband by Dan Savage Can “high standards” mask a desire for solitude?

Ben Harper takes over the bass to handle grief T he cover of Ben Harper’s new album, Bloodline Maintenance, appears to be a photo of a little kid poking the relaxed, shadeswearing Harper in the chest with a blue toy shovel. But when Harper calls in for an interview from Paris, France, where he’s just finished a seven-week European tour, he quickly points out that things are not always as they seem. “That’s actually me poking my father,” he explains. “Many have made that mis take, but I am the current spitting image of my father.” It turns out that Harper’s dad was the inspiration for much of the lyrical content of Bloodline Maintenance

“Well, we’re gonna find out aren’t we?” he replies. “I mean, really, it’s songcraft. He’s a master songsmith and a deeply important artist that’s just scratched the surface on his genius. And hopefully his fans will recog nize some type of through line, lyrically, be tween what Harry does and what I do.”

“This album represents picking up a con versation with my dad that I should have done long ago but had been thinking about and really didn’t have,” Harper says. “I did my best to transform a mirror into an open window, lyrically, once and for all, and this pandemic really put that mirror in front of me as far as never having processed the loss of my dad. That was one of the many things I ended up sitting with in solitude during the pandemic, writing my way out of.”

You’ve either had a terrible run of bad luck—assuming you’ve dated more than 10 men—or you’ve set your standards impos sibly high. Some food for thought: perhaps you think you want a long-term relation ship because you were told that’s what you’re supposed to want—you were told that’s what all good people want—but you actually don’t want a long-term relation ship. They don’t make you happy. But instead of telling yourself that you’re a good person who prefers short-term re lationships and/or being alone, you’ve set your standards so high—you’ve dialled them up to sabotage—because you want to be alone. And instead of owning that about yourself, you find fault in the men you date.

Dan Savage advises a female reader that her high “standards” in men might be masking her in ability to admit that she would rather not enter into long-term relationships. Photo by Unsplash. see next page

Harper’s travels will continue this fall with a tour—opening for Harry Styles—that runs from October 23 to November 15. So does he expect that the more pop-oriented Styles fans—not to mention the followers of Styles’s former boy band, One Direction— will embrace Harper’s deeply sensitive song writing approach and give him a fair listen?

Loss is such a huge, unfillable void that I found playing his instrument helped fill that in just a little bit.”

Harper was definitely walking on his own with his previous album, 2020’s Win ter Is for Lovers, an instrumental outing that was just him playing his Monteleone lap steel guitar. Each track was named for one of his favourite places in the world, and Toronto and Montreal both made the cut.

As well as all the bass, Harper also played drums, lap steel guitar, regular guitar, and a lot of keyboards on Bloodline Maintenance. So does he prefer taking the DIY approach when it comes to making re cords, or would he rather have a full band along for the ride? “I do like ’em both,” he says. “It’s great to have people to feed off of in the room. I think that can bring out exciting things in a novel way, where other people are throwing ideas into the pot and helping me stir. The challenge is in the mix, because everyone al ways wants their instrument turned up. By the time everyone’s instrument’s turned up, you have a very nondynamic mix. So then it’s nice to just be able to put the instruments where you want them in the mix at all times. And to take away the crutch—walk on your own, as far as what you want.”

b I’M A 40-YEAR-OLD female, cis-het. I have very discerning tastes in men and always end up alone. Any way to be more open without sacrificing my standards?

PS: There’s no settling down without by Steve Newton

Ben Harper performs at the Rifflandia Festival in Victoria on Friday, September 16.

his is a preview of this week’s Sav age Love. The full version is now exclusively available on Dan’s website Savage.Love.

The notion of loss, and coming to terms with it, was not just confined to thoughts of the elder Harper, though. The album was actually dedicated to the memory of Juan Nelson, Ben Harper’s longtime bass ist and collaborator, who died last year at the age of 62. One of the ways he’s keeping Nelson’s memory alive for himself—be sides putting “a lot of Juan” in songs like “Smile at the Mention”—was to play all of the bass guitar on the album, including mostly acoustic standup bass. “I just felt that that was the right thing to do,” Harper notes, “and it actually con nected me to his memory in a very specific and special way. Special to me, I should say.

So should Vancouverites feel snubbed?

“Oh, you know, I’m so embarrassed be cause there’s a Toronto and no Vancouver,” he says half-jokingly. “That’ll be for my next instrumental record. Because, I’ll tell you, I have as fond memories of walking through Stanley Park as anywhere in this world.” There will be no sauntering in Vancou ver’s prized park when Harper makes his next visit to B.C. however, as he’s booked to play the four-day Rifflandia Festival in Victoria. He has only performed in the Garden City once before, at “a very small club a long time ago”, so islanders who’ve been waiting to see him in their neck of the woods will finally get their chance. His current band includes two of the original Innocent Criminals members, drummer Oliver Charles and percussionist Leon Mobley, who’ve been with him for 30 years, and three new guys: bassist Darwin Johnson, second guitarist Alex Painter, and keyboardist Chris Joyner. They’ll be topping a bill that includes Bikini Kill, Pussy Riot, Cat Power, Bran Van 3000, Art d’Ecco, Gold & Youth, and the Choirs YYJ.

604

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settling for. b Is there any way to enjoy anal while hav ing a hemorrhoid? Nope, sorry. You need to wait for it to heal.

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Real Property

NOTICE OF INTEREST

Notice of Adverse Claim

This position offers permanent, fulltime employment. (40hrs per week), based in Richmond BC. Salary range is $27.40 to $45.13hr, to be negotiated. Early morning, morning, day, weekend and overtime. Staring date September 1st, 2022.

JOB TYPE: FULL-TIME Salary: From $18 to $34.62/hour (TO BE NEGOTIATED) please apply/send resume to: jeremy@delabs.ca

Personal Tangible and Intangible Property

All land, including fixtures, timber, livestock, vegetation, animals, minerals, air, and water contained within the land zone that is, have been or will be held and/or possessed in DEBTOR’s NAME.

Any real or artificial person and/or municipal corporation with an adverse claim to any of the DEBTOR’s property shall send their claim certified under oath (notary jurat), sent certified or registered mail within three (3) days of the final publishing of this notice or any time thereafter to: Kapani, Alisha Jewel occ upant of the office of General Executrix of the ALISHA JEWEL KAPANI, Estate, c/o 318-20 Royal Oak Plaza NW, Calgary, Alberta, [T3G 0E6]. Creditor reserves all rights incl. the right to assign interest in DEBTOR’s property to any natural or artificial person incl. but not limited to trusts. All claims of debt and interest under the color of any law after thirty (30) days of the final publishing of this notice are null and void by operation of law.

permanent resident

you

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JOB REQUIREMENTS: - English - Secondary (high) school graduation certificate - 2 to 3 years experience - Public transportation is available Only apply for this job if: You are a Canadian citizen or a permanent resident of Canada. You have a valid Canadian work permit. If you are not authorized to work in Canada, DO NOT APPLY. THE EMPLOYER WILL NOT RESPOND TO YOUR APPLICATION.

This position offers permanent, as soon as years experience for are a Canadian a of have a valid Canadian If are not authorized to in Canada, DO NOT APPLY. WILL NOT RESPOND TO Estate, hereinafter “DEBTOR” Bond registration Alberta Health Vital Statistics file number 92-027894, Federal Reserve, federal insurance, and Treasury account number/Social Insurance Number ending in xxxxx2006, is a commercial transmitting utility for transmitting life energy into a valuable form cognizable in commerce. The grantor, beneficiary, heir and General Executrix Kapani, Alisha Jewel, a woman, hereinafter “Creditor” has a priority secured interest in the Debtor’s property by private agreement in the amount of thirty-three billion dollars ($33,000,000,000.00). As of the date of this publishing, no person, natural or artificial, has presented a superior claim of interest in the DEBTOR’s Estate incl. but not limited to personal and real property, chattels and entitlement rights of the Estate assets and securities to Creditor. The last known residence address of the DEBTOR Estate as certified on the certificate of title is Alberta Health Vital Statistics, 10365 97 St NW, Edmonton, AB, T5J 3W7. All DEBTOR’s labor/energy, and every product created therefrom, whether past, present, or future are indentured by private agreement. All products of DEBTOR’s labor including but not limited to property acquired by gift, agreement, wage and/or sale in DEBTOR’s NAME. All means “everything” real and personal which DEBTOR has both in possession and not in possession as an equitable interest.

I’M A GAY boy in the big city and I want to start doing sex work as a side gig. But I have no idea how to start. First steps?

First steps: get vaccinated against monkey pox, Hep A and B, and HPV, and get on PrEP. Then talk with other people who are doing or have done sex work. There are a lot of sex workers on Twitter; most aren’t there to solicit customers but to advocate for their rights and create com munity. Follow and learn.

Problem solved.

possible. JOB REQUIREMENTS: - English - Secondary (high) school graduation certificate - 2 to 3

WE OFTEN TALK about warning signs/red flags with kinky Doms. What about subs? No one should play with... Go to Savage.Love to read the rest. g Dan on Twitter @FakeDanSavage. Email: questions@savagelove.net. Listen to Dan on the Savage Lovecast previous

5281

This position offers permanent, fulltime employment. (40hrs per week), based in Richmond BC. Salary range is $27.40 to $45.13hr, to be negotiated. Early morning, morning, day, weekend and overtime.

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2 THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT JUNE 25 – JULY 2 / 2020

b I’M A 36-YEAR-OLD man. If I get too psyched out to stay hard for (extremely rare) anal with my wife, should I just get some Viagra? Well, that depends . Does your wife like long anal-sex sessions? If the answer to that question is yes, then Viagra could help. Because in addition to helping you get and stay hard, Viagra and other ED meds can delay orgasm. But if your wife doesn’t like long anal sex sessions—if she generally wants you to hurry the fuck up and get the ass-fucking over with—lasting longer could make those already rare anal-sex sessions rarer still. Maybe try a cock ring instead?

DR. 10am - 10pm BEST RELAXATION BES SXspa Newly Renovated. New management & staff. Validated parking at rear. Male massuese + 4 hands avail. Pls. call for Appt. & Details. Call 604-568-2248 EMPLOYMENT VolunteersCallboardFree Volunteers are needed at the CPR 374 Pavilion in Yaletown. www.wcra.org/engine-374 Pacific Blvd & Davie St at the Roundhouse Community Centre. Hours:Thursday to Sunday 11am to 3pm (4 hour shift). You willgive oral history of the 374 Locomotive and help visiting tourists. No Train Knowledge is Necessary, you will learn on the job. Contact: George Game at george@wcra.org for more information. EMPLOYMENTProfessional Services Dating Services MILANO DATING SERVICES Still searhing for someone very special? Dreaming of new feelings and a beautiful new romance....We can turn your dreams into 604-805-1342reality! Announcements Stay @GeorgiaStraightConnected Notices Legal Name Change Notice I, Bhavita Jindal, daughter of Rakesh Jindal, resident of 34 Green Avenue, Barnala, Punjab, India 148101 and presently residing at 253-250 6 Avenue East, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada V5T0B7, do hereby change my name from Bhavita to Bhavita Jindal, with immediate effect. EMPLOYMENTGayMassagePersonals Certified Male Massage by massagebyalvin.caAlvin778-919-3750 MAN TO MAN BODYWORK with Jim. Triple www.Handsomehands.caVaccinated! EMPLOYMENT PersonalsBodywork ARIES SPA Good Massage & Clean Great Service with Nice Girls Package Available W. Broadway Kitsilano Area Pls call 778-859-4192 $NOW$Reg13090BODY SCRUB (Incl. 45 min. Hot oil massage) 75 MIN COMFY WELLNESS SPA 3272 W. Broadway (& Blenheim) 604-558-1608 WWW. COMFYSPA .CA Massage Spa GRAND OPENING WEST SIDE MANSION one ◆ Luxury Rooms ◆ Best Massage ◆ Best Service 115-511 West 7th 604.423.5880Ave.Van. $100/30 mins

b I MET A guy that is very gifted at giving me multiple orgasms, but I have a hard time getting him to come at all. Any advice? If he doesn’t want to come, don’t make him. No problem. But if he’s not coming because you want to make him come with your own hand, pussy, or mouth and he can’t come that way, then there is a prob lem here, and it’s you. Give him permission to enjoy oral and PIV and whatever else you both enjoy be fore finishing himself off with the same skilled hands he’s using to get you off.

full-time employment. (40hrs per week), based in Vancouver, BC. Early morning, morning, day, weekend and overtime. Starting date

this job if: You

All land, including fixtures, timber, livestock, vegetation, animals, minerals, air, and water contained within the land zone that is, have been or will be held and/or possessed in DEBTOR’s NAME. Notice of Adverse Claim Any real or artificial person and/or municipal corporation with an adverse claim to any of the DEBTOR’s property shall send their claim certified under oath (notary jurat), sent certified or registered mail within three (3) days of the final publishing of this notice or any time thereafter to: Kapani, Alisha Jewel occ upant of the office of General Executrix of the ALISHA JEWEL KAPANI, Estate, c/o 318-20 Royal Oak Plaza NW, Calgary, Alberta, [T3G 0E6]. Creditor reserves all rights incl. the right to assign interest in DEBTOR’s property to any natural or artificial person incl. but not limited to trusts. All claims of debt and interest under the color of any law after thirty (30) days of the final publishing of this notice are null and void by operation of law.

page 2 THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT JUNE 25 – JULY 2 / 2020

from

JOB REQUIREMENTS: - English - Secondary (high) school graduation certificate or equivalent experience of 2 to 3 years. - Ability to supervise 5 - 10 people. - Client focus, Judgement, Effective interpersonal skills, Initiative, Excellent oral communication, Reliability and Dependability. Only apply for this job if: You are a Canadian citizen or permanent resident of Canada. You have a valid Canadian work permit. If you are not authorized to work in Canada, DO NOT APPLY. The employer will not respond to your application.

JOB TYPE: FULL-TIME Salary: From $27.40 to $45.13/hr (TO BE NEGOTIATED) please apply/send resume to: info@lionsgatemaintenance.com

citizen or

THE EMPLOYER

This notice is out of necessity for the establishment of a perfected interest in the Estate identified herein. The ALISHA JEWEL KAPANI, Estate, hereinafter “DEBTOR” Bond registration Alberta Health Vital Statistics file number 92-027894, Federal Reserve, federal insurance, and Treasury account number/Social Insurance Number ending in xxxxx2006, is a commercial transmitting utility for transmitting life energy into a valuable form cognizable in commerce. The grantor, beneficiary, heir and General Executrix Kapani, Alisha Jewel, a woman, hereinafter “Creditor” has a priority secured interest in the Debtor’s property by private agreement in the amount of thirty-three billion dollars ($33,000,000,000.00). As of the date of this publishing, no person, natural or artificial, has presented a superior claim of interest in the DEBTOR’s Estate incl. but not limited to personal and real property, chattels and entitlement rights of the Estate assets and securities to Creditor. The last known residence address of the DEBTOR Estate as certified on the certificate of title is Alberta Health Vital Statistics, 10365 97 St NW, Edmonton, AB, T5J 3W7. All DEBTOR’s labor/energy, and every product created therefrom, whether past, present, or future are indentured by private agreement. All products of DEBTOR’s labor including but not limited to property acquired by gift, agreement, wage and/or sale in DEBTOR’s NAME. All means “everything” real and personal which DEBTOR has both in possession and not in possession as an equitable interest.

18 THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT AUGUST 25 – SEPTEMBER 1 / 2022

Canada. You

b FOR THOSE WHO like to fuck outside on hikes and while camping, should we be wary of trail cams or GoPros people are hiding in trees for whatever reason? How to spot them? If people are doing that—if people are hiding cameras on popular hiking trails—well, you should indeed be wary. Hike the beaten path, don’t fuck on it.

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“We hope they can get a sense of some thing different with all the rhetoric out there,” she says. “A sense of something simple, compassionate, and loving.”

For Finding Bliss: Fire And Ice , art ists ranging from Hong Kong rapper and graffiti artist MC Yan to BMX icon Jimmy Mak to members of Ho’s musical project Josie Ho and the Uni Boys were approached. All were asked if they’d be interested in going to Iceland to hang out and jam with musicians there. “The process was quite organic,” Ho reveals. “The musicians we chose in the film were basically musicians I’ve worked with before. In general, Hong Kong people are quite reserved so there was no need to handpick a certain type of personality to go. When I was playing with my band, I noticed that for a large part they’d stay in one spot and just nod their heads.”

Finding Bliss: Fire and Ice makes a case that happiness can be achieved with a simple change of scenery

Finding Bliss: Fire and Ice, musicians and creatives from Hong Kong were taken to Iceland, where they eventually learned that a new way of looking at life can help change one’s worldview. In general, Hong Kong people are quite reserved.

– Josie Ho

This story is sponsored content.

“Through the whole film you end up finding out about why Icelanders are so happy,” Ho says. “This is because they real ize the value of people is the only thing you have. Icelanders’ biggest challenge is the weather—at any moment, the roof of the house can be ripped off and your house is gone! Materialism means nothing then.

Josie Ho’s movie, Finding Bliss: Fire and Ice, had its North American premiere at the 2022 New York Asian Film Festival (NYAFF), the festival’s 20th-anniversary event and the first in-person festival after two years. NYAFF took place July 15-31, 2022, at the Film at Lincoln Center & Asia Society in New York City. g

20 THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT AUGUST 25 – SEPTEMBER 1 / 2022

A s much as she loves Hong Kong, Josie Ho willingly acknowledg es that there can be challenges living in a city that’s the eighth most densely populated on the planet and the most expensive to live in. “Hong Kong is super dope if you can find your niche,” the iconic actor and musician enthuses. “But for a family of four or five living in a 300-square-footand-under apartment, it does start to get hyper-intense. Imagine your brother, your sister, your mother, and father all in a 300-square-foot place.” So, while Hong Kong is one of the world’s greatest cities, it’s also one of the most intense. That provides a leaping-off point for Finding Bliss: Fire And Ice, an inspiring documentary where a group of perpetually stressed Hong Kong cre atives—including well-known musicians, actors, and students—are transported to one of the most famously happy places on Earth:FromIceland.government crackdowns on stu dent protesters to the COVID-19 pandem ic and accompanying lockdowns, Hong Kong has faced unprecedented stresses over the past few years. But Ho notes that Finding Bliss: Fire And Ice —which comes from her celebrated 852 Films production company—has roots that go deeper into the“Wepast.started this documentary before the social issues and the pandemic,” Ho says. “The fear and resentment of the Hong Kong people stem from the hyper-intense pace and the jam-packed population density of Hong Kong, creating an extreme pressure-cooker environment. For locals, you add to that the governance by the Chi nese, the English, and the Japanese, and you have a psyche that is quite confused andThescared.”question that Finding Bliss: Fire And Ice asks, then, is whether it’s possible to change the mindset of a group of people by immersing them in a new culture. Iceland (population 366,000) is con sistently ranked as one of the top three happiest places on the planet by the World Happiness Report , a United Na tions initiative where respondents rate their life quality. Hong Kong, mean while, came in 81st this past March—one spot behind Russia.

Once the artists chosen for Finding Bliss: Fire And Ice landed in Iceland, they discovered that the reason for the trip was a little different than they’d been led to ex pect. With Hong Kong comedian and ac tor Jim Chim on hand to guide things, the documentary’s high-achieving and often stressed cast members find themselves in workshops designed to reshape their life perspective through buffoonery and seem ingly nonsensical games. Eventually, the walls come down and the assembled artists learn there’s more to life than the hustle and grind that comes with working tirelessly in a pressurecooker city. In one of the movie’s most poignant mo ments, we see student Yvonne Wan, who is intensely devoted to her career in Hong Kong, head out onto the street in Iceland and bust loose, singing for the simple joy of singing. The message is as clear as it is lifechanging: forget money and fame—noth ing feels better than making a connection with our fellow human beings.

PeopleConsidermatter.”that a lesson not only for the endlessly overwhelmed people of Hong Kong but, indeed, for everyone currently stuck in an endless loop where all that seems to matter is work and the accumula tion of things that, at the end of the day, few of us need. Asked what message she wishes to con vey with Finding Bliss: Fire And Ice —which she calls a “delicate gift to humanity”—Ho doesn’t hesitate.

For more information on 852 films, visit 852films. com. Follow Josie Ho @josie_ho_chiu

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