OCTOBER 18 – 25 / 2018 | FREE
Volume 52 | Number 2649
VANCOUVER ELECTION
Hot Pink Paper report card
BACIO ROSSO
Circus meets dinner theatre
HEALTHY LIVING
Cycling, tech, and good books
Weed Freedom The Liberal government has finally fulfilled its promise to legalize cannabis, but that isn’t necessarily good news for those who use it for medicinal purposes
BRENTWOOD || MERRY WIDOW || VIVEK SHRAYA || POLISH FILM FEST
2 THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT OCTOBER 18 – 25 / 2018
HALLOWEEN Colouring Contest Prizes + Gift Certicates COURTESY OF SUSSEX INSURANCE & KINGSGATE MALL MERCHANTS
AGE CATEGORIES:
3-5 Yrs, 6-8Yrs, 9-13Yrs
CATEGORIES:
BEST OVERALL & MOST CREATIVE
THURS, OCT 25 11:00 – 1:00 PM 14TH ANNUAL PUMPKIN CARVING CHALLENGE
Collingwood Community Police has challenged their fellow emergency service personnel, community groups and media to have some fun and show who has the best Pumpkin carving and decorating skills in the City of Vancouver.
FRI, OCT 26 STARTS AT 9:30 AM
MT. PLEASANT ELEMENTARY SCHOOL will hold their 17th Annual GREAT PUMPKIN WALK The pumpkins will be on display by Marks from Oct. 26th to Oct. 30th
SAT, OCT 27
1:00 – 3:00 PM, CENTRE COURT Kid’s Arts & Crafts Make Halloween decorations and decorate your very own cookie.
WED, OCT 31
3:30 – 4:30 pm, CENTRE COURT Candy will be handed out to all. ghosts and goblins in costume!
EMAIL: leyda.molnar@kingsgatemall.com (BY TUESDAY, OCTOBER 23) if you would like to participate. Pumpkins are supplied or you can deliver your pumpkin to Centre Court by 11:00AM on OCTOBER 25TH. Bring your carving tools and decorations.
NAME: _____________________________________________________________ AGE:________ PHONE: ____________ POSTAL CODE: ________________
Corner of East Broadway & Kingsway 30 SHOPS & SERVICES | www.kingsgatemall.com
Pick up and drop off entries at Sussex Insurance, or Smart BC Fun at Kingsgate Mall Entry deadline: Noon, Saturday, October 27th, 2018. OCTOBER 18 – 25 / 2018 THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT 3
CONTENTS
October 18 – 25 / 2018
15 COVER
Pot might now be legal, but will those who were the impetus behind the legalization—medical consumers—be forgotten? By Piper Courtenay Illustration Matt Mignanelli
7 NEWS
A local nonprofit group founded by former COPE city councillor Ellen Woodsworth has surveyed the parties and independents on issues of concern to women and published the results in a report card for voters. By Charlie Smith
23 URBAN LIVING
We wind our way down Burnaby’s Willingdon Linear Park, which links the thriving new residential hub at Brentwood with the lively offerings on Hastings Street; plus, Fall Home Show experts offer top seasonal décor trends.
29 ARTS
Popular for decades in Europe, “gourmet cabaret cirque” is finally coming to an extravagant tent in Vancouver. And with its acrobatic meld, Bacio Rosso is, literally, turning dinner theatre on its head. By Gail Johnson
45 MUSIC
Did You Die calls both Vancouver and Victoria home, but it was a long-gone East Van live-music venue that inspired the psychedelic shoegazing vibe of the band’s latest album, Royal Unicorn. By John Lucas
e Start Here
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P E T E R WA L L D OW N TOW N L E C T U R E S E R I E S
EXCHANGE
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21 BOOKS 27 THE BOTTLE 10 CANNABIS 48 CONFESSIONS 27 I SAW YOU 42 MOVIE REVIEWS 51 SAVAGE LOVE 26 STRAIGHT STARS Listings 41 ARTS 47 MUSIC
e Online TOP 5
e Services
49 CLASSIFIEDS
Vancouver’s News and Entertainment Weekly Volume 52 | Number 2649 1635 West Broadway, Vancouver, B.C. V6J 1W9 T: 604.730.7000 F: 604.730.7010 E: gs.info@straight.com straight.com
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Here’s what people are reading this week on Straight.com.
1 2 3 4 5
Synthetic cannabinoids have made their way to Vancouver Earls Restaurant launches vegan menu at all locations. Here’s Hector Bremner’s potential pathway to victory. Shauna Sylvester’s hope rests on voters seeing no NPA victory. YVR airport gives the go-ahead to smoke pot before flights.
GeorgiaStraight @GeorgiaStraight @GeorgiaStraight
The Georgia Straight is published every Thursday by the Vancouver Free Press Publishing Corp. Copies are distributed free every week throughout Vancouver, Burnaby, North and West Vancouver, New Westminster, and Richmond. International Standard Serial Number ISSN 0709-8995. Subscription rates in Canada $182.00/52 issues (includes GST), $92.00/26 issues (includes GST); United States $379.00/52 issues, $205.00/26 issues; foreign $715.00/52 issues, $365.00/26 issues. Contact 604-730-7087 if you wish to distribute free copies of the Georgia Straight at your place of business. Entire contents copyright © 2018 Vancouver Free Press, Best Of Vancouver, Bov And Golden Plates Are Trade-Marks Of Vancouver Free Press Publishing Corp. SUBMISSIONS The Straight accepts no responsibility for, and will not necessarily respond to, any submitted materials. All submissions should be addressed to contact@straight.com.
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4 THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT OCTOBER 18 – 25 / 2018
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OCTOBER 18 – 25 / 2018 THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT 5
6 THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT OCTOBER 18 – 25 / 2018
NEWS
Women’s issues emerge in the election
D
by Charlie Smith
uring the 20th century, Vancouver civic politics was mostly a boys’ club. Every mayor was male and most of the councillors were male, though there were some very influential women in the chamber in the 1980s and 1990s. By the early 2000s, two Coalition of Progressive Electors councillors, Anne Roberts and Ellen Woodsworth, believed the time had come to apply a gender lens to city policies, whether that be in planning, engineering, social policy, or other areas. They teamed up on a motion creating a gender-equity strategy, the first in Canada, and it looked like things were going to improve for women. However, according to Woodsworth, the incoming Non-Partisan Association (NPA)–controlled council didn’t do much to advance that. So when she was back on council from 2008 to 2011, she helped create a women’s advisory committee to keep the pressure on. Woodsworth also founded the nonprofit group Women Transforming Cities to bring about changes in other communities. “We’ve been invited to speak on panels at UN Habitat and the World Urban Forum,� Woodsworth said in an interview at the Georgia Straight office. “We’ve worked nationally on cities issues—and we’ve put a genderintersectional lens on city issues.� Six days before the October 20 election, Women Transforming Cities released its “Hot Pink Paper Campaign 2018: Report Card� seeking Vancouver political parties’ responses to 11 broad issues of concern to women. Within those categories— such as affordable housing, childcare, and electoral reform—there are specific requests, for which each party is rated on the group’s website.
Actor and singer Elishia Perosa decided to run for Vancouver city council because she wants to empower women victimized by domestic violence.
“This is really serious,� Woodsworth said. “We are 51 percent of the population.� For example, under electoral reform it asks the parties if they will implement wards and proportional-voting systems as well as ensure that at least 50 percent of candidates and elected officials are diverse women. COPE and independent mayoral candidate Kennedy Stewart received full marks on the first point, and they and the Greens, OneCity, Vision, and independent Shauna Sylvester fully met the second request. The NPA, on the other hand, failed the voting-system question because it supports the status quo
Thickness and density of hair for men & women
of councillors being elected on a citywide basis. The NPA scored partial marks on its commitment to have diverse women compose at least 50 percent of the slate. This is even though it is already running five women among its eight council nominees. On childcare, COPE, the Greens, OneCity, Vision, Stewart, and Sylvester received full marks for pledging to continue to improve upon the existing $10-per-day plan, which has yet to be implemented in B.C. In fact, COPE candidate Anne Roberts told the Straight in an interview in a Commercial Drive coffee shop that her party would like Vancouver to become a pilot project.
“The province is moving ever so slowly,� she stated. “We could embrace it, fund it from our end. We have all the facilities that we could use.� OneCity Vancouver council candidate Christine Boyle told the Straight by phone that her party is eager to provide city land to support the $10-per-day plan. She has also proposed allowing construction of temporary modular childcare facilities on school property to increase the number of spaces. “Childcare is a huge source of anxiety for families in Vancouver,� Boyle said. “And a lot of that anxiety falls to mothers and women caregivers.� On October 10, NPA council candidates Melissa De Genova and
Rebecca Bligh released their party’s childcare plan, which includes eliminating a $42,600 “air-space-parcel� fee charged by the city to those who want to build childcare facilities. The NPA also wants to give childcare providers the same types of incentives that developers of rental-only housing projects receive, to stimulate the creation of more spaces. Another concern raised by Women Transforming Cities is ending violence against women. All the parties and independent mayoral candidates who responded supported the group’s calls to conduct a full safety audit of the city of Vancouver, allocate funding to organizations that do antiviolence work, and organize a citywide antiviolence campaign coordinated by these organizations and the mayor’s office. One independent candidate for council, actor and singer Elishia Perosa, said in an interview at the Straight office that she’s running to try to advance positive solutions to address this issue. She said that she’s a survivor of violent crime and abuse and is now heading up an organization called ResilianceiAm, which hopes to build a sanctuary for women. “We’ve been focusing so much on the negativity, but what happens if we were to focus on the positivity—the uplifting, the rebuilding of women?� Perosa said. “You don’t elevate through negativity. You elevate through positivity.� Woodsworth pointed out that the city’s gender-equality strategy is not fully funded from 2018 to 2020, and according to her there’s no gender lens applied to the city’s housing strategy. “We’re going to keep pushing until we get commitments from all of them on a women-friendly city,� she said.
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VOTE GREG EDGELOW for Parks Board
Olympian & Community Leader
Platelet-Rich Plasma hair regrowth treatment (PRP) is a non-surgical and completely natural medical procedure used to treat hair loss or hair thinning. The treatment uses the patient’s own platelet cells with growth factors from their blood to stimulate hair growth.
“Your voice will be heard so that parks, gardens, beaches, arts & recreation facilities are safe, clean, accessible and affordable for all.� 1. More fee-free programs & services for children & seniors 2. Maintain community recreation association autonomy 3. Increase park space utilizing unique locations 4. Renovate & retrofit dilapidated facilities 5. Increase the number of dog parks 6. Retrofit barren dog park enclosures to resemble park land 7. Upgrade & enhance applicable community pools. No closures. 8. Explore no pay parking in parks for Vancouver residents 9. Reclaim Vancouver’s park spaces from squatters 10. Maintain civic golf courses, marinas, gardens & conservatory.
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WWW.PROVANCOUVER.CA AUTHORIZED BY: TIFFINY KINDRID 604-831-3284 OCTOBER 18 – 25 / 2018 THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT 7
NEWS
Green council candidate favours freezing rents
Building a Family Friendly Vancouver
Pete Fry has set out certain conditions that must be met
T
by Charlie Smith
RE-ELECT
MELISSA DE GENOVA OCT 2OTH
TO VANCOUVER CITY COUNCIL degenovaforvancouver.com
VOTE FOR THE CHANGE VANCOUVER NEEDS
• • •
Affordable Child Care More Family Housing Public Consultation
P: 604.767.8731 E: melissa@degenovaforvancouver.com
DE GENOVA, MELISSA FOURTH NAME ON YOUR BALLOT Authorized by Financial Agent, Ken Fraser, ken@degenovaforvancouver.com
VOTE GREG EDGELOW for Park Board Commissioner OLYMPIAN COMMUNITY LEADER
Pete Fry is the only Green council candidate who has endorsed a controversial COPE plan.
billing landlords for repairs, and a “mansion tax”. The two Green candidates’ openness to embracing COPE’s housing platform suggests that the two parties could control council should they elect at least six members. Meanwhile, a council candidate for the left-wing OneCity Vancouver has expressed concern that supporters of progressive parties might be tempted to “plump”—i.e., only vote for members of their preferred party. Christine Boyle told the Straight that this could result in fewer overall votes for progressives with OneCity, Vision Vancouver, COPE, and the Vancouver Greens. This, she argued, could help the more right-wing NPA win control of council, which hasn’t occurred since the 2005 election. “Whatever small differences we have, they’re not as significant as the very real problem that an NPA majority would cause,” Boyle said. OneCity Vancouver favours measures that would increase the vacancy rate and lead to the development of more rental accommodation rather than embracing a rent freeze. It received a B grade from the Vancouver Tenants Union.
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How legit will mayor be?
BC SPORTS TS HALL OF FAME F INDIGENOUSS INDUCTEE CANADIAN SPORT ATHLETE A LEADERSHIP AWARD INVESTING IN CHILDREN, YOUTH & SENIORS
B
by Charlie Smith
YOUR VOICE = MYY ACTION greg.edgelow greg.edgelow @edgelow_greg @edgelow_greg edgelowgreg edgelowgreg E greg@gregedgelow.com E wiki/gregory_edgelow greg@gregedgelow.com W WWW.PROVANCOUVER.CA AUTHORIZED KINDRID 604-831-3284 AUTHORIZEDBY: BY:TIFFINY GREG EDGELOW 778-989-0287
HAVE YOU BEEN TO...
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he platform of the Vancouver Greens does not mention the words rent freeze or mansion tax, but one of their council candidates has expressed his conditional support for both ideas. In a series of responses to a questionnaire from the Vancouver Tenants Union, Pete Fry stated that if he’s elected, he will “approach the provincial government to enact a four year rent freeze”. Fry added the caveat that this would be on the condition that the province would be “providing some sort of intervention to protect and maintain affordable rental stock and a means to insulate landlords from legitimate maintenance and inflation costs”. “This could be a tax rebate or write off,” Fry declared. He added that he will “further suggest that the ‘school tax’ would be better directed to protect rental stock in the area it is being extracted”. In addition, Fry supports a one-percent hike in property tax on the value of homes in excess of $5 million and a two-percent hike for values exceeding $10 million. “Like the school tax, I think it is important that this revenue stays in the community that generates it in order to offset the impacts of housing costs that are grossly disconnected from our local incomes,” Fry stated. In the same survey, incumbent Green council candidate Adriane Carr revealed that she will not support a four-year rent freeze unless funding can be found “to cover inflationary increases in the cost of maintaining rental accommodation”. She endorsed the so-called mansion tax. The two other Green council candidates, Michael Wiebe and David Wong, did not respond to the survey. As a result, the Greens received a B from the Vancouver Tenants Union, compared to an A for the Coalition of Progressive Electors, whose three council candidates also support a rent freeze, banning so-called renovictions,
chambar.com
8 THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT OCTOBER 18 – 25 / 2018
docksidevancouver.com
ack in 2014, Gregor Robertson won his third consecutive Vancouver mayoral election with a record 83,529 votes. This year, it’s possible that his successor could be elected with less than half that total. Robertson’s support was fuelled by a relatively high turnout of 43.7 percent in 2014. There were only two candidates with a serious shot at winning: Robertson and the NPA’s Kirk LaPointe, who collected 73,443 votes. In this election, there are six mayoral candidates each with a legitimate chance of attracting at least 8,000 votes. That means the mayoral voting pool will be spread more widely among the candidates. Plus, it’s possible that turnout won’t reach the 2014 level, so fewer overall votes will be cast. In the 2017 council by-election, there were 435,501 registered voters. A 40-percent turnout this year using that list would result in 174,200 people voting in the Vancouver election. Let’s assume that Coalition Vancouver’s Wai Young, ProVancouver’s David Chen, Vancouver 1st’s Fred Harding, and the noncompetitive independent mayoral candidates collectively win just 15 percent of that total. That’s a conservative estimate, based on poll results. This would leave 148,070 votes to be divided between Yes Vancouver candidate Hector Bremner, the NPA’s Ken Sim, and independents Kennedy Stewart and Shauna Sylvester. Let’s then assume that none of those four high-profile candidates
earn less than 15 percent of the total vote. That’s a plausible scenario, given how their campaigns have unfolded. That means the fourth-place finisher would attract 26,130 votes, assuming a 40-percent turnout. This, in turn, would leave 121,940 votes to be divided among the top three. Then let’s assume that the third-place finisher collects 20 percent of the total votes, which is a realistic scenario. This would take another 34,840 votes out of the mayoral pool—leaving 87,100 votes to be divided between the top two finishers. Then, for the sake of argument, assume that the second-place finisher takes 23 percent of the votes. This would yield 40,066 votes for the runner-up, again assuming 40-percent turnout. The winner would be elected with just 46,434 votes—26.7 percent. In 2017, the population of Vancouver was 656,164, according to B.C. Stats. If the mayor were to be elected with 46,434 votes, that would reflect just seven percent of city residents. If this mayor also lacked majority support on council, he or she would be in a particularly weak position. Then consider the possibility of high-profile councillors attracting more than 60,000 votes each. Eight council candidates did this in 2014. These councillors, in turn, could argue that their positions on issues carry more weight than a less legitimate mayor. That’s something that never occurred during the Robertson era.
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Election day October 20, 8am-8pm Learn more at vancouver.ca/vote Plan your vote Confused by the random order ballot? Compare candidates and build a voting plan ahead of time at vancouver.ca/plan-your-vote
Get voter info now Find candidate profiles and key voting information at vancouver.ca/vote, or pick up a printed guide at community centres and libraries.
18-136-35 Š City of Vancouver 2018
OCTOBER 18 – 25 / 2018 THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT 9
CANNABIS
Cannabis legalization didn’t come without lots of pain
T
by Charlie Smith
2001 Health Canada establishes a regulation defining which patients are eligible for medicinal cannabis.
his week, the Straight revised its “weed freedom” cover from 2013 because it seemed appropriate in light of Canada becoming the first western industrialized country to legalize pot. Although the Cannabis Act doesn’t represent the true weed freedom that long-time activists have envisioned, it’s still a landmark event in the country’s history. B.C. has been at the forefront in the long, drawn-out struggle to reduce the stigma of cannabis. Here are some highlights in the recent history.
2002 Cannabis-legalization activists heckle U.S. drug czar John Walters at a Vancouver Board of Trade luncheon. 2004 Vancouver police raid Da Kine, a café owned by Don Briere that openly sells cannabis. 2005 Emery is arrested and is subsequently extradited to the United States, where he serves four years in prison.
1907 A white mob attacks Chinatown and Japantown in Vancouver, prompting an inquiry by then deputy labour minister Mackenzie King. 1908 King discovers widespread opium use in Chinatown, leading to passage of a law banning its importation, kick-starting the war on drugs.
2010 Cannabis-legalization advocate Dana Larsen enters the B.C. NDP leadership race, bowing out before Adrian Dix wins in 2011. The Straight’s “weed freedom” cover in 2013 appeared when legalization seemed elusive.
1923 Cannabis is added to the federal 1971 The Straight promotes the Grasslist of banned drugs. town Smoke-In & Street Jamboree in Maple Tree Square. Police on horse1936 The film Reefer Madness is re- back launch a vicious crackdown. leased, suggesting that when students try cannabis, they will commit mur- 1994 Marc Emery opens a store on der, rape, and suicide. West Hastings Street called Hemp B.C. 1960s Cannabis use increases as psychedelic music becomes more popular and opposition to the Vietnam War grows.
Vancouver Teachers’ Federation
ENDORSED CANDIDATES
2014 Health Canada creates the Marihuana for Medical Purposes Regulations.
2015 The Supreme Court of Canada upholds an acquittal of Victoria resident Owen Smith, who baked cannabis-laced cookies for medicinal1994 David Malmo-Levine launches cannabis patients. Cannabis Day on July 1 on the north 2015 Vancouver becomes the first city side of the Vancouver Art Gallery. in Canada to regulate cannabis dis1995 Emery’s seed business receives pensaries. front-page coverage in the Wall Street Journal; the first 4/20 protest in Van- 2015 Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau couver occurs. promises to legalize cannabis.
1967 Straight contributor Peter Hlookoff demands that narcotics officers stop busting people who use cannabis for recreational purposes and calls for those in jail to be released. Go 1997 The B.C. Compassion Club Soto Straight.com to read it. ciety is formed and it launches what is now the oldest and longest-running 1960s Tommy Chong and Cheech dispensary in the Americas. Marin meet in Vancouver and later become the world’s most famous stoner- 2000 The B.C. Marijuana Party is comedian duo. launched.
SCHOOL BOARD ELECTION 2018
2012 Vancouver Quadra MP Joyce Murray runs for Liberal leader and calls for legalization of cannabis.
2016 Following a trial in Vancouver, Federal Court judge Michael Phelan strikes down a ban on medical-cannabis patients growing their own weed. 2018: The Cannabis Act is proclaimed into law.
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School Board Trustee Election
When:
October 10 & 17 – Advance Voting
8:00 AM to 8:00 PM at Vancouver City Hall, Britannia, Hastings, Kerrisdale, Killarney, Kitsilano, Marpole, Oakridge, Renfrew, Roundhouse, Sunset, Trout Lake, West End.
October 20 – General Voting Day
✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔
REDDY, Jennifer
ONECITY
FRASER, Janet
GREEN
BERCIC, Carrie
ONECITY
GONZALEZ, Estrellita GREEN JAAF, Erica
ONECITY
PARROTT, Barb
COPE
LEUNG, Aaron
VISION
ARNOLD, Erin
VISION
WONG, Allan
VISION
Take this list to the POLLS 10 THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT OCTOBER 18 – 25 / 2018
8:00 AM to 8:00 PM – Locations to be confirmed https://vancouver.ca/your-government/where-to-vote.aspx
Who can vote:
To vote in the City of Vancouver election, you must: • Be 18 years of age or older on general voting day • Be a Canadian citizen • Have lived in BC for at least 6 months immediately before voting day • Have lived in Vancouver at least 30 days immediately before voting day (or have owned real property registered in your name in Vancouver for at least 30 days immediately before voting day) • Not be disqualified by law from voting
Every Vote Counts! Authorized by Vancouver Teachers’ Federation Registered sponsor under LECFA 2915 Commercial Drive, Vancouver BC V5N 4C8 604-873-8378 and 604-873-5570
CANNABIS
Film highlights Puffragettes
A
by Piper Courtenay
merican documentary director and producer Windy Borman says it was the rising number of women in the cannabis space that drove her to shine a light on these largely ignored success stories. After moving to Denver, Colorado, in 2014, and having never smoked weed, the award-winning filmmaker initially laughed off the teasing remarks from friends about the number of dispensaries she would see in her new city. Coincidentally, she moved to the Green Mile on Broadway—also known as Broadsterdam—a tourist flytrap for weed. The southern stretch of the street earned its name for having a pot shop on almost every corner. With a heightened awareness of weed culture, she stumbled on a statistic in a 2015 Marijuana Business Daily study showing women made up 36 percent of senior-leadership positions across the cannabis industry nationwide. At the time, the national average across all sectors was 22 percent. Armed only with a foggy understanding of the substance, she set about interviewing more than 100 men and women from within the weed space to try to better understand her new cause. “Clearly something about cannabis was attracting more female leadership, and I wanted to figure out why,” Borman says. As a result, in February 2016 she began filming a documentary depicting the stories of the “puffragettes”; in 2017, the film, Mary Janes: The Women of Weed, aired in the United States. Puffragettes is a smoky adaptation of the late-19th- and early-20thcentury term for women who fought for the right to vote—except instead of “deeds not words” these women
Documentary maker Wendy Borman shines a spotlight on female cannabis industry leaders.
believe in “weed not words”. The film follows the stories of 40 industry disrupters and fierce advocates from the modern-day cannabis industry. “It’s a film about gender parity, sustainability, and diversity,” she says of Mary Janes over the phone. “Those three core values have been in all my other films, so I figured I had an opportunity to help elevate the stories of these women leaders because I had an access point.” Known for critically acclaimed documentaries like The Eyes of Thailand and The Big Picture: Rethinking Dyslexia, Borman says she wanted to represent the industry through a hard lens of diversity. She wanted every woman to see herself in the puffragettes. “We had women from 10 different states; some of them were medically legalized states while some were adultuse states, so we could see different phases of legalization,” Borman says. “We wanted to show a really broad cross-section of the type of women
involved in cannabis and their challenges working in different political and social climates.” Borman, who consumed cannabis for the first time on-screen in the film, says her true goal with the film was to embolden women who didn’t see themselves represented by mainstream media. If she could portray women of colour, in a spectrum of ages, and from a blend of socioeconomic backgrounds, she hoped it would empower others to be bold in their strides into the rapidly evolving industry. “There’s this great saying, ‘if I can see it, I can be it’ and I really took that to heart,” Borman says, quoting actor Geena Davis. “Instead of having to play the game where they get stuck at the glass ceiling and see all of their male counterparts promoted past them, women should know they can go start their own company, be the CEO, and hire other women and people of colour to create a corporate culture they want to work for.” On October 24, the Georgia Straight will host the first Canadian screening of the documentary, at SFU Harbour Centre (515 West Hastings Street). Borman hopes to do many more screenings now that Canada has legalized adult-use cannabis. Beyond that, she says, she’s working to build on the documentary’s timeliness and momentum. “Our ultimate goal is to turn the film into a docu-series focusing on women in the U.S., Canada, and abroad, because women are leading in cannabis everywhere,” she says. “Let’s just keep telling their stories.”
October 29 November 4
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Mary Janes: The Women of Weed will have its Canadian premiere on Wednesday (October 24) at SFU Harbour Centre.
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OCTOBER 18 – 25 / 2018 THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT 11
CANNABIS
Grounded CBD creator still hopes to fuel hikers by Piper Courtenay
B.C. Early Childhood Education
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o health fanatics, completing the Grouse Grind is a local rite of passage. To others, the hike is a gruelling vertical crawl to the promise of a cold beer waiting at the top. But for one entrepreneur, the 2.9-kilometre trail up the side of Grouse Mountain was the motivation behind his latest venture: a cannabis-infused energy bar, aptly named the Grind Bar. “I originally made it for myself as a bar I wanted to fuel me when I was hiking in the mountains,” says Dave Weale, founder of Grounded CBD, a Vancouver-based line of edible cannabis products. In 2015, Weale, a former junior freeskiing world champion, broke his neck while biking on Blackcomb Mountain. He credits the injury, and past struggles with anxiety, with his personal discovery of the therapeutic benefits of cannabidiol (CBD)—a nonpsychoactive compound found in cannabis. “I’ve tried my hand at the whole entrepreneurial thing before but often fell short because of anxiety…CBD was what really helped me overcome that,” says Weale during a phone interview with the Georgia Straight. “I wanted to help fuel others to stay on their own entrepreneurial grind.” The bar—a superfood-rich mélange of hemp hearts, cacao butter, and finely ground coffee beans—is now one of six featured in the CBD product line. Weale says every Grounded CBD edible aims to complement an active lifestyle, sticking to nutritional ingredients and natural sources of protein. The company also offers the Greatest bar, a peanut-butter and beet-root energy booster, and the Green Rush bar, which boasts natural
Dave Weale is halting production of his bars until the feds offer some guidelines on edibles.
antioxidants like matcha and moringa. Each bar has 10 milligrams of full-spectrum CBD, a relatively common dose for edible cannabis products currently on the market. “A big part of our mission is to change the way people think about nutrition and CBD. We focus on general performance and helping people create a healthy lifestyle…keto is a big part of that,” Weale says when asked about the choice to expand his product line to include high-fat, lowcarbohydrate ketogenic versions of the original three bars. After some experimentation, Weale replaced sugary ingredients in the original recipes—like dates and maple syrup—with natural plantbased sweeteners like yacon root and lucuma powder. Grounded CBD will temporarily halt production of the bars until Health Canada updates the regulations to include edible products next year. Until then, Weale is teaming up with Zenabis, a federally licensed producer, to invest in product development.
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HEALTHY LIVING
Will legalization pioneers be forgotten? Advocates worry that federal cannabis policies focus too much on recreational users
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by Piper Courtenay
edical patients have always been the lifeblood of the fight for cannabis legalization. In recent history, it was Neil Allard in 2016 who pushed a Federal Court judge to amend the Marihuana for Medical Purposes Regulations (MMPR), ruling it a constitutional right to grow cannabis for medical purposes. A year prior, activist Owen Smith won a challenge in the Supreme Court of Canada expanding the definition of medical cannabis to include edible products like pot brownies and oils. Countless medical-system rejects—alongside their frontline workers and advocates—testified, rallied, and risked their freedom to earn Canadians a front-row seat to this historic shift. But as the country basks in its lauded global status as the first G7 country to federally legalize weed, it’s the recreational consumers who have taken centre stage while the patients have somehow slipped, yet again, behind the curtain. Health Canada has said it will revisit the existing program, the Access to Cannabis for Medical Purposes Regulations (ACMPR), in five years. In the meantime, consumers looking to medicate with cannabinoids will be left with two options: wait for a mail-order delivery from a federally approved licensed producer (LP) or queue up with the recreational users. Many believe the distinction between the consumers is in itself reductive and should be eradicated in favour of a therapeutic understanding of cannabis, which has been validated, given that everyone will be purchasing their cannabis from the same limited pool of prepackaged government-warehouse bud. Packaging, branding, and consumer education have also been drastically limited by the Cannabis Act, which could have been remedied through customer interactions had the legislation not also effectively rendered Vancouver’s 100-plus brick-and-mortar dispensaries “black market”. For years, these shops served up, without permission, a wealth of knowledge for the dejected Canadians who’d slipped through the cracks of the western medical system. Under new provincial laws, cannabis stores must close and apply for a new licence, restocking, if approved, with product sourced from the B.C. Liquor Distribution Branch (LDB).
The Medical Cannabis Dispensary’s executive director, Dori Dempster, is driven by compassion for clients needing access to medicinal products. She worries that without more access points for medical patients, those who suffer most will be the homeless and poor. Piper Courtenay photos.
In the B.C. legislature on Monday, Solicitor General Mike Farnworth, the NDP’s appointed weed guy, issued a warning to pot shops. He said if dispensaries hope to transition, it’s in their “best interest” to shut their doors. If they don’t, he says, the government will do it for them. On Tuesday, Vancouver police chief Adam Palmer assured the community that illicit dispensaries won’t be forced to close in the immediate wake of October 17, but these aren’t comforting words to anyone who knows the raids will inevitably come. “Most people like the novelty of having a dispensary, but they don’t really understand why it’s critical that they be in every neighbourhood,” says Dori Dempster, executive director of the Medical Cannabis Dispensary. Before getting into her decade spent running one of Vancouver’s staple shops, she shares the story of Jim Ryder—a customer who passed away last October. “Jim was an amazing person. He kept us grounded and helped us understand cannabis is medicine and is needed in many different forms,” she says during an interview at the East Hastings dispensary. Mobility issues made for a long and arduous trip from Ryder’s home in East
Vancouver to the B.C. Compassion Club on Commercial Drive, one of only two shops available to patients at the time. That all changed the day Ryder walked into Dempster’s shop. She recalls the man, then in his mid-40s, breaking down in tears at the relief of finding a dispensary within walking distance of his home. “Member 27,” she says, smiling. Dempster would go on to serve Ryder for the final eight years of his life, right up to bringing him joints in the hospital near the end of his life. “We remember our people. The beauty of having a frontline dispensary is that people have that added level of care; they get that sense of belonging to something and that somebody loves them.” With easy access to his medicine, Ryder was able to live a relatively conventional life. He became a vendor for Megaphone magazine and began writing, eventually publishing books of poetry. And the dispensary staff made sure he was always looked after, helping with things like chauffeuring him to community events. “Employees under the new employment agreements won’t be allowed to have these types of relationships with patients,” she says.
“My fear with nonmedical stores proliferating is the misconception that medical patients can just use that as an access point. It’s so backwards to how this will actually unfold.” Health Canada left the decision on implementing store regulations to the provinces. On legalization day, there will be only one public legal store open in B.C., located in Kamloops. And don’t think this is a battle to be fought only by activists and dispensary owners set to lose their businesses. Dan Sutton, founder of the federally licensed cannabis producer Tantalus Labs, says the country’s already legal companies have a role to play in preserving the federal medical program. “I truly believe anyone who contextualizes their cannabis use as therapeutic and derives any sort of wellness benefits from it should have access to a medical system,” he says in a phone interview with the Georgia Straight. “I am glad the system is being thus far preserved and at the same time fearful that the excitement around rec[reational use] will drive other LPs to focus more on volume-oriented channels instead of the users with the most need.”
Tantalus has taken strides to prioritize its existing ACMPR patients, including absorbing the newly imposed medical excise tax on cannabis products. “As an LP, we have a lot of incentives—both idealistic and business— which motivate us to preserve and grow our medical channel. The way that we do that effectively is to make sure that there is consistent supply to those patients,” he says. As it stands, Sutton predicts that maintaining supply will be a significant problem for the province. “The B.C. LDB was able to secure 18,300 kilograms for the next calendar year, and the aggregate demand, including the illicit market in British Columbia today, is somewhere around 200,000 kilos,” he says. “Even if we were to double or triple production…we still wouldn’t be anywhere close to where we need to be.” Even after the market stabilizes, the cannabis community fears that there will be no need to include pot in provincial health programs or to fund scientific research programs if it becomes detached from its unofficial classification as a medical substance. Dempster says she fears that if B.C. doesn’t create more access points for patients, the most affected will be the homeless living in the Downtown Eastside. Without a fixed address or credit card, the process of registering with a producer will present barriers. She recounts one instance of signing up a “sweet little man” several years ago. “When I got to filling in the address, I said ‘Where do you live?’ and he said ‘Hastings Street.’ And, being so new back then, I said ‘Where on Hastings Street?’, expecting a number.” The man told her he lived under the overpass just a few blocks down the road. “It was my first real confrontation with the fact that some people don’t have homes.” Within two hours, the man had a membership and access to cannabis. “It breaks my heart to hear the politicians say that the process will take some time…I always think back to that little guy who had just crawled out from his night sleeping under the overpass…and I think how is that man going to access his medicine? “For that, no government at any level seems to have an answer.”
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OCTOBER 18 – 25 / 2018 THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT 15
HEALTHY LIVING
Dutch show how to avoid bike injuries
D
by Carlito Pablo
utch cyclists don’t care much about helmets. Only half a percent of bicycle riders bother with protective headgear in the Netherlands, according to a book released last summer. And yet Building the Cycling City: The Dutch Blueprint for Urban Vitality notes that the European country has the world’s lowest rate of bikingrelated head injuries. It seems counterintuitive, but Vancouver-based author Chris Bruntlett, who cowrote the book with his wife, Melissa, says there’s a good explanation behind it. “Helmets just aren’t part of the culture. They’re not part of the conversation,” Bruntlett told the Georgia
Straight in a phone interview. “They instead placed the emphasis on designing safe streets—and making sure that they’re trying to avoid any collisions between bikes and cars—instead of mitigating or minimizing their damage through personal safety equipment.” Bruntlett, an architectural designer, has been riding around Vancouver without a helmet for many years. For him, pedalling bareheaded in the Netherlands, where he and his family travelled in the summer of 2016, was not a new experience. But he still found it “really striking” to see so few people on bikes with helmets. “Maybe we got our safety priorities and emphasis on the wrong
Author Chris Bruntlett and his wife Melissa say the Dutch can teach us about cycling safely.
things here in Vancouver and other cities in North America,” he said. Wearing a helmet is compulsory in B.C. Legislation varies in provinces across the country. The Dutch could have made bike
Your health matters. Let’s make it a top priority.
helmets mandatory. They didn’t. Bruntlett recalled that in the 1990s, they adopted a set of safety principles that state that road users make mistakes behind the wheel of a car or on a bicycle. That meant that roads should be engineered to minimize the impact of those errors. “So if there are differences in speed between bicycles and cars, then there should be physical separation between the two,” Bruntlett said. “And if that physical separation is impossible, then the car should be slowed down to a certain speed.” In the book, the Bruntletts write that there are 35,000 kilometres of fully separated bike lanes in the Netherlands, which constitute a
fourth of the country’s entire road network of 140,000 kilometres. More than 75 percent of urban streets are traffic-calmed to a car speed of 30 kilometres an hour or less. According to the book, the Dutch government spends the equivalent of 45 Canadian dollars per person each year for bike infrastructure. Bruntlett believes that Canadians can learn from the Dutch and ride like they do. “If we’re really interested in improving people’s safety and well-being, we’re far more better off focusing on street design and creating conditions where more people are going to cycle no matter what they happen to wear on their heads,” Bruntlett said.
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B.C. RMT applies the human touch to cancer treatment (This story is sponsored by the Registered Massage Therapists’ Association of B.C.)
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egistered massage therapist Grace Dedinsky-Rutherford finds her greatest satisfaction in helping others. After graduating from UBC with a B.Sc. in physiology, she was accepted into the West Coast College of Massage Therapy. But just as she was about to embark on what should have been one of the most exciting periods of her life, her father was diagnosed with a gradefour geloblastoma brain tumour. Devastated by the news, she considered quitting school so that she could help care for her dad. But with persuasion from her mother, who realized her father would be upset if she put her life on hold, she spent the next two years studying by day and looking after her father in the evenings. Near the end of his 22-month journey with surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy, his body was shutting down and his lymphatic system was backing up. So Dedinsky-Rutherford used what she had learned from her knowledge of combined decongestive therapy (CDT) to give him peace in those last few months. Unfortunately, he passed away just before her graduation. Today, Dedinsky-Rutherford is a registered massaged therapist (RMT) and she considers it an honour and a privilege to have spent the last 26 years treating her patients. “I think if you’ve been on the path with anybody with cancer, it’s the kind of experience you can’t just read in a book. You’ve lived it,” she says. “So when you look around the world and see all these people who are in such need, you have to make a decision of whether you can put yourself into that uncomfortable position that helps people.” Dedinsky-Rutherford does not have an easy job. But having lived through the journey with her father
Studies show that massage can reduce some cancer symptoms. The Registered Massage Therapists’ Association of British Columbia will be hosting a conference in April 2019 entitled Registered Massage Therapy and Oncology: An Approach to Optimized Care.
she wants to be able to apply her skills and expertise to truly help people and make an impact. And she never stops learning and trying to increase her knowledge. “After being in practice a couple of years I took on the role of being an educator in a massage therapy college,” she says. “As I worked in the college I started to revisit the huge impact manual lymph drainage has on patients with end stages of cancer, but also as they deal with the side effects of lymphedema from their surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy.” Lymphedema is localized f luid retention and tissue swelling caused by a compromised lymphatic system, which often occurs in cancer patients. In order to better
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care for her patients, DedinskyRutherford took four weeks of fulltime studies with the Dr. Vodder School in Combined Decongestive Therapy for Lymphedema. “Through my 26 years as a RMT in this province I have been honoured to help over 750 patients with lymphedema resulting from secondary cancer or born with primary lymphedema or lipedema. I have been in the position to assist people through those last stages of their lives and feel absolutely blessed to give them comfort. I have a ton of patients who I help by keeping their edema under control, so they live a happier, more comfortable life,” she says. Several clinical studies show that massage can reduce symptoms
such as stress, nausea, pain, fatigue, and depression in patients with cancer. Dedinsky-Rutherford also notes that it’s one form of treatment that feels good. “It’s an environment that’s not so painful or sterile with bad memories of their chemotherapy or their radiation,” she adds. But Dedinsky-Rutherford warns that people should be wary of someone who says they do manual lymphatic drainage but is not certified. That’s because if someone is not cognizant of a patient’s impaired lymphatic system, they could end up pushing fluid into an area that’s not going to accept it. Or worse, cause damage. And when you’re putting your health in someone else’s hands—
literally—it’s crucial that you know who you are receiving treatment from. The upcoming Registered Massage Therapists Awareness Week (October 22 to 29), serves as an important reminder to the public. B.C. RMTs are regulated under the Health Professions Act. The Registered Massage Therapists’ Association of B.C. (RMTBC) advances the profession and provides evidence-informed, research-based practice information to registered massage therapists. From a public perspective, this means the public can be confident in the knowledge that when they see a RMT, they are trained, licensed, and insured. “British Columbians have the enormous benefit of having very competent practitioners,” says Dedinsky-Rutherford. “We strive for professional development with our required continued education to expand our field of knowledge.” While Dedinsky-Rutherford has focused on helping patients with cancer, massage therapy is beneficial to anyone of any age. In her opinion, it comes down to a basic human need for contact. “Touch is a huge part of humanity. A RMT assures patients that they are being treated by someone who really cares about their wellbeing….And a lot of us really need that,” she says. “We’re so used to texting and very impersonal ways of getting information, so the oneon-one physical contact and the communication—someone actually listening to you and your stories—is so important.” The Registered Massage Therapists’ Association of British Columbia will be hosting a conference in April 2019 entitled Registered Massage Therapy and Oncology: An Approach to Optimized Care. Visit the www.rmtbc.ca/ for more information.
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The Transformative Technology Academy’s Todd Embley hopes to help health startups scale up.
he rise of technology, startupaccelerator guru Todd Embley believes, is the root cause of a lot of the world’s problems. It might seem like a paradox that an individual embedded in the tech community would be so vocal about its negative aspects, but the BCIT grad has a lot of experience interacting with technology’s less favourable components. At the beginning his business career, in China, his startup was unexpectedly co-opted by a silent partner. After choosing to dedicate himself to helping other f ledgling companies so they wouldn’t suffer a similar fate, he became a mentor at Chinaccelerator, a 90-day program that helps entrepreneurs gain a foothold in their industries. Over that time, he became interested in how technology can be used to help solve the
could literally be anything, from addiction recovery to helping to fund mindfulness centres. The key here is that it’s virtual, so there’s no need to have a physical location for it. There’s no fee, so you don’t pay. There’s no equity, so they don’t take anything from your company, and it lasts for a month. We had 1,100 applications, and we took 120 companies.” Typically, Embley says, a lot of people in the health industries struggle to push for revenue because their passion lies in helping others rather than practising ruthless business tactics. Many are not driven by money, or they operate as nonprofits. The Transformative Technology Academy aids those companies in working out how they can best survive, thrive, and scale up.
What we’re seeing now is an increased rate of anxiety, which is the number one mental-health issue in America, and it’s the number one mental-health issue in China.
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issues of mental health, wellness, and joy. “I’m not thrilled with the state of the world today as we know it,” he tells the Georgia Straight on the line from Kelowna. “What we’re seeing now is an increased rate of anxiety, which is the number one mental-health issue in America, and it’s the number one mentalhealth issue in China. “The rate of depression in China is what would be considered to be off the charts,” he continues. “I think technology is where most sadness lives.” In Embley’s view, the best way to combat tech’s negative effects is to put more resources into creating apps and services focused on improving health and well-being. Upon moving back to B.C. from China, he found his opportunity to help. Meeting fellow Chinaccelerator mentor Rui Ma in North America for lunch, he learned about the new accelerator she had cofounded. Named the Transformative Technology Academy, it aimed to help companies in the wellness space hone their products and services. Embley immediately signed on as a mentor, and became the country manager for Canadian applications to the program. “The Transformative Technology Academy focuses on helping any and all startups that are doing anything related to mental health, wellness, and joy,” he says. “It
“We’re helping them figure out the ways that they can actually not just provide for themselves but sustain their solution so it can be provided to as many people as possible for as long as possible,” Embley says. “One of the biggest impacts I feel I can make is to help people who are trying to make the world a better place.” The program’s curriculum follows three tracks: innovator, leader, and entrepreneur. Using a combination of video, reading materials, Slack channel discussions, and Zoom conferences with more than 300 participants, the program lets founders work through their issues with self-directed learning and advice from more than 20 mentors and industry insiders. With the first cohort of companies completing the program in midOctober, Embley says the company will be gearing up for new applications in the near future. “It’s far exceeded anyone’s expectations, from the amount of applications to the involvement of the companies,” he says. “The organizers did an amazing job.…It filled me with so much optimism to see how many people are trying to bring help to the space of mental health, wellness, and joy. It’s incredible how many people are involved in this right now, and how many people are working on it. So there’s definitely going to be another one.”
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ARE YOU EIGHTEEN YEARS OR OLDER AND LOOKING FOR A MEANINGFUL VOLUNTEER OPPORTUNITY? Our Peer Support Services at JSA is now accepting applications for our Community Support Friendly Visiting Program As an introduction to senior peer counselling, our community support friendly visitor training program is being offered at no cost. Upon completion of the program you will get a certificate. Gain skills in interacting with seniors in our community and increase your employment opportunities and personal growth. Upon completion of the course you will have learned active and empathetic listening, effective communication skills and become familiar with community resources for seniors Training will consist of five weekly consecutive sessions on Wednesday evenings from 4 pm – 7 pm for a total of 15 hours. Upon completion of the training you will be matched with a senior to visit with in the community to apply your new skills. Jewish Seniors Alliance is an inclusive organization and reaches out to all religious, cultural and ethnic groups. We have a demand for volunteers from all diverse backgrounds including volunteers who speak Cantonese, Mandarin as well as English
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HEALTHY LIVING
Memoir reflects doctor’s humanity
L
by Charlie Smith
overs of literature are converging on the Vancouver Writers Fest, which continues until Sunday (October 21), but this year there has also been a bounty of medical books by Canadian authors. They include Dissident Doctor: Catching Babies and Challenging the Medical Status Quo by UBC professor emeritus of family practice Michael Klein. In his heartfelt new book, he describes his experiences practising medicine in the United States, Canada, and Ethiopia, as well as his long-standing efforts to inject more humanity into maternity care through the use of midwives. Klein also reveals the impact of the Red Scare on his parents as he was
growing up in the United States, and his opposition to the Vietnam War. More than just a book on medicine, it’s a terrific family story as Klein delves into his filmmaker wife Bonnie’s devastating stroke in 1987 and her remarkable turnaround—to the point where she was able to direct another documentary. Great credit goes to the Canadian health-care system. Readers also learn how this health crisis affected their two children, Vancouver public-policy researcher Seth Klein and author Naomi Klein. Another title worth recommending is Andrew MacLeod’s All Together Healthy: A Canadian Wellness Revolution, released earlier this year. Building on his impressive
2015 examination of poverty in B.C., A Better Place on Earth, MacLeod’s newer book explores the relationship between public health and factors outside of the acute-care system— such as income, education, housing, and the environment—that affect life expectancy and overall well-being. “We have long known that health inequities are a symptom of social inequities,” MacLeod writes, “and that at each step up the social hierarchy, people are healthier. That inequity is at the root of our most visible health crises today, including the opioid-overdose emergency and the relative poor health of the country’s original inhabitants.” A third book worth checking out
is Fit at Mid-Life: A Feminist Fitness Journey, by Ontario academics Samantha Brennan and Tracy Isaacs. It grew out of their blog, Fit Is a Feminist Issue, and the book is full of anecdotes, research, and helpful advice for people to remain healthy into their 50s. As these two professors approached their 48th birthdays, they each set a goal of becoming the fittest they had ever been by the time they turned 50. What follows is a rollicking read as they describe how they went about achieving this. “Truth be told, I am stronger, faster, fitter, more energetic, and—most importantly—happier than I used to be,” Isaacs writes near the end. “I’m excited about mid-life.”
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Health show offers varied menu
I
by Tammy Kwan
t’s not a secret that Vancouver is one of the most health-conscious cities in the country— we’re often identified as a yoga-forward, hikefriendly, vegan-inclusive, green-juice-loving place. Those who enjoy fostering a nutritious lifestyle for both mind and body may want to check out this upcoming event in the city. The 28th annual Vancouver Health Show returns to the Vancouver Convention Centre (East Building, 999 Canada Place) on October 27 and 28. Attendees can expect to learn about everything from health and fitness trends to nourishing food products to home-organizing.
This year’s event includes demonstrations on how to cook quick and healthy meals, health experts delivering talks, educational seminars, a showcase of health products, and food sampling. There will be a packed speaking schedule on both days of the health show, and guests are encouraged to arrive early—the first 100 people who enter will receive a special goody bag. The event’s keynote presenter, best-selling author Michael Losier, will deliver a talk each day: The Law of Attraction: How to Reset Your Vibes on the first, and Emotion Code the following day. Vancouver-based journalist Amanda Siebert—
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former Georgia Straight staffer and author of The Little Book of Cannabis: How Marijuana Can Improve Your Life—will be speaking at 4:20 p.m. each day on the legalization and impact of cannabis in the city. There’s more to healthy living than exercising and eating your veggies. This health show will give guests insight into things like differentiating GMO from non-GMO products, weight loss, pain relief, heart and eye health, cholesterol levels, raw diets, plant-based diets, and more. Tickets ($15 to $22.50) can be purchased at the door (cash only) or at www.healthshows.com/.
BOOKS
Male fear and violence haunt Shraya
C
by Lucy Lau
algary-based artist Vivek Shraya lives in striking, paralyzing fear. As a trans woman, the author, musician, and creative-writing professor puts a staggering amount of thought into everyday decisions—the smallest, most mundane of choices that many of us make without thinking—to ensure that she can successfully deter both harassment and unwanted attention at all hours. It’s an exhausting ordeal, one she painstakingly details in I’m Afraid of Men, her recently published (and aptly titled) hardcover that reads as more of an illuminating longform essay. In the morning, Shraya picks clothing that will “highlight my femininity” so as not to make others—particularly, straight cis men—feel uncomfortable around her gender-nonconforming body. On public transportation, she hunches her shoulders to avoid touching men and takes care not to make direct eye contact with them, so that “no man will think I am attracted to him and won’t be able to resist the urge to act upon this attraction.” Even her online activity is informed by fear, as evidenced in her generous use of cheery exclamation marks in emails to male colleagues, so that she may “convey the requisite submissiveness to communicate effectively with a man”. If Shraya carries out this quiet, accommodating existence successfully, she lives to see another day. If she doesn’t, she risks being a victim of discrimination, persecution, and violence in a society that has demonstrated time and time again its uneasiness with those who fail to fit neatly inside a “male” or “female” box. “I think the idea of the book, to be honest, came from the fact that I was thinking about how my fear of men
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has been pretty constant,” Shraya explains, speaking to the Straight by phone from Calgary. “Since, I’d say, Grade 7, Grade 8, it’s just ebbed and flowed and changed and looked differently. Now, being trans, it certainly hasn’t been easier. And if anything, it’s just a different kind of intense fear.” Shraya’s first nonfiction publication, I’m Afraid of Men recounts incidents—both bad and good, though mostly bad—in the artist’s formative years as a brown, queer boy in Edmonton, to her 20s as an openly bisexual man in Toronto, to her 30s, when she comes out as trans and, for the first time in her life, begins wholeheartedly embracing and reclaiming her femininity. Many of the stories she describes are deeply affecting, tangible examples of the ways we assert gender norms to damaging effect. The minutiae she recalls, too, whether it be the powder-
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blue Jordache jacket she was wearing when a fellow boy spat on her as a teen or the green eyes of a classmate who later threatens to hurt her for staring at him in the hallway, are a testament to how trauma manifests itself in the brain—especially during a time when women’s experiences are publicly disparaged and their memories consistently challenged. “During the process of the book, I ended up regularly having nightmares where I was being beaten up by groups of men,” notes Shraya. “It’s all there; it’s all accessible.…You know, I’m 37, and a lot of the stories I shared happen 15, 20 years ago, and yet they’re so vivid in my mind.” Shraya’s decision to tell these stories in the first-person narrative—all while putting the reader directly in the place of perpetuators, former crushes, friends, past colleagues, and
ex-lovers through the use of “you”— gives her words even more impact. It’s a powerful technique that forces the reader to confront the agony of these incidents, while offering straight cis men—the demographic most oblivious to such experiences—an intimate understanding of the great pains that women and LGBT folks go to in order to ensure their own safety. “So often when readers engage with memoir or nonfiction or personal narrative, there’s still a healthy distance that the reader is able to preserve because…these narratives are in first person,” explains Shraya. “So a reader can slip in and out, and sort of disengage as they choose—put the book down, go to the washroom. For me, it felt really important that the reader was right there with me. If I was going to do the work of sharing this narrative, I really wanted it
to feel like that the reader was just as accountable to me.” While the tales that Shraya recalls are at times challenging, I’m Afraid of Men, at its heart, illustrates the tension of one’s desire for and fear of men. In its blatant rejection of gender roles and gender-conforming language, and declaration that fear is born of fear—a fact that’s further avowed on the tome’s back cover, which boasts the words “Men Are Afraid of Me” as a contrast to the book’s title—the work is ultimately hopeful, too. “It seems like it [the title] places the blame on men,” notes Shraya, “but, really, because it’s I’m Afraid of Men, there’s something about it that’s like, ‘The fear is within me and it’s innate or imagined.’ But it felt really important to complete the cycle: where does this fear come from? This fear comes from the fact that men typically have been afraid of me and my difference. And, consequently, as opposed to negotiating that fear internally and wondering ‘Why am I afraid of this person who is different?’, they have acted out at me and lashed out at me. “My hope is that writing the book allows other women, nonconforming people, and even other men to own their fear,” she continues. “Because I think fear is something we’re not allowed to talk about. And when you’re marginalized, there’s so much pressure to be like, ‘I’m not afraid. I’m brave; I’m courageous; I’m strong; I’m resilient.’ And I think saying you’re afraid is sometimes the most honest and strongest thing that you can do.”
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Vivek Shraya will appear at three events at the Vancouver Writers Fest on Friday and Saturday (October 19 and 20). For more information, visit www.writersfest.bc.ca/.
Join the Vancouver Writers Fest for
Free Events on Granville Island: Saturday, October 20 Featuring acclaimed authors including Dionne Brand, Elaine Castillo, Esi Edugyan, Chelene Knight, Deborah Levy, Liz Nugent, Vivek Shraya and more.
View the lineup + reserve tickets:
writersfest.bc.ca
Generously supported by Raincoast Books and the Y.P. Heung Foundation. OCTOBER 18 – 25 / 2018 THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT 21
BOOKS
Legend speaks through Warner
T
by Alexander Varty
October 26-29, 6-9pm
Adults, youth & seniors: $14 | Children (2-12 years): $9 Entrance includes a carousel ride and entertainment. Tickets at the door or in advance online through Eventbrite. Thanks to our partners:
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he biographer-subject relationship can be fraught, even when the biography is authorized and the subject complicit. There’s often a gulf between what the subject wants known and what has to be told, either to sell the book or present an honest overview. But if any such conflicts arose between Andrea Warner and Buffy Sainte-Marie during interviews for Buffy Sainte-Marie: The Authorized Biography, they left no lingering resentments. “I love her so much,” Warner—a CBC staffer and one of this magazine’s theatre critics—says in a telephone interview from downtown Vancouver. That love is clearly reciprocal. “It’s been like a mutual-admiration society,” Sainte-Marie earlier told the Straight, in a telephone call from a Nova Scotia tour date. “We laugh a lot.” The instant rapport that the two achieved during an early telephone conversation convinced the iconic Indigenous singer and songwriter that it was time for her story to be told, and that she’d found the perfect person to tell it. “I had said no to a lot of biographers, because they only saw kind of the sensationalizable—is that a word?—points of what I was,” SainteMarie said. “An ‘angry Indian’, you know. Fist-in-the-air protester. You know, all that kind of stuff that I didn’t see as being true. But Andrea got it right away. She saw that you have to have a lot of positivity to deal with negativity, I think.” Warner’s book does not go easy on difficult topics. We’re allowed access to areas of Sainte-Marie’s life that the average fan bio might skip: childhood sexual abuse; painful relationships with difficult, alcoholic men; the suspicious and still not fully understood death of her friend Anna Mae Aquash in 1975; and the blacklisting of her
Andrea Warner (above) quickly built trust with revered musical artist Buffy Sainte-Marie.
music during the very years—the late 1960s—that made many of her peers fabulously wealthy and internationally renowned. But we also hear Sainte-Marie’s voice, and anyone who’s ever encountered the vivacious 77-year-old knows that she’s always found a way to turn her sorrows into artistic triumphs. Warner’s greatest success with Buffy Sainte-Marie is almost certainly her ability to get out of the way of the story and to let her subject speak. “Buffy doesn’t need someone to tell her story,” Warner says, laughing. “She is capable, incredibly capable, of doing that. She is a masterful storyteller.” And Warner, it’s equally clear, was a capable listener. “I tried really hard to establish and build trust pretty quickly,” Warner says. “We had an in-person meeting before she fully agreed to the book, and we just talked for two hours. That really set the tone for everything. It turned out that she was quite a fan of my first book [We Oughta Know: How Four Women Ruled the ’90s and Changed Canadian Music], and I didn’t know that. She had read it really deeply and thoroughly, and had a lot of questions and thoughts and comments. And I feel like she thought she
could trust me to not be some kind of sycophant, you know.” After that, Warner says, “We talked twice a week for two hours at a time, and I wanted her to tell me the songs that she felt were completely overlooked. And I think that starting from a place where she could talk about the songs that not everyone wanted to talk about was important for us, and allowed us to really dig into some of the reasons why those songs were overlooked. “When we look at why there are about 70 books about Bob Dylan and there’s been only one about Buffy until now…we have to recognize that there is racism at work. There is systemic marginalization of racialized people; there’s gender playing a part there; there’s the erasure of Indigenized people, overall. And this isn’t a criticism of Bob Dylan at all: it’s just that he has benefited from a lot of aspects of the media that are very colonial, very patriarchal, and all about mythologizing and lionizing white male genius. So that’s sort of where I’m coming from, when I think about the ways in which Buffy’s innovations don’t have nearly the same respect as a lot of her peers.” That’s clearly changing. Thanks to Sainte-Marie’s relentless touring, her high-profile collaborations with young artists such as Tanya Tagaq and A Tribe Called Red, and greater appreciation for Indigenous art both at home and around the globe, she’s beginning to be recognized as the truly innovative and iconic performer she’s always been— and Warner’s witnessing of her journey will only help with that.
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Andrea Warner appears with Buffy SainteMarie on Sunday (October 21) at this year’s Vancouver Writers Fest. See writersfest. bc.ca/ for the complete festival program.
URBAN LIVING
Celebrating a city in transition Willingdon Linear Park brings new life to a once-desolate part of Burnaby
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by Gail Johnson
ust 13 blocks separate Brentwood Town Centre from Hastings Street in Burnaby Heights, yet this time last year, the idea of walking or biking the stretch between them along Willingdon Avenue would hardly have been inspiring. All that was next to the busy thoroughfare was a narrow sidewalk, wide patches of gravel, and in some places, a dirt path cutting through weeds and overgrown grass. Today, that entire 1.3-kilometre swath has been transformed. The City of Burnaby recently opened Willingdon Linear Park, a greenway with a meandering multi-use path, play structures, art installations, and mini pocket parks. It’s an example of how greenspace and public art can do much more than beautify a place; they also bring residents together. “People are out with their kids or walking their dogs and starting up conversations,” says Paul McDonell, City of Burnaby councillor and chair for its parks, recreation and culture commission. “It’s building a community. “We’re very conscious that a city is more than concrete and steel, it’s a place where people are living,” he adds. “With the population growth and more and more people living in condos, what can we do so they can enjoy the natural beauty of Burnaby and get out and meet their neighbours? We’re seeing more and more people starting to use it. The side effect is a healthier community, a livable community.” With more and more people moving out of Vancouver and into Burnaby, the notion of livability has never been more vital. With massive new and forthcoming developments in the Brentwood community, including condo towers, residents will now have more amenity space in what was previously a nondescript area. Willingdon Linear Park came about as a result of the City of Burnaby assembling land along Willingdon Avenue over a 30-year period. The city had initially planned to use the patch of land adjacent to Willingdon for an additional lane of traffic, McDonell explains. However, research and discussions found that this wouldn’t really solve existing traffic problems and would just put more pressure on Burnaby Heights, a vibrant, walkable neighbourhood. The idea of a linear park resulted from consultation with city planners, landscape architects, civil engineers, the public, and others. Artists Jennifer Marman and Daniel Borins and architect James Khamsi are the collaborative team behind Willingdon Linear Park’s Rite of Passage, a collection of 19
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Willingdon Linear Park, which runs between Brentwood Town Centre and Burnaby Heights, includes a collection of public-art elements titled Rite of Passage. Jon Ross photos.
distinct public-art elements. The trio was selected through a national open-call competition in 2016, with jury members from the local visual arts and design communities, Burnaby’s parks and planning departments, ISL Engineering and Land Services, and the Burnaby Art Gallery public-art committee. Rite of Passage includes six wayfinding “beacons”—tall, linear sculptures with fins—11 privacy “art screens” adjacent to homes, and integrated sculptures in the two pocket parks. Drawing on the landscape architecture of the park, the installations celebrate braiding and weaving, inspired by Burnaby’s setting within a watershed and river delta and as a city in transition, Borins explains. The goal of the project was to introduce narrative through public art and to create a meaningful place for a growing community.
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“In our practice, we believe that public art can play a major role in sharing narratives, adding placehood to a site, and encouraging social interaction that encourages community values,” Borins tells the Straight. “Cities are in a friendly competition to provide quality of life in the urban setting, and designed spaces that encourage public art are a pathway toward that goal. “Rite of Passage represents a sea change in thinking: the choice not to expand a roadway and the choice to favour the human scale instead,” he says. “In many ways, our title for the project stands as a testament to what we think is a greater trend in how municipalities are thinking about public space.” To provide privacy to neighbouring residents and form a visual backdrop to the greenway, Marman, Borins, and Khamsi designed 400 metres of art screens. Some have a wave motif (made with CNC–cut fins, alluding to the Fraser River watershed’s fluvial topography). Others have a woven motif made of overlapping coloured aluminum strips, speaking to urban dynamics and to the islands and tributaries that weave through Metro Vancouver, Borins notes. The Parker Street pocket park is home to the Eddy, an undulating, netted blue steel structure inspired by river eddies that is at once a hammock, play structure, and social hub. At the Charles Street pocket park is a sculptural water feature called the Delta. From tall white tubes evoking river tributaries, water f lows onto rocklike forms made of stainless steel, all helping to obscure the sights and sounds of traffic on Willingdon. “The Willingdon Linear Park has the potential to encourage quality of life…through walkability, casual biking, and the reinforcement of environmental symbols and narratives about locale,” Borins says.
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URBAN LIVING
Interior design stars forecast fresh fall trends
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by Lucy Lau
h, autumn. The season of pumpkin spice, applepicking, and the sound of beautifully changing foliage crunching satisfyingly under your feet. It’s also a time spent predominantly indoors, thanks to Vancouver’s typically wet forecasts—so it’s worth sprucing up your pad before you pass the next few months snuggled up on your couch with a full Netflix queue at the ready, right? Ahead of their appearance at this year’s Vancouver Fall Home Show, which takes place from Thursday to Sunday (October 18 to 21) at the Vancouver Convention Centre’s West building, three of the country’s top interior designers—Colin McAllister and Justin Ryan of Cottage Life’s soonto-premiere Great Canadian Cottages and Sarah Gallop, founder of the Vancouver-based Sarah Gallop Design Inc.—share with the Straight the home trends that will be big for fall so you can revamp your crib accordingly.
HOME SHOW TIP SHEET From interior-design superstars to expertly upcycled furnishings, here are our picks for must-see highlights at this year’s Vancouver Fall Home Show, which runs from Thursday to Sunday (October 18 to 21) at the Vancouver Convention Centre’s West building.
From left, Cowboy Bebop–inspired prints from Vancouver’s NinniBunnyCollection help add personality to a space; Cottage Life stars Colin McAllister and Justin Ryan share décor tips.
Ryan, speaking by phone alongside McAllister. “And that rustic cottage look with a touch of industrial modern is being used by so many people in urban settings as well.” Ryan says the laid-back lodge is all about black metals, rich toffee-hued woods, and touches of glass. To keep your space from feeling too kitschy, incorporate the theme through items like live-edge shelving systems, handCOTTAGE VIBES made ceramics, and table lamps If rapidly dipping temperatures al- with wooden or glass bases that are ready have you missing weekends at wrapped with rope. the cabin, fret not: it’s easy to re-create the look and feel of the low-key sum- MIXED METALS mer getaway at home. Hell, you don’t Forget the generic chrome-on-chrome even have to own—or have access look—for fall, it’s all about changing to—a wooded abode to get in on the up the metal fixtures, hardware, and trend. “Cottaging—and the whole look accents in a room to achieve a funkithat goes with it—is no longer the ex- er, more eclectic scheme. “People are clusive preserve of people who actually branching out a little more with these have a cottage or live in a cottage,” says warmer tones and mixing,” says Gallop.
“So maybe they’re doing brass and gold and black accents all in one room, so it’s less of one thing throughout.” Consider replacing your bathroom or kitchen faucet with a matte-black or shining rose-gold counterpart, or replacing basic cabinet handles with gilded or copper options. Mixing metals in tableware, glassware, and even lighting also works. “It’s a great look because it’s not so matchy-matchy,” notes Gallop. ALL ABOUT YOU
According to McAllister, the biggest trend this fall has nothing to do with paint chips or the newest products hitting sales floors: it’s you—and a return to what the designer calls “nesting over investing”. “I think people are beginning to look at their homes for what they’re actually intended for, and that is they’re places where you can be the
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URBAN BARN MAIN STAGE Tackle your next home reno or DIY project with confidence, thanks to tips and advice from some of Canada’s biggest real-estate and interior-design pros who will be hitting the Urban Barn Main Stage throughout the weekend. Among the speakers are Love It or List It Vancouver’s Todd Talbot, Home to Win’s Tiffany Pratt, and Vancouver’s own Kendall Ansell.
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DAVE’S HOUSE BY BC HYDRO Style and energy-efficiency meet
best,” he says. “Your home should bring out the best in you—you should be your happiest, safest, your best self in that space. And that comes from having a house that’s beautiful, that’s functional, and above all, having a house that’s personal.” In other words, while Pinterest posts and interior-design shots on Instagram may be great for inspiration—and, indeed, for ideas that will
at Dave’s House, a PowerSmart home installation that will teach guests how to live comfortably while keeping their energy bills low. The space is dreamed up by local interior designer Jamie Banfield, who will undoubtedly be exercising his signature modern-masculine touch.
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DIY INSPIRATIONS Behold what a little paint and elbow grease can do to a piece of secondhand furniture at the DIY Inspirations display. There, viewers can browse a selection of pre-loved tables, chairs, cabinets, and other furnishings that have been upcycled by a local influencer. All items will be up for grabs, with 100 percent of proceeds benefiting Habitat for Humanity Greater Vancouver.
help maintain or boost the value of your home—it’s important that you inject some of yourself in your space. This can happen through something as simple as the introduction of meaningful art. “Art is such a personal thing,” says McAllister. “You don’t even need to be into ‘classic’ art—you can be into film posters, you can be into anime, you can be into anything at all.”
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ecreational pot has become legal in Canada during Venus retrograde in Scorpio. This suggests tremendous profit is yet to be realized. Dear government, please continue the winning streak on our future prosperity by doing something radically progressive regarding climate change. Take a page from Ireland’s legislative ban on fossil-fuel investment. Scientists, environmentalists, and astrologers alike know the reality of what lies ahead if we don’t address tomorrow today. Venus retrograde in Scorpio is now in full swing. Aiming for the pay dirt at the down-deep and/or karmic level, the process is one of peeling it back layer by layer or of drilling into the core with laserlike precision. What is destined will make its presence known. The Venus cycle will uncork that which your soul needs/wants to address. Mercury in action on Friday is good for charm initiatives, social activity, and romance. Saturday, the moon in Pisces that is aligned with Venus, Neptune, and Mercury sets up a fluid (or perhaps a slack or watered-down) response for municipal election day. Monday, get fresh at it while the getting is good. The sun enters Scorpio early Tuesday. If you need to get it under better control, do it earlier rather than later. As the day progresses, sun/ Uranus triggers added excitement, opportunity, stress, impulsiveness, volatility, risk, and the unpredictability factor. Keep safety in mind. Tuesday’s action is the precursor to Wednesday’s full moon in Taurus (9:45 a.m.). Moon/Uranus (opposition) starts the day in high gear; moon/Saturn (trine) brings it to a cemented finish. This full moon can be exceptionally fruitful/lucrative for investors, lovers, creators, producers, and opportunists. It can be a life-altering few days for some.
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TAURUS
April 20–May 20
Friday Mercury/Mars breaks a silence, breaks you out of a rut, or disrupts the status quo. The day can also change the opinion, the plan, or the conversation. The unexpected is in the mix pre- and postweekend. Saturday/Sunday run real smooth. Stand your ground or be swayed? Tuesday/ Wednesday, the full moon forces you to confront it head-on.
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GEMINI
May 21–June 21
A future prospect now picks up faster traction. You are on the upswing too. Mercury, your ruler, stays in high gear through the end of the month. Friday sparks a fresh option, perspective, plan, choice, or solution. Go ahead, get lost in it this weekend, cut yourself extra slack. Tuesday/Wednesday, the full moon puts the reality into play in some nonnegotiable way.
Jonathan Simkhai | M Missoni | Veronica Beard Zimmermann | Self Portrait | Tibi | L’Agence Herno | Furla | Rebecca Taylor
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26 THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT OCTOBER 18 – 25 / 2018
March 20–April 19
The changing reality has been long in the works. As Venus works its way through retrograde, you’ll see it play out in a more tangible way. In coming weeks, you’ll be better able to put your time, money, and heart to better use. Friday lights a fresh spark. Tuesday/Wednesday can produce the exceptionally profitable, opportune, or fruitful, perhaps unexpectedly so.
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ARIES
CANCER
June 21–July 22
Friday can get something unexpected up and running. Extra expense could be in the mix but you stand to gain and you know it. An element of surprise or intrigue works well with your lover. Aim for a quiet, easygoing, or romantic weekend. Monday sets wheels in motion. Tuesday/Wednesday strikes flint on the exceptional, lucrative, profitable, or life-altering.
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LEO
July 22–August 22
Go with your gut Friday. A change can prove to be a right move. Take it easy this weekend. Monday
OCTOBER 18 TO 24, 2018
could start with added pressure but it should end on a good swing. Tuesday/Wednesday sets the lucrative, transformative, or life-altering into play. Something you have worked for or waited for now proves its value. You could see significant gain, result, or reward.
F
VIRGO
August 22–September 22
Put the extra into it Friday. An add-on, review, double check, change of strategy, conversation, or plan could make all the difference. You can get swept up or away this weekend. Tuesday/Wednesday watch for news, a lucrative opportunity, a windfall, a surprise advantage, or something emotionally fulfilling. The full moon could see you accomplish, procure, or gain something of substantial and lasting value.
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LIBRA
September 22–October 23
Venus retrograde prompts a deep internal process. Likely you have witnessed a relationship or a circumstance on the move-along too. The weekend may come and go with little notice, but don’t fall asleep at the wheel! Monday begins a good trend. Tuesday/Wednesday puts the reality into full play in some substantial, lasting, or cashin way. The full moon could be a moneymaker.
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SCORPIO
October 23–November 21
The end of the week sets you on go rather than stop. Use Friday to get a head start. Easy does it best for the weekend. Monday, take a fresh stab at it. The sun’s entrance into Scorpio on Tuesday and the full moon aligned with Uranus and Venus on Wednesday make for full thrust and all systems go. Show me the money!
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SAGITTARIUS
November 21–December 21
Friday, suggest it; test the waters; give them a hint or a preview. Mercury/Mars gives you a good feel for it or them. Saturday/Sunday, keep it simple and relaxed. Monday, broach it; explore it; start it. Tuesday/Wednesday are exceptionally lucrative for problem-solving, solution-finding, starting a new job or financial venture, making it official, or making the most of it.
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CAPRICORN
December 21–January 19
Once you get a better feel for it, the worry or stress will dissipate. Setting you up for an easyto-take weekend, Friday ends on a satisfaction track. Monday through Wednesday, ride the good wave. In favour to Saturn, Wednesday’s full moon brings good news, a contract, a sense of accomplishment, and/or a well-deserved reward.
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AQUARIUS
January 20–February 18
Mars in Aquarius keeps you a step ahead. It also keeps the social action going strong Thursday/ Friday. Soak it up this weekend. As of Monday, things start to percolate. Tuesday/Wednesday, the full moon hits all systems go. Off with the old, on with the new, perhaps radically or suddenly so. Whatever launches holds long-range/long-term gain.
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PISCES
February 18–March 20
Friday evening through Sunday, the Pisces moon has you feeling all right. Setting the long-term into play, the full moon can utterly transform reality—yours, theirs, ours. Tuesday/Wednesday can be huge regarding money, news, career, legal or official undertakings, a talk, or a meet-up. Something you hear, see, do, feel, write, express, or take on could hold high impact.
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FOOD
Go beyond the big wine regions
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France, Argentina, and Australia offer alternatives to the names you know
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by Kurtis Kolt
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hen we think of French wine, our minds will often go to Bordeaux. With Argentina, it’s Mendoza, and in Australia, the spotlight is commonly on the Hunter and Barossa valleys. This week, we’re taking a detour as we toddle around wine country, looking at alternatives to the big, flashy regions but places that are every bit as exciting and worthy of that spotlight, whether it’s shining on them or not. ALLIANCE LOIRE “DE CHANCENY” CRÉMANT DE LOIRE ROSÉ BRUT NV
(Loire Valley, France; $25.99, B.C. Liquor Stores) If you take a two-hour drive east along the Loire River from the east coast of France, you’ll find yourself in the commune of Saumur. Just south of there are the clay and limestone soils where this sparkling wine’s Cabernet Franc grapes grow. It’s made in the traditional method (just as their colleagues in Champagne make their wines), with a second in-bottle fermentation bringing the fizz, and a minimum of aging before disgorgement bringing a nice creamy texture. Pink sparkling can be fun and frivolous, but this wine is also a wonderful study of the Cabernet Franc variety itself. Vibrant red berry fruits like raspberries and cherries mingle with marjoram, thyme, and rosemary, with a kick of white pepper on the fairly dry finish. ALLIANCE LOIRE CAVE DE SAUMUR “SAUMUR” LIEU-DIT LES ÉPINATS 2016
(Loire Valley, France; $20.99, B.C. Liquor Stores) Let’s double down on the region and the variety, except look at a “regular” red table wine made from Cabernet Franc. Black cherries, red currants, and mulberries lead the way with the first few swirls of the glass, but then we step into another dimension on the palate. That’s when we start to get more complex savoury-ish components like sun-dried tomato, dried plum, notes of tangy barbecue sauce, and a strip of fresh leather. If you like your wines with a little wildness to them but still polished and bright, put the smallest bit of a chill on this and giddyup! CLOSSON CHASE “THE BROCK” CHARDONNAY 2016
(Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario; $23.49, B.C. Liquor Stores) With the massive success and local support of British Columbian wine during the past couple of decades, it can be easy to forget that Ontario’s wines are every bit as quality-driven and delicious as the output of many of our top producers. Granted, there’s hardly any Ontario juice in our market, so that doesn’t help much either. This is why I love the wide availability of Closson Chase’s
Chardonnay on local liquor-store shelves. This elegant take on the grape comes from alluvial soils and is barrel-fermented, allowing toasty ginger and roasted almonds to frame an orchard of apples and pears with grace. There’s also a light briny note—a hint of salinity, if you will—which should make this sing alongside a wide array of seafood dishes.
climates in hot countries, Australia’s Mornington Peninsula (south of Melbourne) enjoys both Antarctic breezes coming up across the Great Southern Ocean and a maritime climate, creating a perfect storm for stylish Chardonnays and Pinot Noirs. Well-balanced, with juicy acidity, this small-batch, wild-fermented Chardonnay loaded with Honeycrisp apple, yellow plum, lemon curd, and pineapple HUMBERTO CANALE ESTATE is a fantastic intro to the region. A mix of new and older oak aging PINOT NOIR 2015 (Patagonia, Argentina; $18 to $22, gives it all a solid pedestal upon private wine stores) which to stand. I visited Patagonia in southern Argentina fairly recently and can GARAGISTE MERRICKS PINOT attest that it’s a far cry from the hot NOIR 2017 and sunny high-altitude vineyards of (Mornington Peninsula, Australia; Mendoza. The breezy, cool-climate $64.99, Kitsilano Wine Cellar) nature of its wine country lends it- A fine example of “good value can self well to Chardonnays and Pinot come at any price” (seen the prices Noirs that are light on their feet. of red Burgundy lately?), this geeky This is quite a crisp and lively Pinot Pinot Noir is made from half whole Noir. Rose petals and orange blos- berry and half whole cluster fruit, soms make for intoxicating aromat- fermented naturally with indigenics, while crunchy red berry fruit and ous yeast, and aged unfiltered in cola flavours coast cheerily across the small barrels. Autumnal forestpalate. Recently spotted at Legacy Li- f loor character and a generous quor Store in Olympic Village. lashing of cardamom infuse blackberries, mulberries, and Italian GARAGISTE LE STAGIAIRE plums, all balanced with fine tannins and a good mineral componCHARDONNAY 2017 (Mornington Peninsula, Australia; ent, too. Although it’s incredibly $49.99, Kitsilano Wine Cellar) enjoyable now, I can imagine it’ll While we’re on the subject of cool get better and better with age.
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> Go on-line to read hundreds of I Saw You posts or to respond to a message < NICEST GUY IN THE LIME GREEN HELMET
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TEAHOUSE STANLEY PARK CLOSE TO THIRD BEACH
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I SAW A: I AM A: WHEN: OCTOBER 15, 2018 WHERE: Western Street
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I was lifting my bike onto an EVO near Main & Terminal after bending my wheel frame. You rode by in your lime green helmet, turned around, and rode back to offer to help me put my bike on the roof. I already had it on there, but thought you were just the nicest, cutest guy around to offer to help. Let’s go for a bike ride! I promise to have my bike fixed by then.
CAFFÈ MIRA MAIN ST.
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Think you
I was sitting behind you on the couch... you were on your laptop drinking tea. Think I heard an Irish accent. I was going to say hello but I didn’t!
know BBQ?
SHAH DJ’S DANCE PARTNER
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You don’t know
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I SAW A: I AM A: WHEN: OCTOBER 14, 2018 WHERE: Shah DJ's Dance You: Short, dark hair, glasses Me: Beard, dark pants, pink shirt You and I danced close to each other for most of the night, I thought you were the best dancer at the show and in moments it seemed like we were vibing. I didn’t want to ruin your flow (or be a creep) so I didn’t approach you on the floor, hoping to catch you at a break between sets but it didn’t happen. Let’s go dancing again sometime?
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PINK CAMO PANTS AT COQUITLAM BUS LOOP
Reservations recommended. (Vegetarians, not so much...)
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I SAW A: I AM A: WHEN: OCTOBER 12, 2018 WHERE: Coquitlam Central Bus Loop
Open for dinner Wed - Sun
Beautiful girl blonde hair pink camo pants smoking a vape at Coquitlam bus loop this morning. I wanted to talk to you but my bus pulled up. I would love to talk to you and this might be a long shot, so if by chance you read this plz reply.
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I saw you in front of the Teahouse in Stanley Park. You asked me where Third Beach was. We chatted briefly. I am originally from Montreal and you also lived in Montreal in Longeuil. You worked at a shipment company. I went to Beaver Lake and you continue on to Third Beach.
TALL BLONDE AT WHOLE FOODS WEST 4TH
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I SAW A: I AM A: WHEN: OCTOBER 14, 2018 WHERE: Caffè Mira
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I SAW A: I AM A: WHEN: OCTOBER 13, 2018 WHERE: Teahouse Stanley Park close to Third Beach
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I SAW A: I AM A: WHEN: OCTOBER 12, 2018 WHERE: Whole Foods 4th and Vine You; very tall, elegant, well dressed blonde, probably early 30’s wearing a black jacket and slacks. Me; 40’s white guy, short hair, black hoodie. Our eyes met at the hot bar, and then when you went to the coffee counter, and finally at the corner of 4th and Vine when you were walking south past Brown’s. Your radiant smile to me as you sipped your coffee was sublime... I drove off in my black truck but was kicking myself for not saying something.
LOUD BURP ON MAIN
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I SAW A: I AM A: WHEN: OCTOBER 10, 2018 WHERE: Main and 16th Tuesday eve around dusk, I burped really loud around Main and 16th-ish? You rolled down your window and yelled, ‚"fuck yeah!". Message me back the colour and type of vehicle you were driving if you somehow see this. Hahahahaha
MOOYAH NORTH VAN
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I SAW A: I AM A: WHEN: OCTOBER 5, 2018 WHERE: Mooyah North Van Friday around 1:30PM, I was in with a lady friend. We asked about the Tomahawk. You were the counter girl... tall, curvy, friendly, stunning. I think we had a connection...
BLONDE AT THE MICHALE GRAVES SHOW
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I SAW A: I AM A: WHEN: OCTOBER 12, 2018 WHERE: Pub 340 You had blonde hair, a white tank top and a black backpack on. I thought you were incredibly beautiful and really wanted to talk to you but in-between band’s. When I had the chance, I was just too star struck like I got ran over by a train. Maybe we can grab a beer or coffee sometime?
CARTEMS, MID DAY LAPTOPS
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I SAW A: I AM A: WHEN: OCTOBER 10, 2018 WHERE: Broadway and McDonald Area Both of us were working away on our laptops. You: beautiful Asian girl, stickers on your laptop and very cute. Me: seated in front of you by the window. Did not want to intrude on your study time but tried making eye contact. If you did too, let me know and let’s get to know each other.
FLOAT HOUSE VISION
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I SAW A: I AM A: WHEN: OCTOBER 10, 2018 WHERE: Gastown, near Float House You: a tall, gorgeous man with dark skin and eyes, dressed in black. A very sexy vision! Me: tall, pale skin, light brown hair, wearing a black hoodie and glasses. Tell me the intensity of the attraction wasn’t all in my head? I would have said hello but...
BUMBLE DAD - GEOFF
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I SAW A: I AM A: WHEN: OCTOBER 3, 2018 WHERE: Online Dating Hell. We never did get a chance to grab that Chinese food and I regret not giving you my number before we disconnected. Just putting this out there that if you have a change of heart and want a second chance to meet up, I’d be more than happy to make up stories of restaurant rivalries with you.
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arts When dinner theatre defies gravity Circus artists join magicians and comedians in Bacio Rosso’s cabaret with fine dining by Gail Johnson
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At left, Bacio Rosso goes for a Moulin Rouge vibe in its vintage, made-in-Belgium spiegeltent, located in Queen Elizabeth Park’s Little Mountain; at right, Irina Pitsur performs while audiences dine on a four-course gourmet meal.
f the term dinner theatre brings to mind an evening where a stage production takes place after people’s dessert plates are cleared, Bacio Rosso is about to turn that notion on its head—literally. A medal-winning handstand artist who has travelled the world with Cirque du Soleil joins a cast of trapeze artists, contortionists, jugglers, magicians, comedians, musicians, and more in a production that’s described as Moulin Rouge meets cabaret meets fine dining. Guests indulge in a gourmet fourcourse dinner that’s served not before the immersive three-hour experience but rather during it, as acts unfold in an intimate setting all around them, sometimes in surprising ways. “What’s unique is how the two worlds are brought together—the dining and the show,” says artistic director Scott Malcolm. “It’s not traditional; it’s not ‘Sit down, eat a meal, then open the curtain and it’s showtime.’ It doesn’t feel ever like ‘When’s the show going to start?’ All of the elements are melded together in a seamless way. “There’s also this element of not knowing who is who,” he adds. “Your waiter might suddenly climb up on a trapeze.” Malcolm, who lives in Vancouver with his daughter and Belgianborn wife, has a long association with “gourmet cabaret cirque”. After studying at the Marcel Marceau Paris International School of Mimodrama for three years with the master himself, Malcolm, an actor and former drummer, was hired by Germany’s Pomp Duck and Circumstance to help direct its inaugural North American run in New York in 1995. Since then, he has held titles of director, artistic director, and managing director with other leading companies in the field, namely Palazzo Produktionen, which operates in Germany and Austria, and Teatro ZinZanni, which has been running in Seattle since 1998. The genre, which has existed in Europe for decades and has roots going back to turn-of-the-last-century travelling carnivals, is new to Canada. Bacio Rosso is Malcolm’s first independent show, one that he’s excited to bring to the place he calls home. The production takes place
atop Queen Elizabeth Park’s Little Mountain (near the public tennis courts) under a vintage made-inBelgium spiegeltent, meaning “mirror tent”. Red velvet with gold trim, red carpet, stained glass, traditional woodwork, and more than 2,000 bevelled mirrors adorn the interior. When the tents were first designed in the early 20th century as travelling dance halls, the mirrors allowed people to make discreet eye contact with one another. “It feels like a carousel with the mirrors and twisty brass bars,” Malcolm says in an interview at the tent, which takes weeks to set up. “It’s wonderful to be able to have the show at Little Mountain, a place that’s so special to Vancouver. Seeing these acts up close is so magnificent.”
The plating is almost as spectacular as the acrobatics during Bacio Rosso’s meal.
One of the performers is Lady Rizo, a New York City–based, Grammy-winning cabaret singersongwriter who has collaborated with Moby and Yo-Yo Ma, among others. Another cast member is Colin Heath, a Canadian physical comedian whose lengthy résumé includes cocreating and performing in stage hits The Number 14 and The Overcoat. A live fivepiece band provides the musical backdrop. Just as crucial to the show’s appeal and success as its cast is the food. Adam Pegg, chef-owner of La Quercia, is curating the fourcourse meal with wine pairings.
The Vancouver native was the first in Canada to complete Slow Food’s Masters of Italian Cooking course. He worked in northern Italy for several years thereafter, meeting his future wife, Karen lazzaris, who’s also his business partner. Malcolm and his wife visit La Quercia often; as a fan of Pegg’s authentic Italian cuisine, Malcolm asked him if he’d like to “run off and join the circus”. “We love Adam’s restaurant; it feels like our European home away from home,” he says. “He’s brought everything we love about Italy to this corner of Vancouver.” During an interview at the West Side dining establishment (which is adjacent to its sister operation, L’Ufficio, a casual Italian wine bar), Pegg credits a strong team able to dish up 325 meals each night during Bacio Rosso’s two-month run. Having worked at La Quercia on and off for eight years, chef Greg Dilabio knows the restaurant’s philosophy, approach, and techniques inside out and will lead a small staff right on-site at Little Mountain in a kitchen constructed out of two trailers. The meal begins with antipasti of pickled vegetables, pork crackling, grissini (bread sticks), and pork loin tonnato, a Piedmontese dish traditionally made of veal but here consisting of thinly sliced pork with tuna puréed with anchovies, capers, and lemon. The primi course is eggplant parmigiana; it looks like classic lasagna but thin slices of golden eggplant replace the noodles for a gluten-free “pasta”. It’s a popular menu item that Pegg spent months developing in response to more and more diners’ requests for dishes made with anything but white flour. He dredges the eggplant in chickpea flour before frying it in olive oil and then layering it with béchamel, basil, tomato, and Parmesan cheese. “When I gave it to my wife to try, she couldn’t tell the difference,” he says. “I’m really hoping to trick a whole bunch of people who think they don’t like eggplant.” Guests have a choice for the secondi course: rosticciata di manzo (rustic slow-roasted beef shoulder), pollo in umido (tender chicken prepared in a way that melds roasting, steaming, and confit), or a vegan
polenta con funghi, the mushrooms sautéed in olive oil with garlic, parsley, and white wine. To finish is a dolci of delicate lemon cream. Pegg and lazzaris selected the dinner’s wine pairings, which include Washington state’s Chateau Ste. Michelle Chardonnay, Italy’s Fontanafredda Briccotondo Barbera, B.C.’s Checkmate End Game Merlot, and New Zealand’s Villa Maria Private Bin Lightly Sparkling Sauvignon Blanc. (Other wines and
beverages will be available for purchase at the bar.) “What makes Bacio Rosso unique is that people coming to the theatre will be getting an amazing meal, and people who come for the food get an amazing show attached,” Pegg says. “Everything is completely intertwined.”
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Q &A VANCOUVER PLAYWRIGHT
Loretta Seto’s new work, The Ones We Leave Behind, focuses on an investigator trying to find relatives of an elderly woman who has died alone. We asked the writer, who also penned the 2014 Fringe hit Dirty Old Woman, about the Vancouver Asian Canadian Theatre production at the Cultch from Wednesday (October 24) to November 3.
Q. This play explores themes of isolation and abandonment, but is it true there is a lot of laughter in the script and in rehearsal, too?
Bacio Rosso runs at Queen Elizabeth Park Wednesdays through Sundays from November 1 to December 31. Tickets and information are at baciorosso.com/.
item about a man who passed away at home and wasn’t discovered until three years later, when someone finally came by because of an outstanding debt. It got me to thinking about how something like this could happen, what were the circumstances that led to his isolation, and who were the people that used to be in his life. The idea kicked around in my head for several years until I finally had the opportunity to develop it into a play with VACT.
Q. What’s it like seeing the cast, led by Agnes Tong, with A. Yes, it’s true! I was just in the re- so many Asian-Canadian hearsal hall and there were laughs women on-stage together?
A. It’s such a joyous feeling for me to see two strong and complex Asian-Canadian females being played on-stage, with their relationship being the most important one in the story. Agnes Tong and Alannah Ong are true powerhouses. I’m also really thrilled that more than half of our behind-the-scenes team are women of Asian heritage. There’s so much Q. What inspired you to write talent in our diverse theatre comabout this topic? munity, and I’m glad they get a A. Years ago, I read a small news chance to shine. coming from all parts of the room during various scenes. Although the play is a drama, there’s a lot of humour throughout the piece because, let’s face it, sometimes things are funniest during the most awkward and difficult of life’s moments. In the hands of our amazing cast, audiences will get to laugh and cry at the same time.
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OCTOBER 18 – 25 / 2018 THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT 29
ARTS
Sharp commentary with Champagne Behind the cancans and parties, Vancouver Opera’s The Merry Widow has deeper meaning
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by Janet Smith
n one level, Frank Lehár’s The Merry Widow is as light and bubbly as the Champagne that flows throughout the show. It’s filled with dance numbers, from waltzes to cancans, as the elite in fin-de-siècle Paris attend grand balls and garden parties. There’s even one scene where the title character hosts an elaborate celebration that recreates famous Art Nouveau hot spot Maxim’s in her home. But veteran Canadian director Kelly Robinson, who was last in town to stage Vancouver Opera’s Evita, wants to shade in all the other levels of meaning in the 1861 comic operetta—from its many views on love to its political and social satire. And he’s assembled a top-flight operatic cast to do so. “It’s a human comedy, and without really fine actors, we start to lose the finesse with which the characters negotiate their needs—that’s when those layers are really brought out,” Robinson says at VO’s headquarters in East Vancouver. He’s just taken a break from rehearsing with Sasha Djihanian and John Tessier, who play the married Valencienne and Camille de Rosillon. Their characters flirt throughout the first act, and sparkling German songs about love have been echoing through the building. “We find out later that they really haven’t done anything except engage in wordplay. They’re two people who are in love with the idea of love,” Robinson explains. “What’s most important is they find the best possible way to say it and to feel it, and they’re not so interested in the details. “So they’re a kind of foil for the
The Merry Widow features lavish Art Nouveau sets and a lot of dancing, but its sociopolitical commentary is just as rich. Photo by John Grigaitis.
main couple,” he adds, referring to Hanna Glawari, the “Merry Widow”, and Count Danilo Danilovitch, whom she’s pursuing. “And they’re as superficial about their love as the main pair are serious about it.” In the operetta, Hanna (ItalianCanadian soprano Lucia Cesaroni) has a huge inheritance from her late husband and has headed to Paris. There, she wants to reconnect with Danilo (tenor John Cudia), whom she was blocked from marrying years before. But Danilo refuses to marry her for her money now.
“Danilo and Hanna rarely get into the discussion of love because it’s something they actually know about each other and they don’t have to talk about it,” Robinson offers. “There are obstacles in the way, but they’re mature; they’re grown-up.” Neither of them is either willing or able to state what he or she really feels, and the entire operetta plays with that duality. “This play is really about people saying things and meaning other things, which was very much a thing of high status in Viennese society, that sense of wordplay. And that’s
Program 1 Nov 1 2 3 Choreography Medhi Walerski Petite Cérémonie Emily Molnar New Work William Forsythe Enemy in the Figure
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part of the delight of this,” points out Robinson. Amid all this, Lehár and his Viennese librettists, Viktor Léon and Leo Stein, take several shots at the politics stewing in the pre–First World War Austro-Hungarian Empire, when the Habsburgs were at their height and spending on their Balkan territories was causing a commotion. (In the show, Hanna hails from a small Balkan state called Pontevedro—not coincidentally sounding like Montevideo— whose embassy in Paris is conspiring
to keep her wealth in that country.) “I think that’s the joy of operetta: when you treat it as a serious art form,” Robinson says. “You can enjoy it purely as a kind of pop music, in which we listen to some lovely tunes, drink some Champagne, and laugh appropriately. Or you can find the way the piece satirizes the ruling class, the wealthy, and the hypocrisy in politics and society.” Don’t overlook the fact, he adds, that this is an operetta far before its time, with a strong, central female who wants to determine her own fate. “The other layer is the gender politics,” the director elaborates. “You’ve got this woman with the resources of her wits and resources in wealth. How does she move through the minefield of society in order to get what she wants?” In rehearsal, the director is focusing on that story—on what would happen, he says, if a woman inherited this wealth and tried to reconnect with an aristocrat she hadn’t been allowed to marry earlier in her life. Amid all the glittering music and swirling dancing you’ll see on the Queen Elizabeth stage, he wants you to see human beings—albeit ones from a very glamorous, mannered period, long, long ago. And that’s why Robinson considers operetta to be, as he puts it, the ultimate “tonic for our times”. “That’s what operetta says: set aside your life, imagine this world, and come on in and live with us for a while in fin-de-siècle Paris,” he says.
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Vancouver Opera presents The Merry Widow at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre on Saturday (October 20) and October 25, 27, and 28.
“Circus, as you’ve never seen it before…so intensely beautiful it makes you proud to be human”
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OCTOBER 18 – 25 / 2018 THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT 31
Vancouver Moving Theatre with the Carnegie Community Centre and the Association of United Ukrainian Canadians with a host of community partners presents
15 th Annual Downtown Eastside
HEARTOFTHE CITY FESTIVAL OCTOBER 24 TO NOVEMBER 4
Over 100 events at over 40 locations featuring among others:
SONGS OF JUSTICE, SONGS OF HOPE Stirring sing-along activist songs. Biting social satirical songs. Come ready to sing! Featuring Earle Peach, Solidarity Notes Labour Choir, Quattro, Saint James Music Academy Orchestra, Geoff Berner, and others. Wednesday, October 24, 7pm Carnegie Theatre | 401 Main Street | Free
DOUBLE BILL
THE REAL STORY OF THE TALKING FREDS & WOODY SED Activist artists repurpose popular music to address political issues: John Black & Jim Sands recollect their days as a comic satirical music duo; Thomas Jones explores the life of legendary singer-songwriter Woody Guthrie.
DTES FRONT & CENTRE
A cornucopia of DTES poets and musicians Featuring: Diane Wood, Heidi Morgan, Henry Doyle, Valeen Jules, Alex Taylor-McCallum, Joe Chow, Madeline Terbasket, Apendiglo Duo, and Haisla with Nasty, Brutish & Short. Friday October 26, 7pm Carnegie Theatre | 401 Main Street | Free
Thursday – Friday, Oct 25-26, 8pm KW Production Studio | 111 W. Hastings Street Suggested donation $10. At door or hotcdoublebill.eventbrite.ca
Geoff Berner
Thomas Jones
Diane Wood
An Aanmitaagzi & Spiderwoman Theater Production
Material Witness
Three generations of indigenous women in a funny, biting production that conveys stories of violence, healing and renewal. Ukrainian Hall, 805 East Pender October 26 & 27, 8pm Tix: materialwitness.eventbrite.ca “…an enormous sense of energy, strength And good will. Yet its subject matter is dead serious…”– New York Times
. R M L L A C N R O B EITHSSOONGS
A soul-stirring evening of gospel and blues, jazz and memories in tribute to Vancouver’s historic East End Black residential community.
W A LIFE,
A musical biography of the remarkable and eventful life of famous actor, singer and civil rights activist Paul Robeson.
By Denis Simpson & Savannah Walling with the Gibson family
Written and performed by Tayo Aluko
Featuring Candus Churchill, Tom Pickett, Khari Wendell McClelland, Bill Costin, Tim Stacey with Dalannah Gail Bowen, and select performances with Thelma Gibson
w/ Elaine Joe, piano
St. James’ Anglican Church 303 E. Cordova November 3, 8pm Tix: call-mr-robeson.eventbrite.ca DOUBLE WINNER: Argus Angel Award for Artistic Excellence & Best Male Performer
“First-rate… an admirable introduction to a great pioneering performer.”
“…a truly beautiful evening…. We were in the church of history…”
– The Guardian
– Joy Russell
Tayo Aluko
Thelma Gibson
heartofthecityfestival.com 32 THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT OCTOBER 18 – 25 / 2018
Firehall Arts Centre 280 East Cordova October 31 – November 3, 8pm Nov 3, 2pm Tix: firehallartscentre.com / 604.689.0926
ARTS
Black Dog quartet looks to youth at Quartetti fest by Alexander Varty
COMING SOON!
Vancouver’s Black Dog String Quartet will premiere new works by the teenage artists of the Indigenous Youth String Quartet Project, run by composer Raven Chacon. Photo by Emily Cooper.
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lassical- and contemporarymusic lovers are not starved for choice this fall, but there’s little doubt that Vancouver New Music has staged a remarkable programming coup: its annual festival, this year titled Quartetti, has engaged the services of seven different string quartets, all of them strong proponents of the new and the unusual. Montreal’s Quatuor Bozzini, for instance, will offer composer Cassandra Miller’s About Bach. New York City’s JACK Quartet will present John Zorn’s The Alchemist. Italy’s Quartetto Maurice will present works for string quartet and electronics. But the newest of all this new music will be played by Vancouver’s own Black Dog String Quartet; it’ll be handed to them just two weeks before showtime. And it’ll be written by teenagers. The new works, which Black Dog will premiere over Quartetti’s threenight run, will be the product of the Indigenous Youth String Quartet Project, led by Navajo composer Raven Chacon, whose pieces Double Weaving and The Journey of the Horizontal People will also be performed. “I’ve been doing this project for about 14 years, and what’s usually the case is that I only have a limited amount of time with these students,” Chacon tells the Straight in a Skype interview from his Albuquerque, New Mexico, home. “And a lot of times this is happening through the school year, which puts even more of a limit on how much we can meet, because we don’t want to disrupt their schoolwork. So it’s a very intensive course.… I’ll teach some bits of music theory or western musical history, but even more important will be a discussion about their own tribal music, how familiar they are with that.” Chacon adds that, in Vancouver, the Black Dog quartet will be on hand to demonstrate the various tones that can be drawn from violin, viola, and cello. Since many of his students won’t have had formal musical training, he’ll also teach the use of graphic notation
to indicate sounds that aren’t part of the classical-music canon—which he illustrates by singing, with a wide vibrato, an excerpt from a Navajo chant. And he’ll ask the youths to think about what their music is intended to convey. “For a lot of young people,” he says, “that might be a narrative or a story from their home, and a lot of times it is specifically a piece about a place. They might say it’s about the city, or it’s about the forest, or out here it’s the desert, which is so quiet. So you think of things. You say, ‘Okay, what happens in this place? Is there a lot of noise? Are there animals? Is there wind?’ All of these elements, natural or unnatural, that the student might encounter— that’s a strategy to get them thinking about what their piece might mean, or the world that it takes place in.” This intuitive combination of the familiar and the abstract is a strategy Chacon himself sometimes employs, notably in The Journey of the Horizontal People, commissioned by the Kronos Quartet in 2016. It’s rich in dry, rattling, desertlike noises produced by a variety of unconventional bowing techniques, but it’s also a futurist take on the Navajo creation stories Chacon grew up with. And, as can happen in creation stories, it also incorporates an element of disorientation; the score leads the players into a wilderness of sonic options, and then offers them a path back out again— with a woman finding the way. “Within a lot of these [Navajo] stories, what you see is women emerging as the leaders and guiding the people, the different clans, to where they ended up in contemporary times,” Chacon explains. “And the reason I call this a future creation story is because these things are ongoing. We’re still in migration, as humans. We’re still in an evolving state, and so this is a piece I wanted to write to talk about all of us people in the 21st century.”
THUR & FRI NOV 22 & 23 7:30PM
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Vancouver New Music presents Quartetti at the Orpheum Annex from Thursday to Saturday (October 18 to 20).
Arts TIP SHEET Proving the enduring relevance of the string quartet is the main purpose of Vancouver New Music’s Quartetti festival, with ensembles from Italy, Canada, and the U.S. presenting everything from the nearly traditional to electronically assisted soundscapes from way, way out there. Highlights from the Orpheum Annex series include:
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THE JACK QUARTET (Thursday [October 18]) This U.S. ensemble is so technically adept that it makes the thorny scores of Iannis Xenakis and Geörgy Ligeti look… Well, not easy, but certainly manageable. Here, JACK will tackle their fellow New Yorker John Zorn’s The Alchemist, in which the Radical Jewish Culture pioneer turns his attention to Celtic mysticism and the numerological incantations of 16th-century philosopher John Dee.
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as named by Georgia Straight Best of Vancouver
QUATUOR BOZZINI (Thursday [October 18]) The Montreal ensemble returns us to the canonical computations of Johann Sebastian Bach, but as seen through the 21st-century lens of Canadian composer Cassandra Miller. Expect her About Bach to turn the old master on his ear, but without sacrificing his music’s ordered beauty. MIVOS QUARTET (Saturday [October 20]) The globetrotting foursome offers a new work from an artist Vancouver listeners should know well. But while George Lewis’s long association with the Western Front and the New Orchestra Workshop Society has been based on his works for electronics and/or jazz ensemble, his String Quartet 2.5, “Playing With Seeds” will show what he has to offer in the classical sphere.
“... an extremely educational and inspiring experience… it was very interesting and fascinating.” - IB Visual Art Students
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OCTOBER 18 – 25 / 2018 THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT 33
ARTS
Laughlin finds new sides in solos
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by Janet Smith
“He hit the first note and the sheer depth and resonant sovereignty of his tone engulfed a monumental space.” — The LA Times
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or years, Joe Laughlin has created eclectic dance works for himself or others—from his own solo Left, a pas de deux with a teacup, to TIMBER/Timbre, a baroque group ballet that played out on a chessboard. But in his new Joe: A Solo Show, the veteran Vancouver artist behind Joe Ink has taken a sharp turn, inviting three choreographers to make pieces for him to perform. At 57, the man who once thought he had left the stage behind is excited to be interpreting others’ voices again. “I like the process of being an interpreter. It evoked a lot of memories of when I was a young dancer and did a lot of work for other people,” he tells the Straight over the phone between rehearsals. “I feel like I needed this injection from them—this injection of life and different ways of working.” The project began when he reconnected with local choreographer Amber Funk Barton, whom he’s known since she was young. “I met her when she was 15 and I was 36; she was in a training program and I met her at the Goh Ballet and gave her her first professional job,” he explains. “I feel like she’s my dance daughter.” On a whim, he asked Barton to create a solo for him. The result, called Silas, is inspired by John Steinbeck’s iconic East of Eden—and its Arcade Fire–set ode to the land and agriculture ended up hitting a personal chord for Laughlin. “She kept talking about the land and acquisition of land, and ‘You’re looking over this tract of land,’” he says. “My brother has a ranch in Alberta and I have looked out on this vista of the land. When my dad died, we scattered his ashes there.…It was two-and-a-half hours up and twoand-a-half-hours back on horseback. For that piece I feel like I channel my brother.” On a roll, Laughlin asked two other beloved friends to create a solo for him—dynamic Canadian choreographer Gioconda Barbuto and South African sensation Vincent Mantsoe, who couldn’t have more different approaches and styles. Barbuto, a Grands Ballets Canadiens alumna whom Laughlin has known for years, started by asking Laughlin to bring in old family photos for her to work from, mining his own stories for inspiration. For the work called Long Story Short, Laughlin dug out one image of himself graduating from kindergarten in a little cape and scholar’s hat and another on a parade float with his antipollution club. “She would make a storyboard out of these photos and she kept changing them, and then
For Joe: A Solo Show, Vancouver dance artist Joe Laughlin invited three choreographers to create works for him. Photo by Michael Slobodian.
she’d make movement stories,” he says of the work. Soweto-born and Paris-based Mantsoe, whose Moving Into Dance Mophatong Laughlin worked with in the 1990s, made a trip here to create his solo. “Vincent’s movement is so different—it’s very rooted in Zulu dances, and as I went through that process I became really strong in the other pieces,” Laughlin says, adding the physically pummelling work, called GIYA, is set to Astor Piazolla’s tango anthem “Oblivion”. The question, as Laughlin worked in his studio to rehearse the three solos, was how to bind them together. And that’s when the ever-sociable artist decided to interview his choreographers about their process and use those voice-overs as bridges in the piece. “It was their solo, so I wanted them to be at the show in some way. I wanted to reflect them more than just with their dance,” Laughlin explains. “They [the voice-overs] set up the pieces, they finish the pieces, and they sew the pieces together.” Rehearsing alone in his studio, Laughlin has loved the feeling of keeping his friends in the room with him. And he’s excited about what bringing their voices to the stage will give to the audience. “All of them brought something to me that I needed,” Laughlin says. “The voice-overs illuminate their real joy in the process. They’re very joyful people, and they reinspired me as a dancer.”
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Joe Ink presents Joe: A Solo Show from Thursday to Saturday (October 18 to 20) at the Scotiabank Dance Centre.
KILL ME NOW – Britishtheatre.com
BY BRAD FRASER Oct 13–27 | Firehall Arts Centre touchstonetheatre.com
34 THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT OCTOBER 18 – 25 / 2018
"Blunt shocking darkly funny" – CBC
OCTOBER 13, 2018 TO JANUARY 20, 2019
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Organized by the Vancouver Art Gallery, an initiative of the Institute of Asian Art, in collaboration with SCAD FASH Museum of Fashion + Film wit Guo Pei, Garden of the Soul, 2015, embroidered silk dre ess with with hand hand-pai -painted -pai nted mot motifs ifs and embe embellis llished hed with seq sequins uins,, S Swarov vski crys crystals ta and beads, and brass florets; bouquet and headpiece with bead, crystal, and brass floret embellishments, Photo: Courtesy of SCAD
OCTOBER 18 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; 25 / 2018 THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT 35
ARTS
Cultures mash, grief flows in Jen Shyu’s Nine Doors by Alexander Varty
PRESENTS
COMPANY WANG RAMIREZ (FRANCE) BORDERLINE “POETRY IN GRAVITY-DEFYING MOTION.”
Multilingual vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Jen Shyu melds music and drama into a culturecrossing piece that explores ways to overcome trauma. Photo by National Gugak Center.
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36 THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT OCTOBER 18 – 25 / 2018
onically, Jen Shyu’s Nine Doors encompasses Taiwanese folk songs, European art song, Indonesian gamelan, North American jazz, and two distinct strains of Korean music: the bardic, long-form poetry of pansori, and shamanic ritual sounds from the country’s east coast. Theatrically, it includes dramatic monologues, a traditional Indonesian temple dance, gorgeous projected images, four languages, two goddesses, and a simple but effective stage set. And at its heart there’s a tragedy: the 2014 death, in a car accident, of Shyu’s friend and artistic collaborator Sri Joko Raharjo—an acclaimed young composer and dalang, or shadowpuppet master—along with his wife and their infant son. But for all the grief embedded in Nine Doors, the lost potential and unmade art, there’s also a warm and simple message here: stop and smell the roses. The chrysanthemums, dahlias, and lilies, too—or whatever flowers were on Itaru Sasaki’s table the day Shyu met him as part of her research process. Sasaki, a resident of Japan’s Iwate Prefecture, is known for having installed an old-school telephone booth in his hillside garden following the death of his beloved cousin. The “Phone of the Wind” is intended to be a meditative space where the bereaved can talk to their dead, and has so far hosted over 10,000 mourners. Having heard of Sasaki and his work, Shyu decided to visit following a Japanese concert appearance—and what she found was not exactly what she’d expected. Sasaki was initially formal, even distant, Shyu explains in a telephone interview from her Brooklyn home. But once the two discovered their mutual love of jazz, he opened up. “We spent three or four hours just talking, and I asked him if there was any wisdom
that he had about life,” she says. “And he said, ‘You know, just take in the good things.’ And he pointed to the flowers, these beautiful flowers on the table, and said, ‘See this flower? This is a really good thing. So just spend time with the good things—good food, good flowers, good people.’ ” After that, Shyu was left alone with the phone. “I just talked,” she says. “I talked to Joko, to my auntie who had passed away from cancer, to [her poet friend] Edward Chang, who also passed away from cancer. And it was so odd, because… You know, it was almost an anticlimax. Of course, being with the phone and experiencing that was powerful, but the important thing was the connection that I’d made with Mr. Sasaki and his wife.” That story, she adds, “kind of ties the show together”. And so while Nine Doors is rich and complex and strange, it’s also about the basic human impulse to connect. What began as a kind of protective ritual for Raharjo’s young daughter Nala, who survived the crash, has turned into a more general kind of blessing, in which we’re all invited to mourn and celebrate our own dead. “I’m going to ask everyone to think about someone they’ve lost, or someone who they miss,” Shyu says. “At one performance, in Connecticut, a woman came up to me afterwards and told me that her brother had died in a car accident just a year ago. And she said it [Nine Doors] was just such a powerful experience for her, because she could enjoy the music and the performance—like, it was a thing of beauty for her—but she could still mourn for her brother in a very direct way. “It was very healing for her,” Shyu adds. “And all I could say was ‘Oh, my god. Thank you.’ ”
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Jen Shyu performs Nine Doors at the Western Front on Friday (October 19).
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OCTOBER 18 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; 25 / 2018 THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT 37
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38 THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT OCTOBER 18 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; 25 / 2018
ARTS
A planet’s doom, with puppets
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Lisa C. Ravensbergen and Daniel Martin in A Brief History of Human Extinction, Photo by Matt Reznik.
THEATRE
A BRIEF HISTORY OF HUMAN EXTINCTION
Created by Jordan Hall and Mind of a Snail. Directed by Tamara McCarthy. An Upintheair Theatre production. At the Cultch’s Historic Theatre on Saturday, October 13. Continues until October 20
d THE PLANET’S DOOM can be
a boon to creativity, as A Brief History of Human Extinction makes abundantly clear. It’s 2178 and a fungal plague has wiped out almost all life on Earth, except for the inhabitants of a biodome. Ever is the inheritor of a mission from her scientist father: she is about to launch the Ark, a rocket that will carry the last fetal humans and samples of other species to a distant planet, the only hope for the survival of humanity. Her assistant, Adam, wants to call off the launch; he’s in love with Ever, and he’d rather use the rocket’s supplies to sustain their own lives. He also objects to the presence of the facility’s third inhabitant, an otter called Ommie who may provide an unexpected link to the next step in human evolution. This collaboration between playwright Jordan Hall and the multimedia theatre artists of Mind of a Snail echoes the interplay between simple and complex life forms in its interplay between two- and three-dimensional realities. The spacious playing area is dominated by an upstage screen, on which projections of the actors’ faces and bodies often meet flat backdrops or shadow puppets. Sometimes these represent locations inside or outside the facility; sometimes the projections illustrate concepts, like a capsule history of evolution on Earth. There’s abundant wit and visual pleasure here: in one scene, when Adam incinerates the contaminated orchard dome, we see orange and red flames consume a projection of the model that sits on Ever’s desk. The story itself struggles a bit under the weight of its execution, though, as the technology sometimes has to catch up with the action, leading to some wonky pacing. And we know what’s at stake in the broadest sense right off the top, but the conflict between Ever and Adam feels somewhat repetitive until the second act. Late in the play, there’s a nice twist on the notion that “you either die or live long enough to evolve into something that isn’t you”—but it takes an awfully long time to get there. Under Tamara McCarthy’s direction, Lisa C. Ravensbergen brings a warm, rueful intelligence to Ever, while Daniel Martin’s lovesick Adam is grounded in hope—there’s a sustaining energy in him even as the situation grows dire. Stephanie Elgersma, who designed the incredibly lifelike otter puppet, operates it expertly with the help of Dave Mott. Jessica Gabriel and Chloé Ziner, a.k.a. Mind of a Snail, contribute their distinctive style of detailed 2-D puppet work. Jerguš Opršal’s set and lighting create the perfect atmosphere of sterility for the teeming-with-life projections, and Nancy Tam’s original music and sound design amp up the sense of doom. Hall gives a nod to the notion that humans will be the authors of our own demise with an extended allusion to
2001: A Space Odyssey. But until the end comes, we’re bound to keep making art about it.
by Kathleen Oliver
SWEENEY TODD: THE DEMON BARBER OF FLEET STREET
Music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. Book by Hugh Wheeler. A Snapshots Collective production. At Mrs Lovett’s Pie Shop on Saturday, October 13. Continues until November 1
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SFUWOODWARDS.CA Background image: Richard Tetrault, Alley Variations #3, Woodcut and metal print 2012 with photo of Jim Byrnes by David Cooper, digital collage by John Endo Greenaway
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WITH HALLOWEEN approaching, the Snapshots Collective’s immersive production of Stephen Sondheim’s Tony Award–winning musical Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street has been unleashed at the perfect time. Bone-chilling and imaginative, this resurrection of Sweeney Todd delivers Sondheim’s masterpiece score and the show’s murderous story line in a way that’s wickedly and enjoyably up close and personal: at an actual pie shop. Director Chris Adams and choreographer Nicol Spinola have creatively devised a setting that transports audiences right into the 19th-centuryLondon story. At the discreet Gastown venue, audiences enter an eerie, candlelit room, where some lucky members get to sit at a long, T-shaped wooden table—the best view in the house… And also the messiest. Once the show begins, the storefront’s door closes, as if to say “There’s no way out now.” We’re soon surrounded by the show’s cast, dressed in Emily Fraser’s Victorian-era costumes, as they begin the twisted tale of lost love and revenge. This is not a production for the faint of heart—the actors slither and squeeze themselves among the audience, making eye contact and singing directly at people. The plot revolves around Sweeney Todd, a wrongfully accused convict returning to London after a 15-year exile in Australia. Having been torn away from his wife and infant child, Todd now wants to enact revenge on the crooked Judge Turpin—the man who falsified Todd’s charges in order to get close to his wife. But as Todd bides his time by restarting his barbershop above Mrs. Lovett’s dwindling meat-pie shop, both he and Mrs. Lovett realize that murderous opportunities are plentiful. We can at first sympathize with Warren Kimmel’s brilliant Sweeney Todd, whose descent into complete madness becomes all too frightening in the song “Epiphany”. As his partner in crime, Mrs. Lovett (Colleen Winton) is a fireball of ruthlessness. Winton’s voice is remarkable, ranging from gritty earthiness at times to sailing, clear sounds in her rendition of “The Worst Pies in London”. Jonathan Winsby, as rival barber Adolfo Pirelli, provides the show with some welcome comic relief, while showcasing his glorious vocal abilities. And as young couple Anthony and Johanna, Alex Nicoll and Rachel Park display tenderness together. Perhaps the most interactive aspect of the experience is being splattered with fake blood whenever a character is murdered. You can also preorder meat pies from the show’s pie provider, Pie Hole, to sadistically enjoy before the bloody entertainment begins. Bon appétit.
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OCTOBER 18 – 25 / 2018 THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT 39
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Dairakudakan (Japan) March 8 & 9, 2019 Vancouver Playhouse
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EMPIRE OF THE SON Nov. 8 – 17, 2018 Studio B By Tetsuro Shigematsu Directed by Richard Wolfe Produced by Vancouver Asian Canadian Theatre
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ARTS LISTINGS ONGOING CURIOUS IMAGININGS Vancouver Biennale 2018-2020 is excited to present the groundbreaking immersive sculpture exhibition Curious Imaginings. For the first time ever, renowned Australian artist Patricia Piccinini is taking her hyperrealist, fantastical creatures outside the museum. The intimate setting of a wing of 18 rooms in Strathcona’s historic Patricia Hotel will be transformed for the Curious Imaginings exhibition. To Dec 15, Patricia Hotel. Tix $16-40. DOUGLAS COUPLAND’S VORTEX Douglas Coupland’s new radical art installation takes an imaginative journey to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, immersing viewers in the ocean-plastic pollution crisis. To April 30, 2019, Vancouver Aquarium. $22/39. TITANIC: THE ARTIFACT EXHIBITION Exhibition focuses on the legendary RMS Titanic’s compelling human stories through more than 120 authentic artifacts and extensive room re-creations. To Jan 11, 2019, Lipont Place. THE MUSEUM OF ANTHROPOLOGY AT UBC . IN A DIFFERENT LIGHT: REFLECTING ON NORTHWEST COAST ART to spring 2019 BILL REID GALLERY OF NORTHWEST COAST ART . BODY LANGUAGE: REAWAKENING CULTURAL TATTOOING OF THE NORTHWEST to Jan 13 INTERFACE: THE WOVEN ARTWORK OF JAAD KUUJUS to Jan 9 MUSEUM OF VANCOUVER . WILD THINGS: THE POWER OF NATURE IN OUR LIVES to Sep 30 HAIDA NOW: A VISUAL FEAST OF INNOVATION AND TRADITION to Dec 1, 2019 VANCOUVER ART GALLERY . AYUMI GOTO & PETER MORIN: HOW DO YOU CARRY THE LAND? to Oct 28 KEVIN SCHMIDT: WE ARE THE ROBOTS to Oct 28 A CURATOR'S VIEW: IAN THOM SELECTS to Mar 17 GUO PEI: COUTURE BEYOND to Jan 20, MUSTARD The Arts Club Theatre Company presents Kat Sandler's darkly comic tale about growing up, moving on, and finding magic where you least expect it. To Oct 20, Granville Island Stage. Tix from $29. A VANCOUVER GULDASTA Play focuses on a Punjabi family in Vancouver in the early 1980s as they navigate through the experience of trauma and violence occurring in Punjab. To Oct 21, Vancity Culture Lab. Tix $40. KRAPP'S LAST TAPE Seven Tyrants Theatre opens its first season with Samuel Beckett’s absurdist one-man work. To Oct 26, 8 pm, Tyrant Studios. Tix $26. SPOOKTOBER Vancouver TheatreSports League presents a seasonal celebration of all things eerie with four different shows: Monster Matches, Cult Fiction, Scared Witless, and WTF. To Oct 31, The Improv Centre. Tix from $10.75. SWEENEY TODD The Snapshots Collective presents the ghoulish site-specific musicalthriller. To Oct 31, Mrs. Lovett’s Pie Shop . A BRIEF HISTORY OF HUMAN EXTINCTION Play about the last woman, man, and otter on Earth after a plague has rendered the surface of the planet uninhabitable. To Oct 20, 8 pm, Historic Theatre. $24-$51. BURN Sidekick Players open their 22nd season with a new murder mystery by Ottawa playwright John Muggleton, directed by Patrick Truelove. To Oct 27, Tsawwassen Arts Centre. Tix $18/15. REBEL WOMEN A theatre verbatim play in which the women’s actual words and songs are used to create the play. To Oct 27, 8 pm, Deep Cove Shaw Theatre. Tix $20/18. KILL ME NOW Touchstone Theatre presents the B.C. premiere of Canadian playwright Brad Fraser's play about a single dad caring for his severely disabled teen son. To Oct 27, Firehall Arts Centre. Tix from $17 to $33.
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 17 LIVE AT THE CELLAR Launch of Marian Jago's new book about the rise of cooperative jazz clubs in Canada. Oct 17, 6:308:30 pm, Neptoon Records. Free. I CAN'T REMEMBER THE WORD FOR I CAN'T REMEMBER One-woman play mining the missing files of memory. Oct 17-20, 8 pm, Shadbolt Centre for the Arts. Tix $15-$36. PRO-AM NIGHT Comedy show features amateurs at their best and worst. Oct 17, 8 pm, Yuk Yuk’s Comedy Club. Tix $7. GOOD WEEDS Canadian authors tell stories about their experiences with cannabis. Oct 17, 8:30-10 pm, Performance Works. Tix $20.
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 18 VANCOUVER SLOW MOVEMENT PANEL Forget being the greenest city. This panel discussion on how to reclaim a sane pace of life aims to make Vancouver the slowest city. Presented by the BlueShore Financial Centre for the Performing Arts. Oct 18, 8 pm, BlueShore Financial Centre for the Performing Arts. $12/$10, www.capilanou. ca/centre/. SO, HOW SHOULD I BE? World premiere of Linda A. Carson's play that explores the impact that social and mass media, community, friends, and family have on body image. Oct 18-28, Presentation House Theatre. Tix $10-20. SWEAT The Arts Club Theatre Company presents Lynn Nottage's powerful examination of a community that is formed and dissolved amidst the changing landscape of America. Oct 18–Nov 18, Stanley Industrial Alliance Stage. Tix from $29. ANTON LUKASHOV: COLLECTION THREE Visual artist will showcase large-scale paintings, digital video installations, and sculpture. Oct 18-19, 6-10:30 pm, Anton Lukashov Gallery. Free. LYNDA GRAY: FIRST NATIONS 101 Lynda Gray introduces topics such as Two Spirit (LGBTQ), the medicine wheel, child welfare, treaties and more in her book, First Nations 101: Tons of Stuff You Need to Know About First Nations People. Oct 18, 6:30 pm; Oct 23, 6 pm, Vancouver Public Library.
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CHRIS GRIFFIN: I’M NOT YOUR FAMILY, GUY JFL NorthWest presents two shows by Calgary-born, Vancouver-based comedian. Oct 18, 7 & 9:30 pm, Biltmore Cabaret. VABF 2018 SILENT ART AUCTION FUNDRAISER Celebrate and raise funds for the 2018 Vancouver Art Book Fair. Oct 18, 7-11:30 pm, Arts Factory Society. Free. VANCOUVER NEW MUSIC FESTIVAL Featuring contemporary string quartets from Canada, the U.S., and Europe. Oct 18-20, 7:15 pm, The Annex. Tix $15-$35. CROWVILLE CABARET HALLOWEEN HARVEST Monthly cabaret show featuring stand up comedy, burlesque, improv, and live music. Oct 18, 8 pm, LanaLou's Restaurant. Tix $10. WORDS IN MOTION The Fictionals Comedy Co. and Vancouver Writers Fest present local comedians and poets teaming up for a night of laughs. Oct 18, 8-9:30 pm, Granville Island Brewing. Tix $7.
Arts
HOT TICKET JULIA BULLOCK (October 21 at the Vancouver Playhouse) A knockout new soprano with charisma to burn joins the Vancouver Recital Society for a fun mix of everything from Franz Schubert to “a selection of American songs”. John Arida plays piano. KILL ME NOW (To October 27 at the Firehall Arts Centre) Touchstone Theatre tackles a provocative play that centres on an intense relationship between father and son. Playwright Brad Fraser takes an unflinching look at life, death, sex, and disability. SO, HOW SHOULD I BE? (October 18 to 28 at Presentation House Theatre) A production directed squarely at preteens, teens, and anyone else who has ever felt that thinner equals happier. Playwright Linda A. Carson wrestles with the thoughts that can lead to eating disorders, tapping three real-life stories.
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JOE INK PRESENTS JOE: A SOLO SHOW Joe Ink and Vancouver dance luminary Joe Laughlin present the world premiere of Laughlin’s first-ever full-length solo show. Oct 18-20, 8-10 pm, Scotiabank Dance Centre. Tix $38/32. THE SHAKESPEARE SHOW, OR; HOW AN ILLITERATE SON OF A GLOVER BECAME THE GREATEST PLAYWRIGHT IN THE WORLD Monster Theatre’s production returns to Vancouver for its tenth anniversary. Oct 18-27, 8 pm, Havana Theatre. Tix $15/20. AND EVERMORE SHALL BE SO Play explores the events surrounding a murder that took place four years previously. Oct 18–Nov 3, 8 pm, The Theatre at Hendry Hall. Tix $20/$18. PETE ZEDLACHER Canadian comedian performs three nights of standup. Oct 18-20, The Comedy Mix. Tix $15/$18/$20.
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 19 THE WOLVES Play about a teenage girls' soccer team whose members grapple with discovering their identities as individuals and a team. Oct 19–Nov 10, Pacific Theatre. Tix $20-36.50. RACHEL KUSHNER IN CONVERSATION WITH JAEL RICHARDSON Feminist thinker and author Rachel Kushner discusses her novel The Mars Room. Oct 19, 6-8 pm, Performance Works. Tix $26. THE ART, LIFE, AND LANDSCAPE OF BAFFIN ISLAND Artist Jenn Whitford Robins leads an armchair exploration of Baffin Island. Oct 19, 7 pm, Vancouver Maritime Museum. Free with museum admission. JODI PICOULT IN CONVERSATION WITH MARSHA LEDERMAN Bestselling author Jodi Picoult speaks about her latest release A Spark of Light. Oct 19, 7:30 pm, Norman Rothstein Theatre. Tix $15-40. LIFE IN THE UNIVERSE Composer Thomas Beckman premieres an original work, performed with the Borealis String Quartet. Oct 19, 7:30 pm, H.R. MacMillan Space Centre. Tix $35-40. MARK NEPO Reading and conversation based on the author's new book More Together Than Alone. Oct 19, 7:30-9:30 pm, Unity of Vancouver. Tix $25. ARDEN MYRIN Comedian performs four standup shows over two nights. Oct 19, 8 pm; Oct 19, 10:30 pm; Oct 20, 7 pm; Oct 20, 9:30 pm, Yuk Yuk's Comedy Club. Tix $25. VINO, VIBES, AND VAN GOGH Three art-themed rooms, a DJ, participatory art projects, wine, and snacks. Oct 19, 8-11 pm, Gordon Neighbourhood House. Tix $10 (includes one glass of wine, snacks, and all art supplies). SLIDE SHOW A night of improvised powerpoint comedy featuring teams of two, hosted by Stacey McLachlan. Oct 19, 10 pm, Little Mountain Gallery. Tix $10.
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 20 THE MERRY WIDOW (DIE LUSTIGE WITWE) Vancouver Opera presents Franz Lehár’s comedic operetta, directed by Kelly Robinson. Oct 20-28, Queen Elizabeth Theatre. Tix from $50. FALL ART SHOW AND SALE 2018 The South Surrey & White Rock Art Society presents a show and sale of original artworks in a variety of media and styles. Oct 20-21, 9 am–5 pm, South Surrey Recreation & Arts Centre. Free. PINOCCHIO Karen Flamenco Dance Company presents a narrative involving puppetry, magic, music, and dance. Oct 20, 2 pm, 7 pm, Vancouver Playhouse. Tix $30/$40. T'UY'T'TANAT-CEASE WYSS: STORIES T'uy't'tanat-Cease Wyss shares indigenous stories from her diverse heritage at a storytelling event. Oct 20, 3 pm; Oct 24, 6:30 pm, Vancouver Public Library. HOT ONE-INCH ACTION Buy, collect, and trade the art of 50 mostly local artists reproduced on one-inch buttons. Oct 20, 7 pm, Arts Factory. Free. GEEKS VERSUS NERDS—EP 45: BROOM & DOOM Comedy debate show with a spooktacular Halloween showdown. Oct 20, 7-10 pm, XY. Tix $10. WEST COAST SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA Thirteen-year-old violin and piano prodigy Spencer Tsai performs Chopin’s "Piano Concerto in E Minor". Oct 20, 7:30 pm, Queens Avenue United Church. Admission by donation. THE BEETHOVEN JOURNEY Muzewest and Showcase Pianos present a performance by violinist YuEun Kim and pianist Wayne Weng. Oct 20, 7:30 pm, Spirit of Life Lutheran Church. Tix $15-40. TABOO REVUE BURLESQUE VARIETY SHOW The Screaming Chicken Theatrical Society presents burlesque performances. Oct 20, 8 pm, WISE Hall. Tix $25/20. THE COMIC STRIP David Thomas Newham and Dave Harris host standup comedy by Darcy Boon Collins, Gavin Banning, and headliner Simon King. Oct 20, 9 pm, Tyrant Studios. Tix $18. CARMELAHHH PRESENTS: ARE YOU AFRAID OF THE GOOSEBUMPS? Scary improv comedy by Allie Entwistle, Kerri Donaldson, Curt Da Silva, Ronald Dario, Geoff Walter, Patrick Dodd, Rae Lynn Carson, and Marta Wesselhoff. Oct 20, 10:30 pm, Little Mountain Gallery. Tix $12-$15.
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October 23: 9am-9pm October 24: 9am-7pm October 25: 9am-6pm
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 21 THE SCRAWNY SHOW Monthly standup comedy show hosted by Cory Lupovici and Jo-el Oxales. Oct 21, ANZA Club. Tix $5/$7. DANCE ALLSORTS: IMMIGRANT LESSONS Dance and art collective's latest work tells the personal stories of a group of first and second generation immigrants navigating Canadian culture. Oct 21, 2 pm, Roundhouse Community Arts & Recreation Centre. Tix $5-$15. TANGO TOWARD THE SEA Flute and guitar program featuring music from France, Argentina, and Japan. performed by flautist Mark McGregor and guitarist Adrian Verdejo. Oct 21, 4-5 pm, Roedde House Museum. Tix $15/12. CITY OF WEED Sacrificium Society of Production presents an original scripted stage play, performed in Cantonese with English subtitles. Oct 21, 4:30-9:30 pm, Norman Rothstein Theatre. Tix $25/35 ($70 VIP). BEST KIND COMEDY TOUR Standup comedy by Colin Hollett, Mike Lynch, and Brian Aylward. Oct 21, 8 pm, Yuk Yuk's Comedy Club. Tix $30.
MONDAY, OCTOBER 22 THE ANTIFA COMIC BOOK LAUNCH Launch of the new release by author and comics artist Gord Hill. Oct 22, 7 pm, Massy Books. NASTY WOMEN COMEDY: FETCH EDITION Ten-woman improv troupe composed of Ese Atawo, Racquel Belmonte, Denea Campbell, Rae Lynn Carson, Kerri Donaldson, Allie Entwistle, Carla Mah, Stacey McLachlan, Jenny Rubé, and Annalise Stuart. Oct 22, 7:30 pm, Biltmore Cabaret. Tix $10/$14 .
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 23 STORY STORY LIE: GRAVE DECISIONS Jo Dworschak hosts a storytelling game show that features terrifying true stories and one haunting lie. Oct 23, 7 pm, Rio Theatre. Tix $10$12. PRO/AM COMEDY Mix of pro and amateur comedy. Oct 23, 8:30-10 pm, The Comedy MIX. Tix $8. VAN CITY COMEDY SPECTACULAR Ron Pederson and Wayne Jones team up for a night of comedy, with musical guest Phoenix Laurén. Oct 23, 7:30-8:45 pm, Red Gate Revue Stage. Tix $20.
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 24 DOWNTOWN EASTSIDE HEART OF THE CITY FESTIVAL Twelve days of music, stories, songs, poetry, cultural celebrations, films, theatre, dance, spoken word, workshops, discussions, gallery exhibitions, mixed media, art talks, history talks. and history walks. Oct 24–Nov 4, Firehall Arts Centre. Free to $25. THE ONES WE LEAVE BEHIND Play explores themes of isolation and abandonment and poses the question: are the greatest walls the ones we build within ourselves? Oct 24–Nov 3, 8 am, Historic Theatre. Tix $24-$51.
ARTS LISTINGS are a public service
provided free of charge, based on available space and editorial discretion. We can't guarantee inclusion, and we give priority to events taking place within one week of publication. Submit listings online using the event-submission form at straight.com/ AddEvent. Events that don't make it into the paper due to space constraints will appear on the website.
OCTOBER 18 – 25 / 2018 THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT 41
movies A dance routine on the thin blue line REVIEWS
THUNDER ROAD
Starring Jim Cummings. Rating unavailable
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MEMBERSHIP HAS ITS privileges. And someone born white, male, and middle-class in a midsize Texas town could easily think he should have an easy ride—especially if his ride is a shiny police cruiser. But for Officer Jim Arnaud, who insists he “did everything right”, everything keeps going wrong. Really wrong. Arnaud is played by up-and-comer Jim Cummings, who also wrote, directed, and composed the highly original music (mostly ukulele, organ, and cello) for this disturbingly funny tour de brute force. Shot in the Austin area, although unidentified as such, Thunder Road is named after someone else’s song, a favourite of the officer’s late mother, a popular ballet instructor. The film’s bravura opening—a 12-minute variation on the short Cummings put out two years ago—has him attempting, and failing, to play the tune on his daughter’s tiny pink boom box. No matter: he’ll perform the dance routine he worked out for it anyway. The fragility of masculine performance is being interrogated here, although no one articulates this, fortunately. “Are you good?” and “I’m fine” are the handiest tokens of conversation between Jim and his sympathetic black partner (excellent newcomer Nican Robinson), even when they’re attending funerals, suicides, or violent assaults in the line of duty. Arnaud is a well-trained cop, but he’s not good, or fine, at anything that doesn’t have clearly defined rules and roles. He lives in a Trumpian landscape of profit and loss—one in which winners do plenty of whining about how much they hate their own lives. Outbursts, meltdowns, tantrums, and tearful apologies are always on the menu. For a change, race doesn’t matter much here, but sex sure does. Dudes may be flailing, but the women in Jim’s life buy no bullshit. His angry ex-wife (Jocelyn DeBoer) and sullen erstwhile sister (Chelsea Edmundson) don’t hesitate to call out Jim’s dumber moves. In particular, nine-year-old daughter Crystal (Kendal Farr), who sees him on weekends, is dismayed by her dad’s cluelessness. Fortunately, Jim’s genuine need to connect with her offers one ray of redemption in a superbly crafted tale of lost souls still bravely capable of being found.
Beginning with the unforgettable performance of a certain Bruce Springsteen number at his mother’s funeral, Thunder Road treats us to the painfully hilarious unravelling of Officer Jim Arnaud, played in his writing-directing-starring debut by an uninhibited Jim Cummings.
son and semibragged about his own long-ago drug experiments. As for Chalamet, who caught everyone’s attention in Lady Bird and Call Me By Your Name last year, he’s even more of a revelation here— never overdoing it, whether he’s staggering through a university campus blotto, breaking into his family home for drug money, or, in one brief clean interlude, giddily jumping through a sprinkler with his younger siblings. True to the title, Chalamet instills Nic with an angelic sweetness that is there even in his character’s ugliest moments, a quality that makes you understand why his family will go to any lengths to try to save him. Don’t expect easy solutions, though. Nic’s ride is full of the relapses that are the reality of meth addiction. Belgian director Felix Van Groeningen also avoids cliché, giving a dreamlike quality to everything he shoots, especially the woody craftsman house where David’s family lives. He pumps up the soundtrack with the Nirvana, Neil Young, and Sigur Rós that bond David and Nic, and moves fluidly between past and present. When a panicked David drives past dumpsters looking for his teen, the imagery shifts effortlessly back in time to driving his kid to school. If you’re still young enough to relate to Nic, Beautiful Boy will nail the push-pull of adulthood and the holes that drugs can fill. And if you’re a parent, it will wreck you. by Janet Smith
by Ken Eisner
BEAUTIFUL BOY
Starring Timothée Chalamet. Rated 14A
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A FATHER IS meeting his son at a café for the first time in months. His son’s been living on the streets, lost in a haze of crystal meth, and he’s a mess who’s trying not to look like a mess—by turns loving, remorseful, angry, petulant, and stoned. The dad is a guy trying to mask his bewilderment and fear; he doesn’t know who he’s talking to anymore. It’s an incredibly difficult scene to pull off, and it could easily derail into after-school-special territory. But it’s just one of the heart-ripping moments in Beautiful Boy, a testament to the powers of the two actors who tackle this true story of writer David Sheff’s battles with his son Nic’s addictions. (It’s based on memoirs by both of them.) Steve Carell breaks new ground as the likable but flawed father who comes to realize love isn’t enough to fix the situation. Watch as he slowly moves from hope to anguished selfblame, flashing back to one time when he smoked a joint with his
SHARKWATER EXTINCTION A documentary by Rob Stewart. Rated PG
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IF SHARKWATER EXTINCTION proves anything, it’s that late filmmaker and ecowarrior Rob Stewart was willing to go to any lengths for his cause. In the course of the affable director’s posthumous documentary on the underground fishing industry that’s killing tens of millions of sharks each year, he gets shots fired at him off the coast of California; totes a hidden camera into a freezer boat loaded with blue-shark carcasses in Cape Verde; and secretly flies a drone over Taiwanese-mob-owned finning warehouses in Costa Rica. He admits to us in voice-over that his parents worry about him, but he always believes that “things are going to be okay.” What makes this fast-moving, globe-hopping exposé so poignant, of course, is that Stewart also died for his cause. In a last dive depicted near the end of the movie, it’s chilling to watch the activist cheerily demonstrate how a diving rebreather works, then put on the high-tech contraption that recirculates oxygen—the same one that
42 THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT OCTOBER 18 – 25 / 2018
will contribute to his death by hypoxia and drowning off the Florida Keys on January 31, 2017. The film, completed with the help of doc veteran Sturla Gunnarsson, is an apt tribute to Stewart’s life. It profiles him in ways his previous films didn’t; he talks about being a chubby kid who stuttered, connecting to animals more than humans. It also works as a strong and convincing—albeit scattershot—argument that sharks are in even greater danger now than they were when he made 2006’s Sharkwater. That film had a big hand in bringing about bans on the harvesting of fins for Asian delicacies. Now, as he shows in undercover trips to shops and fish counters, shark DNA is hidden in everything from unlabelled cosmetics to seafood products. And finning has moved even further underground. We see harrowing scenes here—a giant thresher shark caught by the gills in a drift net, a hammerhead being reeled in on a giant hook by a commercial fishing boat operator, the dried fins of baby hammerheads in the back of a transport truck. But the most lasting images from Sharkwater Extinction are the more beautiful moments, shot in gorgeous high definition by 8K cameras. Free diving with curious oceanic whitetips and prehistoric-looking hammerheads in a shallow bay, Stewart comes across as some kind of shark whisperer—and takes us places most of us would never otherwise see. Along the way, Stewart gets his ideas across with a laid-back–dude appeal that will reach kids of all ages, avoiding scientific lecturing and instilling hope even as he’s sounding an alarm. The planet will miss him. by Janet Smith
GOOD MANNERS
Starring Isabél Zuaa. In Portuguese, with English subtitles. Rating unavailable
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and more in the sardonically titled Good Manners, which shifts shapes so often you may need to bring your own neck brace. This is a second feature for writerdirectors Marco Dutra and Juliana Rojas. And the only tip-off that this will not remain a social-commentary drama comes from knowing that their first effort, Hard Labor, was about a woman whose small grocery store offers coffee, bread, and a yawning portal to hell. Things start when a semitrained nurse named Clara (Isabél Zuaa) applies for a nanny gig with Ana (Marjorie Estiano), a São Paulo woman who seems to have everything but a career and a man in her life. Ana’s privileged indolence and milk-white skin contrast heavily with Clara’s wary poverty
and strong black features. (Zuaa is actually from Portugal, with an African background.) In a classic Brazilian conflict, the apparently outgoing employer is obviously angling to suck the life force out of the powerless, yet street-smart, maid. As matters proceed, however, things turn toward the literal, and the two women get much closer and also further apart. Ana has the dangerous habit of sleepwalking—dangerous for other people and animals, that is. And she’s not quite as wealthy as she pretends. She got cut off by her family after getting knocked up by a mysterious stranger who, let’s say, either was a fan of Universal horror movies of the 1930s or has mistaken her for someone named Rosemary. Hard to know, since this part of the story is told through drawings, one of numerous stylistic devices that flit through the tale— many to return, like the weird wallpaper patterns at the start, and others not. The harp-and-piano score barely warns you that people just might burst into song at odd moments. Then there’s the clue that the São Paulo skyline, already weirdly alienating in real life, is given a futuristic makeover like something from a scifi movie. References to other genres and pop-culture artifacts abound, making the beautifully shot film’s 135 minutes move faster, if not always coherently. To say more would ruin the surprises, although it’s fair to explain that some of these are not for the faint of heart. And a few of these will make you howl—with laughter, or something else. by Ken Eisner
THE BIG BAD FOX AND OTHER TALES…
Starring Guillaume Darnault. In French, with English subtitles. Rating unavailable
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FAMILIAR BARNYARD FABLES get ceaselessly delightful twists in this puff of animated French pastry from some of the team that gave us Ernest & Celestine. Although they carry their fine lines and soft watercolour washes over from that quietly subversive modern classic, Benjamin Renner and Patrick Imbert stick to kidsville here, with three linked stories safe for wee ones yet equally pleasing to grownups. Recalling Warner Bros. cartoons at their postwar height and early Disney stuff at its most anarchic, this well-paced effort follows the Bugs-and-Daffy concept of having principal characters introduce their own antics, as if the creatures were playing themselves in an old-fashioned music hall (sans straw hats). There’s also a witty, folk-based score from composer Robert Marcel Lepage—a Montrealer
apparently not to be confused with Montreal’s other Robert Lepage. The film’s furry protagonists are simply called Rabbit, Duck, and the like, with one grouchy porcine fellow (voiced by Damien Witecka) tormented by the shenanigans of his considerably dumber mates, who generally travel from harm to stable. In the first tale, they saddle him with the burden of uniting an adorable lost baby with her putative parents, since the local stork (Christophe Lemoin) is too lazy to finish the job. In the third, probably best viewed a few months from now, the critters carelessly destroy a fake Santa Claus and then rein in a real one. And the central saga finds a Road Runner–ish Fox (Guillaume Darnault) forever thwarted in attempts to emulate the much bigger, badder Wolf (Boris Rehlinger). When Fox ends up with three eggs stolen from the badass Hen (Céline Ronté), they hatch and call him Maman—setting off serious identity crises for all involved. With American Studio Ghibli distributor GKIDS handling such fun Tales, it’s not surprising that there’s an English-language version in the pipeline. But the Gallic shrug in these voices only adds plus de charme.
by Ken Eisner
ANTONIO LOPEZ 1970: SEX FASHION & DISCO A documentary by James Crump. Rating unavailable
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IF ANYONE WANTS to know about the party side of Bill Cunningham, the New York Times street photographer who died in 2016, this movie is the place to go. Even buttoned-down Bill got Saturday-night fever when Puerto Rican–born fashion maven Antonio Lopez and his nocturnal entourage took over Manhattan. Before being felled by AIDS in 1987, Lopez became fabulously influential not as a photographer or clothes designer but as an illustrator, and as a prodigious seducer of both men and women. Most fashionistas can draw a little, but Lopez created elaborate fantasy worlds in multiple styles that could range from Peter Max psychedelia to Tom of Finland leather kitsch. He did these dense yet remarkably fluid works with the help of the more recessive Juan Ramos, a fellow Nuyorican who brought art-history knowledge and business acumen to the in-the-moment Lopez, whose flamboyance impressed, annoyed, and overshadowed everyone else, including Andy Warhol and, after he moved to Paris, resentful Yves Saint Laurent and generous Karl Lagerfeld. Most enduringly, Lopez championed model-muses of multiple ethnicities and body types, and his big discoveries—Grace Jones, Jessica Lange, Pat Cleveland, Patti D’Arbanville— all went on to notable 1970s careers on camera, in movies, and on record. Then there’s Jerry Hall, to whom he was engaged at one point. It’s a shame she’s not on hand to comment, since she now lives with his polar opposite, Rupert Murdoch. But the other survivors, speaking here, are uniformly enthusiastic about Lopez’s charms. In fact, general gushiness is the most tiresome thing about this otherwise engaging doc from filmmaker James Crump, who previously profiled ill-fated photographer Robert Mapplethorpe and others. The movie is somewhat randomly assembled, with overly obvious music choices (“Le Freak”, anyone?), and not enough attention is paid to Lopez’s actual art, given that’s what started all the fuss. Still, to see the taciturn Cunningham laugh out loud at the memory of his old friend makes it more than worthwhile. by Ken Eisner
MOVIES
Tribute to a shark’s best friend
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by Janet Smith
sk the friends who dived with late filmmaker and eco-activist Rob Stewart what most scares them in the water, and the last thing on their minds will be sharks. What’s more telling is what actually does scare them— many of those moments caught in intense scenes on-screen. For Brock Cahill, a close friend of Stewart’s, his most harrowing dive came during a secret nighttime shoot of a massive drift net. They dived along it into the depths, their lights illuminating the giant predators tangled dead in its lines. In Sharkwater Extinction, Stewart and crew travel from Costa Rica to Cape Verde to track an underground fishing industry that’s killing an estimated millions of sharks per year. But they found this nightmare right off the California coast. “You see this humongous wall of death. It feels like a ghost that’s in the water, like a living entity,” Cahill remembers, as he talks to the Straight from his home in L.A. “It was one of the most nerve-racking dives we’ve done in our lives.” When they resurface, an altercation with a fishing boat makes things even more tense. “In our own back yard, there were warning shots fired at us,” Cahill recalls. Exposing the damage done by drift nets has had an effect even before Sharkwater Extinction opens wide on Friday (October 19), with California recently passing a law to phase them out. Bringing about change was something Stewart, who died in a diving accident while filming Sharkwater Extinction, had a gift for. He turned his lifelong love of both sharks and the water into his cause, shooting 2006’s Sharkwater in his
From Sharkwater Extinction, a hammerhead gets up close and personal with Rob Stewart, whose last documentary was finished by friends and colleagues after the filmmaker’s death in 2017.
20s and raising his voice against finning around the globe. Veteran ocean and wildlife photographer Andy Casagrande says Stewart wanted to make the follow-up Sharkwater Extinction as beautiful as possible, despite its moments of ugliness. (Think freezer tankers piled high with frozen blue-shark carcasses.) “He knew that images speak louder than words, and if kids see beautiful images of sharks it will have a bigger impact,” he tells the Straight from his home in Florida. Over his career, Casagrande too has learned to love sharks, which he has shot on every continent. “I can’t go into a pride of lions feeding, but I can go into a bunch of sharks feeding.” Casagrande was on hand for one of the film’s ugliest moments. He accompanied Stewart on the boat of Mark the Shark, a fishing tour guide who openly hauls in hammerheads. “I really just wanted to throw him overboard and feed him to the sharks, but Rob said, ‘Let’s learn about this guy and get into his head,’” Casagrande relates. Both colleagues recall Stewart’s positive attitude even in the face of carnage. And both miss him terribly, making the task of doing publicity for the film difficult. After Stewart’s last dive off the coast of Florida, on
January 31, 2017, when his rebreather went awry and he died of drowning due to hypoxia, the footage shot that day was confiscated for the ensuing investigation. Casagrande remembers getting the equipment back, with the memory card still in it, turning it on, and seeing the first clip: his late friend smiling straight into the lens and waving. “He’s literally connecting with us from the beyond,” the cameraman says. “Anyone who knew Rob knows he had an uncanny way of connecting with people.” Cahill gets through by remembering the amazing moments he and Stewart had on this shoot—including one near the Bahamas’ remote Cat Island, where both men were free-diving for the first time with oceanic whitetips. “They were some of the coolest creatures I’ve ever seen,” he recalls. “They’re a little cheeky and smart.… And all of a sudden the light changes, the sun starts to go down, and there’s this pink-golden light and the seabirds start coming down to feed on the surface,” he continues. “We got this incredible shot of this oceanic whitetip drifting by and the seabirds at the surface. That’s one of those memories that are just burned into my skull. That and Rob’s massive, huge smile.”
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A festival for friends and family
The Vancouver Polish Film Festival thrives on its warm and low-key vibe by Adrian Mack
Friday, Nov. 2. ADVANCE TICKETS: RIOTHEATRETICKETS.CA, HIGH LIFE, RED CAT & ZULU RECORDS
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Charismatic Jakub Gierszal stars in Breaking the Limits, one of two features shot by Piotr Sobociński at this year’s Vancouver Polish Film Festival.
t will be a bittersweet experience for cinematographer Piotr Sobociński Jr. when he visits our city for the first time this weekend. His father, Piotr Sobociński, died in Vancouver in 2001, at the peak of a career that included shooting for Krzysztof Kieślowski. He was only 43 years old. “I think for Piotr it’ll be a very touching experience,” says Vancouver Polish Film Festival cofounder Rafal Czekajlo, whose partner at VPFF, Jendrek Kowalski, in fact worked with the elder Sobociński on that final film. “He met him on the Friday,” Czekajlo continues, talking to the Georgia Straight by phone. “Sunday, he got the message that Piotr Sobociński had died in the hotel.” For Sobociński Jr., cinema is the family business. Grandfather Witold Sobociński shot dozens of features, including Roman Polanski’s Frantic and Andrzej Wajda’s 1975 foreign-language Oscar nominee The Promised Land, “one of the greatest masterpieces of Polish cinema”, in the words of Czekajlo, who programmed The Promised Land along with Wajda’s 1958 classic Ashes and Diamonds into this year’s event. Mother Hanna Mikuć counts 1984’s cult hit Sexmission among her acting credits, and brother Michal is also a working DOP. But it’s the rising star Piotr who arrives at VPFF with
two new features, both playing on the festival’s opening night at SFU’s Goldcorp Centre, this Friday (October 19). Screening at 7:15 p.m., Breaking the Limits is a certified crowd pleaser about triathlete Jerzy Górski, a national hero in Poland who overcame extreme drug addiction and a crippling road accident to become world double Ironman champion in 1990. The film has its flaws, but they’re forgivable, given the brisk direction by Łukasz Palkowski and a charismatic turn by The Lure’s Jakub Gierszal, embodying Górski from near-death junkie and inveterate troublemaker to, as one character says, “young god”. Following a Q&A, the second of Sobociński’s films, Silent Night, screens at 9:55 p.m., although patrons are urged to catch “First Pole on Mars” at the very start of the evening’s program (6 p.m.). Agnieszka Elbanowska’s charming short introduces us to Kazimierz Błaszczak, a man determined to make it onto the crew of the Mars One mission, despite being spectacularly ill-equipped at a potbellied 68 years old. It’s a good indication of the kind of variety salted across VPFF by Czekajlo and his partners. Along with the Wajda presentations, Saturday’s schedule includes the war drama Squadron 303 and a short concert by violinist Maria Harding and pianist Sylvia Karwowska. Sunday brings the drama A Cat
With a Dog, followed by a Q&A with actor Bozena Stachura, plus the comedy Mug and period romance The Butler. Prior to all that, the Straight recommends Via Carpatia, screening at 1:10 p.m. Klara Kochańska and Kasper Bajon’s crisp feature debut sends the couple Julia and Piotr (plus their pet turtle) on an uncomfortable journey to the refugee camps of the Macedonian-Greek border, where Piotr’s longerrant and presumably Muslim father is said to be camped out. Set just after the 2016 Bastille Day truck attack in Nice, the film is described on a title card as an imaginary story set in a real world. Certainly, in the self-loathing and less than intrepid figure of Piotr, we have a character, perhaps a little too identifiable, who would prefer the real world to stay out of his way. There’s much more besides all this, including a few more shorts and an awards ceremony—although that’s as ostentatious as it gets for a minifest, now in its seventh year, described by its own founder as “a small event with a really nice atmosphere”. Adds Czekajlo, endearingly: “There are no red carpets or that kind of thing. We do this festival as a group of friends.” The Vancouver Polish Film Festival takes place at SFU’S Goldcorp Centre for the Arts from Friday to Sunday (October 19 to 21).
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music
Did You Die keeps shoegazing alive
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Q &A
by John Lucas
or Richie Felix Alexander and Katherine Marie Kovna, the choice to pull up stakes and cross the Strait of Georgia was an easy one. As with most decisions that involve leaving Vancouver, rental rates played a major role. When Alexander and Kovna were looking for a home for their tech startup, Blue Panda Digital, Victoria’s appeal quickly became evident. “We were able to get a threestorey space for the price of a one-bedroom apartment in Vancouver,” Alexander reveals when the Straight calls him in the Garden City. “So, yeah, that was pretty hard to turn down.” The move has worked out in the couple’s favour on a creative level as well. The two are musicians, and relocating meant reestablishing their band, Did You Die, in a new city with new bandmates. (For the record, Did You Die features both Alexander and Kovna on guitar and vocals, with Roz Jeffery on bass and Matt Morin on drums.) “It feels like we have two hometowns,” Alexander says. “Victoria has definitely embraced us even more so than Vancouver has, or maybe they embraced us a little faster. We’ve made a lot of friends here. Our last two shows sold out, so we love it. Playing Vancouver is awesome. We’re not there all the time, so we can’t play it as often as local bands can, so it’s a treat for us and our friends and whoever else comes out.” Did You Die will return to the mainland this week to celebrate the release of its new LP, Royal Unicorn. A surging storm of ’90sera shoegaze and grunge, the record is as relentlessly tuneful as it is unapologetically noisy. It turns out, however, that we almost ended up hearing a very different record.
Things changed when Alexander juxtaposed an earlier version of Royal Unicorn with work by one of his favourite bands. “I listened to it, and then I listened to a Swervedriver album from 1991, and I felt that the Did You Die stuff just wasn’t up to snuff,” he admits. “So in March/ April, Felix Fung came down here to Victoria and turned my house into a recording studio. A lot of the bands—like Garrett [McClure] from Scars & Scarves and Jonathan [Amor] from Mystery Lover—they all loaned us a bunch of cool vintage gear and we retracked all the guitars and a bunch of the vocals.” The result is one of the best shoegaze records to ever come out of Canada’s West Coast. That’s not damning with faint praise; it really is a good album, although admittedly once you get past Mystery Machine and maybe Red Vienna, there haven’t been that many shoegazing acts around these parts to begin with. Indeed, Alexander, who had previously played in heavier bands with names like Angry, got some puzzled looks when he announced his intention to start a band like Did You Die, one that would blend dreamy atmospherics, buzz-saw postpunk, and head-drilling psych rock. “People thought I was crazy when I started the band because I knew there was a shoegaze scene going on in Vancouver, but I guess the people that I knew were like, ‘What is this? You’re crazy. No one’s going to like this. You’ll be playing to nobody forever.’ ” Alexander traces his musical evolution back to his discovery of Nirvana at the tender age of 12. A few years later, he landed every alt-rock kid’s dream gig. “In my last year of high school,
Q. Why do you write all the parts yourself?
A. I started demoing everything myself so the drummer would understand to play the drums a certain way and the bass player would understand to play the bass a certain type of way, just because I’m super big on authenticity. I was very reluctant to give up the reins. I don’t need some drummer who’s going to play 18 drum fills in a shoegaze-inspired song.
Q. Why did you name the record after the defunct Chinatown venue the Royal Unicorn?
Did You Die members (left to right) Matt Morin, Roz Jeffery, Richie Felix Alexander, and Katherine Marie Kovna celebrate the release of their new album, Royal Unicorn, this week.
I had an internship at Sonic Unyon Records,” he recalls. “So, hanging out with the Tristan Psionic guys, who were big into My Bloody Valentine and Sonic Youth, and meeting all those bands through them— they signed bands like Treble Charger before anyone knew who they were. Hanging out with people like that in high school, working those events and listening to those guys… Those guys would throw so many records at me.” It wasn’t just his musical tastes that took shape during that time. His days at Sonic Unyon instilled in Alexander a strong DIY spirit. He’s releasing Royal Unicorn on his own label, Blew//Rose. “We’re
doing it old-school,” he says. “We’re doing our own college-radio tracking, we’re dealing with stores ourselves. Wherever the tour is going we’re making sure they have records there.” If that sounds like a lot of work, you can be sure that Alexander is more than happy to do it. He’s justifiably proud of Royal Unicorn, describing it as the best music Did You Die has created to date. “I think that the band has a legitimate chance now with this recording,” he says.
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Did You Die plays an album-release party for Royal Unicorn at SBC Restaurant on Friday (October 19).
A. A lot of the things I do are mood-based, and while I was writing it, my environment and the people around me and the mood I got from it was kind of like the East Van of pre-Olympics, you know? These songs gave me the feeling of going to a show at the Royal Unicorn. I can’t really explain it any better than that. It was just a vibe and a feeling that I got.
Q. Do you think your music is more original now than when you started?
A. It’s more my own thing. It’s less like “Oh, this sounds like a riff from this band.” I guess when you start out, that kind of happens even if it’s not intentional, but eventually it develops into its own animal.
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Soweto Gospel Choir celebrates freedom fighters
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The Soweto Gospel Choir plays the Orpheum on Saturday (October 20).
PARRY’S SOLO LP REFLECTS ON TRANSFORMATIVE TIMES
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IF RICHARD REED PARRY learned anything in the time it took to bring Quiet River of Dust Vol. 1 across the finish line, it’s that sometimes it’s nice to have the luxury of being able to get things right. The gestation period for the Montreal multi-instrumentalist’s solo debut was a protracted one, with almost a decade rolling by after he began working on the sprawling, organically orchestral songs. His full-time job as a core member of Arcade Fire kept him busy, as did his production and arrangement work with acts ranging from the National to the Barr Brothers to Little Scream. During breaks in his schedule, he’d return to Quiet River of Dust, the seed of which can be traced back to a magical day walking in the woods of Japan after an Arcade Fire tour date. With no deadlines to worry about, he was free to go at the songs whenever
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he was in the mood, adding and sub- “On the Ground” shifts from a Sufjan tracting parts, and tweaking his ar- Stevens–style campfire comedown to rangements without worrying about a dissonant portal to pastoral prog. the changing, ever-fickle tides of pop “That wasn’t conscious,” he reveals, music. Eventually, he got to the point “but was more about me following a where he was happy. song forward rather than trying to “I just kind of knew when it was write rock songs, or writing folk songs, done,” Parry says, speaking on his cell- or writing whatever. That’s a really phone from Montreal while boarding natural sensibility for me.” a plane headed to Los Angeles. “Every Parry suggests that it would be song just kind of agitates you until wrong to surmise that the idea for you feel it is finished. So you keep a Quiet River of Dust hit him like a lightmental list of things that you have ning bolt on that forest walk in Japan. to do, going ‘Here’s what I Instead, he notes that he’d still need to do for this spent years thinking about one, and here’s what I transformative times in have to do for that one.’ his life, among them Once you’ve ticked off frequent gatherings he the boxes, and a song and his parents would has made you feel the attend knowing that way you want to feel, at some point a guitar things are done.” would be hauled out and n Pa tio r ry He created one of the unreservedly joyful singf o u n d in s pir a year’s great records. Quiet ing would begin. River of Dust is a meditative mar“What the record is about, and vel made for long walks on overcast what it draws on for me,” Parry says, beaches. Or, if you’re lucky, magical “is all these feelings and thoughts and walks in the remote forests of Japan, memories from a certain time and a South America, or Canada’s rugged certain perspective. Those memories West Coast. kind of steep in you until you have a Parry didn’t sit down with concrete moment and everything opens up. I song structures in his head, instead wasn’t planning to write all this music. preferring to mess around on vari- It just started to happen when I sat ous instruments until ideas started down with an instrument. So it was to form. What stands out is that the more that I had this magical moment in songs have different movements, al- Japan, which sort of kickstarted somemost like classical compositions. Wit- thing that I knew I wanted to explore.” ness the way that the kickoff track, by Mike Usinger “Gentle Pulsing Dust”, starts off with chirping birds and gentle acoustic gui- Richard Reed Parry plays the WISE Hall on tar, loads up on groaning strings, and Sunday (October 21). then ends up a tribal hymn. Or how see next page th
be really powerful in life is music,” he says. “Music has the power to unite and the power to give strength. As South Africans, we have hope and strength in our music, and it just gets into our hearts. So I would like to say to North America that music can give encouragement; it can provoke people to unite.” Amen to that.
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HERE IN WESTERN North now burned into my brain. “In the past, our forefathers were America, land of vast distances and shoddy transportation infrastructure, using trains as a form of transport to the value of the railroad as metaphor go to the mines,” the soft-spoken tenor tells the Straight in a telephone is unclear. Roads, not rails, interview from a Berkeley, rule our imagination. But California, tour stop. “So in other places and at other times, the iron if that train misses you, that means you don’t horse was a potent symbol of both freego to work. And since we were oppressed by dom and oppression. The Impressions, for inwhites, if you came late to work, that meant you stance, were not talking Af pe ri c about catching the 5:15 to were no longer part of that os a ’s S o w eto G Westchester when they sang job. It was really, really cru“People Get Ready” in 1965; their cial for you to get that train, and train was pulled by the locomotive of ‘Mbombela’ is an expression of that. It’s justice, and their destination was an saying ‘That train is leaving, and you’d equitable society. And when the Wail- better make sure that you get it so that ers recorded “Stop That Train” in 1973, you can work to feed your kids.’ ” The tune, now given an upbeat arthey were looking for a passage not just out of Kingston, Jamaica, but away rangement that’s far more optimistic than Belafonte and Makeba’s version, from Babylon’s industrialized hell. There’s another train song that will be a centrepiece of the Soweto stands with those classics, and al- Gospel Choir’s upcoming Orpheum though you’ve probably heard it, you concert, which celebrates the 100th might not know what it’s about unless anniversary of the great freedom fightyou’re South African. Popularized by er Nelson Mandela’s birth. Harry Belafonte and Miriam Makeba “We are also celebrating other fallen in 1965, “Mbombela” was a staple of heroes, like Stephen Biko—people the battle against apartheid, yet it’s not who were influential in terms of strugquite a protest song. More reportage gle in the past,” Ndlakuse adds. “Basicthan agitprop, it sets a tale of longing ally, the first section of our show is against a gloriously uplifting melody struggle songs, and then in the second in order to detail the lives of South Af- section we’re celebrating life—and rican miners, forced to live away from celebrating our freedom, also.” their families while labouring under While things have improved in near-slavery conditions. South Africa, Ndlakuse cautions that The tune is unforgettable, and racism still exists. And with North the Soweto Gospel Choir’s version America seeming to backslide in that is as well, with Milton Ndlakuse’s regard, he has some words of hope. interpretation of its Swazi lyrics “You know, one thing that seems to
OCTOBER 18 – 25 / 2018 THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT 45
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work out. But, offering hope to anyone all make sense, and that makes for an who’s ever found themselves down in interesting process. What I’ve learned FALLON CONTEMPLATES a hole, the Nordic pop star admits that is that it’s fun to challenge yourself.” DEATH ON SLEEPWALKERS by Mike Usinger she hasn’t been immune to feeling that, sometimes, it’s all been too much. WHEN BRIAN FALLON fans Styrke first bubbled onto the Scan- Tove Styrke plays the Biltmore Cabaret on 7 DAYS turn up to one of his shows these days, dinavian music scene as a 2009 con- Saturday (October 20). A WEEK they get to see a new side of the erst- testant on Sweden’s Idol, eventually 9:30PM-CLOSE while Gaslight Anthem frontman. Or, placing third at the age of 16. That led VANCOUVER’S OWN EKALI HOSTED BY: EVIL BASTARD at least, they see him doing someto a contract with Sony and a SCORED A TRIPLE DEAL KARAOKE EXPERIENCE thing that’s still new even to slick, eponymous electroIT’S BEEN AN EXHILARATING him. glitz debut that promptly FOLLOW US ON INSTAGRAM! two years for Vancouver producer Reached by phone went Top 10 at home. OPEN UNTIL 3AM billreidgallery.ca somewhere around the Building on that suc- Ekali. While finding success as the FRIDAY AND SATURDAY Lonsdale area of North cess, Styrke returned bass player with local indie darling Vancouver, where he’s with 2015’s glossy Said the Whale, the musician—born visiting his wife’s parbanger Kiddo, on which Nathan Shaw—spent his evenings putents, Fallon tells the she branched out into ting together electronic tracks. When li g Straight that he started everything from spliffed- offers to play in Europe and Asia and an ht m t Ant h e m fr o n taking piano lessons. out dancehall to dusty to join the Red Bull Music Academy’s “I would read these interviews Americana. Opening stadium- 2014 Tokyo cohort rolled around, he with Tom Waits, because he creates tour slots for Katy Perry and Lorde fol- left the band to strike out on his own. such unique music, and he would lowed, with said superstars talking up It turned out to be an excellent choice. “I’ve just been so busy, I haven’t realsay, ‘I don’t write on a guitar or even a the singer as a star in waiting. Further piano anymore, because my hands go accolades were showered on Styrke ly had time to look at what’s happened MONDAY TUESDAY WEDNESDAY THURSDAY to the comfortable positions,’ ” Fallon for being completely hands-on with as a whole,” he tells the Straight with JAZZ with explains. “He would say he would pick her career, including either writing or a laugh on the line from L.A., the first MONDAY stop of his tour. “I haven’t really had up a drum and just start banging on cowriting her own material. NIGHT it because it would make a new sound. Still, sometimes all the forward any spare minutes to relax—it’s been a FRANCESCHINI And for me, sitting down at a piano, momentum in the world isn’t enough. whirlwind of stuff. But it’s been great. FOOTBALL I was like, ‘This is not at all familiar to Even as she was becoming a star, Since we last talked [in 2016], we’ve PARKSIDE DAWN RED TRUCK BEER me, and doing these chords is opening Styrke decided to step back, retreating done three headline tours, so it’s been BACKSTAGE LAGER BACKSTAGE LAGER PILSNER $5.85 $5.85 my mind up.’” to her hometown of Umeå, Sweden, a big leap.” $2.60 (10oz) $2.60 (10oz) That, Fallon notes, makes every and then doing her best to recalibrate. Shaw’s accomplishments as a solo JUGS $16.50 Jugs $16.50 ONION RINGS $6 artist are, however, based on more than concert he plays a unique experience. Therapy would prove invaluable. POUTINE $12 MOZZARELLA STICKS WINGS $10 “It kind of gave everything a new life, “I feel like everybody should see a selling out venues. After he put out $7.50 because I can transfer songs, even psychiatrist, honestly,” the 25-year- a number of independently released from night to night,” he says. “There old music-biz vet says, on the line singles on major streaming platforms, FRIDAY SATURDAY SUNDAY EVERYDAY are some nights I play a song on guitar from a St. Paul, Minnesota, tour stop. a slew of labels came to charm him and some nights I play it on piano.” “They’re there to help you talk out into putting ink on a contract. Offered Fallon’s sets span his entire cata- things with yourself. You aren’t ig- a deal with Big Beat Records—the SPECIALS! logue, including selections from his noring your problems or whatever electronic giant that represents artists bands the Gaslight Anthem and Molly it is that’s occupying your mind. including Galantis, David Guetta, and $4.50 and the Zombies, plus tracks from his Instead, you’re letting go of things Chromeo—he was ready to put pen to paper. That was when he got an outtwo solo LPs, 2016’s Painkillers and faster. I recommend that to anySOLARIS KRONENBOURG WHITE PEACH this year’s Sleepwalkers. of-the-blue message on Twitbody, even if you’re not at CAESARS $6.75 PINTS RED TRUCK BEER TRICYCLE ter from Skrillex. The latter sees the tunesmith rock bottom.” $5.85 GRAPEFRUIT RADLER GROLSCH $6.25 $6.95 (20oz) stretching out sonically, infusing an “I was in L.A., and he A decade into her Jugs $16.50 (1664, Blanc, Fruit) said, ‘Why don’t you DAILY SHOT SPECIAL earnest heartland approach to song- career, it’s clear that GROLSCH $6.25 come down to the stuwriting with elements of stomping Styrke has definitely $4.50 dio and hang out?’ ” gospel and after-midnight soul. Lyric- got a handle on what 1585 Johnston St. Granville Is | 604.687.1354 |thebackstagelounge.com ally speaking, Fallon spends much she wants to achieve he recalls. “So I went *** VISIT US ONLINE FOR UP TO THE MINUTE LISTINGS, DRINK SPECIALS AND MORE www.thebackstagelounge.com *** of the album meditating on mortal- as an artist. The goal down, and we talked er a bit about this deal at ity, exploring the theme on “Forget on her third and latest k Na lso th a Me Not” (“Would you put your black outing, Sway, was to mix the time with Big Beat. a , n S ha w He decided from there to dress on and visit my bones?”) and things up. The Euro-style “See You on the Other Side” (“I loved electro-pop label in some ways still fits, take it on as his own and collaborate CANADA’S LARGEST you more, I loved you more/But a but her new songs place a premium on with them. Now we have a triple deal INDEPENDENT CONCERT PROMOTER clock keeps ticking down”). economy. So even though the opening with Big Beat, Atlantic, and [SkrilIt’s not a new topic for Fallon; track, “Sway”, is basically just heart- lex’s label] OWSLA, which has been Wednesday October 31 - Vogue Theatre the Gaslight Anthem’s 2008 break- beat bass and soft-focus percussion, fantastic. It’s this power team that are through single, “The ’59 Sound”, was it’s still irresistible, right from when working together and collaborating to also about death, with the singer belt- Styrke half slurs “I got a feeling that make sure that the releases are doing THE MILK CARTON KIDS ing out such truisms as “Young boys, we got a chemistry/Gimme what’s on well and that we’re getting some cool young girls/Ain’t supposed to die on a your mind.” From there, it’s the little people on the tracks. w/ THE BARR BROTHERS “The other thing that persuaded me Saturday night.” things that count, such as the solar “It [dying] is something that every- guitar flares in the candy-coated “I was that I just love OWSLA creatively,” one deals with and no one under- Lied” and the rubber-band synths he continues. “Everything they do stands,” Fallon says, “so it’s one of in the admirably restrained “Say My stylistically is in line with what I like. Obviously, Sonny [Skrillex] having my those unexplored things that you’ll Name”. never find out the truth of until you “The goal was definitely to strip back is a big thing. Having met him in get there.” things back, but the challenge was to person really persuaded me to do it. In Fallon plays “The ’59 Sound” as make sure that things were still in- person, he’s one of the best people I’ve part of his solo shows, and, yes, some teresting,” Styrke says. “That was the ever met and he believes in the process. nights he accompanies himself on most time-consuming thing about That’s the most important thing.” Shaw’s trio of labels helped to enpiano. Don’t expect to hear him sing- making this album.” ing it with his old bandmates anytime It was equally important to make sure that his debut EP, Crystal Eyes, soon, though. The Gaslight Anthem Sway a personal record, the recurring made an impact on the EDM complayed a few reunion shows earlier theme being that relationships are munity when it dropped last month. this year, but Fallon insists the group hard. Ultimately, she decided to write A diverse project that takes the listener from the mellow, splashy sounds of is creatively defunct. what she knows. “I went into the record thinking “Stay Hollow” to abrasive, drop-fuelled “The original reason that we stopped that I was going to write about “Helios”, the record showcases the vardoing anything is that we felt other people, or look at iety of Shaw’s slick production. like we had filled up the other people’s behaviours Now ready to play his new songs on book that we had to write, Thursday November 1 - Vogue Theatre to try and figure them a lengthy North American tour, Shaw you know, and didn’t out,” Styrke says. “What is thankful that his releases have given really have anything to I ended up discovering him the platform to play large venues say anymore, and that was that I was actually once more—and that he is finally able that was kind of the best getting to know myself. to perform in his hometown. place to stop,” he says. People are so complex. “It feels amazing to be playing in “Because if you keep going e go Let’s say that my whole per- Vancouver again,” he says. “I haven’t after that, I’m not so sure Sw th n e r st a r t o sonality is a cake. And in every done a headline show here in two what that means. If you’re not situation, you have to figure out what years. I didn’t want to play any venue doing it for the reason that you started—which is that you have something piece, what slice, you are going to serve.” in Vancouver where I couldn’t bring For such observations, Styrke is the full production with me. If you to say, or that you have something to continue searching for—I don’t know about as fascinating an interview sub- want to do that, you have to step up to ject as one could hope for. She’s open the Commodore or the Vogue. We’ve if that’s a great idea for a band.” by John Lucas to every question, perhaps as a result been waiting a long time, and now of those therapy sessions. If she learn- we’re finally able to fill that room. Brian Fallon plays the Vogue Theatre on ed anything, besides how to work on “It’s been my dream to play the herself, it’s that few traits are more im- Commodore since I was little,” he conFriday (October 19). portant in life than empathy. Except tinues. “I played it with Said the Whale, NORDIC POP STAR STYRKE maybe honesty. but that was in a band, and I’ve wanted TACKLES HER ISSUES “When I’m writing an album or to do it solo my entire life. So this show working on a project, I’m looking is kind of a dream come true.” BASED ON EVERYTHING to find one voice that’s true to me,” by Kate Wilson she’s already accomplished at a young she says. “It’s about finding one wellTickets available at MRGconcerts.com, Ticketfly.com & Red Cat Records age, Tove Styrke is the last person one defined slice so the voice is consistent— Ekali plays the Commodore Ballroom on would expect to have some issues to not scattered and confusing. It has to Friday (October 19).
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MUSIC LISTINGS CONCERTS JUST ANNOUNCED PARK SOUND HALLOWEEN SHOW Monthly musical showcase features performanes by Laura K. Prophet, Porteau, & Tonight, the Fancy Bees. Oct 27, 7 pm, Park Sound Studio. Tix $10-$15. VOODOO BOOGALOO Trip-hop duo from Texas, with guests the Pool Sharks. Nov 3, 7-10 pm, The Roxy Cabaret. Tix $10. BELLE MINERS Australian band performs tunes from debut album Powerful Owl. Nov 4, 9 pm, Guilt & Co.. Pay-What-You-Can (suggested $10). THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS & THE NORTHERN PIKES Canadian guitar-rock bands from the '90s play a coheadlining bill. Nov 10, doors 8 pm, Commodore Ballroom. Tix $35. DELHI 2 DUBLIN Vancouver world-music group combines the flavours of India and Ireland. Dec 1, 8 pm, Fox Cabaret. Tix $32.50. NEW YEAR'S EVE GLITZ & GLAMOUR GALA Melo Productions presents a New Year's dinner and dance party. Dec 31, 7 pm, Hilton Vancouver Metrotown. Tix $50/60/110. WILD CHILD Indie-pop band from Austin, Texas, plays tunes from latest album Expectations. Jan 21, 9 pm, Fox Cabaret. Tix on sale Oct 19, 10 am, $16. SHARON VAN ETTEN American indie songwriter and musician, with guest Nilüfer Yanya. Feb 22, 9 pm, Imperial Vancouver. Tix on sale Oct 19, 10 am, $28.50. MT. JOY Indie-rock quintet from Philadelphia. Mar 24, 8 pm, Imperial Vancouver. Tix on sale Oct 19, 10 am, $19.50. DONOVAN WOODS & THE OPPOSITION Folk-rock singer-songwriter from Sarnia, Ontario. Mar 28, 8 pm, Rio Theatre. Tix $20. WEEZER AND PIXIES American alt-rock bands play a coheadlining gig. Apr 7, 7 pm, Rogers Arena. Tix on sale Oct 19, 10 am, $135/99.50/79.50/65/49.50/35. TAKING BACK SUNDAY Alt-rock band from Long Island, New York, plays a double-header. Apr 21-22, 8 pm, Commodore Ballroom. Tix $49.50. THE 1975 Indie-rock band from Manchester, England, with guests Pale Waves. Apr 26, 7 pm, Doug Mitchell Thunderbird Sports Centre. Tix on sale Oct 26, 10 am, $69.50/59.50/45. TOM ODELL Indie-pop singer-songwriter from England performs material from latest album. May 11, 9 pm, Commodore Ballroom. Tix on sale Oct 19, 10 am, $29.50.
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 17 ROWDY SPURS Country cover band plays on the day Canada legalizes weed. Oct 17, 7:3011:30 pm, The Yale Saloon. Free. CLEOPATRICK Heavy alt-rock duo from Cobourg, Ontario. Oct 17, 8:45 pm, Biltmore Cabaret. Tix $12. POND Psychedelic-rock quartet from Perth,
Australia. Oct 17, 9 pm, Rickshaw Theatre. Tix $22. THE WEATHER STATION Folk singersongwriter from Toronto, with guests Jennifer Castle and Ian Daniel Kehoe. Oct 17, 9 pm, Fox Cabaret. Tix $22.50. MC50 MC5 guitarist Wayne Kramer performs with a band that includes guitarist Kim Thayil from Soundgarden and bassist Dug Pinnick from King's X. Oct 17, 9 pm, Commodore Ballroom. Tix $40. THE JEN HODGE ALLSTARS Vancouver upright-bassist leads a night of traditional jazz. Oct 17, 9:30 pm, Guilt & Co.. Pay-What-You-Can. BABY JAY Local husband-and-wife rock 'n' roll duo kicks off their Honeymoon Tour. Oct 17, 9:30 pm, The Backstage Lounge. Tix $5.
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 18 WILDFIRE BENEFIT CONCERT Fundraiser featuring the Vancouver Thunderbird Chorus and Jojo Quimpo & Dynamix. Oct 18, 7:30 pm, Unity of Vancouver. Tix $20/25. VAMS 30TH ANNIVERSARY STRONG SESSIONS CONCERT Vancouver Adapted Music Society performers rock out and show that disability is not a barrier to creativity. Oct 18, 7:30-10 pm, Roundhouse Community Arts & Recreation Centre. By donation. URSIDAE Local indie-folk artist, with guests Elle Wolf, Victoria Staff, and Wesley Attew. Oct 18, 8 pm, Railway Stage and Beer Café. Tix $10. LIVE AT THE CELLAR Book launch by Marian Jago and performance by Toronto’s Bob Brough Quartet. Oct 18, 8-11 pm, Frankie's Italian Kitchen & Bar. Tix $16.
VOTE
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VANCOUVER SCHOOL BOARD
SOPHIA
WOO
& KEN
DENIKE FOR SCHOOL TRUSTEES ON OCTOBER 20TH
Experienced trustees Ken Denike and Sophia Woo are focusing on co-operation within the BC school system and bringin a common sense approach and positive change back to to the Board table
COALITIONVANCOUVER.CA
Authorised by Coalition Vancouver 604.327.6873
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 19 YOKE LORE Indie-pop band featuring Adrian Galvin, formerly of Walk the Moon and Yellerkin. Oct 19, doors 7 pm, show 8 pm, Biltmore Cabaret. Tix $15. VALLEY MUSIC CO LISTEN LOCAL CONCERT SERIES Performances by Coalmont, Jamison Isaak, and Under the Rocks. Oct 19, 7 pm, Highstreet Shopping Centre. $15 in advance, $20 at the door. Four Friday Concert Series Pass $50. GRUFF RHYS Welsh singer-songwriter and Super Furry Animals frontman performs tunes from latest solo album Babelsberg. Oct 19, doors 7 pm, show 8 pm, Fox Cabaret. Tix $15. MIKE PLUME Canadian singer/songwriter Mike Plume fronts his roots-based namesake band. Oct 19, 8 pm, LanaLou's Restaurant. Tix $12. COLIN LINDEN Prolific doesn't begin to describe this roots guitarist whose dusky voice and blues-style playing are sought after by everyone. Presented by the BlueShore Financial Centre for the Perforrming Arts. Oct 19, 8 pm, BlueShore Financial Centre for the Performing Arts. Tix $30/$27, www.capilanou. ca/centre/.
see next page
OCTOBER 18 – 25 / 2018 THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT 47
MUSIC LISTINGS from previous page THE EAST POINTERS Original roots music featuring fiddler-singer Tim Chaisson, banjo player Koady Chaisson, and guitarist Jake Charron. Oct 19, 8 pm, St. James Hall. Tix $30 ($26 members). JEFF MARTIN Canadian rock singer-guitarist, frontman of the Tea Party. Oct 19, doors 7 pm, show 8 pm, Imperial Vancouver. Tix $25. BEST IN VANCOUVERâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;NIGHT FOUR Performances by local bands Antoinette & the Latest, Little Fix, Muscle and Gall, and the Break. Oct 19, 8 pm, Railway Stage and Beer Café. Tix $10. PETER TOSH EARTHSTRONG Sista Kandake hosts performances by Bounty Hunta, Zukie Joseph, and B Kenyan. Oct 19, 8:30-11:30 pm, WISE Hall. Tix $15. FRIDAY JAZZ Pianist Ilhan Saferali leads his jazz quartet. Oct 19, 9 pm, Tyrant Studios. Tix $10. OTHER OTHER Ryan Guldemond, Mike Young, and Ali Siadat of local indie-rockers Mother Mother are joined by friends. Oct 19, 10 pm, Guilt & Co.. Pay-What-You-Can.
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 20 BLUES FOR MUSCULAR DYSTROPHY The Richard Quan Blues Band performs a benefit in support of Muscular Dystrophy Canada. Oct 20, 6 pm, Shadbolt Centre for the Arts. $52. THE TWILIGHT SAD Indie-rock band from Glasgow, Scotland. Oct 20, 8 pm, Fox Cabaret. Tix $20. TODD KERNS Canadian rocker celebrates his induction into the B.C. Walk of Fame. Oct 20, 7:30 pm, The Roxy Cabaret. Tix $20. HOT CLUB SWING Bandleader Josh Roberts and friends perform at a swing-dance event. Oct 20, 8 pm, Roundhouse Community Arts & Recreation Centre. Tix $15. MUD BAYâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;BRINGIN' IT ON HOME White Rock blues band celebrates 40 years. Oct 20, 8 pm, Blue Frog Studios. $42. THE EAST VAN OPRY Carolyn Mark and Geoff Berner host performances by the Myrtle Family Band, Christie Rose, Khari McClellan, Desirée Dawson, Shiho Mizumoto & Paul Silveria, Hank Pine, the Wranglers, Kelly Haigh & Jimmy Roy, Jeff Scroggins, Las Estrellas de Vancouver, and the East Van Opry house band. Oct 20, 8 pm, Rio Theatre. Tix $24/$28. TOVE STYRKE Swedish electropop singersongwriter. Oct 20, doors 7 pm, show 8 pm, Biltmore Cabaret. Tix $20. SOWETO GOSPEL CHOIR: SONGS OF THE FREE Caravan World Rhythms presents Grammy-winning gospel choir performing a program celebrating the centenary of the birth of legendary African leader Nelson Mandela. Oct 20, 8 pm, Orpheum Theatre. Tix from $29. BEST IN VANCOUVERâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;NIGHT FIVE Performances by Major Fantasy, Travis James, Sleepy Gonzales, and Friday Night Fires. Oct 20, 8 pm, Railway Stage and Beer Café. Tix $10. BIG SUGAR Canadian blues-rock band, featuring singer-guitarist Gordie Johnson. Oct 20, 9:30 pm, Commodore Ballroom. Tix $39. LOS DUENDES Local psych-Latin fusion group. Oct 20, 10 pm, Guilt & Co.. Pay-What-You-Can.
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 21
W I T H G UE S T G A B R IE L L A C OHE N
GORAN BREGOVIÄ&#x2020; AND HIS WEDDING AND FUNERAL BAND Balkan composer and bandleader performs all-time favourites and new songs from his latest album Three Letters from Sarajevo. Oct 21, Chan Shun Concert Hall. SUNDAYS FOR SINNERS Local roots artist Ana Bon-Bon's music saloon & social. Oct 21, 4:30-7:30 pm, Princeton Pub & Grill. Free entry. STEPHEN CARL O'SHEA/THE SYLVIA PLATTERS A night of local indie music, with guest Harlequin Gold. Oct 21, 7:30 pm, The Avant-Garden. Tix $10 or pay-what-you-can. BÃ&#x2DC;RNS Indie-pop singer-songwriter from the States, with guests Twin Shadow. Oct 21, 8 pm, Orpheum Theatre. Tix $42.50/38.50/35. RICHARD REED PARRY'S QUIET RIVER Member of Arcade Fire performs material from his new solo album Quiet River of Dust Vol. 1. Oct 21, 8 pm, WISE Hall. Tix $15. MATTHEW BYRNE The Rogue Folk Club presents Newfoundland folk artist. Oct 21, 8 pm, St. James Hall. Tix $22/18. MEIWA Australian reggae-R&B vocalist. Oct 21, 8-9 pm, Guilt & Co.. Pay-What-You-Can. BIRD CITY Ontario singer-songwriter Jenny Mitchell. Oct 21, 8-11 pm, WISE Hall. Suggested donation $10. QUEEN EXTRAVAGANZA Queen tribute band performs the legendary group's greatest hits. Oct 21, 8:30 pm, Bell Performing Arts Centre. Tix $65/49.50/39.50. DEFAULT Vancouver hard-rock band, featuring frontman Dallas Smith. Oct 21, 9 pm, Commodore Ballroom. Tix $45.75. KING KHAN AND THE SHRINES Eight-piece psychedelic soul revue. Oct 21, 9 pm, Rickshaw Theatre. Tix $25. ZIPURSKY/TOBIN Vancouver R&B/fusion keyboardists Max Zipursky and Jonny Tobin lead their band. Oct 21, 9:30 pm, Guilt & Co.. Pay-What-You-Can.
MONDAY, OCTOBER 22 HOZIER Indie-rock singer-songwriter from County Wicklow, Ireland ("Take Me to Church"). Oct 22, 8 pm, Orpheum Theatre. Tix $72/52/39.50. SEETHER South African hard-rock/alt-metal band performs on its Poison the Parish World Tour. Oct 22, 9 pm, Commodore Ballroom. Tix $38.50/four-packs $120. JOSHUA HEDLEY Singer-songwriter from Nashville tours behind his debut album Mr. Jukebox. Oct 22, 9 pm, Fox Cabaret. Tix $15. SAM PACE Blues-soul artist from Austin, Texas. Oct 22, 9:30 pm, Guilt & Co.. Pay-WhatYou-Can.
S U N DAY, O C TO B ER 21 | 9 P M T H E R I C KS H AW
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TUESDAY, OCTOBER 23 NOAH CYRUS American actress and singer embarks on her first-ever headlining run. Oct 23, 8 pm, Commodore Ballroom. Tix $25.
48 THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT OCTOBER 18 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; 25 / 2018
MILK CRATE BANDITS Local band performs authentic New Orleans jazz. Oct 23, 8 pm, WISE Hall. Tix $10. TONY WILSON QUARTET Canadian guitarist performs with J.P. Carter (trumpet), Skye brooks (drums), and Russell Sholberg (bass). Oct 23, 9:30 pm, Guilt & Co.. PayWhat-You-Can.
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 24 A VOICE FOR VENEZUELAN REFUGEES R&B and Afro-Caribbean jazz is featured at a fundraising concert. Oct 24, 7 pm, Mangos Lounge. $28/$35. WEDNESDAY NIGHT BLUES & BREWS Local blues-rockers the Steve Kozak Band performs with guest pianist-vocalist Al Foreman and guitarist Dave Vidal. Oct 24, 7:30 pm, Pat's Pub & Brewhouse. No cover. TOKYO BLEU Japanese alt-rock duo, with guests Lakewood, Tobacco Brown, and Matthew St John. Oct 24, 8 pm, Railway Stage and Beer Café. Tix $10. JESS HART Singer-songwriter performs tunes from latest album Sex & Bureaucracy. Oct 24, 8 pm, Guilt & Co.. Pay-What-You-Can.
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 25 ROOT DWELLERS MUSIC SHOWCASE Performances by indie-electronic duo Combine the Victorious, dark indie-rock duo Little Crow, and gypsy-rock, groove-infused trio Dangertree. Oct 25, Kings Cafe. Tix $10. ARCTIC MONKEYS Indie-rock quartet from Sheffield, England, with guests Mini Mansions. Oct 25, 8 pm, Pacific Coliseum. Tix $69.50/59.50/49.50. KRYSTLE DOS SANTOS Singer-songwriter and graduate of the Canadian College of Performing Arts. Oct 25, 8 pm, Shadbolt Centre for the Arts. $40. IRISH MYTHEN The Rogue Folk Club presents singer-songwriter from PEI. Oct 25, 8 pm, St. James Hall. Tix $24/$18. THE MONARCH SERIES Featuring singersongwriters Una Mey, Billie-Rae, Yasmin Ray, and Caitlin Goulet. Oct 25, 8 pm, Railway Stage and Beer Café. Tix $10. JOHN PAUL WHITE American singersongwriter performs tunes from latest album Beulah. Oct 24, 9 pm, WISE Hall. Tix $20. TIM FULLER R&B and hip-hop hits of the '90s. Oct 25, 9:30 pm, Guilt & Co.. Pay-WhatYou-Can. THE INTERNET Trip-hop quintet from L.A. performs tunes from latest album Hive Mind. Oct 25, 9:30 pm, Commodore Ballroom. Tix $39.50. SYML Ambient-pop artist Brian Fennell. Oct 25, 9:30 pm, Imperial Vancouver. Tix $25.
RUTHIE FOSTER American vocalist performs country blues, gospel, and soul. Oct 26, 7:30 pm, Kay Meek Arts Centre . Tix $48/45. ROO PANES Folk singer-songwriter from England. Oct 26, 8 pm, Biltmore Cabaret. Tix $15. BRIA SKONBERG WITH "A" BAND This rising star and CapU alumna charms with her sultry, energetic take on jazz music. Presented by the BlueShore Financial Centre for the Performing Arts. Oct 26, 8 pm, BlueShore Financial Centre for the Performing Arts. Tix $32/$29, www.capilanou.ca/centre/. YEAR OF THE WOLF Local rock sextet, with guests Mr. Crippin and the Rock Band Called Time. Oct 26, doors 9 pm, Railway Stage and Beer Café. Tix $8. BANNERS Indie-rock singer-songwriter from Liverpool, England. Oct 26, 9 pm, Commodore Ballroom. Tix $25. MILKY RIVER Local band featuring members of the Matinee blends elements of rock, soul, classic country, folk, funk, and bluegrass. Oct 26, 10 pm, Guilt & Co.. Pay-What-You-Can.
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 27 JOEP BEVING Dutch pianist and composer tours behind latest album Prehension. Oct 27, 8 pm, Biltmore Cabaret. Tix $27.50. THE JOY FORMIDABLE Welsh alt-rock trio. Oct 27, 8 pm, Fox Cabaret. Tix $25. FUNKOWEEN Westwood Recordings presents a Halloween costume party featuring Stickybuds & Skiitour, with guests SIVZ. Oct 27, 9 pm, Commodore Ballroom. Tix $25. EZRA KWIZERA Vancouver-based singersongwriter from Uganda sings in various languages while infusing flavors of reggae, soca, and pop. Oct 27, 10 pm, Guilt & Co.. PayWhat-You-Can.
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 28 LENNIE GALLANT A PEI roots artist whose music typifies the sound and stories of the Maritimes. Presented by the BlueShore Financial Centre for the Performing Arts. Oct 28, 8 pm, BlueShore Financial Centre for the Performing Arts. Tix $32/$29, www.capilanou. ca/centre/.
MUSIC LISTINGS are a public service provided free of charge, based on available space and editorial discretion. We can't guarantee inclusion, and we give priority to events taking place within one week of publication. Submit listings online using the event-submission form at straight.com/ AddEvent. Events that don't make it into the paper due to space constraints will appear on the website.
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FRIDAY, OCTOBER 26
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88RISING Music and arts collective performs on its 88 Degrees & Rising Tour. Oct 26, 7 pm, Pacific Coliseum. Tix $59.50/49.50/39.50.
straight.com
The Georgia Straight Confessions, an outlet for submitting revelations about your private livesâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;or for the voyeurs among us who want to read what other people have disclosed.
Scan to confess Stay home if you are sick Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m really getting tired of these heroes who come to work when they are sick. I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t see the point in that. You arenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t going to win an award, no one likes you for doing it and they think you are disgusting and rude. Walking around blowing their noses and sneezing everywhere thinking they are doing the company a favour? Or why is it that they do that? Clearly they donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t care about their health or anyone elses. And companies need to start supporting workers and encourage them to not show up so they can heal guilt free. 1 person came in sick to my work and 2 people ended up sick after. So ya. Backfire. Jerks.
Why I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t date I removed myself from the dating pool as it seems people are more concerned to date multiple people and hook up instead of getting to know the one person they like and be serious to get to know them. I canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t bear dating someone while they are dating others at the same time and hooking up posing a STD risk for me if we enter into a relationship.
Parking Law #1 Parking Law #1 states that you can sit in your car at a parking meter for hours and you will never see a Meter Maid, but if you step away for 10 seconds without putting money in the meter youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll get a ticket!
Stupid elections There are too many candidates running for mayor. This is causing a lot of confusion for some people. There should be a limit of how many candidates can run for mayor. I say 3, not 7. Honestly I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t care who wins or losses anymore, theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re all full of shit.
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Avant Garde Service Solutions Inc. o/a Tricom BuildingMaintenance, is looking for Cleaning supervisor. Greater Vancouver, BC. (3 positions available). Permanent, full-time job Wage - $ 23.60 per/h. When needed, commuting to job locations is paid for by employer. Skills requirements: good English, customer service oriented. Previous experience as a cleaner or similar position is required. Previous experience as a cleaning supervisor is an asset. Education: Secondary school. Main duties: Supervise and co-ordinate the activities of cleaners; Hire and train new cleaning staff; Resolve work-related problems and customer complaints; Periodically inspect job locations before and after the cleaning; Prepare work schedules and co-ordinate activities with other cleaning teams. Company’s business address: #1115-207 West Hasting St, Vancouver, BC, V6B 2N4 Our website: http://tricomcanada.ca/ Please apply by e-mail: hrtricomcanada@gmail.com Vancouver Building Envelope Solutions LTD is hiring Carpenters. Greater Vancouver area, BC. Wage - $ 27.50 per/hour. Permanent, Full time job Education: High school Skills requirements: Good English, Experience 3-4 years. Main duties: Construct and repair structural woodwork, ceilings, walls, sub floors etc.;Read and interpret blueprints; Prepare layouts using measuring tools; Assemble and fasten wooden materials to make framework or props; Fit, repair and install trim items as required such as doors, windows, stairs, shelves etc.; Operate hand and power carpentry tools in a safe and efficient manner; Supervise helpers and apprentices. Company’s business address: 1407–1 Renaissance Sq, New Westminster BC, V3M 0B6 Please apply by e-mail: vancouverbuildingenvelope@gmail.com
Avant Garde Service Solutions Inc. o/a Tricom Building Maintenance, is looking for an Office Administrative Assistant. Permanent, full-time job. Wage - $ 23.00 per/h. Requirements: Good English, previous clerical experience, 1-2 years. Education: Secondary school. Main duties: Provide general administrative and clerical support; Create, save and modify various documents; Open, sort and distribute incoming correspondence, co-ordinate the flow of information; Answer telephone and electronic enquiries; Schedule and coordinate meetings, appointments and travel arrangements; Improve and establish office’s day to day procedures;Order office supplies and maintain inventory. Job location and company’s business address: 307 – 1477 West Pender St. Vancouver, BC V6G 2S3 Please apply by e-mail: hrtricomcanada@gmail.com
SOV Construction Inc. is looking for Carpenters. Greater Vancouver, BC. Permanent, Full time. Wage - $ 27.50 per/h Skills requirements: Experience 3-4 years, Good English. Education: Secondary school. Main duties: Read and interpret construction blueprints, drawings and specifications; Build foundations, floors, fences, roofs and other wooden structures; Measure, cut, shape, assemble, and join lumber and wood materials; Cut, create, fit and install different trim items as required; Operate measuring, hand and power carpentry tools; Supervise helpers and apprentices. Company’s business address: #103 - 1647 Broadway Street, Port Coquitlam, BC, V3C 6P8P. Please apply by e-mail: hrsovconstruction@gmail.com
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SAVAGE LOVE
Boss must realize risk of jacking with worker by Dan Savage
b I HAVE A SECRET: for the past three months, I’ve been attending a local Jacks club (a men-only masturbation event). As someone recovering from sexual abuse, I find the party to be safe, therapeutic, and just sexy fun. I feel like I need this! Unfortunately, I spotted one of my employees at last week’s event. Although I’m openly gay at my workplace, being naked, erect, and sexual in the same room as my employee felt wrong. I freaked out, packed up, and departed without him seeing me (I hope). I’m his manager at work, and I feel that being sexual around him could damage our professional relationship. It could even have dangerous HR consequences. I realize he has every right to attend Jacks, as much right as me, but I wish he weren’t there. I want to continue attending Jacks, but what if he’s there again? Frankly, I’m terrified to discuss the topic with him. Help! - Just A Cock Kraving Safety
say it, but now that JACKS knows his employee attends these events, he really has to stop going,” said Alison Green, the management consultant behind the popular Ask a Manager advice column (askamanager.org) and the author of Ask a Manager: How to Navigate Clueless Colleagues, Lunch-Stealing Bosses, and the Rest of Your Life at Work. “I hate to
And why do you have to stop going to your beloved JO club? “In an employment relationship where he’s in a position of power,” said Green, “JACKS has a responsibility to avoid any remotely sexual situation with an employee.” Green also strongly advises against pulling your employee aside and working out some sort of shared-custody agreement—you get Jacks to yourself every other week— because initiating a conversation with a subordinate about when and where he likes to jack off would be a bad idea. She also doesn’t think you can just keep going in the hopes that your employee won’t be back. “If he continues to attend and it got back to anyone at their workplace, it would be really damaging to his reputation—not the fact that he was at the event to begin with but the fact that he continued to attend knowing an employee was also participating,” said Green. “It would call his professional judgment into question, and it’s highly likely that HR would freak out about the potential legal liability that arises when you have a manager and a subordinate in a sexual context together.” Okay, wait a minute. If it gets around the office that JACKS attended a JO party, that would mean the employee was gossiping about it at work. Why would a manager get in
trouble for that and not the gossipy asshole he was supervising? Why would JACKS’s “professional judgment” be called into question and not the judgment of the employee who spread the news around the office? “Gossiping about it definitely wouldn’t make the employee look great,” said Green. “The employee would look like a jerk for gossiping about something that the boss has the right to expect privacy around. But the boss is held to a higher standard: It’s part of his job to understand the boundaries he needs to have with the people he manages, to navigate the power differential appropriately, and to not create potential liability (legal or otherwise) for the company. So for the employee, it’s going to reflect badly on him personally (he’s a gossip)—but for the boss, it’s going to reflect badly on him as a manager.” It seems crazy unfair to me that you should have to stop going to parties you not only enjoy, JACKS, but that have aided in your recovery. And Green agrees—it isn’t fair—but with great power (management) comes great responsibility (avoiding places where your employees are known to jack off ). “It’s never going to feel fair to have to drop out of a private, out-of-work activity just because of your job,” said Green. “I’m hoping it’s possible
for JACKS to find a different club in a neighbouring town. Or he could start his own club and offer a safe haven for other managers hiding out from potential run-ins with employees—Jacks for Middle Managers or something!” While I had Green’s attention, I asked her about other sorts of gay social events that might toss a manager and an employee into a sexual context—think of the thousands of men who attended the Folsom Street Fair in San Francisco last month. Gay men (and others) walk around in various states of undress or dress up, and a lot of flirting, groping, and more goes down. Should gay men in management have to skip events like Folsom lest they run into men they supervise? “Public events are different from private clubs,” said Green. “A private club is more intimate, and a public event is, well, public. And it’s not reasonable or practical to expect managers to entirely curtail their social lives or never attend a public event. But a private club that’s organized specifically and primarily for sexual activity is in a different category.” However, gay managers who run into employees at events like Folsom or circuit parties shouldn’t ogle, hit on, or photograph their employees. “If someone who reports to you is in a sexual situation,” said Green, “you should keep moving and give them as
much space as you reasonably can.” I’m going to give myself the last word here: you’ve been attending that JO club for months and saw your employee there only once, JACKS, so I think you can risk going back at least one more time. I would hate to see you deprived of release (and see your recovery set back!) if your employee was there only that one time. Follow Alison Green on Twitter @ AskAManager.
b MY HUSBAND AND I are visiting Italy right now. We decided to try out the local hospitality and have had two bad hookups. Both of us knew early on in the encounters that we weren’t enjoying it, but we didn’t know how to extricate ourselves. What is the proper way to end a failed hookup with minimum insult/hurt to the third person? - Texans Seeking Amore
1. The unvarnished truth: “We’re sorry,
but we aren’t really feeling it.” lie: “Oh, my goodness. I think the clams we ate earlier were off. I’m so sorry, we’re going to have to call it a night.” 2. The little white
On the Lovecast, cartoonist Ellen Forney on dating with bipolar disorder: savagelovecast. com. Email: mail@savagelove.net. Follow Dan on Twitter @fakedansavage. ITMFA.org.
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