The Georgia Straight - Fall Books - October 14, 2021

OCTOBER 14 – 21 / 2021 | FREE

Volume 55 | Number 2800

HOUSING CRUNCH Homes get more expensive

JAMES BOND

Daniel Craig’s swan song

FALL BOOKS After winning the Giller prize, Ian Williams challenges conventional views on race relations in Disorientation; plus, interviews with bestselling authors Linwood Barclay, Ruth Ozeki, and Richard Powers

OCTOBER REBELLION

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MENTAL HEALTH

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SUZIE UNGERLEIDER

NEWS

Extinction Rebellion unveils plan to shut down the airport

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CONTENTS 9

By Charlie Smith Cover photo by Paul Joseph

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REAL ESTATE

RBC Economics reports that Vancouver homeownership costs have risen to 63.5 percent of the average income.

By Carlito Pablo

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MOVIES

No Time to Die aims to be an elevated Bond film—and Daniel Craig’s final outing in the role has its highlights—but it still offers the same old stuff.

By Norman Wilner

Extinction Rebellion activists Lauren Emberson and Badger want an end to fossil-fuel subsidies.

planet—around 20 to 30 years,” Badger stated. “So even if we turn the pipes off magically right now, we have 20 to 30 years of the last emissions—which have been the greatest ever in the history of our planet—coming down the pipes warming things.”

According to Badger, temperature will rise twice as quickly in the middle of continents, where a great deal of food production takes place.

“What happens at four degrees [higher]?” Badger asked. “Grain farming becomes unsustainable. It isn’t possible to farm grain at those temperatures that are sustained over a long period of time.”

A third speaker at the Extinction Rebellion Vancouver news conference, Lauren Emberson, said that the group has only one demand: an end to government subsidies to the oil, gas, and coal industries.

“We are not asking the government to shut down these industries,” Emberson said. “We’re not even asking them to keep their international agreements for the level of carbon in our society. We are simply asking them not to use our own money to pay for our own extinction.” g

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COVER

Scotiabank Giller Prize winner Ian Williams will be at the Vancouver Writers Fest to discuss his thought-provoking new book, Disorientation: Being Black in the World.

by Charlie Smith

spokesperson for Extinction Rebellion Vancouver says his group is planning on replicating the tactics of a British group that has repeatedly blocked the major road surrounding London.

At an October 9 news conference in Dunbar, Zain Haq said local activists will hold nonviolent protests for 14 consecutive days from October 16 to 29, halting traffic on Vancouver’s busiest arterials. In addition, Extinction Rebellion Vancouver is going to try to prevent people from travelling to Vancouver International Airport on October 25.

“The press is going to say ‘You’re disrupting the great Canadian public.’ And what we’re going to say is that this airport is resulting in the destruction of this country,” Haq declared.

He revealed that Extinction Rebellion Vancouver members have been inspired by Insulate Britain. Its founder, former organic farmer Roger Hallam, also cofounded Extinction Rebellion before breaking away in a dispute over the shutdown of Heathrow Airport.

According to the Guardian, Hallam favoured using drones to shut down air traffic, but this was opposed by others.

The Straight asked Haq if Extinction Rebellion Vancouver would use drones to shut down air traffic.

“Potentially, but we haven’t made up our mind,” Haq replied. “Uhm, if that happens, I might be the one doing it. Certainly, we’ll be blocking the road that goes to the airport.”

He maintained that the Canadian government is “acting in a treasonous way” by pursuing climate policies that will lead to “mass starvation”. Another speaker at the news conference, a man who identified himself as Badger, said that the world is on track for an average global temperature increase of 4° C this century above pre-industrial times.

“When carbon goes into the atmosphere, it still takes a little time to start heating the

October 14-21 / 2021

OCTOBER 14 – 21 / 2021

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

1 2 3 4 5

Ex-People’s Party of Canada candidate says she was threatened by the media.

Justin Trudeau’s Tofino trip and the age of manufactured outrage.

COVID-19 in B.C.: Leading British Columbians through their pandemic fears.

Elizabeth May says Green Leader Annamie Paul told her to remain silent.

Man dies in motor-vehicle collision not far from Jericho Beach. @GeorgiaStraight

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REAL ESTATE

RBC Economics says “affordability slipping away”

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by Carlito Pablo

wo recent reports highlight an issue that keeps many people awake at night.

It’s about housing affordability in Canada, and how the situation is getting worse.

RBC Economics and Sotheby’s International Realty Canada approached the issue from different angles, but arrived at a similar outcome.

The bottom line is that homeownership has become costlier, and for the top-tier market, high-end properties are expected to get even more expensive.

In the Vancouver metropolitan area, the cost of owning a home in the second quarter of 2021 rose to 63.5 percent of household

income, based on RBC’s housing-affordability measure. The bank’s affordability measure for the region has averaged 57.8 percent since 1985.

Compared to the same period last year, the 63.5 percent ratio in the second quarter of 2021 represents a 4.9-percent deterioration.

RBC employs a housing affordability measure that shows the proportion of median pre-tax household income required to cover housing costs.

These costs include mortgage payments, property taxes, and utilities. These are measured against the benchmark price of all types of housing in a given market.

As RBC Economics explains in a report on October 7, the higher the measure, the Is this the future of real estate? This high-end mansion with a swimming pool on Wolfe Avenue in Vancouver’s prestigious Shaughnessy neighbourhood is on the market for $28 million.

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OCTOBER 14 – 21 / 2021

less affordable owning a home is.

Bank economist Robert Hogue wrote that RBC’s aggregate affordability measure in the country worsened the “most in more than 30 years”.

The measure increased by 2.7 percent Canadawide in the second quarter of 2021, which was the “biggest quarterly increase in more than three decades”.

This brought the RBC affordability measure to 45.3 percent across the country.

The measure has averaged 40.7 percent in Canada since 1985.

“Every market and housing category got less affordable,” Hogue wrote.

The measure was up 3.2 percent in Vancouver, 4.1 percent in Toronto, and 3.1 percent in Ottawa compared to the previous quarter.

These three metropolitan areas “recorded the largest increases”.

“Overall, affordability is most strained in Vancouver (ownership costs represent 63.5% of household income), Toronto (59.1%) and Victoria (48.0%),” Hogue wrote.

In the Vancouver metropolitan area, the benchmark price was $1,238,100 for the aggregate of all housing types. Meanwhile, “Ottawa (38.5%) and Montreal (38.4%) are two other markets where RBC’s aggregate measures look historically high.”

The bank economist doesn’t see relief soon in the report titled “Canadian home buyers see affordability slipping away fast”.

He anticipates “affordability to become even more strained”.

“We expect home prices to continue to rise in the near term, as demand-supply conditions generally remain exceptionally tight,” Hogue wrote.

“This will further raise ownership costs across a wide spectrum of markets and housing categories,” he continued.

“That said,” Hogue added, “the affordability deterioration is poised to moderate.

The rate of price appreciation is now slowing in many places, and we project prices to flatten in 2022.”

Meanwhile, luxury marketing firm Sotheby’s released a report on October 6, which predicted that the gap between high-end properties and conventional homes is “set to widen”.

“On one hand, luxury real estate consumers will continue to drive new levels of activity in the metropolitan and recreational housing markets to fulfill post-pandemic lifestyle needs and tastes,” Sotheby’s noted.

Demand from top-tier buyers will “place upward pressure on future high-end real estate prices”.

“This cohort will also be at the forefront of accelerating intergenerational wealth transfer into the single family home market,” Sotheby’s wrote.

“At the same time,” the firm added, “the desire for elevated levels of privacy and discretion amongst this cohort, will shift an increasing number of ultra-luxury transactions to exclusive global sales and marketing networks.”

On the other hand, “first-time buyers and conventional housing purchasers face increasing barriers, particularly in the single family home market, given rising prices, tighter mortgage qualification criteria and the risk of eroding buying power given recent inflation.”

“Sotheby’s International Realty Canada continues to underscore the urgent need for new housing supply across the rental, vertical, low-density and highdensity spectrum to support residential mobility, and to ensure housing affordability for more Canadians,” the company stated.

In its report, Sotheby’s noted that overall residential sales over $4 million in the Vancouver region increased 13 percent yearover-year in July and August 2021. g

HEALTH

Torture survivor keeps standing up to Marcos clan

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by Carlito Pablo

ancouver resident Christopher “Perry” Sorio says he’s living evidence of human rights atrocities in his native country.

Sorio recalls suffering for being part of the resistance against the government of then Philippine president Ferdinand Marcos Sr. In 1982, he was arrested by soldiers in the capital city of Manila. He was 21 years old at the time.

Sorio related that he was brought to a military camp, denied legal counsel, and tortured.

“I was repeatedly electrocuted through my genitals,” Sorio recalled in a mostly Tagalog-language interview with the Straight.

To make the electric shocks more intense, his captors poured water over him.

In addition to physical indignities, he was also subjected to mental torture.

Sorio related being kept in isolation, and threatened with execution by his captors.

Four decades later, Sorio now learns that the son and namesake of Marcos Sr. is running to become the next president of the Philippines.

Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. has filed a certificate of candidacy for the May 9, 2022 election.

How can people move on without justice?

– torture victim Christopher “Perry” Sorio

Christopher “Perry” Sorio was one of 10 original plaintiffs who launched a class-action suit against former Philippines president Ferdinand Marcos, whose son is running for president.

The 64-year-old political scion wants to succeed the Asian country’s current president, Rodrigo Duterte, who is also a friend of the Marcos family.

Candidates for president and vice president have until November 15 to finalize lineups.

Marcos Jr. could team up with Duterte’s

daughter, Sara Duterte-Carpio, a city mayor who has topped public opinion surveys about presidential hopefuls.

For Sorio, the prospect of a new Marcos presidency is an outrage.

“This is the height of the Marcos family’s quest to return to power and revise history,” Sorio said.

The family and their friends have been accused of corruption and amassing ill-gotten wealth, a claim that the Marcoses deny.

Marcos Sr. ruled the Philippines for more than two decades, starting with his election as president in 1965.

He won a second term in 1969, imposed martial law in 1972, rounded up political enemies, and started to govern mostly by decree. He was deposed by a military and civilian uprising backed by the U.S. in 1986.

Sorio recalled that Marcos Jr. donned military fatigues to defend the presidential place when the 1986 uprising began.

“He and I have the same memories. He knew what was happening,” Sorio said about Marcos Jr. Under U.S. pressure, the Marcos family

OCTOBER 14 – 21 / 2021

see next page

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from previous page

left the palace and ended up in exile in Hawaii, where the former president died three years later in 1989.

Meanwhile, a group of survivors and kin of human rights victims initiated a class-action suit against Marcos in a U.S. court in 1986.

One of the 10 original plaintiffs was Sorio.

“I joined the suit not for money. I wanted to prove to the world that abuses and human rights violations happened during the Marcos regime. We were the living witnesses,” Sorio said.

After nine years, a Hawaii court led by judge Manuel Real in 1995 reached a verdict, and awarded $1.9 billion to 9,539 human rights victims and their families.

In the interview, Sorio told the Straight that the Marcos family neither paid nor offered an apology.

“They didn’t ask for forgiveness,” he said.

Sorio was detained at a military camp for about two years from 1982 to 1984.

After Marcos was ousted from power in 1986, the rebellion charges against Sorio were dropped.

Sorio came to Canada as a landed immigrant three years later in 1989.

He lived in Ontario and Alberta before eventually moving to B.C. The Vancouver man currently works in the manufacturing industry.

In many ways, Sorio reflects the resilience of the human spirit. Rather than retreating from the fight for social justice

S tars COUNTER STIGMA

This occurred in the year that gymnastic phenom Simone Bailes withdrew from Summer Olympics and tennis star Naomi Osaka pulled out of the French Open due to mental-health concerns.

Many Twitter users praised Carey Price after the goalie tended to his mental health.

d WHEN GOALIE Carey Price entered the player-assistance program to deal with mental-health issues, it marked a watershed moment for the National Hockey League. Never before had such a high-profile Canadian athlete dealt with this subject in such a public way in the midst of his career.

after being tortured, he continues to be an activist for various causes in the Philippines. Soros presently serves as chair of the Canada chapter of Bayan (Bagong Alyansang Makabayan or the New Patriotic Alliance), and secretary general of Migrante B.C., a migrant organization.

Meanwhile, Marcos Jr. returned from exile to the Philippines in 1991. His father’s remains followed in 1993.

The Marcos family has since rebuilt its

“In my case, I felt under a great amount of pressure to disclose my symptoms— frankly because the press and the tournament did not believe me,” Osaka wrote in Time magazine.

Price, Bailes, and Osaka are each chipping away at the stigma that has prevented so many others around the world from admitting when they need help.

“I gave an outlet for athletes to speak up about their mental health and their wellbeing and learn that you can put yourself first before the athlete,” Bailes said.

by Charlie Smith

political fortunes.

Marcos Jr. was previously elected provincial governor, member of the House of Representatives, and senator.

In 2016, he ran for vice president, but lost narrowly to Maria Leonor “Leni” Robredo.

Marcos Jr. and Robredo will face off again in the 2022 election, as the latter is also running for president.

Sorio supports the 1Sambayan coalition in the Philippines that has endorsed

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Robredo for the presidency.

The widow of Marcos Sr., Imelda Romualdez Marcos, was also previously elected to the House of Representatives.

Marcos Jr.’s elder sister, Maria Imelda Josefa “Imee” Marcos, is currently a senator.

She has served as a provincial governor, and member of the House of Representatives.

In 2018, Imee Marcos made a remark that generated controversy.

“The millennials have moved on, and I think people at my age should also move on as well,” she said about people who continue to criticize her family.

Recalling that comment, Sorio posed a question. “How can people move on without justice?” he asked.

Imee Marcos’ remark came two years after the remains of her father were finally buried in 2016.

The burial was allowed by current President Duterte, a decision later upheld by the Supreme Court.

Sorio noted that many, likely himself, are revolted over the grand political comeback being engineered by the Marcos family with the presidential candidacy of Marcos Jr. “It’s a collective outrage,” Sorio said.

The Vancouver resident noted that like many victims of human rights violations during the Marcos government, he will never forget.

The Filipino Canadian vows to keep on telling about what happened in the past.

“I don’t want the memories erased,” Sorio said. g

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Adler University opens door to psychology career (This article is sponsored by Adler University.)

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dler University in Vancouver is proud of its commitment to social justice. This is one reason why the graduate school named after famed Austrian psychotherapist and doctor Alfred Adler was able to recruit Dr. Manal Guirguis-Younger as its program director for the Doctor of Psychology in Clinical Psychology program in 2019.

“There is a very strong alignment of values between the framework of Adler University and my research and values,” GuirguisYounger says on the Adler University website. “Especially, in terms of the openness to questions of social justice and also in educating, working, and training in an environment that is sensitive to social justice.”

Adler was an early proponent of the importance of building strong communities to improve people’s mental health.

In a recent interview with the Straight, Guirguis-Younger talked about her extensive academic research into homelessness and addiction.

“There are very different reasons for why people might be without a formal home,” Guirguis-Younger said.

She encourages students to appreciate that the homeless come from all walks of life,

Austrian physician and therapist Alfred Adler’s presence is felt at Adler’s Vancouver campus.

which is why it’s important to avoid stereotyping them. Some are adolescents, others are seniors, and there are people with addictions and others with mental-health issues.

“They have a duty of care to understand what brought a person there in order to be able to help them—and not lump people in a group,” Guirguis-Younger emphasized.

“We’re training students to be prepared to work with people who are marginalized and underserviced. There’s no doubt that homeless people are among the most marginalized in our community.”

Moreover, she said that some people have been “nomads” all their life—and

that doesn’t necessarily mean that they are on the streets due to mental illness. “So I encourage students to always be prepared to listen to the individual stories and know how a person ended up there.”

The Adler University Doctor of Psychology in Clinical Psychology program trains people who aspire to become registered psychologists in B.C. The first year includes a social-justice curriculum, which involves extensive work in the field.

In addition, students learn how to conduct assessments, practise therapeutic intervention, and develop original research for their doctoral dissertation and

be able to defend it.

“After they’ve completed all these requirements, they do a full-year internship, which is a supervised practice,” GuirguisYounger said.

After they’ve completed all of these requirements, they obtain a degree and can apply to the College of Psychologists of B.C. for their registration.

Guirguis-Younger noted that Adler is one of only three universities in Canada that offers an English-language scholarpractitioner model. Students must have a bachelor’s degree as a prerequisite, plus they must provide letters of reference as part of the screening process.

“It’s focused on professional training, but they still have to do the research component,” Guirguis-Younger said.

By the end of the program, students will have gained insights into psychopharmacology, neuropsychology, and psychodiagnostic assessments. That includes having an understanding of personality disorders.

“I would think our unique and strong feature is our particular attention to social justice,” Guirguis-Younger said. “We actually have a very strong curriculum and a lot of time devoted in our program to that.

It’s a very vivid thing that we live in our university’s vision and mission, so it’s part of the program.” g

Graduate Degrees for Social Change Master’s programs in Industrial & Organizational Psychology, Public Policy & Administration, Counselling Psychology, and Counselling Psychology - Art Therapy Doctor of Psychology in Clinical Psychology (PsyD) Adler University’s mission to train socially responsible practitioners, engage communities, and advance social justice is built into every one of our programs. We invite students who share our passion to learn more about us.

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OCTOBER 14 – 21 / 2021

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BOOKS

Ozeki’s new novel features a teen who hears voices

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by Charlie Smith

ormer Vancouver Downtown Eastside resident Ruth Ozeki has hit the big time. The author, filmmaker, Zen Buddhist priest, and Smith College creative-writing professor managed back in 2013 to get shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award for her third novel, A Tale for Time Being.

Her newest title, The Book of Form and Emptiness, is a novel about a teenage boy named Benny Oh who hears voices coming from inanimate objects after his jazz-musician father dies. Benny seeks solace by spending enormous amounts of time in a library.

Lo and behold, this might seem familiar to those who’ve worked in Vancouver’s central branch.

“There’s an old public bindery in the library and all of that is based on the Vancouver Public Library,” Ozeki told the Straight by phone from her home in western Massachusetts.

In fact, she loves the VPL. She researched her first novel, My Year of Meats, in the central branch while she was living on East Cordova Street from 1996 to 1998. In 2007, it was chosen in One Book, One Vancouver, which was a book club for the entire city.

“That’s when I got the tour of the library and they took me down into the basement,

Ruth Ozeki spent two decades living on B.C.’s West Coast, so it’s no surprise that her latest title, The Book of Form and Emptiness, draws on her experiences in this area. Photo by Danielle Tait.

and showed me the old bindery,” Ozeki said. “At that point, it had been closed.”

A VPL staffer told Ozeki that some believed the basement of the central branch was haunted. “Security guards said that they heard music—and the music was calypso music,” Ozeki recalled. “And so all of

that made it into the book.”

There’s yet another Vancouver connection to The Book of Form and Emptiness.

She used to live behind the Union Gospel Mission thrift store. In her new book, there’s a Gospel Mission thrift store.

“A lot of the scenes of Benny’s house and

the alleyway behind the house were taken from memories of living there,” she said.

From 1998 to 2015, Ozeki resided on Cortes Island. Its peacefulness is something that she wanted to evoke when Benny leaves the city for the first time and goes to a mountain. This results in him experiencing different sensory perceptions.

“He hears the difference between the made and the unmade,” Ozeki said.

Ozeki revealed that at times in her life, she’s heard voices.

“After my dad died, I heard his voice calling me,” she said. “It sounded just like he was standing behind me and clearing his throat. And he would say my name. I would whip around and he wasn’t there.”

She pointed out that Mahatma Gandhi, Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung said that they heard voices. But she said that others who hear voices are pathologized and medicated.

“We fail to see that ‘normal’ is a cultural construct,” Ozeki said. “So what I was playing with in this book is what happens if we expand the notion of normal and make it more generous and make it more all-inclusive.” g Ruth Ozeki will speak at the Vancouver Writers Fest, which runs from October 18 to 24.

Booker finalist paints a picture of neurodiversity

H

by Charlie Smith

ere’s a little-known bit of trivia about the Vancouver Writers Fest. According to Wikipedia, more than a dozen authors have appeared at the annual event in the same year that they won the Man Booker Prize [now called the Booker Prize].

The Vancouver Writers Fest couldn’t confirm this by deadline. But if it’s true, American novelist Richard Powers hopes to become the next member of that exclusive club.

In September, he made the shortlist for the Booker— the most prestigious prize in the English-language literary world—for his 13th book, Bewilderment. It tells the tale of an astrobiologist raising an uncompromising neurodiverse son following his wife’s death.

Powers will find out on November 3 if he can call himself a Booker Prize winner. “I have to say it’s a big thrill,” he told the Straight by phone about being nominated. “So we’re waiting with some excitement.”

In Bewilderment, the father, Theo Byrne, doesn’t want his nine-year-old son Robin to be medicated even after he acts out in school.

“It’s a book about empathy for diversity—for some way of finding common community and common cause with people who are very different than us,” Powers said.

The book centres around dialogues between the boy and his father on a wide range of issues, including Robin’s deeply held opposition to the extinction of so many animal species in the 21st century. Like with the author’s previous book, Overstory, which was about humans’ relationship with nature, Powers includes a great deal of scientific information in Bewilderment.

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THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT

OCTOBER 14 – 21 / 2021

Richard Powers hopes that Bewilderment helps readers gain empathy for others who are different. Photo by Dean D. Dixon.

This time, he delves into astrobiology because it’s Theo’s job. Plus, there’s an extensive section on decoded neurofeedback, which is a new technique relying on artificial intelligence to induce knowledge by activating parts of the brain.

“In the book I end up calling it an empathy machine,” Powers said. “The possibilities for that technique are still wide open because they’ve only been experimenting with it for a short period of time.”

He communicates this information in concise sentences with an accessible vocabulary. Bewilderment also includes short chapters, almost vignettes in some instances.

And the dialogue is devoid of quotation marks—Theo’s words appear in Roman text whereas the words of his wife, Alyssa, and Robin appear in italics.

“I think about readers’ comprehension and powers of empathy and identification all the time,” Powers explained. “Every decision that goes into structuring and voicing a book is done with an eye toward the possible impact that it will have on a reader.”

He quipped that he’s been writing for almost 40 years, so he’s “finally learning things after decades and decades”.

His last book was very ambitious, close to 600 pages and unfolding through several characters over centuries. Bewilderment, on the other hand, is less than half that length and is dominated by Theo’s first-person narration.

“It’s a little bit like a piano sonata after writing a symphony,” Powers commented. “Both of those forms have the possibility of creating different kinds of effect in the reader.”

He realizes that some readers might skip over the astrobiology and simply focus on the father’s struggle to protect his son. “I would be perfectly fine with that,” Powers said. “I do think the simplification in the style and the paring back of different kinds of literary devices…was a deliberate attempt on my part to make it a story that had a kind of fablelike universality to it.” g Richard Powers will speak at the Vancouver Writers Fest, which runs from October 18 to 24.

BOOKS

Ian Williams takes a deep dive into Disorientation

by Charlie Smith

and white people,” Williams writes in the book. “Yet, I cannot resolve the difference as neatly as I would like.

“After all, white people uphold whiteness and transfer its crimes to institutions, processes, bureaucracy, to keep their hands clean in the same way that some wealthy people launder their assets,” he continues.

“The institution of whiteness is better protected than white people themselves.”

Another example comes in his analysis of social media.

“As a Black person, one grows wary of the discrepancy between what people claim to believe and how they actually respond to one’s existence,” Williams writes. “By the time you reach middle age, quite battered Ian Williams reached the pinnacle of Canadian letters by winning the Scotiabank Giller Prize and the Griffin Poetry Prize, but his new book marks a turn toward nonfiction. Photo by Justin Morris.

P

oet and novelist Ian Williams felt there was something missing from public discussions about racial justice when he began writing Disorientation: Being Black in the World.

And that was the “disorientation” that people of colour experience when they’re constantly being made aware of their race.

In the book, he explains that it often begins with a startling realization in childhood that they’re being looked upon differently due to their skin colour—and this can be quite traumatic.

Williams, a University of Toronto associate professor of English, told the Straight that this disorientation can take many forms during life. As an example, he recalled how a woman’s body language tightened when he entered an elevator at Pacific Centre in downtown Vancouver.

“I’m just kind of scrolling through my phone and…something in her freezes,” Williams said. “Some kind of alarm goes off in her, and this happens in her almost involuntarily. Whatever conditioning she has received about Black people is being expressed at that moment.”

Last year, Williams planned to write a novel as a follow-up to his Scotiabank Giller Prize–winning Reproduction. But he couldn’t get his mind off three monumental issues: the exploding international movement for racial justice, which originated in the U.S.; the pandemic; and wildfires, which reinforced the magnitude of the climate crisis.

“I said ‘I’ve got to address this burning world right now—in nonfiction, not through fiction or poetry or anything— directly as possible,’ ” he said.

Williams told the Straight that he is sometimes reminded of his race when he’s picking up groceries at a farmers market. “The person in line wants to know where you’re from,” he said. “And those kinds of reminders white people don’t get on a daily basis or on a frequent basis. No one keeps badgering

white people about their otherness.”

The upshot, he added, is that people of colour sometimes process their environment in terms of whether they belong there. According to him, the disorienting events impose a psychic toll.

“It takes a huge expenditure of emotional energy to keep recentring yourself all the time—to say that I am more than just this category that people keep reminding me of,” Williams said.

The former UBC creative-writing prof wrote one essay in his book about being stared at when he’s the only one of his kind in a situation. He calls this the “Look”.

“However, when I’m with white people, the Look is negligible, maybe even invisible, to them,” Williams writes. “I read the Look as racialized, they read it as neutral, as looking rather than a look, as a fellow human scanning their environment.

“These white people are not insensitive to nuance,” he adds. “If there’s something flirtatious or sexual in a look, they pick up on it. So I wonder whether they actually do not see the racialized Look or whether they are denying it in order to avoid a pending race conversation they see as unnecessary. A long, awkward conversation after a quick look.”

Williams was inspired by American novelist, playwright, and essayist James Baldwin, who wrote trailblazing works from the 1940s to the 1980s about racial, sexual, and class differences. When asked if he might one day be considered our generation’s version of Baldwin, Williams humbly replied: “I can’t even be in the same sentence as James Baldwin.”

Yet there is a Baldwinlike quality in his eloquent essays, which are deeply personal and offer nuanced observations about race relations across society.

For example, he devotes a fair amount of attention to whiteness, which is rarely discussed in the mainstream media.

“There is a difference between whiteness

by the accumulation of false claims, you find it hard to trust and forgive, to accept a hopeful prognosis because of a promise.”

In the same essay, Williams outlines his well-considered ethical framework for when and how he discusses racial issues.

“I want to speak as myself,” Williams told the Straight. “I want to speak the truth. And I want to be brave even at the risk of making a mistake.

“Already, I’ve had to toughen up because some people disagree with things in the book.” g Ian Williams will speak at two events at the Vancouver Writers Fest, which takes place from October 18 to 24.

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9

BOOKS

Linwood Barclay’s suspense-thrillers fit for a King

B

by Steve Newton

efore he became an internationally bestselling thriller writer, Linwood Barclay spent many years in the journalistic trenches, first at the Peterborough Examiner and then at the Toronto Star, where he held such positions as assistant city editor, chief copy editor, news editor, life-section editor, and humour columnist. He figures that experience helped shape his future as an author in a couple of ways, the first being that when you work at a daily newspaper, it’s like having a crash course in life.

“One day you’re covering a court case,” Barclay says from his home near downtown Toronto, “the next day you’re covering a school board meeting, the next day you’re covering a helicopter crash or something. So kind of by osmosis, you start learning about how everything works; how the world works.

“And the second thing is, it teaches you that writing is a job and not to be all precious about it, you know. This whole business of, ‘Oh, gee, I’ve got writers’ block’—well, writers’ block doesn’t work at a newspaper. Deadlines are drilled into you; you have to get it done. Those presses are gonna roll at 11 o’clock tonight whether you’ve got this thing done or not.”

when, down on his luck and desperately in need of money for a computer, he donated to a sperm bank. That plot line did not arrive with the dawn.

“There was an article in a U.S. magazine,” he recalls. “It might have been New York Times Magazine. There was a photo essay of someone who went looking for half-siblings that were all the product of the same sperm donor, and found people across the country. It was kind of a heartwarming human-interest story, and then, of course, as a thriller writer you look at that and go, ‘How could that go horribly wrong?’

“So that situation started sparking an idea where I went, ‘Well, what if you had to find all of these potential heirs and then they all just started vanishing one by one?’ Once I worked out in my head how it was gonna come together, it was a fun one to write.”

While Barclay’s success—he’s written 20 novels and sold millions of copies—has come from his own talent and discipline, it doesn’t hurt that he has literary friends in very high places. None other than Stephen King wrote the 23-word cover blurb for the North American trade edition of Find You First, in which he calls it the best book of

Linwood Barclay’s work was heavily influenced by crime writer Ross Macdonald, inspired by horror master Stephen King, and shaped by newspaper deadlines. Photo by Ellis Parinder.

Of course, to make it in the world of suspense fiction, it also helps if you’re good at coming up with story ideas. Or having them come to you.

“I’ve had one book that came to me in a dream,” he says. “I had another one that I woke up with at five in the morning. But I basically need one really good, great idea a year, ‘cause I’m on a book-a-year schedule.

Some years I do two, but you just need one really great hook where you think, ‘Okay, that’s cool enough; that’s good enough and

has enough potential that I can turn that into a 400-page book.’ So once I have some kind of an idea for a hook, or some turning point, I work out in my head the big picture of everything that’s happened, and then I start writing.”

The big picture for Barclay’s latest novel, Find You First, revolves around the idea that an extremely wealthy tech-company magnate learns he’s dying and decides he wants to leave his immense fortune to the nine offspring he spawned decades earlier

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taking an interest in me and that I wanted to be a writer.”

Back in 1976, seven years before he died of Alzheimer’s disease, Macdonald signed a copy of his 1973 novel Sleeping Beauty for Barclay, with an inscription that read: “For Linwood, who will, I hope, someday outwrite me.”

“My biggest regret in life is that we don’t have a picture together,” says Barclay, who in more recent years has been blown away by crime writers like James Lee Burke and Lawrence Block. When he’s not putting pen to paper himself, he enjoys hanging out with other authors, as he’ll be doing at the Whistler Writers Festival on October 16. That’s when he takes part in a virtual reading event titled Thrills, Chillls and Authors Who Kill: a Murder Mystery and Discussion With Five Thriller Writers. He’ll be joined by fellow Canadian novelists Joy Fielding, Linden MacIntyre, Bill Deverell, and Gail Anderson-Dargatz.

“Joy’s a good friend of mine,” Barclay relates.

“Linden MacIntyre I’ve met a few times. I don’t know if I’ve ever met Bill Deverell or not, but I read his new book, Stung, which I thought was terrific. I don’t think I’ve met Gail before, but that should be a fun panel “And the one I’m particularly looking forward to is the Vancouver Fest chat with [former chief justice of the Supreme Court of Canada] Beverley McLachlin. I’ve read her memoir, as well as her two novels, and one of the things that struck me when I was reading her memoir is how, in the early ’80s, she was thinking about becoming a full-time writer.

Now she’s writing crime novels—legal thrillers—but this sounds like something she has just always wanted to do.”

Barclay’s next novel is scheduled for release in the U.K. in February 2022 and in Canada that May. It’s titled Take Your Breath Away, and like all of his previous bestsellers will be set in the good ol’ US of A. One could be excused for wondering why the longtime Ontario resident—who moved there from the States when he was four—never sets his stories in the Great White North.

“Well, I’ll tell you,” he says. “When I was starting out, I couldn’t get a Canadian publisher. But Bantam Books in New York wanted to publish me, and so to some degree it was a case of ‘ya dance with the one that brung ya’. And although my books were distributed up here, I didn’t have a Canadian publisher till book seven. So that was part of it. And also, if you had people doing these horrible things to each other in Canada, nobody’d believe it, because we’re just too polite.” g

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Barclay’s career. King also contributed the cover recommendation for the book’s U.K. edition, a plug that is shorter but no less impressive: “A suspense master”.

“I found out about 10 years ago that Stephen King was a fan of my stuff,” Barclay says, “which is very cool. So we actually got to do an event together two weeks ago, digitally. I got to interview him for the Bloody Scotland Crime Fiction Festival, so we had about an hour or more chatting on a screen.

I met him a coupla times, and he said he’s a fan, which just blows my mind. I remember years ago when my wife and I went to go see the movie Carrie, and if you had told me then that the guy whose book that was based on would be someone I’d even know, I’d have thought that seems highly unlikely.”

The fanboy feeling is mutual, according to Barclay, who reckons he’s read just about everything the 74-year-old horror master has cranked out.

“Every once in a while I realize there’s some stuff I have missed,” he says. “I haven’t read all of his Dark Tower stuff; I’ve still got gaps in that to fill. But he’s so well known, of course, for the iconic sort of things that are part of our popular culture that came out in the first 10 books or so that he did. I mean, you’ve got Pennywise, you’ve got Cujo, you’ve got Christine. But I think some of his greatest stuff he’s done in the last 10 years. Like his novel The Institute I just think is fantastic. And 11/22/63, his book about the guy who goes back in time to stop the Kennedy assassination—I just love that book. And his new one, Billy Summers, is great. I’ve never read a book quite so quickly.”

Barclay says that it’s hard to pick his favourite King book, but he feels that as a parent, Pet Sematary is the scariest. Other famous authors he’s loved over the years include Richard Matheson—”Duel was one of my favourite movies ever,” he says of the Steven Spielberg–directed TV-movie adaptation of Matheson’s 1971 short story—and fantasy legend Ray Bradbury. But his alltime favourite is Ross Macdonald, who became a friend and mentor to him.

“I was always reading mysteries as a kid,” the 66-year-old tale spinner recalls, “starting with the Hardy Boys and Agatha Christie and Rex Stout. At the age of 15, I discovered Ross Macdonald, and it was just kind of a revelation to me. I loved his stuff, and he’s still my favourite writer. He brought— at least for me—he brought something new to crime fiction, which was issues like family dysfunction, environmentalism, and alienated youth, all that kinda stuff.

“So I was a huge fan and was also fortunate enough to have a long correspondence with him. When I was 21, I spent an entire evening with him, had dinner with him and everything, which is a long story. But he was very influential to me in two ways: one was that I just was so taken with his work, and the other was that he ended up

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Linwood Barclay will make online appearances at the Whistler Writers Festival on October 16 and at the Vancouver Writers Festival on October 23 and 24.

OCTOBER 14 – 21 / 2021

THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT

11

ARTS

Verbatim #whatnow puts a human spin on #MeToo

A

by Charlie Smith

lley Theatre artistic producer Marisa Emma Smith came up with the idea for her group’s latest production more than a year after taking a workshop on “headphone verbatim”. This approach to theatre, pioneered in the 1990s, involves artists performing edited interviews that they hear through headphones or earbuds.

The performer says the words, matching the cadence and pauses of the voice in their ear. When Smith was partnered with a man at the headphone-verbatim workshop, she was astonished by how she felt hearing him repeat what she had said.

“He had this strong masculine energy on-stage as he was saying my words—as

I was awkwardly telling some story about working in the restaurant industry,” Smith recalled in a phone interview with the Straight. “There was something so humanizing about him saying my words—my exact speech patterns—knowing he had the feeling that it was a woman’s story. There was something about it that didn’t matter.”

When the #MeToo movement erupted in the wake of a 2017 New York Times exposé on Hollywood kingpin Harvey Weinstein, Smith thought about how headphone verbatim could elevate empathy for victims of sexual assault.

“I’m a sexual-assault survivor myself, as many people are,” Smith said. “On the one hand, I was moved and excited that so many

Left to right: Yvonne Wallace, Emily Grace Brook, Siobhan Sloane-Seale, Sabrina Syminton, and Patrick Dodd move and speak to the words in their ears in #whatnow. Photo by Caleigh Kats.

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12

THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT

OCTOBER 14 – 21 / 2021

people were sharing the truth and by how brave they were. It felt very monumental.”

On the other hand, she added, other survivors knew that Weinstein had been doing this for quite a while.

In 2018, Smith came up with the idea of interviewing local sexual-assault survivors and then presenting their viewpoints on-stage with actors using headphone verbatim. But she realized that this production, called #whatnow, would be very “talky”. So she reached out to accomplished Vancouver choreographer Amber Barton to see if she would incorporate movement into the production.

“I felt like I had seen shows that were about sexual assault and always came away, as a sexual-assault survivor, feeling worse,” Smith said. “I wanted to create a show that was both healing for survivors [and] educating for people who might have done harm or were just not aware of the issue.”

In addition, Smith aimed to convey a feeling of hope and a sense of what “consent” really means.

Barton, who was also on the call with the Straight, acknowledged that it wasn’t easy figuring out how this could be expressed through dance.

“It’s not about cool, sweet moves,” Barton said. “It’s about supporting the space and also having the actors situated in such a way that the audience also feels comfortable and feels that they can trust this experience.”

Barton had an epiphany after the actors were gathered for the first rehearsal, testing out the headphone-verbatim approach while sitting on chairs. It dawned upon her that chairs could become an essential element of the production.

“I just started incorporating how they’re sitting on chairs, moving chairs across the space, and then creating images with these chairs and shapes—and trying to basically…give some energy but not detracting from these very, very important stories,” Barton said.

Smith had several challenges of her own: finding interview subjects, ensuring they represented a broad range of people (including those who identify as trans and nonbinary), and editing their words down to an 80-minute production.

Alley Theatre partnered with the nonprofit Good Night Out Vancouver, which helped Smith find victims willing to speak about their experiences. She ended up with more than 70 hours of tapes from more than 40 interview subjects.

Smith and Barton described #whatnow as a multiperspective interdisciplinary production incorporating theatre and dance. Three #whatnow performances will have gender-specific audiences. October 31 is reserved for female audience members; November 3 is set aside for trans and nonbinary people; and November 4 is restricted to male audience members.

Smith promised that all shows will be presented cabaret-style, offering ample room for physical distancing.

“It’s a weird time for people to be going out to a live event but at the same time I think we’re all yearning for connection,” she said.

“This piece has so much humanity.” g The Heart of the City Festival will present Alley Theatre’s production of #whatnow from October 28 to October 31 and from November 3 to November 7 at the Russian Hall (600 Campbell Avenue).

ARTS

Vancouver’s dance scene experiences October revival

Fri/Sat

Oct

15/16

THIS WEEKEND!

A New World Orpheum | 8pm

Mussorgsky Pictures at an Exhibition Cris Derksen War Cry Dvořák Symphony No. 9, “New World”

by Charlie Smith

Otto Tausk VSO Music Director

Hear it. Feel it.

Sat/Sun

Oct

RUBBERBAND’S Ever So Slightly features an original soundtrack that’s performed live on-stage by the company’s long-time collaborative partner, Gahunia. Photo by Marie-Noëlle Pilon.

T

he B.C. Vaccine Card program could mean that dance lovers can enjoy live performances for the rest of the year. Wouldn’t that be something after spending much of the past 19 months watching livescreened performance?

Not that there’s anything wrong with staying reen. But it’s impossible to replicate the energy that people feel inside a performance hall. With this in mind, Here are five shows or programs worth considering.

Offering (The Anvil Centre, October 15 and 16) Co.ERASGA’s 20th-anniversary collection of solo works premiered online last November, but now this spiritual journey is available live. It’s choreographed by Alvin Erasga Tolentino and features him along with fellow dancers Joshua Ongcol, Olivia Shaffer, Marc Arboleda, Antonio Somera, Alison Denham, and Marissa Wong. “They are diverse and unique, as each offers a distinct style and personal quality,” Tolentino told the Straight last year.

Ever So Slightly (Vancouver Playhouse, October 21 to 23) DanceHouse will present RUBBERBAND artistic director Victor Quijada’s hip-hop infused show. It was supposed to be in Vancouver in March 2020, which was the same month the World Health Organization described COVID-19 as a pandemic.

“RUBBERBAND’s electrifying energy and explosive athleticism will remind us what is so entirely special, so utterly inimitable about live performance—sweeping us up and connecting us together on an exhilarating journey,” said DanceHouse artistic and executive director Jim Smith in a news

23/24

release announcing the performances.

EDAM Fall 2021 Choreographic Series (Western Front, October 27, 29, and 30, and November 3, 5, and 6) The EDAM Performing Arts Society presents new, inperson dance works created by choreographers Peter Bingham, Kelly McInnes, and Marissa Wong.

The Personal Element, Azoth (Vancouver Playhouse, October 29 and 30) The Vancouver International Dance Festival is bringing San Francisco-based Alonzo King LINES Ballet to Vancouver for two pieces. The first, The Personal Element, features eight dancers offering a “poetic invitation” to let audience members make a personal connection to the piece, which is set to a piano score by Jason Moran. The second, Azoth, refers to the name given to Mercury by ancient alchemists. “When it comes to dance, people need to drop all expectations and not expect it to look like anything they’ve seen already,” King told the Straight many years ago.

Unfold + Give (Queen Elizabeth Theatre, November 4, 5, and 6) Ballet BC returns to live performance with world premieres of works by Ethan Colangelo (Stadium), Lesley Telford (Lean-to), and Company 605 (After We Glow). In addition, Ballet BC will present the North American live premiere of Medhi Walerski’s Garden.

Walerski’s show has been nominated in the past for best production by Dance Europe. Garden is inspired by Camille Saint-Saëns’ Piano Quintet in A minor, Op. 14. g

Robert Silverman plays Bach Chan Centre, UBC | 8pm Bell Centre, Surrey | 7pm

A master of the international stage, Vancouver’s own Robert Silverman brings an intimate performance of Bach to the Chan Centre at UBC and Bell Performing Arts Centre in Surrey.

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Sal Ferreras “Latin Nights” Orpheum | 8pm

Vancouver Percussionist Sal Ferreras joins his Latin Jazz sextet and the fabulous Vancouver Symphony Orchestra to open the London Drugs Pops series with a celebration of Latin American rhythm, dance and joy.

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Sun

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The Composer is Dead!

By Nathaniel Stookey with Text by Lemony Snicket Orpheum | 2pm

There’s dreadful news from the symphony hall — the composer is dead! Where exactly were the violins on the night in question? Did anyone see the harp? There’s a mystery to be solved in the orchestra, and the suspect is still at large!

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LIQUOR

Pumpkin spice syrup isn’t just for your coffee

S

by Mike Usinger

pend any amount of time trying to craft a perfect pumpkin-spice syrup and you’ll eventually come to one conclusion: there’s a good reason Howard Schultz is sitting on the recipe for Starbucks’ most perfect creation.

Ever nailed something that’s almost impossible to get right? If so, you know there’s no upside to sharing your secret with the rest of the world. Which is why—assuming the green apron isn’t part of your daily wardrobe—there’s zero chance of getting your hands on a bottle, jug, or vat of official Starbucks Pumpkin Spice syrup.

So, until the coffee giant starts selling bottles of its carefully guarded pumpkin-spice syrup, you’ll keep paying the local Starbucks barista six dollars a pop for each daily fall fix.

And even though all previous attempts have been futile, you’ll continue on your quest to crack the Starbucks code at home, scouring everything from the Food Network website to artisanal-hipster blogs for that perfect pumpkin-spice recipe. Because it also seems like it would be great for drinks.

When the leaves start to fall, and the Halloween season begins to ramp up, the quest begins for the perfect pumpkin cocktail. Before we get going, let’s start with a fact

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The fall-friendly Pumpkin Spice Sipper starts with Diplomático rum, pumpkin syrup, and chai.

that escapes many: pumpkins actually don’t have a lot of taste. Pumpkins are part of the squash family, and if you’ve ever cooked squash you know it’s the seasonings—salt, pepper, curry, or Mayan chocolate—that elevate things. Given the subtlety of pumpkin flesh, the spices are what make a bold pumpkin-spice syrup.

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THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT

OCTOBER 14 – 21 / 2021

As you might be aware, those basketballsized things you turn into jack-o-lanterns aren’t really meant for eating. They’ve been bred to be watery and hollow, not tasty. So if you’re going the pumpkin-syrup-fromscratch route, start by buying sugar pumpkins, which are smaller, tastier, and less fibrous than their larger cousins. You can also cheat a little and substitute in a Kabocha squash, which is a kissing-cousin of the pumpkin.

Step one is softening the flesh. After removing the seeds and cutting your squash of choice into eight slices, place in a baking dish, cover with foil, and then roast at 425 degrees Fahrenheit for an hour. Once things are fork-tender, remove the skins and mash in a sauce pan with one-and-ahalf cups each water and brown sugar, boil, then reduce to simmer for an hour.

Add one tablespoon of pumpkin spice (which you can do DIY-style by combining 1 teaspoon cinnamon, and a quarter teaspoon each of nutmeg, ginger, and ground cloves), stir, reduce the whole mixture by a third, and then strain into a bowl.

If all that roasting seems like too much

work, mix three-quarters of a 14-ounce can of store-bought pumpkin puree with one cup each of sugar and water, and then follow steps above without the reduction.

That out of the way, think about what mixes well with pumpkin. Even though some will argue that Pumpkin Spice Margs are not only a thing but delicious, save the drinks built with fresh lemons and limes for summer.

Instead, embrace the fall with a Pumpkin Spice Martini, which you can make by mixing your DIY syrup, heavy cream, vodka, and a darker, nuanced rum like Diplomático from Venezuela. Add a kick with a half-shot of espresso, and an extra layer of flavour with a splash of Amaretto or Frangelico.

Pumpkin also plays well with bourbon.

Riff on an Old Fashioned by combining Maker’s Mark (or Jack Daniel’s if you’re hanging on ’til payday), orange curaçao, pumpkin syrup, and bitters).

Getting the idea? From White Russians to Bourbon Smashes, sub in pumpkin pie syrup for simple syrup, and you’re ready for sweater season. Not to mention that goddamn time of year where you have to pony up six bucks a day at Starbucks because Howard Schultz won’t put his pumpkin spice syrup in a bottle that you can enjoy at home.

Speaking of home, here’s a pumpkin-spice cocktail courtesy of Diplomático Canadian brand ambassador Gavin Miller.

PUMPKIN SPICE SIPPER

1.5 oz Diplomático Reserva Exclusiva 4 oz pumpkin cordial* Cold chai tea Add 1.5 oz Diplomático Reserva Exclusiva and 4 oz pumpkin cordial to a tall glass with crushed ice. Top with cold chai tea to taste and serve with a straw. *To make pumpkin cordial combine five ounces of oat milk with five ounces pumpkin purée and two ounces pumpkin-spice syrup.

Put in a blender to flash mix ingredients. g

MOVIES

No Time to Die misses its big shot to free a lost Bond

by Norman Wilner

MOVIE REVIEW

him scowl indignantly for hours. Naomie Harris and Ben Whishaw return as Moneypenny and Q, nudging little character details into the corners of the action, and Jeffrey Wright is back as CIA veteran Felix Leiter, offering warm greetings to us as much as to his old gambling buddy James.

Lashana Lynch is around too, as another of MI6’s finest; she’s a worthy addition to the franchise with the best feel for cowriter Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s barbed dialogue, but the plot doesn’t give her nearly enough to do.

But if we’re discussing wasted potential, we have to talk about Ana de Armas, who turns her role as a novice spy who helps Bond into a masterclass in charisma, timing, and scene-stealing, all while finding an entirely different chemistry with Craig than they had in Knives Out. I spent the rest of the movie wondering where she’d come back.

What if Bond was unexpectedly incapacitated, forcing the newbie to complete his mission? (That’s the plot of The Spy Who Loved Me, after all, when Fleming wrote it almost 60 years ago.) But as daring as No Time to Die wants to be, it’s still manacled to expectations. This train only goes in one direction.

Like the closing credits say, “James Bond will return”. It’s his gift, and his curse. g

NO TIME TO DIE

Starring Daniel Craig

d NO TIME TO DIE is the 25th official James Bond movie, and at two and three-quarters hours, it’s easily the longest. I doubt his biggest fans will mind; thanks to the pandemic, it’s been six years since the last adventure of Ian Fleming’s agent 007, and Spectre didn’t really follow up on the high of Skyfall. This’ll set everything right, won’t it?

Well, yes and no.

No Time to Die is, once again, a Bond movie that insists it’s doing something different with the franchise but is unwilling to truly change the game. Yes, it does one thing that no other Bond movie has ever dared—maybe even two things—but it does so in a way that makes it clear that this is a one-time deal, because this is a Very Special Bond Movie. The machinery cannot change, not really.

That’s the biggest problem with the Bond franchise in general, and because No Time to Die is so exhaustingly long—163 minutes, longer than all but one of the Transformers films and every Marvel movie except Avengers: Endgame—it leaves you with a lot of time to think about why that should still be.

Its prologue, which picks up directly from the events of Spectre, finds Bond (Daniel Craig) and his psychologist girlfriend, Madeleine Swann (Léa Seydoux), on holiday in Italy. I have this rule about not discussing anything that happens after the first 20 minutes of a movie, and No Time to Die has already forced me to break it because the opening titles don’t start until about 23 minutes into the picture. Everything else that follows should, technically, be off-limits, but here’s the thing: the plot of No Time to Die is also the plot of every goddamn Bond movie, with nods to and lifts from Dr. No, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, Moonraker, and For Your Eyes Only, as well as the whole serialization thing.

Rami Malik’s heavy, whispery megalomaniac Lyutsifer Safin may be new, but thanks to the current cycle’s insistence that everything be rooted in the characters’ personal histories, he’s retconned into someone’s past—even though that would make him at least 30 years older than the actor playing the present-day role, which he absolutely is not.

As you may have heard, this is also Craig’s final outing in the role, 15 years after rebooting the character in Casino Royale. I don’t blame him for getting off; as good as he is as Bond, the movies have struggled to showcase what he does with the character. Craig’s Bond is a blunt object, emotionally stunted and unyielding to his colleagues, and this lines up

A dapper James Bond (Daniel Craig) and a novice spy named Paloma (Ana de Armas) find some time to enjoy drinks at a Cuban bar in No Time to Die before all hell breaks loose around them.

beautifully with Ian Fleming’s conception of the character as a man who does three things—kills people, drinks too much, and sleeps with women. And the second and third things are just what he does to kill time when he isn’t doing the first thing.

I love Craig’s Bond, but his movies don’t know what to do with him. Bond has become an aspirational figure, trapped in the same superhero narrative as any Marvel character: he can’t really change or grow, because that would bring the whole thing to a halt.

Bond wears tuxedos and flirts with women and shoots goons and rappels into secret lairs and saves the world because that’s what audiences expect. These movies cost a quarter of a billion dollars now, so they have to give audiences what they want in order to make a billion dollars and set up the next one.

And over five films, the weird insistence that what this dead-eyed assassin really wants is to be part of a family—whether that’s the work family at MI6 or the other elements that have been dangled—has pushed against Craig’s performance in an interesting, frustrating way, as though the actor, rather than the character, is rejecting the premise.

That’s the fault of the franchise itself, which opens the spigots on self-importance fairly early on, gets distracted by the kettle, and forgets to come back and turn them off.

(This is a Very Special Bond Movie, remember?) But I can also hang a lot of it on director Cary Joji Fukunaga, the technically proficient but idea-averse filmmaker who gave us the sumptuous banality of Netflix’s Maniac miniseries and the first season of HBO’s True Detective. He sees every scene as a chance to wow us with lush cinematography or experimental sound design, which would be great if those decisions also moved the story forward.

Which is not to say No Time to Die doesn’t have its pleasures. There’s Ralph Fiennes’s marvellous interpretation of M as a haughty functionary who’s a terrible manager of people and seems to know it; I could watch

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MUSIC / SAVAGE

Ungerleider faves include Bush, Bowie, and miso

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by Mike Usinger

ALL-TIME FAVOURITE VIDEO

hat’s In Your Fridge is where the Straight asks interesting Vancouverites about their life-changing concerts, favourite albums, and, most importantly, what’s sitting beside the Heinz ketchup in their custom-made Big Chill Retropolitan 20.6-cubic-foot refrigerators.

Peter Gabriel Sledgehammer has got to be one of the greatest videos ever. Claymation, pixilation, and stop-motion animation. Plasticine creations morphing in and out of Peter’s head, dancing plucked chickens, toys and objects moving and cleverly illustrating the lyrics of the song with humour. Has anyone not seen this?

Probably the young ones. Please, if you haven’t, go watch it. And then watch it again.

ON THE GRILL

Suzie Ungerleider WHO ARE YOU

I am a singer-songwriter who grew up in Vancouver during the 1980s, wore an old tuxedo jacket and saw D.O.A. about a hundred times, but my music is not punk rock at all. My songs are intimate, melodic, and tell stories—but I still have a fangirl crush on Joey and saw him the other day on East Hastings and felt my face turn red and my heart skip a beat. Right now, I have a new record that is called My Name Is Suzie Ungerleider. After 20-odd years of performing under the moniker of Oh Susanna, I thought it was time to make my debut as myself..

LIFE-CHANGING CONCERT

Even though I had seen many shows and been obsessed with music for years, one show that is seared into my mind is when I saw Iris Dement at the Vancouver East Cultural Centre. She stood alone onstage under the spotlight, closed her eyes, and sang with such passion and force, very raw and emotional, weaving funny stories in between the songs. I felt like I was so close that I could touch her. It was the mid-’90s and I wanted to make music so badly and to write songs like she did and to sing them out plainly and unadorned.

Seeing her like that, alone and strong and vulnerable, brought me one step closer to

WHAT’S IN YOUR FRIDGE

West Coast weather, a cowbay hat, and three or four articles of clothing are all that’s stopping Suzie Ungerleider from unleashing her inner Robert John Burch. Photo by Cam Giroux.

stepping onto the stage myself.

TOP THREE RECORDS

Rolling Stones Let it Bleed My Grade 6 teacher knew I loved the Stones and so he gave me his copy of Let it Bleed, which my sister and I played a thousand times over.

The record is incredibly eclectic and contains country, blues, gospel, and rock. When I listen, I always feel these songs in my body and my head is floating around through the landscapes evoked by them. I would say that this album was a bridge for me to connect to the pre-rock past of American music. Plus, Jagger is capable of creating some incredible imagery in his lyrics. He can be a great lyricist, and people forget that.

David Bowie Hunky Dory I lived in the Castro district in San Francisco one sum-

mer when I was about 20. I was a bit of a misfit there amongst the gay culture, but it was fascinating to be a fly on the wall there. I stayed by myself in my sister’s friend’s place and found this album in the apartment. I listened to it every day. I knew other Bowie records but didn’t know this one, and so it was a happy discovery of something I had never heard from someone I loved. The songs are sweet, particularly the ones about Bowie’s son, Andy Warhol, Bob Dylan. It is very loving and playful and warm. Like little love letters.

Kate Bush Hounds of Love Her voice, her eccentricity, her storytelling. She is so true to her vision and the pictures in her mind.

In Grade 11, I went skiing at night up on Cypress and sang “Hello Earth!” as I slid down the mountain.

Pizza dough on Day 1 of a three-day fermentation. We have a portable pizza oven that makes excellent Neapolitan-style pizza. My husband has perfected making pizza dough that is light, chewy, and delectable, and so we have outdoor pizza yumminess on a regular basis.

Silkie chicken. Again, something facilitated by Cam, my husband, who likes to cook. He decided to pick up this strangelooking chicken where the bones and flesh are black and has an extra toe on each foot.

It is a Chinese breed of chicken. Mostly for egg-laying. It is still in our freezer, but we are going to make coq au vin with it.

Homemade chili miso sauce. I love to make poké bowls and go through this like it’s water. I made this batch myself so I didn’t have to pay 10 bucks a jar, which is what fancy-assed sauces can cost. When we eat poké, we feel like we are in Hawaii, which is never a bad thing. g Suzie Ungerleider plays a livestream side door record-release show for My Name Is Suzie Ungerleider at 6 p.m. on Thursday (October 14). For more information, visit sidedooraccess.com.

Sexual assault offers a lesson for both parties

by Dan Savage

b THIRTY-YEAR-OLD trans woman here, Dan, and I have a question about what is surely one of your favourite subjects: the “age-gap discourse”.

About four years ago, I had a sexual experience that I go back and forth on whether to label as sexual assault. When I was 26 years old, I met a 19-year-old on a dating site and drove to a neighbouring state to hook up with them. I’ll spare you the details, but when we started doing things we had mutually agreed upon, one of them didn’t feel right in the moment, so I withdrew my consent. They respected my boundary for about 15 minutes, then tried it again. I said no again, they refrained for another 15 minutes, then tried it again. The cycle continued 16

THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT

until I just got worn down. The night ended with me trying to fall asleep so I at least wouldn’t be conscious for what they were going to do. It didn’t work.

I’m friends with a lot of social-justicefocused millennials, and, as such, discourse about age gaps in romantic and sexual relationships occasionally appear on my social media. The consensus, as I understand it, seems to be that there is a vast maturity gap between someone who is 19 and someone who is 26; therefore, someone in their mid-20s has an affirmative duty to make sure nothing sexual happens with someone who is 19. It is also suggested that someone like me is a creep and a predator for even thinking about hooking

OCTOBER 14 – 21 / 2021

up with a 19-year-old. It’s hard to not apply my own experience to the discourse, and, boy, is it a mind fuck. Hearing people go on about how vulnerable teenagers are or how I occupied a position of power not only dredges up painful memories but also makes me feel like a creep.

Did I do something wrong? I’m leaning toward no. I didn’t have any institutional power over the other person; it wasn’t an ongoing relationship; nor is it a pattern of behaviour. (Like hell am I going to trust a 19-year-old again.) I also tried to follow your campsite rule. Instead of ghosting them, I sent them a message explaining why I wasn’t going to play with them again—the boundary violations—in the hope that they

would do better in the future. I’m about 80 percent sure I have nothing to feel guilty about, but that other 20 percent just won’t shut up. Was I the bad guy here?

- Am Getting Exasperated

this woman and, it should go without saying, she shouldn’t feel guilty about having been sexually assaulted,” said James Greig, a London-based writer whose work has appeared in the Guardian, Vice, and other publications. “And to my mind, this incident shows that things are often more complex than the online ‘age-gap discourse’ acknowledges.”

Greig has written about the online

“I feel for

see page 18

OCTOBER 14 – 21 / 2021

THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT

17

from previous page

age-gap discourse for the Guardian, AGE, and while he feels the conversation is motivated by legitimate concerns about unequal power dynamics and their potential for abuse and exploitation, he worries that the black-and-white nature of the age-gap discourse can lull people into a false sense of security.

“People imagine that abuse is less likely to occur in relationships where both parties are the same age,” said Greig, “and in my experience, that’s not always the case.”

Additionally, condemnations of relationships and/or hookups with significant age gaps—the kind of puritanical “discourse” that has left you feeling so isolated—often fails to acknowledge, much less grapple with, factors besides age that can make a person vulnerable to abuse and exploitation.

“Being a trans woman in itself can make you more vulnerable,” said Greig. “But it could be just about anything: wealth, status, even just disposition or temperament—some people are more domineering or cruel than others.”

And some people don’t understand that only yes means yes, that no absolutely means no, and that withdrawal of consent doesn’t mean, “Ask me again in five minutes.”

Sometimes a person guilty of the kind of consent/boundary/physical violation you endured isn’t acting maliciously and is capable of learning from their mistakes— here’s hoping that message you sent that 19-year-old had an impact—but some people know what they’re doing when they pressure a person to engage in (or submit to) unwanted sexual acts and don’t care.

Those people can be 19 and those people can be 99, AGE, and their victims can be younger or older. And if their last name is Trump, those people can be POTUS. “Life is too complicated for one-size-fitsall prescriptions like ‘age gap relationships are bad’ to be of much use,” said Greig, “and

Just because you’ve got a thing for shaving your pubes doesn’t make you a paedophile.

that means we have to take these things on a case-by-case basis.”

And in your case, AGE, neither of us think you were the bad guy.

All that said, AGE, driving to a neighbouring state to hook up with a teenager—yeah, the optics aren’t good, and a lot of people aren’t gonna be able to see past them. But just because some very online people (and some very offline people) will look at your respective ages at the time, do the math, and label you a predator, AGE, you aren’t obligated to slap that label on yourself. You were consenting adults until you withdrew your consent, at which point you were the victim of a sexual assault. You may have to be selective with who you confide in about this, AGE, but you don’t have to shame yourself. You lived; you learned; you’ve tried to do better. Here’s hoping the other person—now in their 20s themselves—learned something too and has also tried to do better.

Follow James Greig on Twitter @JamesDGreig. b No big stakes here, but I want your opinion. Fortysomething straight man here, and

I like shaving. My wife, to whom I’ve been married 16 years, doesn’t. So I shave myself, and she’s natural. She let me shave her once, she didn’t like the result, and we’ve never done it again.

But last week while she was amusing herself down below, we were chatting (she’s talented, I tell you) and she noted that she’s not crazy about my shaved parts. She said it reminded her of prepubescent boys. She doesn’t like being shaved herself; similarly, she worries guys who like it are thinking of little girls. Also, the potential for nicks and cuts makes her queasy.

For my part, I like the way the skin feels, and it makes me look bigger. And so much porn is shaved these days that this is probably in the back of my mind. Writing you this letter has been good therapy, Dan. Rereading it just now, I can see a workable solution: two months on (shaved), two months off (natural). Am I the first letter writer who solved his own problem?

- Shaving Nuts Is Promising

P.S. If you have anything to add, no need to beat around the bush.

first person who solved their own problem by the time they finished writing their letter. Hell, half the questions I get are from people who already know what they need to do. They need to DTMFA or get into therapy or learn to tie knots—and they write in hoping I’ll give them a little push, SNIP. P.S. I have one thing to add: sexually active, fully grown adult men and women have been shaving off their pubes for decades now—we’re well into the third decade of the modern pubic-hair-shaving discourse—and I’m losing my patience with people who claim they dislike hairless crotches because they associate them with prepubescent children. Unless you’re currently parenting a prepubescent child or you’re a paediatrician, you are far likelier to

You’re not the

see fully grown adult humans with hairless crotches than prepubescent children.

Really, people. Think about the last 100 hairless crotches you saw—were those children’s crotches or were they the hairless crotches of adult sex partners and/or porn stars? When I see an adult man with a hairless crotch in gay porn, I don’t think, “That man with the rock hard eight-inch dick looks like a wee boy!” I think, “That man looks like other adult men I’ve seen in porn.”

Look, it’s fine to prefer partners with pubes—neatly trimmed or full bush—but a person should be able to express a preference for pubes without insinuating that people who prefer shaved crotches are paedophiles. An adult man who shaves his face is not trying to look like a child and does not look like a child. A woman who shaves her pits is not trying to look like a child and does not look like a child. Same goes for adult men and women who shave their pubes. Sheesh. b THE LETTER IN last week’s column from PERV—in which the writer sought an alternative label to perv—left me slightly confused. I would have thought that the obvious answer was kinkster. When that wasn’t your response, I wondered what the difference is between the two. In today’s world, one can’t afford to get these things wrong.

- Thought I Knew It All

right answer. I mean, obviously. So why didn’t I suggest it? Well, I’ve always been partial to perv—that’s pillow talk at my house—but to be perfectly honest, I was high when I wrote that response and kinkster slipped my THC-addled mind. g

Kinkster was the

Email: questions@savagelove.net. Follow Dan on Twitter @FakeDanSavage. Website: www.savage.love.

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