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COVER IMAGE Fringe ‘O’Saurus Rex Approaches / Curtis Hauser CONTRIBUTORS Alex Sorochan, Jake Pesaruk, Chris Krock, Gwynne Dyer, Chris Penwell, Brian Gibson, Levi Gogerla, Sarah Culkin, Ryan Hook, Dan Savage, Matt Jones, Rob Brezsny, Stephen Notley, Fish Griwkowsky, Curtis Hauser, Mike Winters DISTRIBUTION Shane Bennett, Bev Bennett, Shane Bowers, Susan Davidson, Amy Garth, Aaron Getz, Clint Jollimore, Dona Olliffe, Beverley Phillips, Choi Chung Shui, Wally Yanish

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8/10/18 9:00 AM

Some of the panelists at Edmonton’s first Flat Earth International Conference. / Alexander Sorochan

FLAT EARTH

The Bible, Nazis, Elon Musk, and the Nikon P900: Vue Reporter Ventures into Edmonton’s First Flat Earth Convention

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peppy older lady stands at the registration desk—she’s wearing a lab coat embroidered with the epithet “Globebusters” across the breast. She hands me my pass, and I make my way into the conference hall. I spot a few other journalists, and we quickly form our own little media table off to the side. There’s safety in numbers.

I arrived at West Edmonton Mall’s Fantasyland Hotel around 8 a.m.

The first Flat Earth International Conference (Canada), or FEIC, is wrapped around me—us—now. I can’t think of a better venue for the conference, and neither could the event’s organizers. The irony of the locale can’t be lost on them.

It should be noted here that the FEIC is not associated with the Flat Earth Society whatsoever.

The members of FEIC consider the Flat Earth Society a parody of their beliefs.

The conference is the brainchild of Robbie Davidson. It’s the second conference of the sort that the Edmontonian has organized. The first was in Raleigh, North Carolina last November. Davidson got into the Flat Earth theory back in 2015 as an extension of his faith.

“I came to it from a Bible standpoint,” Davidson says. “I’ve been a Christian for over 20 years. I always held up the Bible. I just found that a lot more of what was in the Bible I should have been taking more literal when it came to the sun, moon, and stars, and even the Earth.”

Davidson had worked in radio for a number of years with Shine FM— part of his background in marketing and advertising. It was an easy jump for him to go from being a convert to a converter.

The conference begins, and Davidson addresses the audience. He tells us about the hardships he’s endured as a Flat Earther, the ridicule and abuse from media, and being asked to leave two different churches be-

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cause of his beliefs. It’s obviously a sore spot for him—and he calls some of his detractors out by name.

Davidson ends his introduction by saying that he’s had enough, and it’s time to hold people accountable for this abuse. All he wants is to be taken seriously.

“Don’t blindly just trust somebody. Go do your own research.

And before you dismiss something, look into it,” Davidson says to the audience. “It’s important, and you’re going to get to a point where you can only laugh so long.”

The panelists start talking, and Fight Club quotes begin to flow.

The speakers include Mark Sargent, Matt Long, Bob Knodel, and Rob Skiba—each one of them quotes Chuck Palahniuk, or at least David Fincher, at least once. It’s like they see themselves as their own Project Mayhem. I start to get a better understanding of what the Flat Earth actually looks like—it’s not what most people think.

“We all laugh, probably as much as you guys do, [at] the idea that we’re a flying pancake in space,” Davidson says.

What the Earth actually looks like, however, is up for debate. The leading theory, at least for the people gathered at this conference, is the literal interpretation of the Bible.

The Earth is an unmoving, flat object set on pillars with a solid sky above it, referred to in the Bible as “The Firmament.”

The Firmament is mentioned as early as Genesis 1:6 in the Bible and pops up a number of other times.

The sun and the moon are separate light sources that move within The Firmament.

Religion is one of the rallying points at the conference, and in the body of Flat Earthers around, or on, the globe. At one point, one of the other journalists asks the attendees to raise their hand if they’d consider themselves a creationist

in some form, and almost the entire room does.

An attendee named James—last name withheld—tells me that he didn’t start out religious, but converted after becoming a Flat Earther. According to James, it’s hard to believe that the world happened by mere chance once you start looking into the body of works surrounding the Flat Earth theory. Intelligent design is the only logical option. He’s not the only one who converted after finding out the Earth was flat, either.

So what about the moon landing, then? What about space and satellites? The simple answer is that it’s all been faked. NASA is a treacherous branch of the United States government founded by Nazis and Masons—how can we trust them? It’s mentioned a number of times that NASA in Hebrew means to beguile (I later ask a Jewish friend’s family about this and they say it’s false). The red swish on the NASA logo is meant to resemble a snake’s tongue as well—or so the argument goes.

Images of the round Earth start appearing on the screens. They begin mirroring and flipping the image around until it resembles Baphomet.

During one of the breaks between speakers, I chat with a man named Chris Cardinal about how he came into the fold.

“I saw a little cartoon animated thing showing airplanes and their direction, and I was like okay East West, West East, L.A. to New York, New York to L.A.—there should be different times,” he says. “Then I heard all this bullshit about the atmosphere goes with the rotation of the Earth, and I went well that shouldn’t be significant enough. There should be a difference in time, but they’re relatively the same time.”

Cardinal seems to take a liking to me and begins to write me notes on things to look into further. One of the more interesting notes he hands me is the name Wernher Von Braun, who is later discussed in a panel. Von Braun was a German aerospace engineer who was brought over to America during Operation Paperclip—a period when the U.S. began snatching up German scientists, some of whom were members of the Nazi party— and he eventually joined NASA. In 1949 he wrote a book titled Project Mars: A Technical Tale, in which an expedition to Mars discovers a civilization already living there. The leader of this Martian civilization was named Elon—kind of like Elon Musk.

Also, when Von Braun died, his tombstone was engraved with the words “Psalms 19:1” which reads, “The Heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament shows His handiwork.” Why would somebody working for NASA have a quote about the firmament on his grave? It’s interesting food for thought.

The day is ending, and I make my way through the lobby of the Fantasyland Hotel. A man dressed in a space suit with the NASA logo on it is standing in the lobby, promoting the space room of the hotel.

I can’t help but laugh.

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t’s day two of the convention, and Davidson—again—confronts the media for their coverage. He’s unhappy with how City TV’s reporter came in, took some footage, and cut it to make them all look crazy.

He also calls out Sonic 102.9 FM’s Lauren Hunter for phoning him up and trying to debate the existence of Santa Claus. This goes on for over half an hour.

Ironically, as Rob Skiba takes the stage and begins his panel for the morning, he uses many of

VUEWEEKLY.com | AUG 16 - AUG 22, 2018

the same tactics that Davidson has been so vehemently rallying against. Skiba shows us clips of scientists like Neil Degrasse Tyson and Lawrence M. Krauss, and then mocks them. The crowd responds to these insults with cheers.

Throughout the day, people ask me if the camera I have is the new Nikon P900, which is all the rage in the Flat Earth community. Its zoom makes one of the Flat Earthers’ major experiments much easier to do. If the Earth was round, ships far out at sea shouldn’t be able to be seen from shore, even with zoom (roughly eight inches per mile squared is the calculation for the curvature of the Earth—they love throwing this around). But, they say, this camera’s ability to zoom can bring ships that should be under the horizon back into sight. Globers— apparently a pejorative—have argued that it’s the refraction of light, but the Flat Earthers aren’t buying it.

The rest of the day continues with more panels and discussions.

They discuss things like the existence of gravity (which doesn’t exist in the way we think it does), how to get others involved in the Flat Earth community (start by disproving the moon landing or something easier, then go from there), and Flat Earth and the Bible. And of course, there are more Fight Club quotes thrown in.

As the conference draws to an end, Davidson makes his way to the stage to give his closing remarks. He thanks everyone for attending, then in an obviously scripted “Oh, I forgot to mention something,” way gets ready to announce something big. They roll a trailer to announce a new conference. Next September, the FEIC is setting sail on a 14-day cruise around the world.

Alexander Sorochan

FOIP

GUESS WHO? T

EPS’s Habit of Withholding the Names of Homicide Victims Has Carried into 2018, an MO a Local Lawyer Finds Puzzling

here have always been certain constants that we all operate under—the nature of commerce, the notion of keeping your hands to yourself, etc. Yet, there is one constant that even city officials face turbulence— upholding the consistent practice of releasing the names of homicide victims. Recently, Edmonton Police Service has gotten into the habit of keeping the identities of homicide victims entirely to themselves, leaving local media and citizens to wonder what, exactly, is up.

The Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy act (FOIP) does state rather clearly that the basic rights to privacy do not evaporate upon death of a citizen, yet even in this document there is an ever-present tug of war between the privacy of a citizen and the matter of public interest. Homicide is largely considered a matter of public interest, with victim names often being released unless there are legal restrictions—such as the victim being a minor, matters of sexual

abuse, or formal requests by the family of the victim.

So all is well, then? EPS are doing it by the book and we can drop the matter and all go back home to watch our favourite Netflix docu-dramas—not necessarily. This sudden trend is only rather recent; in a CBC report conducted by Janice Johnston it

consistent across Canada and the Western world—seeing homicide as a matter of grave public concern—to go from having everything held as accountable in regards to a crime in a community, to all of a sudden posture that the privacy of people who are dead should trump the media and the public’s interest in regards to

victims of homicide in the city. A spokesperson from the city’s homicide department supplied a rather thorough emailed statement, which reads: “In the vast majority of cases, the need to garner more information about a victim’s movements or prior involvements leading up to the time of their death can be

“It’s kind of like a Kafka novel, where we have this bureaucracy that results in something so utterly nonsensical, and nobody can understand why.” was revealed that in 2017 EPS had only released 60 percent of homicide victim names with this trend continuing well into 2018.

It’s a number staggering to some, especially Steven Penny, a professor of law at the University of Alberta, who received his masters degree from Harvard.

“After so many years of being

understanding the context of the most serious forms of crime that we have in our society ... I just find it very alarming, very disturbing and very difficult to justify on legal grounds,” Penny says.

To get a greater sense of scale, lets look back at 2017, when Calgary’s police service released 100 percent of the names of the

furthered by the public release of the victim’s name. This can maximize the amount of information about a case and ensure no stone is left unturned…. The CPS won’t release a person’s name until they have been formally identified and all next of kin notifications have been complete. In many cases, the victim’s name has already

been published by the media before this occurs” (sic).

To boil it down to logistics, it is simply a matter of a police services interpretation of the FOIP, whether or not the department leans further on the matter of privacy or public interest, two fundamental staples of the act. But why all the red tape? If prosecution, investigation, and media digging often reveal names to the public record, why continue the trend?

“It’s kind of like a Kafka novel, where we have this bureaucracy that results in something so utterly nonsensical, and nobody can understand why,” Penny says.

So there we have it, it all comes down to interpretation of law.

Nothing illegal is happening by any means, but the sudden left turn into secrecy is something that will inevitably raise more than just a few eyebrows. Until the matter is discussed further, we will just have to accept that public interest will be met with the same dignity as a No Name Brand juice box.

Jake Pesaruk

DYER STRAIGHT

ARE WE PAST THE POINT OF NO RETURN? I

Climate Change Is Edging Us closer and closer to ‘Hot House Earth,’ and Humans Ain’t Doin’ Shit

t would be churlish to ask what took them so long. Let us be grateful, instead, that the climate scientists are finally saying out loud what they all knew privately at least 10 years ago.

What 16 of them are now saying, in an article in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is that if we don’t soon get off the highway we are currently travelling on, we will be irrevocably committed to a ‘Hothouse Earth.’ How soon is ‘soon’?

Probably no more than 10 to 20 years away. That’s the last exit.

The article has the usual lowkey scientific title: “Trajectories of the Earth System in the Anthropocene.” The authors never raise their voices, but they do point out that the likeliest of those trajectories—the one we will stay on even if all the promises in the 2015 Paris Accord on climate change are kept—runs right off a cliff.

Hothouse Earth is not very hospitable to human life. Hundreds of millions or even a billion or two would probably survive, but the damage to agricultural systems would be so extreme that billions more would die. The authors don’t say this, of course. Putting it into words is too ‘alarmist,’ but the people who actually have to think about these contingencies, like the military in the developed countries, know it very well.

What the authors are saying

is that ‘global warming,’ driven directly by human emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, is only part of the problem. In fact, it’s the smaller part. The real threat is the unstoppable natural ‘feedbacks,’ triggered by the warming that we have caused, that will take us up to the killing temperatures of Hothouse Earth.

change 10 years ago, I interviewed scores of them in half a dozen countries, including Dr. Hans-Joachim Schellnhuber, one of the lead authors of this paper and then the director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany (and Angela Merkel’s climate advisor).

He already knew all this stuff then. Everybody did—at Pots-

If you spot smoke billowing out of a house, you don’t wait to see actual flames, check what substances are burning, and calculate the heat of the fire. You call the Fire Department immediately. But that’s not how science works.

When you make a statement in science, you have to be able to prove it, generally with hard numbers and testable predic-

“Hothouse Earth is not very hospitable to human life. Hundreds of millions or even a billion or two would probably survive, but the damage to agricultural systems would be so extreme that billions more would die.”

They list 10 of them, the biggest being the loss of Arctic seaice, the melting of the permafrost zone, dieback in both the boreal and the Amazon forests, and changes driven by warming in the ocean circulation system. Just triggering one or two of these feedbacks could cause enough additional warming to set off others, like a row of toppling dominoes, and take us up to those lethal temperatures within this century.

Now, this is not really news to climate scientists. When I was writing a book about climate

dam, at the Hadley Centre for Climate Change in England, at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, and in universities that had serious climate research programs It was the point of departure, the underlying assumption of every conversation I had.

Yet the role of these feedbacks in the system was not discussed in the scientific journals, not included in the predictions of future warming issued every four or five years by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and definitely not part of the public debate. Why not?

tions. The hard numbers simply weren’t available yet—and if you go public without that evidence, you will be torn to pieces by your scientific colleagues (who are also your rivals, of course).

So the climate scientists didn’t make grand assertions—but they did manage to get the threshold of two degrees Celsius higher global temperature adopted as the never-exceed target for the IPCC’s efforts to get the warming under control. (Nobody said publicly how they arrived at that number, but it was because the scientists thought that plus two degrees centigrade was about

VUEWEEKLY.com | AUG 16 - AUG 22, 2018

where the feedbacks would start kicking in.)

The scale and trigger-points of the feedbacks have finally been calculated, more or less, and the news is just as bad as the scientists feared. We have already passed the point where a return to the stable climate of the past 14,000 years is possible, and we are on course for Hothouse Earth.

The best we can do is try to stabilize the warming at or just below the two degrees mark, and that will not be possible without major human interventions in the climate system. The ‘Stabilized Earth’ is not a natural stopping place: staying there would require “deep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions, protection and enhancement of biosphere carbon sinks, efforts to remove CO2 from the atmosphere, (and) possibly solar radiation management ...”

You will notice that geo-engineering (“solar radiation management”) is already part of the package, and that it will be down to human beings to manage the entire ecosystem to keep it ‘stable.’ As James Lovelock, the creator of Earth System Science (‘Gaia’), wrote 39 years ago, we may “wake up one day to find that (we have) the permanent lifelong job of planetary maintenance engineer.”

I haven’t bothered to ask Jim if we are there yet. Of course we are.

Gwynne Dyer front 5

Camola Sustainable Foods wants you to eat bugs.

It’s good for you. / Doug Johnson

AAAHHHH, BUGS!!!

LIKE AN ENTOMOLOGIST IN A BUG SHOP Camola Sustainable Foods to Open Terrifying, but Ecologically-Sound, Farm to Source Their Insects

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dmonton bug-boosting business Camola Sustainable Foods is starting to grow out of its larval state. The relatively new—roughly a year old—operation previously purchased the crickets it uses to make its flour from a company in Ontario.

However, sometime in the next few months, it will be opening its own ‘farm,’ so it can grow its nasty, but healthy, food stuffs closer to home.

“It’s basically an enclosed unit that’s going to be in a farm,” says one of Camola’s founders, Claudio La Rocca, adding that the bug barn will be opening around an hour’s drive away from Edmonton in the next month or so.

The crickets live their gross lives in the large box and can “chirp as much as they like,” La Rocca says.

Near the end of their life cycles— around four to six weeks—Camola’s founders collect and freeze them, effectively killing them in a way that mimics winter. The company, then, processes them into flour.

The flour is roughly 70 percent protein, and is a good source of

vitamin B12 and iron. It also contains Omega 3 and 6 fatty acids.

While creepy crawlies creep and/or crawl most places in Canada, people cannot, in fact, gather their own edible insects for food—or at least they shouldn’t, La Rocca says.

“You don’t know what [the bugs] have been exposed to. You don’t know if they’ve been exposed to pesticides or pollution, and also there are not many wild crickets in Canada. Harvesting crickets from the wild would also affect the natural population,” he adds.

La Rocca and his partner Silvia Ronzani studied entomology at the University of Alberta a few years back—eventually La Rocca received his masters degree; Ronzani is still working on hers. Their studies gave them insight into the “cost of food” on a broader level, La Rocca says, and the impact humanity’s current attitudes towards agriculture and animal husbandry has on the Earth’s ecosystems.

They got the chance to eat a grasshopper cooked with some

spices. According to La Rocca, the crunchy morsel was “OK,” but lacked some culinary flair.

“It was very hearty, herby. It did lack a bit of something,” La Rocca says. “We started looking into different insects and why they’re sustainable, their nutrient profile, and how we can use them to help the environment.”

The pair then teamed up with a chef from NAIT and began developing some recipes. Over time, this effort grew into Camola.

Currently, the small business exclusively uses crickets and mealworms, and sells the flour online and at various farmers’ markets around they city.

The business has no current plans to set up a physical shop any time soon, as farmers’ markets are a good way to do some out-reach while making sales.

While crickets are the most commonly used bug for food in North America, Camola is considering expanding its line. There are roughly 2,000 edible species of bugs in the world, La Rocca says.

Doug Johnson doug@vueweekly.com

the show-stopper

6 dish

KITCHEN TIPS So, you want to make a cocktail?

Y

ou’ve probably heard the word ‘cocktail’ more times than you can count by now. I’m not talking about Tom Cruise’s virtuoso performance in the 1988 hit of the same name (although that brings some images to mind).

Rather, I’m talking about the storm that has taken over backyard barbecues, birthdays, dining experiences, and living rooms.

The love for your basic gin and tonic still exists, but the days of the ordinary highball are almost behind us. One can’t help but get swept up in the cocktail craze. So, let’s talk about the concept of a cocktail.

The word cocktail was first recorded in The Farmers Cabinet, April 28, 1803. Widely, spirits were used as medicine; they were described as being “good for the head”—that’s actually how a lot of spirits started their lives. Much has changed since then, but the core of a cocktail hasn’t differed.

The palate, however, has continued to evolve to some of the creative drinks you see today.

How can anyone master these creations? By following some basics, it can be easy to experiment with crafting concoctions at home. First things first, however, is what a cocktail is composed of—a spirit of your choice, sugar, bitter and a citrus. The standard for any cocktail includes variations of each to create balance.

A cocktail should contain these four key ingredients to be classified as such, but it also needs to be balanced and palatable. Intrepid cocktail smiths also need the right tools. Buy a Boston shaker, mixing glass, and jigger—

VUEWEEKLY.com | AUG 16 - AUG 22, 2018

other tools are available, and a well-stocked bar will be a successful one. With these basics, you’re pretty close to being one of those tattooed bartenders who mix up inventive beverages at trendy bars. Well, not quite—you need practice, and for many of them it’s a passion.

Pick up some books, read things online and even watch videos if you are new to making cocktails. Take some classes from Wine and Beyond— from September to December they are running a cocktail master series each week.

Sign up and give it a try, learn from a pro. Also, reach out to your local watering holes, sit on the bar and ask questions.

These people love to share their passion! Take risks, make bad drinks, make good drinks, make many drinks, and just have fun with it. No one starts off as a pro.

Chris Krock, Cocktail Guy and Former General Manager Ampersand 27 Rum Old Fashioned •2oz Bacardi 8 (or your favourite aged rum) •1/4oz rich demerara syrup— simple syrup made with, you guessed it, demerara sugar •3 dashes Angostura bitters •1 orange peel In mixing glass, add all ingredients except orange. Add ice and stir until chilled and diluted (taste for dilution). Strain with julep strainer over large format ice (this will prevent a watered-down drink). Use a vegetable peeler and peel off a rind of orange. Turn orange skin side down and squeeze over drink, rub around rim and drop in. Enjoy responsibly.

Danika Vandersteen and Woodrow Graves in The Crescent. / Supplied

CANADIAN HORROR

The Crescent Delivers Psychological Horror, Bleak Atmosphere, and a Sinister Score

T

he Crescent—directed, edited, co-written, and scored

by Seth A. Smith—is a surrealist psychological thriller set in a remote seaside cottage. It stars Danika Vandersteen as Beth, a recently widowed mother, and Woodrow Graves, Smith’s child, as her three-year-old son Lowen. The Crescent is a slow burning and atmospheric exploration of early motherhood and catastrophic loss. Smith’s latest transcendent opus is both a ghost story and side glance into the creeping psychological horror of single parenthood as stages of grief that follow after tragedy.

“Parents seem to have the strongest reaction towards the film, but people might see the film in different ways,” Smith says. “Kids that young don’t really have the language skills developed, and we were very conscious of his schedule. Capturing Woodrow’s parts was largely like a nature photographer might, hiding in the bushes.

You really need to work with their schedule with a child that age.”

A significant contributor to the bleak atmosphere is the film’s lo-

cation and setting. It was shot on location in Nova Scotia, and the beach and the water are a constant presence (characters regularly talk of their otherworldly nature and special properties).

The film begins by enveloping us in marbleizing paint—a psychedelic overlapping of kaleidoscopic colours raked to warp dots of paint into abstract and fluid patterns—and loud aural pulses of synth and dissonance accentuate the musical soundscape as heavy and permanent, as those oils provide fluidity and a malleable backdrop eerily reminiscint of the ocean tide.

“The ocean is more of an atmospheric component of the film, I wouldn’t say it’s a direct metaphor for anything, but there’s something about the endless horizon, this endless realm, this world this film occupies and the vacant space of two people alone,” Smith says.

The Crescent makes apt use of its lone setting against the endless waterfront. The house is a multi-storied gothic monstrosity—a Lovecraftian witch house

complete with winding hallways and hidden doorways.

As the threat to Lowen’s safety escalates, the soundtrack and imagery evolve to match. The angry frenetic buzzing of the doorbell punctures their sleep every night, while moths, bugs, and the most feral-looking cat since Pet Sematary begin mysteriously appearing inside the house, terrorizing Beth and eroding her mental stability. Joseph (Terrance Murray), their sinister, soft-spoken neighbour, also seems to have easy access to the home’s interior, even as his body appears to decompose into a disgusting, Cronenbergian crab monstrosity. While Lowen remains unaffected, Beth spirals into madness, which director Smith captures in a surreal, hallucinatory fashion, playing on the captivating paintings that she produces in her studio throughout the film.

The score features original compositions, and is largely influenced

by Smith’s love of classical music, church organ records, and 1970s space-disco. It was created with

virtual instruments, and Smith used improvised voice recordings from the cast, and the warped sound of himself pretending to cry, to create both an auditory and visual hallucinogenic experience highlighting the film’s dark nature and surrealist narrative.

“I had some ideas about music going into the film ahead of time.

Music in film is, in a weird way, manipulation. You’re kind of trying to trick people into feeling a certain way without being too overbearing,” Smith says.

Even with a modest budget, The Crescent utilizes its art-house

The Crescent Directed by Seth A. Smith Now playing at select theatres roots, and avant-garde storytelling to weave a smart and sinister tale.

“The film is ultimately about dead folk who don’t want to stay dead … There’s something about the endless horizon of the ocean and the place this film occupies … We make these things partly for ourselves, but mostly for other people, I hope they take something away from it.”

Levi Gogerla

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film 7

MS DOCUMENTARY

Patrycia Rzechowka was diagnosed with MS in 2012, and has become a spokesperson for the MS Society of Canada. / Dave Rudichuk

LICENCE TO LAUGH

BETTER TO LIVE AND LET THIS DIE The Spy Who Dumped Me Is neither Stirred, nor Shaken

NOT MS’ING AROUND

Leven Creative Pitches Documentary About Edmonton Woman with MS in Storyhive’s First Documentary Edition

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iagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS) in 2012, Edmontonian Patrycia Rzechowka now lives with constant uncertainty.

Doctors don’t yet know what causes MS, and symptoms are different for everyone. They can also change unexpectedly. For instance, Rzechowka was first diagnosed because she lost vision in her left eye, but it has (mostly) since returned. Despite this, she has risen to the challenges set before her, and is now a spokesperson for the MS Society of Canada—raising nearly $22,000 for an MS Bike event in June.

Rzechowka is also the subject of a 20-minute film pitched for the Documentary Edition of Telus’ Storyhive. Leven Creative put forward MS’ed with the Wrong Girl for public voting between July 30 and Aug. 2, and must now wait until Sept. 7 to find out if the film will receive funding.

Given that the pitch video was viewed 18,000 times, and the overall campaign for the film received over 100,000 impressions, Kelly

Wolfert, the director, and Julia Grochowski, the editor and project lead, believe there’s a chance they got the votes they needed to be in the top 15 and take home a grant.

If they didn’t, there’s still a chance they could be among the other 15 grant recipients chosen by a jury.

“Sept. 7 can’t come fast enough when you invest this much time,” Wolfert says.

He and Grochowski say they want to make MS’ed with the Wrong Girl because there aren’t that many docs about MS, and none that they’re aware of showing the day to day of a young woman like Rzechowka.

“How many 29-year-olds are there that work all day, and then fundraise and do as much as they can in their off time, while also fitting in trying to do as much physical activity as possible because they have MS?” Wolfert asks.

Rzechowka’s regular symptoms include numbness, tingling—a feeling similar to pins and needles— trouble sleeping even though she’s

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very tired, and ‘MS hugs’—where the intercostal muscles tighten up and make her feel like she’s being squeezed. Her fundraising supports MS research to not only find a cure, but to find treatments for people who already have MS, and to prevent MS. But she also helps out others with their fundraising efforts.

“Anyone that supports me in whatever way, they kind of do their own thing too … So some of the people that do the bike tour with me, we do a food bank fundraiser every year,” Rzechowka says.

She also does fundraisers for the Zebra Child Protection Centre, Ronald McDonald House, and other causes.

Rzechowka is always on the move, and will be riding from Portland, Oregon to San Francisco, California, starting on Sept. 13. In the event that Leven Creative receives a Storyhive grant, that isn’t a lot of time for Wolfert to go down and shoot parts of the ride for the documentary. But that’s the plan.

If the company doesn’t receive the grant, it will mean pushing back production while Wolfert and Grochowski search for a broadcaster, and then approach investors.

The Storyhive winners will have their docs screened on Telus Optic TV, which not only removes the need to look for a broadcaster, but also makes it possible for them to pursue other funding.

“The filmmakers own the rights to their projects, so we have an nonexclusive agreement with sharing the content,” says Lizzy Karp, the senior manager of Storyhive. “So they can develop it further, they can chat with other partners.”

Karp explains that this is the first time Storyhive has run a program specifically for documentary storytellers, and says the Documentary Edition came about because a lot of strong documentary projects had come through in the Web Series and Digital Shorts editions.

Storyhive’s next call for proposals is for the Music Videos Edition, and will begin in September.

Chelsea Novak chelsea@vueweekly.com

VUEWEEKLY.com | AUG 16 - AUG 22, 2018

Kate McKinnon and Mila Kunis are like spies and junk. / Lionsgate

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hat happens when you mix the action of Mission Impossible and a comedy starring Mila Kunis and Kate McKinnon? You get a bullshit cocktail that is neither stirred, nor shaken. There is a slight tinge of promise, but it fails at almost every turn.

The Spy Who Dumped Me features best friends Audrey (Kunis) and Morgan (McKinnon), who are wrapped up in an international espionage crisis after Audrey’s boyfriend (Justin Theroux) turns out to be a spy. He gives her a trophy and tells her to keep it safe. Shenanigans then ensue throughout Europe.

Spy, another spy comedy/ action film, succeeds because it features an endearing character who develops over the course of the plot. In The Spy Who Dumped Me, there is a similar premise, with regular people involving themselves in espionage, but the characters are very unlikable as they make dumb decisions, experience little development, and barely care about what happens to others. Kunis’ character is bland, as well.

The problem arises mainly from the drivel that comes from the dialogue. They use pop culture references that make little sense in their situation, desperate toilet humour that is honestly gross at points, and dialogue that comes out of nowhere and attempts to elicit random laughter from the audience. The script is written like it’s for a cartoon rather than a live action flick. Where the humour does come from, however, is the physical comedy.

There are some excellent set ups for laughs that really hit.

Despite the bad comedy, the cast made a valiant effort. McKinnon’s character is a somewhat kooky woman who plays well

The Spy Who Dumped Me Directed by Susanna Fogel Now playing  with Kunis’ straight woman.

The two share a great chemistry with each other, and you believe that they have been best friends for a long time. The timing was right, even though the lines were forced, and the performances were surprisingly believable, and, a few times, quite stirring.

The plot is actually riveting at points. It’s hard to know who exactly is telling the truth between Audrey and Morgan, which kept most of the runtime interesting to watch. The villain is a stereotypical Eastern European affair, but the movie makes fun of it, and ups it to the nth degree, in an almost Kingsman-like way.

The best parts of the movie are actually the action scenes led by Theroux and Sam Heughan (who plays British agent Sebastian), directed by Susanna Fogel. They are exciting to watch, and with a few comedic edges, it deviates from the standard spy movie affair.

They all feel genuine as well with no apparent use of CG; it looks like it’s all practical with a reported $40 million budget, according to Box Office Mojo.

The Spy Who Dumped Me succeeds with its action scenes and physical comedy, but fails with its childish script and unlikable characters. The ending points to the possibility of a sequel, but with its seemingly disappointing box office return and mediocre response, it’s better to live and let this die.

Chris Penwell

Coyote Doggirl loves to complain to her horse and go exploring. / Lisa Hanawalt

COMICS

Coyote Doggirl Uses Witty Water Colour Sketches to Spoof Hollywood Westerns Coyote Doggirl

by Lisa Hanawalt Drawn & Quarterly

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sychologist Carl Jung once described animals as “sublime,” representing the “divine” side of the human psyche. Perhaps this is one of the reasons artist Lisa Hanawalt is positively obsessed with drawing anthropomorphic animals that are in some ways, more human than we are. People may not immediately know the name Hanawalt, but she is responsible for the design of Netflix’s beloved, self-loathing, heavy-drinking, humanoid horse, Bojack Horseman.

Her latest upcoming venture Coyote Doggirl, an illustrated comic panel book about a fiery, fashionable, half-dog, half-coyote girl falls within the same

realm of humour as Bojack Horseman, but also offers a fresh perspective on the Western genre. Each character is once again an anthropomorphic animal that almost satirizes some vaguely well-known Western characters like Butch Cassidy, Tonto, The Lone Ranger, and Davy Crockett, to an extent.

The book begins in an unknown desert with Coyote Doggirl talking to her trusty steed, Red, while they trot through the water-coloured countryside. The intro page lists some “Important Information” with quick illustrations before learning of Coyote Doggirl’s tale.

Her intelligence is rated as “high,” but her attitude is “too much.” She also designs all of her own clothes including her crop halter top and pants (a detail that becomes quite substantial later on).

FRINGEPICKS Guenevere // Thu., Aug. 16 – Fri., Aug. 24 The story of the wife of King Arthur Pendragon is usually one cast in vague shadow. King Arthur has movies, video games, board games, and even a flour named after him, but what about his wife Guenevere? John Richardson’s play looks to cast a spotlight on Guenevere and her powerful control over The Once and Future King, but in the form of a Greek tragedy. Get ready for the insidious love triangle between Guenevere, Arthur, and his “best friend” Lancelot. Directed by Eric Smith (known for last year’s Fringe hits Oleanna and The Sinners Club) this performance is definitely going to crush this year’s Fringe. (Drama, Westbury Theatre, Parental Guidance) // SB L’After Party // Thu., Aug. 16 – Sat., Aug. 25 (12:15 am nightly) The Grindstone Theatre infringes on the festival with this unofficial after party. Byron Martin and Ellie Heath host, DJ Joses Martin brings the beats, and there are hot dogs and $5 beers. While you’re there you can pick up tickets from the Grindstone’s in-house Fringe box office. (The Grindstone, $12) // CN

Big Ol Show // Thu., Aug. 16 – Sun., Aug. 26 The Fringe is bombarded with plenty of improv—some of it

The plot seems simple and light-hearted enough until a few pages in. Coyote Doggirl is punctured with a deluge of arrows, leaving her to pass out and nearly bleed out. She awakes to a pack of coyotes who have strapped her to a horse and are bringing her back to camp. Red also seems to have vanished.

The story takes something of an absurdist turn—pairing quite nicely with Hanawalt’s vibrant, aqueous art style—sprinkling in a few flashbacks here and there, revealing Coyote Doggirl’s past and link to the antagonists who shot her up with arrows.

Much like the character of Bojack Horseman, Hanawalt uses Coyote Doggirl and the world she finds herself in to bring up so very serious, adult topics. Without spoiling too much, Coyote Doggirl is the

kind of girl who doesn’t take shit from the dominantly male pack of vengeful dogs who have wronged her. She is happy being alone and thrives in isolation and happenstance adventure. Sound like anyone familiar? Here’s a hint. He’s a horse in Hollywoo.

Coyote Doggirl is a gem of a book that only takes 40 minutes to read front-to-back. While there are similarities to Bojack Horseman,

the work stands alone on its own.

Hanawalt also has another upcoming Netflix adult animated comedy show called Tuca & Bertie, about two 30-year-old bird-women who live in the same apartment. Judging by some of the art released already, it looks like it could be in the same universe as Coyote Doggirl, but this is yet to be confirmed.

Stephan Boissonneault stephan@vueweekly.com

CHECK OUT EDMONTONFRINGE.CA, WHERE WE’LL REVIEW ALL 226 PLAYS! better than others. If you want to streamline your experience to the cream of the crop there is one show returning this year that is sure to impress. Big Ol Show has all the fingerprints of a standard two-person improv show, but it’s the cast that makes this something worth taking time out of your day for. Amber Nash (Pam Poovy on FX’s Archer) and Matt Horgan brilliantly utilize their hilarious chemistry and friendship on stage, weaving scenarios from the obscure to the borderline nonsensical. What makes this show better than most improv performances is that there is never a pause—these are artists who breathe this craft, but not to the point where it comes off as overwhelming or overly gaudy. (Improv and sketch, Studio Theatre, Parental Guidance) // JP

laughs and some deeper questions—like how can someone who is, functionally, a deity deal with the imperfections of puberty? Can awkwardness be humanizing? (Comedy and blasphemy(?), La Cité Auditorium, Parental Guidance) // DJ

Jesus Christ The Lost Years // Thu., Aug. 16 – Sun., Aug. 26 I actually don’t know anything about Jesus Christ The Lost Years; nor do I know anything about the Bible, so I assume the play is pretty true to the source material. Put on by Monster Theatre, this production comes with much anticipation—like a second coming, but I’m not actually sure how many times it’s been in Edmonton. The concept, though, seems ripe for

One Man Walking Dead // Fri., Aug. 17 – Sun., Aug. 26 The Walking Dead should have been axed a few seasons back by now, and there’s no way anyone should ever re-make it. So, anyway, that’s what Commander Shepard, a.k.a. Mark Meer, did—only he’s doing it as a one-man play. The aptly named One Man Walking Dead is the kind of performance that requires a deft hand and a kinetic energy—not to be believable, but to even be watchable. Meer’s talents,

Mark Meer is a one-man zombie horde in One Man Walking Dead. / Ryan Parker

though, are certainly at that level, the level where watching mock selfcannibalism for 60 minutes seems like a good idea. (Comedy and horror?, Garneau Theatre, Parental Discretion Advised) // DJ

The Alien Baby Play // Fri., Aug. 17 – Sun., Aug. 26 Without knowing anything more than the title, I am already so in.

Bethany is 15 months pregnant with an alien baby in this comedy/drama, and one can only imagine the gravitas of caring an alien pregnancy to term juxtaposed with the ludicrousness of the situation. Jessy Arden, who appeared in Prophecy last year, stars as Bethany, and Corben Kushneryk directs. (Comedy and drama, Walterdale Theatre, Parental Guidance) // CN

VUEWEEKLY.com | AUG 16 - AUG 22, 2018

yegDND // Fri., Aug. 17 – Sun., Aug. 26 There’s always been a performative aspect to Dungeons and Dragons—which is probably as close to public speaking as many of the nerds who play it will get to public speaking. But the somewhat cooler nerds, the kinds of nerds who do improv, of the yegDND comedy troupe are entirely different beasts. Their ability to roll with the—uh—rolls of the die, and bizarre fantasy situations in which they need to ‘yes and’ is laudable.

It’s not even a question of quality being in the eye of the beholder here: it’s just skillful improv with a real affection for the game they lampoon. (Improv and sketch, The Grindstone) // DJ For tickets and showtimes visit fringetheatre.ca arts 9

FRINGE COMEDY

Amber Nash, voice of Pam from

Archer, is coming to Fringe. /

NASH CRASHES THE FRINGE

Photographer: Seth Olenick; Hair and Makeup: Serena Ryan

The Stage Performer and Voice of Pam Poovy in FXX’s Archer Discusses Her Style, Connection to Edmonton and Appeal in a Crowded World of Comedy

Thu., Aug. 16 – Sun., Aug. 26 Big Ol Show Edmonton Fringe Studio Theatre

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veryone knows that one person who is just inherently funny, that kind of hilarious where you can tell that they have been this way their entire lives. Amber Nash gracefully falls under this category. The natural born improviser, and the voice behind the loveable HR Rep. Pam Poovey on FXX’s Archer, is coming to Edmonton this week for the Edmonton International Fringe Festival—and plans on bringing her natural born whimsicality to the city in the form of Big Ol Show.

The improv extravaganza is not unfamiliar to Edmonton, as it has appeared in Fringes past, but what makes it such a standout event is the gravity of personality that the performance harkens.

Both Nash and co-star Matt Horgan have been part of theatre royalty in their hometown of Atlanta for years, and their camaraderie is one of the greatest pillars of the entire show.

“We get on each other’s nerves horribly. I spend more time travelling with Matt than my husband, and that kind of relationship comes out in our shows—especially later in the run. If I ever stumble or trip in a delivery he’ll immediately pounce on it and make fun of me in front of the entire audience. It can be a contentious relationship, but it’s also hilarious,” Nash says with a snicker.

The two go back to the early days of Dad’s Garage Theatre, a comedy

10 arts

troupe in Atlanta that has ties to Edmonton’s own Rapid Fire Theatre. Nash studied under Horgan and from that point, their subtle to deadpan back and forth blossomed. Since then, the duo has taken their performances across North America—with a certain particular fondness for our city.

“Canadian audiences are way more savvy, because Edmonton is a theatre town. We love our audiences in Atlanta; they tend to be rowdy and a bit more drunker, we really have to class it up for Edmonton,” Nash says.

When it comes to her format of humour and technique, Nash has to play double duty as both improviser and voice actress, something where the lines can blur at times—but not too often, especially when performing on Archer.

“We get these scripts from creator Adam Reed and we realize he’s a crazy genius, and I’m not just blowing smoke up his ass. I get scripts and it’s just a joy to read them, I almost feel unworthy. I feel like the scripts are always set and solid, and I don’t want to mess with it,” Nash says.

Nash has been part of Archer since the show’s creation, and has been overwhelmed with joy in regards to how her character has evolved into the established heart of the show. Both her and co-star Lucky Yates—who plays the mad scientist Dr. Krieger— are Dad’s Garage Theatre alumni,

VUEWEEKLY.com | AUG 16 - AUG 22, 2018

and Nash believes that there is a certain delivery that stems form their improvised craft that has made their characters such fan favourites over the years.

“We’re just a couple of dumb improvisers and everybody else in the show is Hollywood level; I feel like there is a relatable element to us. There’s no pretension and that pinch of self deprecation that people enjoy,” Nash says.

This earnest nature translates into her performance in Big Ol Show, where her and Horgan take an antique approach to improv comedy. The pair rapidly scramble through suggestions and have a chest full of goodies and costumes that they take on and off at the speed of knots, resulting in some of the most heartfelt buffoonery to ever grace a stage.

When it comes to the appeal of tickle trunk comedy and its staying power, Nash remains solid in her resolve.

“I kind of had this love hate relationship. At the end of the day, you don’t want a shitty wig covering half of your head while you’re head to toe in sweat. I often asked myself, ‘Are we really giving the audience something by insisting we put on these wigs and moustaches?’ I then realized that’s part of the fun. People want to see improvisers in danger; it’s that ‘can they do it?’ mentality. The audience is always on the hill with you.”

Jake Pesaruk

TICKETS ON SALE NOW!

The Arden Theatre Box Office • 780-459-1542 • ardentheatre.com

PHOTO CREDIT: MARC J. CHALIFOUX PHOTOGRAPHY

ERIC BIBB September 20 ROSE COUSINS September 28 FRED PENNER & THE CAT’S MEOW BAND September 30 THE BANFF MOUNTAIN FILM FESTIVAL WORLD TOUR October 1 CIRQUE ÉLOIZE SALOON presented by DESJARDINS October 2 SKERRYVORE October 5 FORTUNATE ONES October 6

BACK PORCH SWING December 6

PHARIS & JASON ROMERO October 19

TOM JACKSON presents THE HURON CAROLE December 13

WHITEHORSE October 20 KAYLA & MATT HOTTE October 23 JANN ARDEN October 25 (sold out)

TALES OF A CHARLIE BROWN CHRISTMAS with the JERRY GRANELLI TRIO December 15

RATTLE & STRUM Noisy Theatre October 31

JOEY LANDRETH TRIO & ALTAMEDA January 18

BIRDS OF CHICAGO November 2

CATHY JONES & BRUCE MCCULLOCH January 22

PAUL REDDICK November 3

LOUDON WAINWRIGHT III January 25

VITALY An Evening of Wonders November 9

KINAN AZMEH CITYBAND February 9

MATTHEW GOOD – SOLO ACOUSTIC February 15 WILL STROET presents WILL’S JAMS LIVE February 16

LORRAINE KLAASEN March 27 FIVE ALARM FUNK March 29 LÚNASA March 30

CELTARA February 19

JUDY COLLINS April 3

THE ULTIMATE GOLDEN GIRLS EXPERIENCE! THANK YOU FOR BEING A FRIEND February 23

DAVID FRANCEY April 11

Mermaid Theatre of Nova Scotia presents THE VERY HUNGRY CATERPILLAR and other E. Carle Favourites March 9

COLLEEN BROWN sings THE JONI MITCHELL SONGBOOK April 13 RUTHIE FOSTER May 1

MUSIC • FAMILY • CINEMA • COMEDY • CIRCUS/VARIETY

VUEWEEKLY.com | AUG 16 - AUG 22, 2018

arts 11

QUEER FRINGE

Fiona Ross stars in Is That How Clowns Have Sex? A One-woman, Queer Clown Sex-ed Show. / Maximaliste Productions

SERVING YOU LGBTQ2S+ REALNESS We Highlight the Fringe Plays That Explore Queer Identity and Experience

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ith over 200 shows heading into their opening performances at the Edmonton Fringe, it can be an overwhelming prospect to decide where to start—and with only 10 days to catch the action, fringers need to plan accordingly.

Hopefully I can help with that decision-making process with this roundup of shows that feature LGBTQ2S+ content at this year’s Fringe Festival. Queer communities are many-splendoured things, and the shows on offer this year explore different angles on queer identity and experience. I can’t make any guarantees about quality or politics, but I’m sure there’s something out there for everyone.

First up, Blarney Productions and Bustle & Beast team up to bring us SCORCH, the story of a young gender-fluid person named Kes who poses as a boy as they embark on a romantic relationship with a girl. The solo show is based on UK court cases of so-called ‘gender fraud’ and features Edmonton performer Julie Ferguson (a.k.a. NIUBOI).

In a parody of V.C. Andrews’ horror novel Flowers in the Attic, 50% Fruit Productions and Edmonton drag queen Lilith Fair are serving pure camp in Bushes in the Basement. The event boasts puppets, cheesecake, and puberty, and showcases local drag talent in multiple aspects of production.

For another dose of drag, Guys in Disguise return to the Fringe with Don’t Frown at the Gown, which features four nominal guys.

Susan finds herself at a final fitting at Lady Laura Lee’s Bridal Belle Boutique the night before her wedding, where “a woman’s duty clashes with the modern sexual revolution.”

Nonna’s Story is the tale of a “young-ish queer gender-fluid Italian-Canadian Edmonton expat regarding his working class, Neapolitan immigrant grandmother & her extensive Roman-Catholic family.”

Antonio Bavaro performs in this solo show about situating yourself in your own family history.

Describing his show as a “big gay TED talk/stand-up routine,” co-

PRESENTS

Thu., Aug. 16 – Sun., Aug 26 Edmonton International Fringe Festival Tickets and showtimes at fringetheatre.ca median Logan Donahoo takes the audience on a journey through queer slang, history, subcultures, “and MORE!” in Field Guide to the Gays. I feel that, truly, the title must speak for itself.

In Is That How Clowns Have Sex? A One-woman, Queer Clown Sex-Ed Show, Montreal performer Fiona Ross stars as Ms. Beatrice Haven, a sexpert still a little confused about how it all works, but committed to exploring sex-ed, pleasure, and her own sexuality.

Based on the life of Billy Tipton, She Was a Great Dad is the story of a female musician in the 1950s, living life as a man, with a wife and child.

Finally, Harun is the story of a young queer Arab-Canadian man who comes out to his mother, navigating intersections of his

identity in a new script by Makram Ayache. Harun sees visions of an angel in the days leading up to a major protest he is planning with his friends, as the veil between spirit and reality thins.

Though the above-mentioned shows clearly centre queer identity and experience in their productions, other shows at the fringe will certainly contain the LGBTQ2S+ content I (for one) crave. Here is the honourable mentions category: Concord Floral written by Canadian theatre’s (queer) golden boy, Jordan Tannahill, is being produced by 10 Out of 12 Productions, and touches on queer experience within the play. Miscast and A Briefs History of Time are both made up of a series of vignettes—the former musical theatre acts, the

6 2 6 1 A U G U ST

YOUR UNEQUALLED GUIDE TO EDMONTON'S FRINGE FESTIVAL

SEARCH REVIEWS BY VENUE • GENRE • DATE • RATING @VUEWEEKLYFRINGE Brought to you in part by:

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VUEWEEKLY.com | AUG 16 - AUG 22, 2018

latter boylesque, both of which include little nods to the LGBTQ2S+ community. Love, Loss and What I Wore also features a few moments of spotlight queerness onstage. There’s the second production from Guys in Disguise this year, 2 Queens and a Joker, which features “queer sensibilities and drag aesthetic.” And finally, the latest installment of the everpresent Scottish drag queen, An All New God Is a Scottish Drag Queen, whose queer content may or may not be limited to its title.

Of course, there are other shows that didn’t make it onto this list that will speak to queer experience, but it will be up to you to discover them!

Have fun, stay hydrated, and try to eat at least one meal that isn’t deep fried.

Sarah Culkin

LENIN’S EMBALMERS

BY VERN THIESSEN

OCTOBER 11 - 20, 2018

ON THE VERGE

BY ERIC OVERMYER

NOVEMBER 29 - DECEMBER 8, 2018

ALL FOR LOVE

BY JOHN DRYDEN

FEBRUARY 7 - 16, 2019

MIDDLETOWN

BY WILL ENO

MARCH 28 - APRIL 6, 2019

SILENCE

BY MOIRA BUFFINI

MAY 16 - 25, 2019 For more details and to purchase tickets:

ualberta.ca/artshows

VUEWEEKLY.com | AUG 16 - AUG 22, 2018

arts 13

FRINGE IMROV

Sue Goberdhan, Dallas Friesen,

IMPROVING THE NEGATIVE

Nathalie Feehan, and Joshua Lee Coss star in What’s the Deal? / Supplied

What’s the Deal? Improv Show Gives Seinfield the ‘Yes, and’ Treatment

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rue to its inspiration, What’s The Deal?: The Improv Show About Nothing—which may or may not bear an uncanny resemblance to a certain 1990s sitcom— was conceived by four friends sitting in a diner.

The show’s director, Robyn Slack, says the four friends are all “theatre people,” and often pitch when they’re hanging out. “[We] started talking about how the Seinfeld episode structure would make a really good improv format, and making all theses connections, like you could open with a monologue,” he explains.

What’s the Deal? stars Joshua Lee Coss as Gary Stanfield, Dallas Friesen as his best friend Joe Cartwright, Nathalie Feehan as his exgirlfriend Lorraine Bennet, and Sue Goberdhan as his neighbour Pluto Krasinski. The comedians start the show off by taking suggestions from the audience, then begin the episode, using the audience’s ideas to inform not only the storyline, but the stand up bits, and the commercial segments. Throughout the performance, the actors also take

on supporting roles, offering some pretty golden moments.

The cast put on a preview show in July, giving them a chance to test drive What’s the Deal? with a live audience before the start of the Fringe Festival. But in rehearsal, it was Slack who provided the suggestions—sometimes based on his actual day, and other times made up—which led to an interesting moment between the director and the performers.

“I totally told these guys that I got engaged as a suggestion at one point, and they didn’t know until two hours later—I was like, ‘By the way, that was real. I got engaged,’” Slack says.

Friesen and Slack explain that rehearsals are mostly about finding the characters and determining the overall structure— everything else comes together in the moment.

“Whatever the audience gives us, it’s their show,” Friesen says.

The rule of thumb in improv is “Yes, and…”—the performers are meant to accept whatever their

Thu., Aug. 16 – Sun., Aug. 26 What’s the Deal?: The Improv Show About Nothing The Sewing Machine Factory Tickets $13 at fringetheatre.ca comrades in comedy have come up with before them and build on it— but Seinfield is very much about the negative—especially for Friesen’s character Joe. So Slack and the cast had to work out how to merge the two.

“We’ve talked about how it’s … a very team effort thing; how if one character says, ‘No, I don’t want to do this,’ it’s on every other person on stage to make sure that they end up in that uncomfortable situation,” Slack says.

Friesen, Slack, Coss, and Feehan were the four diner-goers, but

Goverdhan, playing Krasinski, responded to a casting call. The decision to have a woman play the Kramer role was made early on.

“We wanted to be very diverse in the show. We didn’t just want a bunch of dudes and a girl,” Friesen says.

“As we were figuring out the format, it was like … the one thing about this that sucks is it’s a primarily white male cast, and no room for anyone else, other than the Elaine role,” Slack says.

“So we decided early on that Kramer was an opportunity to

flip that a little bit, and gender swap that role.”

“And Michael Richards’ behaviour hasn’t held up very well, so I don’t feel a huge debt to honour that,” he adds.

While the show was inspired by Seinfield, Slack and the cast make it their own, rather than trying to mimic the series exactly. So whether you’re a Seinfield fan or not, there’s lots to laugh at.

“Don’t expect Seinfield, but expect Seinfeld,” Friesen quips.

Chelsea Novak chelsea@vueweekly.com

FRINGE FOOD

WHYTE RESTOS GEAR UP FOR FRINGE FESTIVAL Edmonton’s Massive Fringe Festival Needs Fuel: Enter the Eateries in the Region

F

ringe comes with many things—street performers, powerhouse shows, and the occasional train wreck. All of this brings crowds, and turns Whyte Avenue into a playground for the festival’s run. Some people, and their businesses, need to power the mobs. Enter the region’s restaurants.

Apart from the hustle and bustle of food trucks and seagulls trying to pinch wayward green onion cakes, there is one aspect about food at the Fringe that tends to be overlooked—the dynasty restaurant locations that surround the Fringe grounds themselves.

By using state of the art basic geography, a triangulation of the three most frequented spots on Fringe has been established, starting with the greasy hotspot visited by all (er, some) walks of Edmontonian life: Steel Wheels.

The location has been around for just as long as anyone can remember, and has received acclaim from people in the city who like affordable, hefty, and greasy slices of heavenly pizza.

The location tends to thrive 14 arts

during the Fringe: considering they are open 6 p.m. to 3 a.m. almost every night they tend to be a fundamental locale for late night fringers.

“We are on the cheaper side compared to most of Whyte.

We are a family run operation, and the entire family is working during the Fringe 10 days

Apart from the established institutions, there are some new players on the field this year.

The location formerly known as Packrat Louie has closed its doors, and in its place is the new Italian kitchen Bottega 104.

The new location is gearing up for their first Fringe and, considering their success downtown,

Bottega 104 is rolling out threecourse dinner menus designed by the location’s chef, a constant flow of Italian wine, and a prohibition cocktail hour.

“This is a chance to show people on Whyte Avenue who we are, and more importantly what type of food and service we supply here,” Iulian says.

“This is a chance to show people on Whyte Avenue who we are, and more importantly what type of food and service we supply here.” — General Manager of Bottega 104, Flavius Iulian straight. We see a lot of both artists and audiences before or after their shows,” says Jay Lim, a manager at the location.

For those uncertain of how popular this location is during the season: according to Lim, at the end of the festival most of the artists after their wrap party pile en masse into the pizzeria for a shot at that soulnurturing slice.

they are confident that they will be able to manage the hysteria that comes with the festival.

“We’re coming from downtown, and there are a lot of concerts, events and conferences happening there on a frequent basis.

We’re used to high volume, and that’s what I’m anticipating at the Fringe,” says Flavius Iulian, the location’s general manager.

In preparation for the festival,

The final contender is a location that operates as a hub for the performing community before, during, and after the Fringe season. The Next Act is no stranger to the hysterics of Fringe, in fact according to them; they do it better than anyone else.

“We’ve gotten progressively busier and busier during every Fringe. We get that sort of tourist crowd; they see us in reviews

VUEWEEKLY.com | AUG 16 - AUG 22, 2018

and magazines, which balances out the theatre crowd. We see a huge influx in both. We’re a really great home base,” says C.J. Rowein, the location’s manager.

According to Rowein, performers and local acting royalty often frequent the location— both those operating in Edmonton and those who have gone on to greater things outside of the city.

When it comes to format, The Next Act tightens things up for the 10-day festival. Gone are regular brunches and selfseating, in its place are a bevy of specials and later hours. Over night the location goes from resto-pub to festival hub.

“It’s one of the things we’re most proud of: we have this deep running root to the Edmonton theater community. The Fringe is kind of like Christmas— we all get together and see all our loved ones,” says Rowein.

For those looking for a quick pre-show beer or post-show bite Whyte Avenue offers a significant selection to choose from.

Just keep your eyes on the time, lest you be late for a show.

Jake Pesaruk

Tash Sultana shreds for Folk Fest crowd. / Stephan Boissonneault

PSYCHEDELIC ROCK

The Austrailian Looping Thaumaturge Shares the Live Process before Captivating the Edmonton Folk Festival

E

dmonton Folk Music Festival goers were surprised and left in awe by the one-person multi-instrumentalist looping machine Tash Sultana. Last Friday, Edmonton’s sky and cityscape may have looked like the result of nuclear fallout, but Sultana’s set on Stage 3 distracted festival-goers and made them feel all sorts of weird emotions. One guy at the back of the hill started weeping during the song “Notion.”

And the set was close to being cancelled after a torrential downpour during the Echo Beach show. Twenty minutes in, Sultana’s gear was soaked by a sheet of rain.

“If it doesn’t explode on the stage tonight, then I think it’ll be sweet cause the amps exploded the other night,” Sultana says a few hours before the Stage 3 Folk Fest set. “It was chaos. I was really pumped ’cause I had a fuckin’ ridiculous show in North America— biggest that I’ve ever played that’s not a festival, and it rained, and $ 100,000 worth of equipment got destroyed, and that’s why I’m playing today instead of yesterday. We needed it to dry and see if it was all good.

But yeah hopefully it doesn’t explode.”

Thankfully it didn’t, and Tash got to play one of the most energizing shows of the festival.

There was a whole lot of hallucinatory guitar licks, sedative lyrics, heavy synth, a mandolin jam, and even some thrilling trumpet.

“I think most people would have probably bailed, but we don’t really cancel,” Sultana says. “I’ve only cancelled when I’ve had no voice, and I couldn’t sing so there was no show to be had.”

Tash Sultana quickly rose to international acclaim in 2016 after a few live busking videos and live bedroom recordings circulated on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter. The young singer-songwriter from Melbourne, Australia soon became the talk of many towns. It didn’t matter how you heard about Tash. Whether it was from social media, your latest Tinder match, or the crazy guy in the subway—everybody was talking about the psychedelic one-person looping sensation. Watching Sultana’s facial expressions while recreating each song live is also a marvel in itself.

“I was just doing my thing and I was busking ’cause I didn’t want to get another job, and I didn’t have any money, and I really needed some money to record some stuff,” Sultana says.

Tash Sultana’s show is the result of meticulous live looping. Typically, a riff will be laid down and accompanied with some vocals while Tash plays another trippy guitar line over top of them. A drum machine beat is usually built from the ground up and the song begins flowing, waiting for the addition of whatever instrument Tash has readily available.

Some songs are more reggae psych focused while others fringe on the flag of progressive rock. And most importantly, there’s no backtracking (pre-recorded audio) whatsoever.

“Fuck no. There’s no backtracking. That’s a cop out man. Some people think I’m a DJ and that grinds the shit out of me,” Sultana says. “Some people think that my monitor guy presses play and it goes from there. It’s actually pretty simple and it’s just called live looping. You’re recording what you’re doing live and I fuck it up all the time. But it’s just playing it live.”

Looking back on all of it now, Tash is just happy to be playing music live and loves that people are listening.

“I had a vision and I wanted to work hard and I thought I knew what I needed to do and it’s going OK now,” Sultana says.

Tash is being modest. It’s going far better than OK, and judging by the ocean of people covering the Stage 3 hill at Folk Fest, it’s going spectacularly. Also, the debut album Flow State (named after the psychology term for being in the zone while performing an activity) is dropping Aug. 31 with an accompanying tour bringing Tash back to Edmonton on Nov. 3.

“The show is going to be bigger with more production and I’ve been working with an animator to get visual content so it’s like you’re tripping on acid while I’m playing,” Sultana says.

Based on the sensations felt while listening to Flow State front to back, the upcoming visual component seems like a perfect match.

Stephan Boissonneault stephan@vueweekly.com

VUEWEEKLY.com | AUG 16 - AUG 22, 2018

music 15

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S TAT I O N O N J A S P E R . C O M 16 music

A MUSICAL ESCAPE

Cristian De La Luna Reflects on His Exile and His Path to Song Writing

M

usic is an escape, like any artistic discipline. Cristian de la Luna is a man who is familiar with escaping in more ways than one.

At 17, de la Luna moved to Northern Quebec with his family after being exiled from Colombia. It was during Pablo Escobar and the Medellin Cartel’s stranglehold on Colombia that de la Luna’s father was set up by the cartel and corrupt gov-

to keep de la Luna’s father in jail.

The family was in constant flux.

By miracle, even with the cartel’s ties to power, there was nothing that could prove his father killed Galán, so they released him. But Colombians still held contempt for him and his family, so they applied for refuge. They bounced around, hiding from the cartel for four or five years until they were approved as refugees.

here I was trying to remember the faces of my friends, my girlfriend, the street I grew up on, it was a way for me to remember my life.”

Writing songs in Spanish, French, and sometimes English, de la Luna understands music is a universal language that knows no bounds.

“Being from Colombia, people would often ask about the cartel and stuff like that, but when

“Being from Colombia, people would often ask about the cartel and stuff like that, but when I played guitar people would respond by opening their hearts and coming together.” ernment and accused of murdering presidential nominee and, as de la Luna describes him, “the voice and hope of Colombia”—Luis Carlos Galán.

Escobar and the cartel have since been proven guilty of killing Galán, but not before trying to pin the murder on de la Luna’s innocent father, who spent three and a half years in jail. The family was forced to live on the streets and his father was in constant fear that either he or his family were going to be murdered by the cartel. The cartel were relentless and paying off people

The experience was turbulent, death seemed imminent, threats were made, but finally at age 17, de la Luna found refuge in Canada, a place he is incredibly grateful for and a place he now calls home.

“The people here, they are so open, and that was something that made me feel welcome, it made this feel like home,” de la Luna says.

In that, de la Luna found song writing as a means to absolve nostalgia.

“It wasn’t until Canada that I became a songwriter. There was no Facebook or anything back then, so when I moved

VUEWEEKLY.com | AUG 16 - AUG 22, 2018

I played guitar people would respond by opening their hearts and coming together,” he says.

With his new album Sabes to be released in September and coming off a win at the Edmonton Music Awards for its first ever Latin recording of the year, de la Luna’s music pays homage to his Colombian roots and his experiences in Canada. He has a few Edmonton dates to play in September and is a man with a story to tell and a stage to do so, his only escape now being the music.

Ryan Hook

FRINGE MUSIC

Chase Padgett will play six different

UPCOMING

personalities in 6 Guitars. / Supplied

EVENTS

SOUTH EDMONTON COMMON AUG 17

ARCHAICS W/ PIKE & MOTHER SUN

AUG 18

THE FACEPLANTS W/ GUESTS

AUG 19

BRANDON HART

WEST EDMONTON MALL AUG 17

ANDRE PETTIPAS AND THE GIANTS

AUG 18

THE SUPER 92

AUG 24

NEVER ENDING SUMMER W/ KEVIN HAYES

Tickets and full listings TheRecRoom.com The Rec Room® is owned by Cineplex Entertainment L. P.

M A O R P S T H G I N R E M SUM

BACK AND ON THE ATTACK How Chase Padgett Turns Tragedy into Art with 6 Guitars

H

ow one responds in the face of tragedy defines the conviction of their character. It’s an easy route to lie in bed, party all week, or just lose hope. On the other hand, some come back from the abyss to create and become the example of who they aspire to be.

Chase Padgett did it all. After a breakup, which led to a path of unhealthy habits, Padgett then suffered a heart attack on a Disney cruise ship where he would have been performing. While often things are uncontrollable, sometimes extremes put things into perspective.

6 Guitars is a stage show with six personalities, and whether art imitates life or vice versa, this show is a testament to Padgett’s experiences.

Boisterous and enamouring, Padgett brings his experiences to the stage saying, “These guitars/ characters are reflections of my life—moments that I’ve canonized. To some degree they’re an homage to either someone I’ve met, or records I’ve listened to, or professors from college, and some of them are just telling stories of my life from their lens.”

Whether it’s a blues guitar char-

Mon., Aug. 20 – Sat., Aug. 25 6 Guitars Old Strathcona Performing Arts Centre (OSPAC) $13 (tickets and times at fringetheatre.ca) Padgett’s penchant for spontaneity for the sake of evolving his show has always played a part in his performances, regardless of what continues to work and gain 6 Guitars such popularity, he says,

“The penchant for music puts the audience at ease, the comedy is endearing and humourous, and the storytelling just makes it that much better. It’s the same way a chef puts salt on a brownie to make the sweet pop.”

“When the doctor says ‘don’t walk up hills for a month,’ it made me rethink my choices,” Padgett says.

Fast forward and Padgett says everything is “aces.” Still with a strong audience turnout for 6 Guitars, Padgett is always one to embrace the spontaneity in his life, and his show.

“There are certain parts of the show that are designed to be interactive; I have an idea of what I want to accomplish but I want a conversation with the audience—a good show is a conversation. With 6 Guitars, both sides are talking.”

acter based on a night seeing a drunken Buddy Guy on his birthday, or Padgett’s memory of playing “Tears in Heaven” at his father’s funeral characterized by a folk guitar, 6 Guitars is, as Padgett puts it, three sides of the same coin.

“The show is comedy and music, but also storytelling; they’re all in service of the same goal. The penchant for music puts the audience at ease, the comedy is endearing and humourous, and the storytelling just makes it that much better.

It’s the same way a chef puts salt on a brownie to make the sweet pop,” Padgett says.

An evening of comedy featuring amateur and professional comedians!

“It still evolves dramatically. I’ve done it to date 372 times. It keeps growing and changing.” And the more the show grows the better an artist Padgett becomes.

With two successful shows already and two more in the works, including one based on his experience of having a heart attack, Padgett continues onwards and upwards, always inspired by any experience that comes his way.

“Not only was the heart attack an inspiration to be a better human, but also a better artist.”

Ryan Hook

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Edmonton Rock Festival // Fri., Aug. 17 (5 pm) – Sat., Aug. 18 Whether its for pure nostalgic purposes or just getting loaded and listening to some live classic rock, Edmonton Rock Fest has got you covered. This year’s headliner lineup featues Don Felder (known for his blistering solos in The Eagles), Honymoon Suite, Helix, Los Lobos, Glass Tiger, and many more.

It’s going to be dad rock at its finest, so crack a cold one and get down. (Hawrelak Park, Tickets at edrocks.ca) // SB

Temple of Ascension Vol. 1 // Thu., Aug. 16 (6 pm) – Sat., Aug. 18 Temple of Ascension—slated to be three days of ritualistic annihilation and aural hell—is off to an awful start with many bands being forced to cancel their appearances. A deadline of Aug. 13 has universally not been met by the festival’s promoter Ereignis Productions, with many band members’ flights promised, yet not booked or cancelled. Due to this, the following bands will not be making an appearance: Nuclearhammer, Hellfire Deathcult, Black Witchery, Tsalal, Deiphago, Goatpenis, Primitive Man, Funeral of God, and Nyogthaeblisz. With such little time left before the festival begins it is uncertain if any bands can fill in these missing positions as time constraints have made this an unrealistic option. It has been confirmed, however, that a number of the bands remaining do have their flights in place, and are still scheduled to perform. Bands at this time that are still scheduled to perform include: Dumal, Amphisbaena, Blasphemy, Antichrist, Imprecation, Rites of Thy Degringolade, Necro Drunkz, Revenge, FIN, and Goathammer. // LG

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Edmonton Police patrol the Folk Fest grounds. / Doug Johnson

‘WHAT’S THE APPROPRIATE POLICE PRESENCE?’

Edmonton’s Folk Music Festival Will Have Ongoing Discussions with EPS in the Future

E

dmonton Police Service officers patrolling the Edmonton Folk Music Festival, in some ways, lent an odd feel to the event last weekend. And, according to festival producer Terry Wickham, it’s likely a police presence will be around in the future, though what this will look like going forward is an ongoing discussion.

“I think the question is: What’s the appropriate police presence?

And I don’t know what that is,” he says. “We’ll work with them in the Fall about it. Eight to 10, to me, seemed like a heavy presence. I don’t know how other people felt about it, but we’ll gauge all that as we debrief the whole festival.”

A week ago, the municipal government told the yearly music festival that it would be mandatory for officers to patrol the grounds, a move over which Wickham expressed some concern. The government made these calls after doing a risk

analysis. The decision came as a bit of a shock to Wickham.

“We have a lot of security and a lot of experience. I think they’ll know that, after this weekend, the people here don’t need to be policed—they kind of police themselves. There are children here; there are seniors here.

You’re not going to have a riot, or an opioid crisis, or a mass epidemic of ecstasy,” Wickham says.

“I think we’re looking at a whatif situation, like a Toronto, or a Commonwealth Stadium situation where an officer was injured.”

Wickham says he’s come to the conclusion that people are comfortable with police there, but they are less comfortable being reminded about guns. Gallagher Park during the festival is an “oasis,” where people can forget their troubles, Wickham says, a place where people come to forget their problems. Not that Wickham would necessarily

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want unarmed officers.

“I don’t know how we solve that kind of conundrum, but we’ll work hand-in-hand with the police,” he says.

Kathy Hogan, the festival’s security volunteer coordinator, says that the volunteer security staff all had the phone number for the officers. Largely, she says, it’s the same as it ever was.

“Our security groups are handling security issues on site. My view is that they’re there for our support. On-site, it’s the same as we’ve always done,” she says. “It’s different seeing them on site.”

A few weeks prior, the city, similarly, had the festival book an ambulance for its four-day run, which involved an additional cost for the event. However, the ambulance did help when a volunteer got hurt, so the festival will likely continue to have one in the future.

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If you have any inquiries or questions you can email our volunteer coordinator at volunteer@kaleidofest.ca We’re looking forward to welcoming you to our crew on September 14-16, 2018!

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WANTED! Register to join us in an charity adventure obstacle race (3 km or 5 kms) of trails and terrain at the Canadian Forces Base on August 25th, 2018. Your support will help Easter Seals Alberta fund programs and services for children, adults and seniors with disabilities and medical conditions in your community.

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SAVAGELOVE SECRET MASTERS

I’ve been enjoying consensual nonmonogamy for the past two years, in part thanks to your column and podcast. I have a delightful young lover, and our connection has evolved into a kind of Master/ slave relationship. I “allow” her to fuck other men and women, and she delights in asking my permission and recounting the details of her other trysts to me. We are curious how much of this she needs to disclose to her other lovers.

They know she isn’t monogamous, and they are aware of her relationship with me, but so far she has chosen not to tell them the extent to which I “own” her and have jurisdiction over her body and actions. Of course, it’s just an elaborate role-playing game—but is it wrong to be using these people as pawns in our game without their knowledge and consent? If so, when should she tell them?

Before she sleeps with them even once? Or after she’s developed a more intimate rapport with them?

There’s a perverse thrill in her other lovers being totally oblivious to it, but we want to be ethical in our polyamorous ways.

MASOCHISTS AND SADISTS TACKLING ETHICAL RELATIONS This falls under the header of permissible secret perving (PSP), MASTER, and I will allow it—with one caveat.

My go-to example of PSP is the foot fetishist who works in a shoe store. So long as he’s good at his job and his secret perving is undetectable—no bulges, no heavy breathing, no creepy comments— no harm done. And if he goes home and jacks off about all the sexy, sexy feet he saw and, yes, handled during his shift, he’s not hurting anyone or doing anything unethical. It’s important, however, to note that the foot fetishist salesclerk’s perceptions aren’t the ones that matter. If he thinks he’s

Dan Savage

playing it cool—he thinks his perving is secret—but his customers or coworkers are creeped out by his behaviour, demeanour, heavy breathing, etc., then his perving isn’t secret and is therefore impermissible. The secret perving you’re doing—the girlfriend has to beg for your permission to fuck other people and report back to you afterward—is small, and it’s a bank shot. The other people she’s fucking provide mental fodder for your D/s role-playing games, MASTER, you aren’t directly involving them.

Your role-playing games take place before she fucks someone else (when she asks your permission) and after she fucks someone else (when she recounts her experience). And what turns you on about your girlfriend sleeping with other people—and how you and your girlfriend talk to each other about it—is no one’s business but yours. Now for the caveat: If one of your girlfriend’s lovers strongly objects to Dom/sub sex, relationships, or role-playing games, and your girlfriend is aware they object, and you two want to be exquisitely ethical, MASTER, then either your girlfriend shouldn’t fuck that person or she should disclose your Master/slave dynamics to that person and allow them to decide whether they want to fuck her anyway.

Zooming out for a second: Some people in open relationships don’t want to know what their partners get up to, and these couples usually have “don’t ask, don’t tell” agreements about sex outside the relationship. But many more people in open relationships do want to hear about their partners’ adventures because it turns them on. Someone who doesn’t want to risk being fodder for a couple’s dirty talk or even their D/s roleplaying games shouldn’t be sleeping with people who are partnered and in open relationships. There are things we have a right to ask

the people with whom we have casual sex—like whether they’re practicing ethical non-monogamy, if they have an STI, what kind of birth control they’re using, whether they’re on PrEP, etc.—but a casual fuck isn’t entitled to details about your relationship.

PERFECT PICTURE

My boyfriend of one year has refused to delete photos from his Instagram account that show him with his ex-girlfriend. They were together for three years and briefly engaged, and they broke up two years before we met. They aren’t in contact in any way, so I don’t have any worries there, but I think making photos of him with someone else available to his friends and family—and now my friends, too, as many are now following him—is incredibly disrespectful.

We’ve had numerous arguments about this, and his “solution” is for me to “stop thinking about it.” He also insists that no one is looking at five-year-old pictures on his Instagram account. If that’s true, why not delete them? He refuses to discuss this issue, even as I lose sleep over it. I’ve tried calmly discussing this with him, I’ve tried crying, I’ve tried screaming my head off—nothing works.

PERSONAL INSULT CAUSING STRESS There’s definitely something your boyfriend should delete, PICS, but it’s not old photos of his ex.

with the same size feet as us, and everyone will be wearing different pairs of boots from his collection. I’m picturing a big group of guys doing for him what I do for him: stand on him, let him lick my (actually, his) boots, make him crawl and grovel. His feet aren’t an uncommon size (11.5), and I’m guessing enough of our mutual friends would fit into his boots that I could actually make this happen. He’s the only fetishist I’ve ever been with—all my other boyfriends were vanilla—and I’m wondering how he would react if he walked into a room and found a bunch of his friends wearing his boots and then I ordered him to start licking. I think it would be way better than going to a strip club or a drag show.

BOYFRIEND OBESSES OVER TALL SHOES P.S. He’s not really “out” about his kink.

Wow, BOOTS, you saved the most salient detail for that postscript: Your boyfriend isn’t out to his friends about his kink. So unless you’re talking about a small subset of his friends—only old friends that once had benefits—do not out your boyfriend as a boot fetishist to all his friends with size 11.5 feet. If your fiancé has fantasized about some sort of group boot-worshipping session, and he’s shared that fantasy with you,

and you want to help him realize it, that’s great. But he needs to be involved in determining where, when, how, and with whom he’d like to make this fantasy a reality.

PSP WEDDING PARTY

My bi girlfriend and I are getting married in a month. We’re in a cuckold relationship—she sleeps with other men and women, while I am completely monogamous to her—and “my” best man is one of her regular male sex partners and her maid of honour is one her girlfriends-with-benefits. No one else at our big traditional church wedding (that her mother is paying for) will know. But I wanted to let you know, Dan, since reading your column is what inspired me to be open about my kinks, and our relationship—the best I’ve ever been in—wouldn’t exist without you.

THE HAPPY COUPLE Permissible secret perving at its finest/hottest, THC. Thanks for sharing, and be sure to send me a photo of the wedding party for my records.

On the Lovecast, a sex toy expert’s husband’s favorite sex toy: savagelovecast.com. mail@savagelove.net @fakedansavage on Twitter ITMFA.org

BOOTLICKERS

The man I’m going to marry has a huge boot fetish. He has about 200 pairs of boots in his size.

His size also happens to be my size—and I’m half convinced he wouldn’t have proposed if we didn’t have the same size feet and I couldn’t wear his boots. I want to surprise him with a very special bachelor party (that we’ll both attend): It would be all guys

VUEWEEKLY.com | AUG 16 - AUG 22, 2018

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JONESIN’ CROSSWORD

Matt Jones

“Alien, the Sequel”--actually, do call it a comeback.

Across

1 CNN chief White House correspondent Acosta 4 Disinterested 9 Ax handles 14 ___ pro nobis 15 Grammar concern 16 ___ the side of caution 17 “Humbug!” preceder 18 Harry’s kin 20 Honey ___ (Post cereal, as renamed in 2018) 22 1990s Wink Martindale game show that paid off contestants’ obligations 23 Cable company alternative to streaming, for short 24 Italian racecar 28 Levy 30 St. George’s state 31 Difficult responsibility 34 More sick, in old hip-hop slang, or ... more sick, in general 35 Long-running role-playing video game franchise 38 Take to the skies 39 Place to go play 40 ATM maker bought by AT&T in 1991 43 Dress code loosening 45 Without toppings 48 Suffix after tera- or peta49 Provided party music 50 Bela of horror films 52 Ocean liner’s route 54 Ultravox frontman Midge 55 1980s Secretary of State Alexander 58 “Automatic for the People” group 59 Trivia magazine started in 2001 63 Org. that’s (supposed to be) concerned with pollution 66 Patient waiter 67 “Helps stop gas before it starts” product 68 “Neither fish ___ fowl” 69 Light bite 70 First two words of some political yard signs 71 TV alien with a reboot announced in August 2018 (as found in the long answers)

Down

1 Interview goal 2 Science writer Flatow 3 Reddish-brown wood 4 Blew up 5 Bear, to Bernal 6 Parker Jr. of the “Ghostbusters” theme song

22 at the back

7 “Zounds!”

8 Remove, to a proofreader 9 Antagonist in “The Year Without a Santa Claus” 10 Sleeve tattoo locale 11 Waste time frolicking, old-style 12 “I’ve got nothing ___” 13 “The Late Late Show” host before Kilborn, Ferguson, and Corden 19 Gp. once headed by Mueller and Comey 21 “That’s funny” 24 Overly muscular 25 Monopoly purchase (abbr.)

26 Some meat alternatives 27 Location of a nursery rhyme’s three men 29 It’s not what the P stands for in TP (unless the T is “two”?)

32 Retract, as regrettable words 33 One way to walk tall?

36 One generating a lot of interest 37 Charge for a spot 40 Capital of Chad 41 Pulitzer-winning San Francisco columnist Herb 42 Sydney suburb, or a California-based car-sharing rental company 43 A.F.L. merger partner 44 Running in neutral 45 Tests the depths 46 Entice 47 Meeting outline 51 Different ending?

53 Pyromaniac’s crime 56 “One ___ land ...”

57 Show with Jane Lynch as Sue Sylvester 60 Private eye, informally 61 ___ in “Oscar” 62 ___-Caps (movie candy) 64 D.C. sort 65 Dog noise ©2018 Jonesin’ Crosswords

FREEWILLASTROLOGY ARIES (March 21-April 19): “The prettier the garden, the dirtier the hands of the gardener,” writes aphorist B. E. Barnes.

That’ll be especially applicable to you in the coming weeks.

You’ll have extra potential to create and foster beauty, and any beauty you produce will generate practical benefits for you and those you care about. But for best results, you’ll have to expend more effort than maybe you thought you should. It might feel more like work than play— even though it will ultimately enhance your ability to play.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): Author and theologian Thomas Merton thought that the most debilitating human temptation is to settle for too little; to live a comfortable life rather than an interesting one. I wouldn’t say that’s always true about you, Taurus. But I do suspect that in the coming weeks, a tendency to settle for less could be the single most devitalizing temptation you’ll be susceptible to. That’s why I encourage you to resist the appeal to accept a smaller blessing or punier adventure than you deserve. Hold out for the best and brightest.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): “I’ve learned quite a lot, over the years, by avoiding what I was supposed to be learning.” So says the wise and well-educated novelist Margaret Atwood. Judging by your current astrological omens, I think this is an excellent clue for you to contemplate right now. What do you think?

Have you been half-avoiding any teaching that you or someone else thinks you’re “supposed” to be learning? If so, I suggest you avoid it even stronger. Avoid it with cheerful rebelliousness. Doing so may lead you to what you really need to learn about next.

CANCER (June 21-July 22): Sometimes you make it difficult for me to reach you. You act like you’re listening but you’re not really listening. You semi-consciously decide that you don’t want to be influenced by anyone except yourself. When you lock me out like that, I become a bit dumb. My advice isn’t as good or helpful. The magic between us languishes. Please don’t do that to me now. And don’t do it to anyone who cares about you.

I realize that you may need to protect yourself from people who aren’t sufficiently careful with you. But your true allies have important influences to offer, and I think you’ll be wise to open yourself to them.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): “Whoever does not visit Paris regularly will never really be elegant,” wrote French author Honoré de Balzac. I think that’s an exaggeration, but it does trigger a worthwhile meditation. According to

my analysis of the astrological omens, you’re in a phase of your cycle when you have maximum power to raise your appreciation of elegance, understand how it could beautify your soul, and add more of it to your repertoire. So here are your homework meditations: What does elegance mean to you? Why might it be valuable to cultivate elegance, not just to enhance your self-presentation, but also to upgrade your relationship with your deep self? (P.S.: Fashion designer Christian Dior said, “Elegance must be the right combination of distinction, naturalness, care, and simplicity.”)

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): Many of us imagine medieval Europe to have been drab and dreary. But historian Jacques Le Goff tells us that the people of that age adored luminous hues: “big jewels inserted into book-bindings, glowing gold objects, brightly painted sculpture, paintings covering the walls of churches, and the coloured magic of stained glass.” Maybe you’ll be inspired by this revelation, Virgo. I hope so. According to my reading of the astrological omens, you can activate sleeping wisdom and awaken dormant energy by treating your eyes to lots of vivid reds, greens, yellows, blues, browns, oranges, purples, golds, blacks, coppers, and pinks.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): An astrologer on Tumblr named Sebastian says this about your sign: “Libras can be boring people when they don’t trust you enough to fully reveal themselves. But they can be just as exciting as any fire sign and just as weird as any Aquarius and just as talkative as a Gemini and just as empathetic as a Pisces. Really, Librans are some of the most eccentric people you’ll ever meet, but you might not know it unless they trust you enough to take their masks off around you.” Spurred by Sebastian’s analysis, here’s my advice to you: I hope you’ll spend a lot of time with people you trust in the coming weeks, because for the sake of your mental and physical and spiritual health, you’ll need to express your full eccentricity.

(Sebastian’s at venuspapi.tumblr. com.)

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): A blogger who calls herself Wistful Giselle has named the phenomena that make her “believe in magic.” They include the following: “illuminated dust in the air; the moments when a seedling sprouts; the intelligence gazing back at me from a crow’s eyes; being awaken by the early morning sun; the energy of storms; old buildings overgrown with plants; the ever-changing grey green blue moods of the sea; the shimmering moon on a cool, clear night.” I invite you to compile your own list, Scorpio. You’re entering a time when you will be

VUEWEEKLY.com | AUG 16 - AUG 22, 2018

Rob Brezsny

the beneficiary of magic in direct proportion to how much you believe in and are alert for magic.

Why not go for the maximum?

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): Since 1969, eight-foot-two-inchtall Big Bird has been the star of the kids’ TV show Sesame Street.

He’s a yellow bird puppet who can talk, write poetry, dance, and roller skate. In the early years of the show, our hero had a good friend who no one else saw or believed in: Mr. Snuffleupagus.

After 17 years, there came a happy day when everyone else in the Sesame Street neighbourhood realized that Snuffy was indeed real, not just a figment of Big Bird’s imagination. I’m foreseeing a comparable event in your life sometime soon, Sagittarius.

You’ll finally be able to share a secret truth or private pleasure or unappreciated asset.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): Activist and author Simone de Beauvoir was one of those Capricorns whose lust for life was both lush and intricate. “I am awfully greedy,” she wrote. “I want to be a woman and to be a man, to have many friends and to have loneliness, to work much and write good books, to travel and enjoy myself, to be selfish and to be unselfish.” Even if your longings are not always as lavish and ravenous as hers, Capricorn, you now have license to explore the mysterious state she described. I dare you to find out how voracious you can be if you grant yourself permission.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): According to my reading of the astrological omens, the coming weeks will be prime time to vividly express your appreciation for and understanding of the people you care about most. I urge you to show them why you love them. Reveal the depths of your insights about their true beauty.

Make it clear how their presence in your life has had a beneficent or healing influence on you. And if you really want to get dramatic, you could take them to an inspiring outdoor spot and sing them a tender song or two.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): In her book Yarn: Remembering the Way Home, Piscean knitter Kyoko Mori writes, “The folklore among knitters is that everything handmade should have at least one mistake so an evil sprit will not become trapped in the maze of perfect stitches.” The idea is that the mistake “is a crack left open to let in the light.” Mori goes on to testify about the evil spirit she wants to be free of.

“It’s that little voice in my head that says, ‘I won’t even try this because it doesn’t come naturally to me and I won’t be very good at it.’” I’ve quoted Mori at length, Pisces, because I think her insights are the exact tonic you need right now.

CURTIS HAUSER

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2018-04-04 12:44 PM