1198: Joe Nolan

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#1198 / oct 11, 2018 – oct 17, 2018 vueweekly.com

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ISSUE: 1198 • OCT 11 – OCT 17, 2018

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COVER IMAGE Joe Nolan / Jennifer Linford CONTRIBUTORS Gwynne Dyer, Junaid Jahangir, Scott Lingley, Kevin Pennyfeather, Jake Pesaruk, Miya Abe, Brian Gibson, Sarah and Salar Melli, J Procktor, Jennifer Linford, Levi Gogerla, Rob Brezsny, Stephen Notley, Fish Griwkowsky, Curtis Hauser, Charlie Scream DISTRIBUTION Shane Bennett, Bev Bennett, Shane Bowers, Amy Garth, Aaron Getz, Clint Jollimore, Michelle Lenihan, Dona Olliffe, Beverley Phillips, Choi Chung Shui

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QUEERMONTON

HATRED IS HATRED, REGARDLESS OF ITS SOURCE

The Soldiers of Odin Are the Face of Intolerance in Western Society, But Non-White Groups Are Also Culpable

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arlier in September, the Soldiers of Odin, an anti-immigrant and Islamophobic vigilante group, tried to assert itself in the public sphere by offering free food in the McCauley neighbourhood. In response, local activists, predominantly white, counter demonstrated to tell them that hate has no place in Edmonton.

I did not attend the demonstration, as I was concerned that it would give the fringe group unnecessary attention. I also worried if shouting at them would entrench their bigotry and whether perhaps a one-to-one conversation would be better to uproot their deeprooted prejudice.

However, I am also glad that my peers in the interfaith circles pushed back to nip this evil in the bud, and that they disallowed it before it reached the critical mass it needs threaten the well-being of our communities.

along with the activists of colour who grew up in Canada—set the agenda for causes deemed worthy of time and effort.

In contrast, initiatives to challenge bias and hate within ethnic communities do not necessarily form part of the mainstream activist narrative. The overwhelming emphasis on decolonization and anti-imperialism often lets the hatred stoked by ethnic community leaders go unchecked.

Consider the recent cases of the Ottawa mosque that lost its charity status for fuelling hateful viewpoints against women and LGBTQ2S+ people, and the scheduled event of Nigerian Pastor Johnson Suleman—noted for preaching Islamophobic views and homophobic beliefs, in Calgary.

In the case of the mosque, the response from the National Council of Canadian Muslims

“I believe the most effective challenge to white supremacism comes from within the Caucasian community. In a similar vein, the challenge to Islamic supremacism or Hindu chauvinism comes respectively from within the Muslim and Hindu communities.”

(NCCM) seemed defensive, and emphasized due process over the court of public opinion. Likewise, there was silence from queer POC activists against the pastor.

The vigour of blocking the Pride Parade was absent.

At the behest of LGBTQ2S+ activists of colour outside Canada, the prominent voice against the pastor came from Dr. Kris Wells at MacEwan University. But even he was critiqued a few years back by queer people of colour for calling out a homophobic Jamaican singer at the CariWest festival.

People generally are concerned about racism and Islamophobia if homophobia and misogyny are challenged within ethnic community spaces. They do not wish to give ammunition to far-right hate groups to further their nefarious agenda.

This is perhaps why newspapers and online publication sites are careful to lend voice to marginal voices that actively challenge hatred within ethnic community spaces.

My friend Rob Wells reminds me that this situation is like that of the Catholic Church and pedophile priests. Out of fear of

issues. The need of the hour is for internal change where each community isolates the extremists within their groups. This work will emerge on the basis of inner strength, patience, and grace; and not from those whose first line of response is often “I can’t process this right now.” Like my courageous friends who faced the Soldiers of Odin, ethnic community

activists need to call out hatred in the garb of religion or nationalism.

In essence, we can’t always be victims. Our destinies are not set by the colonial past. We have the strength and immense potential for change. We cannot allow racism and Islamophobia to paralyze this change within ethnic community spaces.

Junaid Jahangir

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I am familiar with the tactics of such groups in places like Pakistan where they prey on the vulnerable to join their ranks as foot soldiers for their cause. Such extremist groups appeal to nationalism or religion, churn out a narrative of fear or perceived victimhood, and attract people through free food and social services.

While in places like Pakistan such groups hold a grip on significant masses of youth, thanks to the work of courageous activists in Edmonton, hate groups do not yet have such a strong foothold in the city. As long as such activists do their part, hate will not pass.

I believe the most effective challenge to white supremacism comes from within the Caucasian community. In a similar vein, the challenge to Islamic supremacism or Hindu chauvinism comes respectively from within the Muslim and Hindu communities.

However, the current social justice narrative is weaved to emphasize some causes over others. In Edmonton, initiatives are being taken against racism, white supremacism, and Islamophobia. Many white activists who wish to be good allies—

sullying the image of the Church many otherwise devout Catholics remain quiet on such scandals.

Indeed, out of fear of inviting Islamophobia, many well-meaning Muslims stay silent on the plight of LGBTQ2S+ Muslims.

However, far right hate groups will spew their hatred irrespective of efforts within ethnic communities towards addressing internal

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SLEEP

BENZO ABUSE AMONG SENIORS ‘NOT BENIGN’ U of A study Outlines Problematic Prescriptions in Canada’s Elderly Population

Benzo use among seniors is too damn high. / Adobe Stock

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eniors, more than other Canadians, turn to benzodiazepine drugs to get a good night’s rest—a small, relatively quiet drug problem in the country that has University of Alberta researchers concerned.

Benzodiazepines—like diazepam (Valium), alprazolam (Xanax), clonazepam (Klonopin)—work as sleep aids and anti-anxiety medications.

The drugs come with a rap sheet

of complications and withdrawal symptoms that make them hard to give up.

According to Dr. Jean Triscott— one of the researchers, a family medicine physician, and founder of the school’s Division of Care of the Elderly—benzodiazepine use can result in delirium and confusion.

This, in turn, can lead to physical injuries, including falls.

“There are also [higher] reported

incidences of motor vehicle crashes,” she adds. “It can lead to cognitive impairment over chronic periods of time. They are not benign.”

Benzodiazepines can also interact with other drugs in dangerous ways—both benzodiazepines and narcotic painkillers depress breathrate, for instance.

Quitting benzodiazepines can lead to anxiety and sleeplessness during the withdrawal period.

Generally, the team says, physicians only keep writing prescriptions because of patient dependence. Sometimes, benzodiazepines can be an appropriate medicine, but only when prescribed over a short period of time, the researchers say.

According to the study, these sleeping pills make up 20 to 25 percent of inappropriate prescriptions among senior citizens, and between five and 32 percent of assisted living residents have access to these drugs. More wom-

en (nearly 14 percent) than men (around seven percent) have prescriptions to these drugs, a statistic the team attributes to sleep disturbances during menopause.

According to Frances Carr, one of the researchers and assistant clinical professor in the U of A’s department of medicine, the team performed the study at the Glenrose Rehabilitation Hospital’s teaching unit.

“Because of the high rate of individuals coming into the Glenrose, we thought ‘Hey, this is an area we need to look into.’ It’s also about informed decision-making, having patients understand why they are taking benzodiazepines,” Carr says.

“There’s a lack of that education.”

“There haven’t been a lot of studies in this area, trying to get seniors off benzodiazepine,” adds Bonnie Dobbs, researcher and professor of medicine at the U of A. The researchers say that cannabis cannot be used as an effective sleep aid, nor as a replacement for benzodiazepine.

According to Anne Summach— nurse practitioner at SAGE Seniors Association, and member of the Canadian Deprescribing Network—it’s roughly a 50-50 split between seniors who come to her asking for help in discontinuing benzodiazepine use, and seniors she has to approach herself and suggest the idea. “[Some] of them are willing to make a change because they want to get off of something, anything,” she says. “There’s good evidence to suggest decreasing the total number of medications improves the health of seniors.”

In particular, Summach sees many residents use a benzodiazepine called temazepam, possibly because it was a popular medica-

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tion to prescribe around 20 years ago. It’s a hard drug to kick, so some people have been taking it ever since.

Temazepam works quickly and for a long time—two factors that may have lead to its popularity— providing a lengthy sleep. These qualities also make it more difficult to discontinue.

“It starts to work rapidly, and if you stop it, [the seniors] sense that they’re not getting what they need, Summach says.

Generally, Summach and similar healthcare workers, end up weaning clients off the drug, as a coldturkey approach tends to leave them sleepless. She pushes harder for people to quit the chemicals if they’re taking other drugs on top of sleeping pills, she says.

“If they are on them, I encourage us to find alternatives ... We’ll also use natural substances like melatonin, what we call sleep hygiene tips,” she says.

Sometimes, younger people will also steal prescription drugs from the senior citizens in their lives, a form of elder abuse, to use recreationally.

“The other part of elder abuse is that people who have an elder living with them, they don’t want to deal with them and overmedicate them,” Summach says.

The U of A researcher and Summach outline a few tips for getting drug-free, but restful, sleep. Avoiding screens at night time, exercise at least three hours before bed; keeping bed as a place for sleep (rather than as a kind of couch or makeshift work area); and avoiding nicotine, alcohol, and caffeine are a few of the tips outlined. They also recommend going to Sleepwell Nova Scotia’s website.

Doug Johnson doug@vueweekly.com

DYER STRAIGHT

A NEW HOPE: IRAQ EDITION Politics in the Country, Fresh off 15 Years of War, Won’t Be Amazing for a Long Time, but Progress is Being Made

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t’s been 15 years since George W. Bush invaded Iraq to destroy Saddam Hussein’s imaginary ‘weapons of mass destruction.’ What have the Iraqis got to show for it? There was a great deal of death and destruction (around half a million Iraqis have died violently since 2003), but they do now have a democratically elected government. Sort of.

Iraqis voted in their fourth free election last April—or rather, fewer than half of them bothered to vote at all, so pessimistic were they about the notion that voting can change anything.

Almost six months later, the many political parties were still bickering over which of them would be in the government, which would give them access to the huge amounts of money that are available to government ministers in one of the world’s most corrupt countries. It looked like business as usual, despite bloody riots in the South (where most of the oil is) over chronic shortages of water, electricity, and jobs.

But on Tuesday, the Iraqi parliament elected a prominent Kurdish politician, Barham Saleh, to the largely ceremonial office of president. The president then has 15

days to nominate the new prime minister (who really runs the government), but Barham Saleh did it within hours. The new prime minister will be Adel Abdul Mahdi— which may be a signal of big changes coming.

Abdul Mahdi is not himself a revolutionary figure. He is a former

the May election, drawing its support mainly from working-class Shias in Baghdad and the South, but his non-sectarian stance also drew votes from the marginalized Sunni minority of Iraqi Arabs.

Sadr’s sympathy for the Sunni Arabs’ plight is unusual among Iraqi Shia politicians, and all the more re-

militia and urges others to do the same, and he promised to appoint non-political technocrats instead of usual party stalwarts if his party won power.

That promise will be hard to keep, since the extreme fragmentation of Iraqi politics means all governments must be broad coalitions.

The coalition Sadr leads (although he will not personally seek office) includes the Iraqi Communist party, which more or less shares his goals, and the group led by former prime minister Nouri al-Maliki, which emphatically does not.

“Iraqis voted in their fourth free election last April— or rather, fewer than half of them bothered to vote at all, so pessimistic were they about the notion that voting can change anything.” finance and oil minister who, like Barham Saleh, has been a familiar fixture in Iraqi politics ever since the invasion. (A stock Iraqi joke claims that the country has the most environmental government in the world, since it constantly recycles its old politicians.)

But Abdul Mahdi is the figurehead of a coalition in which a revolutionary outsider, Muqtada al-Sadr, will be the dominant influence. Sadr’s party astonished everybody by winning the largest number of seats in

markable because he is a Shia cleric whose father and uncle were both grand ayatollahs, murdered by Saddam Hussein’s Sunni-dominated regime. If any man can bridge the gulf that has opened up between Sunni and Shia Arabs in Iraq, he is that man.

His party has been among the least corrupt on the Iraqi political scene, and he is a nationalist who is equally opposed to American and Iranian meddling in Iraqi politics.

He has disbanded his own party’s

Maliki, in power from 2006 to 2014, proved himself to be viciously anti-Sunni, largely subservient to Iranian interests—and, of course, monumentally corrupt. It will be very difficult to hold this coalition together, let alone to carry out Sadr’s program of sectarian reconciliation and government by technocrats.

Corruption in Iraq is a system, not a series of individual crimes, and the beneficiaries of the system

will fight tooth and nail to preserve it. The parties use it not only to finance their own activities and reward their own members, but to build a large support base through bribery, mostly in the form of jobs.

There are 37 million people in Iraq.

In most other countries, a population of that size would require around 600,000 to 700,000 employees to provide all the normal functions of a central government.

The Iraqi government employs 4.5 million people to do the same jobs very badly or not at all. Many of them rarely even show up at work, but they and their families all vote for the right party at electiontime. And since they are on the take themselves, they don’t protest when the senior politicians in their party steal millions (or in some cases billions) from public funds.

This pattern is almost standard in countries whose income, like Iraq’s, comes largely from exporting a single natural resource (oil, in this case), but Iraq is exceptional in the brazen incompetence of the political class and the utter neglect of those outside the magic circle.

This system was tolerated during the 15 years of war because people’s first priority was survival. Now that the fighting has died down, people are starting to protest, and Muqtada al-Sadr has become the repository of their hopes. He will have a hard time living up to them.

Gwynne Dyer

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MINIMUM WAGE Is $15 per hour really a livable wage? / Adobe Stock

KITCHEN TIPS Scrumptiously Seared Salmon Is a Quintessential Method to Prepare the Finicky Fish

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almon—it’s delicious, yet it can be tricky to cook. Salmon can be a lot less forgiving than other items you may use— it needs to be fresh, or stored properly, before you cook it to ensure best results.

An easy fresh test you can use, is push your finger onto the surface of the salmon. If the flesh pops back quickly to its original form, you’ve got fresh salmon. If the indent from your finger lingers too long, or doesn’t dissipate at all, you may want to think twice about even using the meat.

Now that you’ve determined your salmon is fresh and ready to cook, Chef Salar Melli has a few tricks to help you get the delicious results you want. Set your oven to 500 degrees Fahrenheit, and get an oven-safe pan ready.

If your fillet has skin, you will want to score it. Take your knife and cut lines approximately one centimetre apart along the skin of your salmon. This prevents the skin from shrinking and curling up, and helps ensure even cooking.

Get your pan really, really hot! Add a generous amount of olive oil or clarified butter (ghee). The salmon should really sizzle when you put it down. If you wanted to take your skin off, you could place the salmon skin side down in your hot pan for about 10 seconds, and then take it out and the skin will peel right off.

Season your salmon with salt and pepper, and slices of fresh lemon on the side without skin. Place your salmon in the pan, skin side down, and let it sear for about one minute. Now take the pan from the burner, and place it in the oven to finish for about five to six minutes. The amount of time in the oven depends on the size and thickness of your fillet.

Your salmon is ready to serve. You will want to place the salmon skin side up on the plate, as it will have a beautiful crisp finish. Squeeze some fresh lemon on the fillet, add a fresh sprig of dill, and enjoy.

—Sarah and Salar Melli, Vintage Fork at Rutherford House

Workers Shouldn’t Suffer Because Businesses Can’t Pay $15 an Hour, Says Doug O’Halloran of the UFCW

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hile chain restaurants can, theoretically, swallow the cost, smaller local eateries may have a harder time to swallow paying their employees $15 per hour. That was the narrative when the province’s NDP government announced the minimum wage raise—to the highest in Canada— earlier in the party’s reign. When the province realized this goal earlier in October, this narrative didn’t change much.

Some business owners, over the last few years, have said that the increase could lead to layoffs, cost increases, and, potentially, closures.

United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 401 presi-

dent Doug O’Halloran has a different take. Primarily, it’s that he commends the move from the Notley Government, and, he says, the increase amounts to around one percent of a business’ operating budget on average. He estimates that there are around 300,000 people in the province whose income will increase as a product of the raise.

“My perspective is: If you can’t afford to pay the minimum wage, you really have to consider if you’re in the right business,” O’Halloran says, adding that, to his mind, the province didn’t go far enough with $15.

According to O’Halloran, a living wage in the province is $18.50—a

statement that elicited tears from this reporter.

Restaurateurs can raise the price of their offerings when consumers know that the money is going towards workers, he says.

Additionally, the wage increase doesn’t give any consideration to benefits for workers, as health insurance can be a huge expenditure for workers and their families, O’Halloran says.

“Sure, you’re making $15 an hour, but it doesn’t do as much for you if you don’t get benefits,” he says, adding that people who work at Superstore, for instance, only need to work 10 hours a week to access a basic benefit package.

This is a bit easier for bigger businesses, he admits, but reiterates: “Why should workers have to pay for companies to stay in business?

I think that that is a harsh reality.

Why should companies profit off the backs of workers?”

According to O’Halloran, some hotel and hospitality workers have unions, but restaurants rarely do.

That said, some small businesses treat their employees with respect, which can keep them loyal even if the business can’t pay as much, according to O’Halloran.

This respect can take many forms, he adds: striving against sexual harassment, not requiring heavily gendered work attire, not hiring based on physical appearance, and ensuring a safe workplace, etc.

“It goes a long way,” he says. “[Some] supervisors or management people think they’re God and can tell the workers when to jump, and how high ... Respect and dignity is a big issue.”

Doug Johnson doug@vueweekly.com

6 dish

VUEWEEKLY.com | OCT 11 - OCT 17, 2018

DONAIR

Watch the throne. / J Procktor

KING DONAIR? MORE LIKE DUKE, OR MAYBE BARON Edmonton Offshoot of Popular East Coast Donair Dynasty Fails to Wow Reviewer Scott Lingley

King of Donair 10364 82 Ave. 780 244 5464 kingofdonair.ca

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overs of vertical rotisserie meat and sticky sweet sauce rejoice! The King of Donair, that Halifax-based potentate who claims to have introduced the ersatz Middle Eastern nosh to Canada in 1973, has launched a satellite operation Whyte Avenue, thus expanding its 45-year (and counting) mission to provide hot, saucy, portable food to folks when the bars close.

I don’t eat as many donairs as I used to, back when Charles Smart had a donair fiefdom in Bonnie Doon. It was there I learned to crave shaved processed beef packed into a grilled pita with crunchy lettuce, onion, and tomato—lavished with a dose of that unique and totally right-on sweet sauce. Little did I suspect that the master stroke of replacing tzatziki or garlic sauce with evaporated milk mixed with vinegar and sugar is a Haligonian innovation. Now, of course, Edmonton is spoiled for donair choice, almost perplexingly so. I was open to the prospect of the King standing above the rabble to become the donair go-to.

A daytime visit finds the restaurant uncrowded, but with a steady stream of enthusiasts. One guy just walks up to the door, calls out,

“Smells good in here!” and keeps going up the sidewalk.

A customer and the counter guy briefly expound on the legitimacy of lettuce as a donair component.

One wall is badged with hallmarks of the King’s long reign out East: visits from pro wrestlers, Best of Halifax certificates, and a reminder of his majesty’s role in having Dec. 8 declared National Donair Day. Though relatively new, the place looks well broken in.

You can get pizza and wings and poutine at King of Donair, but that is none of our concern. All this donair talk has gotten co-diner and I rather eager to try the eponymous foodstuff and we gravitate toward the specialty menu where donairs with pepperoni or pineapple and hot peppers lurk. I order a medium Albertan ($10.49), which was just a classic donair with cheese on it. Codiner goes a bit further afield from the norm for a Philly cheese donair ($10.49) with sautéed onions, mushrooms, and green peppers.

A big glob of sauce comes away with the foil, revealing loads of lettuce, diced tomatoes, and onions. The donair doesn’t actually feel all that warm, but there’s scads of spiced meat rinds in there so I unhinge my jaw and cram in a moist chaw. Even with the protective wrapper my hands and chin are instantly sticky with sauce. The messiness is half the fun, though, and the food comes with a big sheaf of napkins.

It’s not possible that my donair is dry, but the separate parts haven’t intermingled; the sauce hasn’t seeped into the meat; the meat hasn’t seeped into the pita and—hey, wait a minute, isn’t this supposed to have cheese on it? Quantity and flavour-wise, the King’s donair is not so different from the dozens I’ve sampled.

Co-diner is, for some reason, trying to cling to a scrap of dignity as her donair disintegrates in her

hands. She likes the sautéed veggies, which clearly made her pita even saucier, but her appreciation overall is as lukewarm as the food.

She doesn’t share my history of donair indulgence, and this isn’t going to be her breakthrough moment, which prompts me to suggest, waggishly, that Halifax’s King of Donair might be ‘coasting’ on its reputation. See what I did there?

Scott Lingley

beer makes it better

After the passage of several minutes, the young server tries to give our order to the couple seated adjacent, but co-diner intervenes. They are hefty portions, to be sure, and co-diner makes the rookie mistake of removing her donair from its plastic bag in order to peel away the foil. Instantly her Styrofoam plate is a small lake of sweet sauce beaded with orange meatball juice. I’ve learned from experience not to do that.

VUEWEEKLY.com | OCT 11 - OCT 17, 2018

dish 7

LONG ESSAY

Vivek Shraya Challenges Toxic Masculinity and the Gender Binary in I’m Afraid of Men

OCT 12 - 27, 2018

Vivek Shraya is the author of I’m Afraid of Men. / Supplied

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ivek Shraya grew up in Edmonton, but moved to Toronto when she was 21. She recently returned to Alberta—though she now lives “in the city that can’t be named”—and says she was a little apprehensive about moving back.

“It was a hard decision moving back to Alberta, because I didn’t have the easiest childhood in Edmonton,” she says.

Shraya shares her experience growing up in her new book I’m Afraid of Men. Before you shout misandry, know that the book is not about Shraya hating men—she reflects on positive as well as negative relationships and interactions she’s had, and also reflects on the incidents where she has been afraid of other women.

She also delves into her own performance of masculinity before she came out as trans two years ago, raising questions not only about toxic masculinity, but also about the gender binary and the pressure to fall to one side of the spectrum or the other.

Asked about how the violence she experienced from men in response to her femininity informed her own performance of masculinity, Shraya offers the example of how she learned to take up space.

“That was in a direct response to the fact that … for whatever reason, me being innocuous or not taking up space as a person who was classified as male, made men uncomfortable,” she says.

In the book, she explains that taking up space is a form of misogyny “because so often the space that men try to seize and dominate belongs to women and gendernonconforming people.” Men responded to her not taking up enough space by trying to correct her behaviour: trying to get her to look, walk or act more male.

Since coming out as trans, Shraya has still experienced men trying to force her into a context they find more comfortable. The examples she gives in the book are cab and Uber drivers who “man” her and then share over-sexualized opinions about women and girls.

“I think it’s a way for cab drivers to reconcile their discomfort with my gender and try to turn me into one of their bros,” she says.

Although she was criticized for not being masculine enough before her transition, Shraya now finds her femininity under attack.

“The truth is even when I wear makeup and a dress, I still get misgendered, I still get read as male,” she says. “So … I feel that if I’m going to own a trans-feminist space that I have a certain duty, and … random strangers will tell me like ‘Girl, you need to get your nails fixed’ … which seems kind of innocuous, but when you have women repeatedly make that kind of comment, you start realizing that it’s not a form of care; it’s a form, again, of correction.”

Shraya says it didn’t take long to understand that having shed the need to perform masculinity, she was now going to have to perform femininity.

“That’s why at the end of the book a lot of it is about how do we move beyond the binary? How do we find the space to celebrate gender nonconformity? What if we didn’t label makeup as feminine or beards as masculine? Because I do think that’s where my journey has led me is to understand that both ‘sides’ are restrictive in their own way,” she says.

At the end of the book Shraya also wonders “what my life would have been like if my so-called feminine tendencies, such as being sensitive, or my interests, such as wearing my mother’s clothing, or even my body had not been gendered or designated as either feminine or masculine at all”—but she doesn’t have an answer.

“The reason I ask that question is because I’ll never know. Like I can never go back in time to that 13, 14, 15-year-old kid in Edmonton

VUEWEEKLY.com | OCT 11 - OCT 17, 2018

and get to see what that individual could have been like outside of the binary,” she says.

Shraya is skeptical that society will eventually move away from the established gender binary, but for her part, she’s trying to live outside of it.

“There are certain things I could be doing to perform femininity ‘better’ and … in more acceptable, or typical, or cisgender ways, which I’m refusing to do,” she says. “I’m in a band with my brother … and my touring costume or outfit, I wear this bra and my chest hair is very, very visible—that’s a deliberate choice for me to own a part of me that I’ve actually come to love as a girl.”

As for being back in Alberta, Shraya is happy to be teaching creative writing at the University of Calgary.

Up until this point, she has always worked a nine-to-five job while pursuing her art career—which includes writing poetry, fiction, essays and more, creating visual art and films, and making music, either solo or with her brother under the moniker Too Attached—but now that she’s part of the Creative Writing department, her schedule is more flexible.

For her next project, she’s collaborated with artist Ness Lee on a comic book called Death Threat.

The book is based on hate mail she began receiving from one individual in fall 2017.

“I get trolled on the internet and I immediately block that kind of stuff, but there was something about these messages that really stuck with me because of the way that they used Sanskrit, which is … a language that I know within a religious context from my childhood … This person … also conjured my family in some of the letters,” Shraya explains.

She loves that comic books are wacky and unpredictable, with room for dark humour, and she came up with the idea of illustrating the letters, and her and others’ responses to them, as a graphic novel.

Death Threat will be out from Arsenal Pulp Press in spring 2019.

Chelsea Novak chelsea@vueweekly.com

GRAPHIC NOVEL

l C C IN T E R W uid e G

On Vinyl is Written and Drawn by Lorenz Peters. / Lorenz Peters

W VUE

EEKL

Y‘S

SPINNING THROUGH LP OBLIVION

Lorenz Peters’ On Vinyl is a Love Letter and Satirical Stab at Record Collecting Culture

On Vinyl Lorenz Peters Conundrum Press

U

pon flipping through the first few pages of Lorenz Peters’ graphic novel On Vinyl, you get the sense that not everyone is thrilled to be living in the digital music age.

At least, Lenny—a self-professed vinyl lover who owns a used record store in downtown Toronto—isn’t.

Day after day, Lenny is subjected to sociopathic record collectors, people looking through the cheap bins for their next art project, and wannabe vintage hipsters.

The days are usually slow and monotonous for Lenny (a character clearly based off of the author, who himself owned a record store in Toronto) while he chats with people uninterested in vinyl—or in some cases, a little too interested. Lenny’s world is falling apart, figuratively and literally (his home is being torn down by dim-witted landlords and contractors), but he does find solace and enthusiasm in introducing customers to new records. Still, that experience doesn’t happen every day and it seems to be weighing on Lenny and his psyche.

The character of Lenny is half Rob from High Fidelity and half Nardwuar the Human Serviette (an eccentric Canadian music interviewer for those uninformed), making him an interesting and somewhat relatable character. He holds an encyclopedic knowledge of obscure bands from bygone eras, and hates that all music can now be downloaded with the stroke of a key. He also doesn’t come off as snobby and elitist, as most intense vinyl collectors do.

The story is a pretty quick read, accompanied by inked illustrations that have an aesthetic reminiscent of what you might find in the Cartoons section of the New York Times, and it’s filled with music related puns, scribbled on vinyl covers. Some favourites have to be Led Balloon, The Pickle Underground, Hall and the Midnight Oats, Pink Fluid—Peters clearly had fun.

Unfortunately, the used record business isn’t always fun and definitely not as lucrative as it once was, so whipping dollar bin records down the stairs and smashing them to smithereens seems to be the only way to pass the time for Lenny. Rent is increasing and Lenny’s nagging inner thoughts—drawn as wispy amoebas in a surrealistic dreamworld—are getting the better of him.

The real narrative of the story begins when Lenny goes searching for a collection of long, lost records owned by a mysterious, aging DJ, Hot Walter. With the aid of his annoying, self-driving, talking car, Lenny travels to Hot Walter’s last known location, and turntable insanity ensues.

Peters’ doodles are what really push this story forward. Lenny’s mind is on the brink of absurdity, and you often wonder if the world surrounding him is real or in some alternate reality. It’s somewhat comparable to the surreal campiness of Twin Peaks.

On Vinyl isn’t the graphic novel that’s going to change the world or anything. In all, it’s a short story about a man wrestling with the sad reality that music distribution and listening habits are in fact changing, even though many

people believe we are living in an age of “vinyl resurgence.”

Stephan Boissonneault stephan@vueweekly.com

VUEWEEKLY.com | OCT 11 - OCT 17, 2018

Adventure features, style tips and food and drink ideas to help you make the most of Western Canada’s longest season!

arts 9

DARK COMEDY

Lenin’s Embalmers is written by Vern Thiessen and directed by Alexander Donovan. / Supplied

MAKING LENIN LIVE LONGER

Playwright Becomes Performer in U of A Production of Lenin’s Embalmers

W

hen Vern Thiessen’s former intern from Workshop West Playwrights’ Theatre asked to direct his play as part of an MFA thesis, he quickly said yes. Then, over a beer or two, Alexander Donovan even convinced the lauded Canadian playwright to perform in his own work, guaranteeing a production of

10 arts

Lenin’s Embalmers like no other.

The historical play springs from the true story of two Jewish biochemists charged with embalming Vladimir Lenin’s body—an untested scientific undertaking at the time.

Should the pair fail their task, death awaits as their punishment.

“Death in this piece is ever-pres-

ent,” Donovan says. “It’s a constant threat. Everybody is aware that it could happen at any moment, and it eventually starts to really come to a head when Stalin takes over.”

Thiessen says this focus on death—“the one thing that we all fear”—pushes the characters in the play, but the comedic aspects are

equally important as well.

“The Russians have this saying— ‘What makes us laugh makes us cry’—and that’s what’s going on here,” Donovan says. “It’s a raucous comedy with some very dark elements in it.”

While Donovan aims to tell the play’s story with a focus on characters, the political environment of the Russian revolution informs aspects of the plot, too.

“This was a time period in which there was a lot of propaganda,” Thiessen says. “There was a huge turnover in [Stalin’s] staff and there was a lot of silencing of the press and dissent—and certainly that is more prevalent today, especially south of the border, than it was 10 years ago when I wrote the play.”

Even though similarities exist between present-day world leaders and the era of Lenin’s Embalmers, they didn’t dictate Donovan’s directing approach.

“One thing about this play is that it is political in the sense that you can read into it what you wish,” Donovan says. “I’m always wary of being a little heavy handed with making comparisons … I think the play will speak for itself in that way because it has some parallels that are almost impossible to miss. It’s almost as if this play could have been written yesterday.

“For me it’s about telling the coherent story and getting the humour in there and getting the tragedy in there. I’m hoping that the political elements will shine through for people on their own merits,” he adds.

Thiessen takes a similar view on his philosophy as a playwright.

“Comedy should make people think and it should make people laugh,” Thiessen says. “I’m hoping that people will laugh with a certain kind of recognition.”

Beyond his performance role as Lenin in his own play, Thiessen also worked with Donovan to tinker

VUEWEEKLY.com | OCT 11 - OCT 17, 2018

Thu., Oct. 11 – Sat., Oct. 20 Lenin’s Embalmers Timms Centre for the Arts See website for times and ticket prices ualberta.ca/arts/shows with the original script.

“It very rarely happens, especially on a production that’s been produced before,” Donovan says. “New productions are one thing, but to get to redo a production and have the playwright there is a really remarkable experience … It’s not going to suddenly be completely different, but we did do some slight changes that I really think benefit the play and really make our production a unique one.”

This opportunity aligned with the way Thiessen writes plays as well, so the changes came naturally during rehearsals.

“Plays are things that are never really finished; they are things that are abandoned,” Thiessen says. “I added something back into the script that I had cut 10 years ago. It just seemed to be the perfect time to trim some fat off the play, do a little tweak here and a little tweak there, and to give the play a little breath of fresh air.”

In one case he reintroduced a character’s monologue that he’d left out of the original script.

“The storyline of that particular character was never really satisfying to me because I had to cut this monologue,” Thiessen says. “It was fun to just add this very short little monologue that sort of wrapped us this character’s journey in the play.”

Working with U of A students to shepherd the production to opening night was another bonus, Thiessen says.

“You learn from the students as much as you learn from someone who’s older and perhaps more experienced.”

Kevin Pennyfeather

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Edmonton author Carissa Halton will talk about her book,

Little Yellow House, during Litfest. / The University of Alberta Press

Girl, Rising // Thu., Oct. 11 (6 – 9 pm) Celebrate the Day of the Girl with a documentary that explores how an education, or lack thereof, can affect girls and women around the world. The Ace Class invites you for an evening of food, drink, entertainment and film to raise awareness about the 130 million girls who are denied an education. Proceeds will go to the Boys & Girls Clubs Big Brothers Big Sisters of Edmonton & Area.

(Foundry Room, $25 – $105)

Eek Fest Presents: Frank ’N Wolf Follies // Sat., Oct. 13 (3:30 pm and 6 pm) This show induces Ukrainian zombie dancers. I don’t know what exactly that means, but it sounds like something you should see before you die. Possibly right before. The show is hosted by local improv peeps Dana Andersen and Tom Edwards, and will also include musical numbers from Frankenstein, Wolfman, Dracula, superhero sketch comedy and improv games from the fine folks at Grindstone Comedy Theatre, and a magician. Plus you’ll be able to check out the rest of Eek Fest while you’re there.

(Arden Theatre, $19.95 for adults, $7.95 for children 12 and under, $44.95 for family kids pack, and $59.95 for family four pack)

Script Salon: The Takeoff by Collin Doyle // Sun., Oct. 14 (7:30 pm) Hear a new play by award-winning writer Collin Doyle read aloud by professional actors, with a talkback from the playwright following the reading. Doyle had two plays produced in Edmonton in 2018: Slumberland Motel, produced by Shadow Theatre, and Terry and the Dog, produced by Edmonton Actors Theatre. In The Takeoff, he tells the story of one family through three generations “following the couplings and un-couplings of new love, old love, and broken love.”

(Upper Arts Space at Holy Trinity Anglican Church, Free admission, but donations accepted)

Litfest Presents: Little Yellow House: A Talk and Tour in Alberta Avenue // Thu., Oct. 18 (5 – 7 pm) Edmonton author Carissa Halton wrote her latest book, Little Yellow House: Finding Community in a Changing Neighbourhood, in response to people who asked her why she chooses to live in the Alberta Avenue neighbourhood. Her answer includes an introduction to the people who live in her community, and this Litfest event also includes a short walking tour of the neighbourhood. Join Halton to learn more about the book and Alberta Avenue. (OTTO Food and Drink, $12)

VUEWEEKLY.com | OCT 11 - OCT 17, 2018

arts 11

HISTORY IN MOTION

CITY ‘KICKS THE SHIT OUT OF ITS ARCHITECTURE TOO’ Local Video Artist Tim Folkmann Aims to Reignite the Old Rossdale Power Plant in Two-Day Projected Project WILDLIFE

See this building? It’s gonna have animals and shit projected on it. Nice. / Supplied

T

he Rossdale power plant has stood for decades as a symbol for the longevity some historic buildings can see in Edmonton— but the structure, reminiscent of the cover to Pink Floyd’s Animals,

hasn’t seen much use, nor much beautification over the years. It’s part of Edmonton’s legacy of ignoring its roots.

Enter Tim Folkmann, a videographer and photographer with a

lifetime of experience—he is aiming to make the great brick rectangle that shadows the river valley something of artistic esteem in his new project WILDLIFE, a two-day photo-video event.

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12 arts

In what promises to be a massive undertaking, Folkmann aims to project the flora and fauna of Edmonton’s green spaces across the brick exterior of the power plant. Anyone who has had the privilege to walk through the river valley knows that, in a sea of industrial and residential monoliths, the hints of trees and wildlife are a welcome departure from what is commonplace in the city.

“When I was approached for the project, the members of the neighbourhood wanted to celebrate the history of their community. I mentioned that animals had been here long before we showed up, so we wanted to put the animals on the architecture. [It’s] fitting considering the architecture initially stomped on the animals,” Folkmann says.

The artist has an extensive history of utilizing video and projection as a means for expression that still images may not traditionally convey. His work stems across professional exhibitions and museums and his ethos is simple: to utilize the medium of film and imagery in a way that isn’t restricted to traditional narrative video storytelling.

“I came out of photography, and was so used to stillness.

Once movement came into play through video, I noticed that things didn’t need to be strictly narrative or have a story—it can just convey a feeling, and make it a beautiful thing to watch, like a mural in motion,” Folkmann says.

The logistics of the operation are steeped in making the images as active as possible, with the main focus of giving the wildlife projections a sense of action and movement. Projector screens are often restricted to four right angles creating a traditional frame

VUEWEEKLY.com | OCT 11 - OCT 17, 2018

WILDLIFE by Tim Folkmann Oct. 12 and 13 Rossdale power plant, 10155 96 Ave for imagery. Folkmann is aware of this restriction and aims to use everything in his artistic arsenal to avoid being stuck in a box.

“Some of the images are stock and others are my own, and I move the projector along with the images. In that I’m able to change the context of the theatrical frame. You don’t see the box that it’s in—you only see the image,” he says.

Folkmann wants this project to reignite vigour in historical buildings—the power plant became a provincial historic resource in 2001—as the city continues to grow, and more and more towers pierce the city’s skyline every year.

He hopes that this growth won’t take away from what little historical buildings the city has left.

“Edmonton doesn’t just kick the shit out of its nature, but it also kicks the shit out of its architecture too,” Folkmann says.

Folkmann also desires that the power plant will soon see other uses in conjunction with the arts.

When it comes to the ‘how?’ He has a pretty focused idea, “Keep it big, keep it large and keep it open. That place is valuable if you’re a creative. Just don’t turn it into various boxed spaces and make it another stupid theatre.”

The event will span over two nights and will be viewable from the exterior of the building. Commuters going across the Walterdale Bridge will have the best view of Folkmann’s nighttime nature pastiche.

Jake Pesaruk

Kate Blanchett, Owen Vaccaro, and Jack Black hang out in a creepy house. / Universal Studios

SCARY CHILDREN’S MOVIE

The House with a Clock in Its Walls Is a Confused Film that Holds Back from Reaching Its Full Potential

T

he House with a Clock in Its Walls begins 10 years after the end of World War II with newly-orphaned Lewis (Owen Vaccaro) going to live with his estranged Uncle Jonathan (Jack Black)—who conjures magic with a saxophone, and lives in a strange house adorned with paraphernalia designed to ward off evil spirits.

Jonathan and his neighbour Florence (Kate Blanchett) are a powerful warlock and witch whose former friend Isaac Izard turned evil after the war’s end and hid a ticking clock in the walls of the house. Lewis learns his own magic and tries to prove himself to popu-

lar classmate Tarby by raising Izard from the tomb. It is up to him, Florence, and his uncle to stop Izard from changing time and history forever. The story is based on an award-winning 1973 novel by John Bellairs, and is ambitious but, like Lewis’ initial attempts at his own magic, mostly unsuccessful.

This intriguing story is told with a pages-ripped-from-the-book style that was tough to get accustomed to. The oddly-coloured sets look like drawings, and the characters are shallowly portrayed; everyone except straight man protagonist Lewis sounds like they are merely reading lines aloud—even the usu-

ally fearless and immersive Black and Blanchett. It took a while to get accustomed to such a forced style of dialogue, making the story sometimes difficult to digest.

Horror director/producer Eli Roth does an admirable job at making a film in the vein of the murky 1970s children’s novel. It is a complex story, delving into themes of loneliness, PTSD, war, and death. Because of this, I think many younger kids would be far too frightened by the film. At the same time, Roth, whose wheelhouse is dark material, could have done so much more with this weighty story, but only ventures halfway there as many

filmmakers do when trying to balance family-friendliness with a desire to spark thought and fear. The silliness of a scatological griffin topiary and pet armchairs, mixed with demonic imagery, make this a paradoxical, identity-less film that seems constantly aware of its own strangeness.

In previous decades like the 1970s when Bellairs’ novel was written, children’s movies like The Dark Crystal and An American Tail confronted kids with cruelty and trauma, before journeying them into the light and showing them yes, you can do it, and you can do it on your own. It is interest-

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ing that in the dank hopelessness of 2018, we are starting to return to storytelling that both helps confront real-world fears and empowers the underdog. It’s too bad this film wasn’t effective enough to present that message of indomitability in a stronger, more engaging way, because kids need it now more than ever.

Miya Abe

SCIENCE IN THE CINEMA

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film 13

who-done-what

Anna Kendrick and Blake Lively co-star in

A Simple Favor. / Lions Gate Entertainment

Gone Girls

A Simple Favor Is Hilarious, Just Don’t GIve the Plot Too Much Thought

A Simple Favor Directed by Paul Feig Now Playing 

B

ased on the novel by Darcey Bell, A Simple Favor plays out like the author read or saw Gone Girl and thought, “Could have been funnier. Needs more girls; less of the husband.”

Stephanie Smothers (Anna Kendrick) is the mom who makes all other moms feel like shit. She cooks, bakes, volunteers, makes crafts, and captures a lot of her

activity on her mommy vlog.

Then one day the adorable little tot (Joshua Satine) benefitting from all this (s)mothering makes friends with Nicky Nelson (Ian Ho), whose mom Emily (Blake Lively) is pretty much Stephanie’s opposite—she works long hours in fashion, swears at her boss, day drinks, and does it all with style and flare. There are few moments Lively is on screen where it doesn’t look like she stepped off a runway, or at least from the front row. But things go terribly (wonderfully) wrong when Emily asks Stephanie to pick up Nicky

from school one afternoon and then disappears.

Kendrick is by far the most delightful thing about this movie, and that’s not to say there isn’t lots to like. You’d swear the part of Stephanie was written for her, and as convincing as she is as the wide-eyed, naïve mommy vlogger, she’s just as endearing as the ohmy-god-she-might-be-a-sociopath amateur sleuth. Her character walks a line between innocence and manipulation over the course of the movie, and you’re never quite sure what side she’s going to fall on.

A Simple Favor delivers a lot more humour, and slightly less tension, than its preview promised. Stephanie and Emiy’s fellow moms (Kelly McCormack, Aparna Nancherla, and Andrew Rannells) serve up a healthy portion of humour, as do Kendrick and Lively. Some of the best scenes are moments when the two are navigating their oppositesattract relationship.

Lively spends most of the movie tossing out wisecracks or offering up ceaseless evidence of how much of an enigma Emily is, but there is one scene where her character is genuine throughout—an

open sore of a human being—and it was nice moment to prove her range. On the other hand, it was a terrible moment for the plot.

This film is funny and entertaining—very important given that with the hindsight of about 10 minutes the movie’s plot slowly starts to unravel. You walk away from the theatre still not quite sure what motivated certain characters to do the fucked up shit they did, and still not totally clear who lied about what—but you’ll probably still be laughing.

Chelsea Novak chelsea@vueweekly.com

middle school flick

this is youth in grade eight, baby Eighth Grade Dissects Impact of Social Media and Technology on Kids Oct. 13 and 15 Eighth Grade Directed by Bo Burnham Metro Cinema 

“

Elsie Fisher stars as Kayla Day in Eighth Grade. / A24

14 film

Hell is other people,” Sartre declared—about feeling prey to others’ judgments of us—but what’s middle school, then? For many tweens and early-teens, the grades before high school can seem like their own special kind of eternal torment. Eighth Grade covers one week in the life of 13-year-old Kayla Day (Elsie Fisher), who is in her final pre-high school stretch of classes. This debut from Bo Burnham (who started out on YouTube) plunges us down the rabbit hole as an introverted Alice spin-cycles through an online world of photoand video-channeled extroversion.

Kayla’s YouTube videos (“How to be yourself,” “How to be confident,” etc.), full of her halting, vague advice, are posted up against her day-today moments at school and home, full of her faltering, withdrawn awkwardness. It’s cringe-dramedy at its most toe-curling, and it’s a case study in SMADness (Social Media Anxiety Disorder). At times, the more she texts, Snapchats, videoposts, completes Buzzfeed polls, or Google-searches “how to give a good blowjob,” the more it seems Kayla’s either trying harder to locate a sense of herself or losing herself all the more. When the camera pulls back, farther and farther, turning a close-up on this timid teen into a long shot, the sense of her apprehension, distance, and shrinking self is tragically telescoped.

There are surreal insights into American middle school life, too— a school shooting preparation drill,

VUEWEEKLY.com | OCT 11 - OCT 17, 2018

a fishbowl of a backyard swim party, and a skin-crawling, backseat #MeToo moment. Amid it all, Kayla still grasps moments of assertiveness. Still, this first-person tone poem can falter—a couple of heartfelt speeches from Kayla’s he-means-well father are just too misty. But the film’s sharpest questions highlight micro-generations and micro-selves. Have social media and incessant tech upgrades made the gulf between school grades so much greater? Can a 10-year-old Kayla—in a video on a Spongebob Squarepants thumb-drive in her time-capsule, opened this graduation week—be that different, or feel so different, from her 13-yearold self? Wondering if our pluggedin world is short circuiting our most haywire years, Eighth Grade is neither alarmist nor condemning— just wincingly sensitive.

Brian Gibson

Joe Nolan thinks of songs as little gifts that he’s found first. / Jennifer Linford

Moody BLUES

I

Cry Baby is the Album Edmonton’s Joe Nolan Wanted to Make for Years

f you ask local musician Joe Nolan how he was doing five years ago, he would probably give you a disheartened answer. Since the release of Tornado in 2014, Nolan had been trying to release another batch of songs for more than four years, but due to his contract with Six Shooter Records, he was tethered down and unable to make music. It was a dark time for Nolan and the whole situation made him feel like a ghost of his former self.

Now, he’s back, independently releasing Cry Baby—his most “honest offering of music” to date—and he feels more like himself than he has in a long time.

“I feel like I lost five years,” Nolan says with a long, reflective pause.

“I feel really old now, even though I’m not. If it was up to me, I would have had two records out after Tornado. Although, I wouldn’t have been able to make [Cry Baby] without having to go through this.”

The moody and slightly melancholic album is Nolan’s most individualist album to date. While his older work did put him on the map, it may have subconsciously echoed other well-known roots rock sounds and artists. It wasn’t

intentional. Nolan was just trying to find his own sound and felt he had to adapt to everything and everyone in the music industry. He even made some unreleased demos with the prolific artist Hawksley Workman while being signed to Six Shooter.

“I was always trying to do what other people thought was right and not necessarily me,” Nolan says.

Cry Baby is Nolan at his most vulnerable. It’s a zoomed-in snapshot of his life, made up of drunken nights, crumbling relationships, nostalgic mind trips, and bouts of creative depression. It was a collection of songs that Nolan felt he had to release.

“It was more liberating this time to be able to do that,” he says. “I definitely have gone a few layers closer.”

The album was originally supposed to be recorded—as Tornado was—in Nashville with Colin Linden, but Nolan decided to keep the production side of things on home soil, and work with Scott Franchuk at The Audio Department and Riverdale Recorders.

“Something about it [going back to Nashville] in my gut felt not

quite right,” Nolan says. “So I canceled and we did it here in Edmonton and it was really special.”

If Nolan had recorded Cry Baby with Linden, it probably would have still been a good record,—living in that rootsy, folk country realm. Instead, Franchuk guided Nolan’s creative freedom, allowing Cry Baby to dip into Americana on songs like “Dead Ends and Damaged Hearts,” blue-eyed soul on a song like “Dynamite, and punk rock on the blistering “Black out Drunk.”

One of Cry Baby’s standout tracks comes early as “Music in the Streets,” a piano rock ballad that features a conversation between two down-on-their-luck strangers who find each other in the darkness.

“I wrote that song in Toronto,” Nolan says. “My sister Jenny [Thai] lives there and she breaks into the university and uses their pianos.

She waits for the music students to open the door and hops in. So I was there and she took me to this university and we each had our own little soundproof rooms, and I wrote ‘Music in the Streets.’”

Nolan and alt-country sensation Lydia Loveless take the roles of the

strangers. After repeatedly listening to her 2016 album Real, Nolan knew he wanted Loveless’ smoky, crimson vocals on the track.

“I toured with Lydia in Scandinavia five years ago, and then we sort of fell out of touch, so I messaged her out of the blue,” Nolan says. “I remember being in Regina for Break Out West, sleeping in my van and I got really stoned and listened to her album two times through, and I started weeping. Albums like that—they really grow and stick with you.”

Perhaps the most powerful and candid track on Cry Baby is the one that brings it to a close—“Ode to Sturgeon County,”—a memory poem where Nolan switches between singing and almost spoken word, recounting his past experiences growing up, as a piano and string section go steady with one another.

“I wrote it on my grandma’s piano while we were recording the album.

It kind of ties in what I wanted to say in the album. It’s nostalgic and a reflection,” Nolan says.

The string section was also arranged by the late great Tommy Banks.

It was recorded the Monday after

VUEWEEKLY.com | OCT 11 - OCT 17, 2018

Nolan played North Country Fair.

He drove home the Sunday night, and had to sleep in his van after almost hitting a moose. He arrived at the studio exhausted and underrested and watched in awe as Banks conducted the string section from the control room.

“I had never heard that part in the song, and seeing Tommy conduct this mini-orchestra, I was holding back tears. It was an incredible moment and a privilege,” Nolan says.

“Tommy came in and he was such a gentleman. He brought his wife Ida and he was so sweet to her. He didn’t have to come in and do that and he was so generous. He hung around after just to shoot the shit and eventually his wife was like ‘OK Tommy we have to go.’’’

It’s an experience that Nolan will keep with him for the rest of his life, the song itself a perfect lighter ending to the darker, sombre tones of Cry Baby.

“I wanted the album to start off really moody and as you get further in, it gets a little darker,” Nolan says, “and then it ends on a hopeful note.”

Stephan Boissonneault stephan@vueweekly.com

music 15

JAZZ

/ Supplied, The Provincial Archives of Alberta

BIG MILLER IS THE STORY OF JAZZ IN EDMONTON Local Musicians Recall the Man Who Helped Foster the City’s Music Scene

I

n a small park off Whyte Ave lies a bust of a man and a microphone—his face contorted in the effort of singing an unheard song.

The statue—erected in 2009— and area around it, clearly bear the name “Big Miller,” but many people don’t know just how appropriate its positioning is, sitting near Tommy Banks Way and the Yardbird Suite, both icons in Edmonton’s jazz history.

Symbolically, now, Clarence Horatius “Big” Miller is surrounded by music, much like he was when he was alive. The ‘shouter’ and multi-instrumentalist played with some giants in his day—like Banks, Duke Ellington, and B. B. King—but his name is largely unknown in the city outside of the jazz community that he helped foster. And there’s a generation of musicians in his adopted home who—prior to Miller’s death from heart attack in 1992—played and learned in his ensembles. According to George Blondheim—an Edmonton-born keyboard-player who “made good” out in Los Angeles as a composer for film and

TV—the city’s jazz scene didn’t have “that kind of maturity” at that time. It had talent, but with his experience in the U.S., Miller knew how to focus it.

Blondheim, who recently returned to Edmonton, first played with Miller when he was 16—he’s 62 now. He recalls that Miller was adamant about getting people of all skill levels onto the stage.

“We’d be playing some pop song, and he’d turn around and call some complicated jazz tune, and you better figure out how to play it on the spot,” Blondheim says. “I can’t say enough about the guy ... He was the most beautiful soul. He had a big heart.”

In the early 1990s, Blondheim got Miller and Banks together to record a produced record— something of a rarity in Miller’s discography. The tracks sat on Blondheim’s hard drive for years, and Miller died before Blondheim got around to finishing it up. The album, called Legacy, was released last spring, and it’s available at the Yardbird Suite.

“I made the promise that when I

moved back to Edmonton, it was going to get released,” he says, “as a promise to him.”

The nickname ‘Big’ wasn’t ironic.

He was a big guy, well over six feet tall and around 300 pounds. Blondheim recalls that the trombone looked like a slide whistle in his hands. Miller also had big charisma, and he knew how to work a stage.

Rubim de Toledo, an instructor of music at MacEwan University, played bass with Miller the three years leading up to his death—he kept making music until the end. de Toledo was maybe 17 at the time.

“He was a huge part of the jazz scene. Any musician who was a jazz player ... you would end up working with him doing gigs,” de Toledo says. “I consider myself fortunate.”

Playing with Miller was an intimidating prospect, de Toledo says.

The singer had “this aura,” and he was a legend of jazz music. But he was also a kind of time machine, a window through which de Toledo and his young colleagues could see the early days of jazz in the U.S. And he paid his musicians quite well— both veteran and novice made about the same when they took the stage with him.

“I don’t think he talked about it, but I think at the end of his life, he felt this sort of need to cultivate or give back or mentor a younger generation of musicians,” de Toledo says.

This time, from the 1960s to the 1990s, Edmonton was a kind of centre for jazz in Canada—Miller and some of the old, legendary jazz performers helped make it this way.

“My generation and the generation after me—we didn’t live that golden era that Big Miller, Tommy Banks, and those other guys did,” de Toledo says. “That was a golden era.”

The jazz bubble in Edmonton popped, or maybe deflated by degrees. It wasn’t a product of Miller leaving the world—though that

16 music

couldn’t have helped—but in the 1980s or 1990s, the number of gigs for jazz musicians started drying up, and the number of venues grew smaller and smaller.

Edmonton musician Andrew Glover played piano with Miller during the last few years of his life.

That was his heyday, Glover says—playing with Big in the 1980s.

Glover recalls getting around 20 to 25 gigs each time the city’s jazz fest ran. Now, Glover says, he’s lucky if he gets one.

Interest in jazz never got back to where it used to be. The internet, drum machines, electronic tools of the trade—they all lead to newer forms of music, and while jazz survived, those who play it in Edmonton now need to travel with their skills if they want to keep playing it.

Another nail in the coffin: Du Maurier Cigarettes used to sponsor many of the jazz festivals across Canada, until the government put a stop to it—Toronto Dominion Bank has since filled that void for a few of the events in the country, including in Montreal, Toronto, and Edmonton.

Often, surviving in jazz meant going outside of Canada, as most Canadian cities have their own roster of underworked jazz musicians that they can call upon. Some leave forever, or go as far as they can then come home; others just give it up.

“There are very few of us that make a living playing. That’s just the way it is,” Glover says.

Kent Sangster, executive director of the TD Edmonton International Jazz Festival, has a different take— that the definition of the ‘jazz scene’ has some nuance. There’s less work for big bands playing parties and corporate events, but to Sangster, who has 35 years as a musician, that’s not jazz.

“I think it’s not a bad jazz scene in Edmonton. There are more young people playing it than ever before,” he says. “If somebody wanted to say that live music took a hit, I would totally agree with that.”

VUEWEEKLY.com | OCT 11 - OCT 17, 2018

Miller was born in 1922 in Sioux City, Iowa (other sources say he was born in El Dorado, Kansas).

He picked up trombone and bass during his education, then started working as a train jumper for Pacific Railroad, did a stint in the army, worked as a master mechanic in Detroit, and finally acted as a sheriff jailer in Wichita. All the while, he played in various bands—even starting one while in the military. Eventually, he started touring with different groups across the U.S., and made homes for himself in Chicago, Huston, and New York, at different times, according to documents from the Provincial Archives of Alberta.

In 1962, he left New York, and headed to Vancouver. After years of touring across Canada, he settled in Edmonton in 1970. According to the archives, he helped develop a music program at the Banff Centre for Fine Arts, and travelled throughout Alberta promoting and teaching music in the province’s First Nations. He garnered many awards for his life’s work, most notably—to Canadians anyway—he won a Juno for Best Jazz Album in 1979 for a live album he recorded in Switzerland at the Montreaux Jazz Festival with Banks.

According to Christina Gier, associate professor of musicology at the University of Alberta, Miller was just one of the many African American musicians in the mid20th Century to take their acts outside of the U.S. “The personal treatment was a lot better outside of the United States,” Gier says. “He definitely brought American blues influence to Alberta, to Edmonton.

He was able to flourish here, and be the musician he wanted to be in Edmonton ... [It] seemed to be a backwater, but it seems to be where he found himself a happy home.”

Doug Johnson doug@vueweekly.com

EXPERIMENTAL ROCK

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Tamara Lindeman blowin’ in the wind / Shervin Lainez

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THE WEATHER STATION BRINGS A PERFECT STORM Tamara Lindeman Observes the World Around Her, Writing Some Experimental Indie Rock

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obody utilizes words quite like Toronto’s Tamara Lindeman a.k.a. The Weather Station.

Sifting through her lyrics is like reading paragraphs of muted, lost, and poetic short stories. Certain phrases like ‘I loved you unadulterated purely,’ in the song “Kept It All To Myself,” stick out and shouldn’t work—due to the words ‘unadulterated’ and ‘purely’ being so incongruous with one another—in a fast-paced, lo-fi rock song, but they do, because of how Lindeman sings them.

“I really like words and, I enjoy trying to be ambitious about what can be said with a song and how it can be said with a song,” she says.

“It’s fun to try to make phrases like that happen with the magic of syllables, sound, and meaning working together all at the same time.”

Lindeman decided to start playing and releasing music in 2006 and knew she needed a moniker that wasn’t her own. It was a moment in history when solo artists decided that naming your project after your own name was not the cool thing to do.

“Using your name as a woman just seemed cheesy,” she says. “I was trying to distance myself from what I perceived a style of music.”

She landed on The Weather Station after developing a “dumb story” about a person releasing music while living in a weather station in the Arctic.

“It was kind of this ridiculous idea,” she says. “Weather stations are real places. Up until the 1960s, people

would live up in these weather stations relaying the weather. Kind of like being a lighthouse person. It was a romantic idea.”

Her first album The Line, released in 2009, was a group of folky soundscapes that Lindeman wrote using her computer.

Albums after built on this sound until she released her fourth selftitled album last year.

“Having a self-titled album kind of feels like giving yourself a blank slate to start from,” she says.

This is not to say Lindeman completely rewrote her sound, but she did push for a more experimental rock vibe and had an idea what she wanted The Weather Station album to sound like.

“I think it was a matter of not releasing it from a place of caution with the feeling of ‘Is everyone going to like this? Those feelings had no place in creating something new. I felt that in order to be a musician I had to let all of that go,” Lindeman says.

To sum it up, Lindeman had to trust herself. Which wasn’t easy for her to do considering many of the verses came from improvising and writing them down, something she calls a “messy, branching process.”

“Deciding what the song is about is sometimes that hardest part,” she says. “I often write songs twice or three times to have completely different meanings.”

She did so with the song “Complicit,” probably the best indicator

Sat., Oct. 13 (7 pm) The Weather Station w/ Jennifer Castle, and Ian Daniels Kehoe The Aviary $20 at doors of Lindeman combining her past and newfound sonic directions.

“Sometimes, a song will have competing narratives and at some point, I have to pick which one will lead the charge,” she says. “And it’s so sad ‘cause you have to cut out great lines that don’t have anything to do with what you’re talking about. I’ll try to make sure everything’s relevant.”

Lindeman’s moniker may have come from a silly little story when she was a young adult, but to this day, it still makes sense, referencing the onlooker quality to many of The Weather Station’s songs. When Lindeman writes, she usually writes a narrative that comes from an emotion—usually anger—that generates some sort of landscape and maybe brings back a memory.

“I am really affected by the natural world and the weather, and I think there is an element of the music that I make that draws on observation,” she says. “I’m looking at things that I don’t feel I can change, but I do want to observe things that are larger than me that I can’t control.”

Stephan Boissonneault stephan@vueweekly.com

October 19th Tickets $29.95 plus gst

October 20th Tickets $44.95 plus gst Some conditions may apply. Promotion subject to change without notice and AGLC approval.

cnty.com/edmonton

VUEWEEKLY.com | OCT 11 - OCT 17, 2018

music 17

UPCOMING

EVENTS

ALL AGES

FOSTERING A SAFE, INCLUSIVE, ALL-AGES SCENE One Punch Productions Wants to Land a Blow Against Discrimination at Edmonton Hardcore Shows

SOUTH EDMONTON COMMON OCT 11

SPEED DATING GAME NIGHT w/ YEG.DATE

OCT 13

X BAND LATIN SENSATION

OCT 19

FRIENDS OF FOES w/ BACKCURRENTS & GUESTS

Stalagmites playing at the S.A.C.E fundraiser show. / Cole Hadley

WEST EDMONTON MALL OCT 12

CARLING UNDERCOVER

OCT 19

DBL DIP

OCT 26

JUSTIN HOGG

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

I UPCOMING LIVE: OCT 13 - THE EAST POINTERS 18 - BOOGIE PATROL 19 - SHEPAPALOOZA 20 - DELHI 2 DUBLIN 27 - HAUNT THE BLOCK 28 - PETRIC - SUNDAY COUNTRY NIGHTS

NOV 3 - THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS 8 - THE SADIES 9 - BIF NAKED 10 - JACK SEMPLE 16 - CAPTAIN TRACTOR 23 - REVOLUTION ENGINE 24 - MIKE PLUME 28 - JOEY LANDRETH 30 - YUKON BLONDE/THE ZOLAS

DEC 7 - SPARROW BLUE 8 - CRAIG CARDIFF 21 - SMALL OFFICE LIVE MUSIC CHRISTMAS PARTY (CONTACT@STATIONONJASPER.COM FOR DETAILS)

WEEKEND

B R U N C H E S

B RU N C H E S A R E B E TT E R W I T H L I V E M U S I C .

FA M I LY ST Y L E S E RV I C E . FA R M E RS ’ M A R K E T B RU N C H O N SAT U R DAY & FO L K F E ST S U N DAY B RU N C H , 11 A M – 2 P M .

S TAT I O N O N J A S P E R . C O M 18 music

t’s hard to support your local music scene when you’re too young to play a gig, or even see gigs at a licensed venue. There are a lot of young kids getting into underground art and, 19-year-old Logan Ladouceur—founder of One Punch Productions—hopes he can provide a safe space for kids by booking more all age hardcore shows. He’s doing what he can to make the scene a bit better for the kids.

“It all really started because nobody would book my band,” Ladouceur says. “It was so hard because we we’re too young, or had no music out, so I thought fuck it; I’d book my own. There were people like Veronica Fuentes of Good Grief Collective, and Mattie Cuvilier of Clean Up Your Act Productions that have done so much for the all-ages scene. That inspired me to start promoting too.”

Hardcore is an aggressive art, known for moshing, heavy riffs, and brutal breakdowns. The music is loud, abrasive and cantankerous—but there’s

a growing emphasis on inclusivity in punk and hardcore subcultures.

There is a common ethos that brings the music and fans together. Promoting safe spaces where young kids can get in on the action has been an essential, but missing, aspect in the field, according to Ladouceur.

“There’s a huge push in today’s scene about respecting yourself and respecting others,” Ladouceur says.

“People are more socially aware and conscious of those around them, and that’s good for hardcore shows because it can be dangerous; you don’t want to hurt somebody that doesn’t want to get hurt.”

Though hardcore has historically been a boy’s club—with its anti-art expressions of masculine anger and subversive humour—punk has always been a progressive and important outlet for gender non-binary or trans artists to speak and be heard. Having safe spaces where kids can feel welcome, and be heard however they identify, has been important for One Punch

Productions, and the generations of punk ethos that inspires it.

“That’s a beautiful thing to see, that people are comfortable enough to go to shows; they’re not afraid they’re going to get beat up or harassed. No one’s going to hate you for your sexual preference or gender identity.”

At the same time, One Punch Productions wants people to feel they can go to a show and not feel like their abuser’s going to be there— and if they are, the group can deal with that and help get that person out of there.

Safety and inclusivity have always been important for One Punch Productions, with previous shows’ profits being used as fundraising for groups such as the Sexual Assault Centre of Edmonton, an organization that means a lot to Ladouceur.

“I thought to myself, what can I do to turn this somewhat into a positive thing—or take something negative, and turn it into a positive thing. So I got every band I liked in Edmonton, put them on one bill, made it all ages, and had a banger of a show and raised some money.”

Ladouceur believes it’s in the interest of these licensed venues to book all-age shows, and urges businesses to give the hardcore scene a chance.

He wants youth to mosh and go crazy for these bands.

“Edmonton has a great scene and the scene works together. They’re all good people working for the weekend. I think people are scared of it, it’s somewhat violent sounding, it’s an abrasive art form but it’s also peaceful, friendly and accepting.”

Levi Gogerla

EDMONTON GUITAR MUSIC SCHOOL

OPEN HOUSE FREE EVENT

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• Drop in any time between 4pm and 8pm Where: • Edmonton Guitar Music School NEW LOCATION 5526 Calgary Trail

Come for the lessons, stay for the friends!

EdmontonGuitar.com VUEWEEKLY.com | OCT 11 - OCT 17, 2018

ALBERTA-WIDECLASSIFIEDS

VUEPICKS The Avulsions // Fri., Oct 12 (8 pm) The Avulsions have been honing their gothic, dystopian post-punk sound for only a couple years now—but with their debut Expanding Program, the Saskatoon three-piece is proving they are a force to be reckoned with. Get ready for some hair-raising synth, macabre atmospheric melodies, and ethereal vocals. It’s nice to see a post-punk band that isn’t just rehashing the old New Order formula. Oh and they’re opening for Wolf Parade, if you’re into them. (Starlite Room, $25) Forbidden Dimension 30th Anniversary // Fri., Oct 12 (8 pm) Back in the late 1980s, Forbidden Dimension—a three-piece horror-rock outfit from Calgary—was

becoming Alberta’s version on The Cramps. The group has been going strong for more than 20 years, writing songs about death, being trapped in hell, and vampire blood—you know, the light-hearted stuff.

(The Aviary, $13) The Royal Foundry w/ The Den, and Josh Sahunta // Fri., Oct 14 (8 pm) The Royal Foundry is probably one of Edmonton’s most high-energy synth pop bands. Their shows can feel like DJ set or a classic rock gig—they basically fit anywhere you throw ‘em. Also, they have a couple songs with keytar, and it’s a spectacle to be seen. Don’t believe me? Check it out for yourself.

(Starlite Room, $20)

UNDEVELOPED LAND Innisfail, AB. Ritchie Bros.

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dolin over a vibrant rhythm section. The instruments play off each other with ease and confidence, while Witten’s unique voice captivates the listener’s attention. These attributes and sonic familiarity work together

VUECLASSIFIEDS Coming Events

Centennial Gala Concert o Convocation Hall, University of Alberta o Saturday, October 13th, 7:30pm o International musicians celebrate 100 years since the founding of Austria, Czechoslovakia, and Poland o Admission by monetary donations in support of the Campus Food Bank.

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STRIP MALL - Slave Lake, AB. Ritchie Bros. Auctioneers Unreserved Auction, October 24 in Edmonton. 0.36 +/- title acres, 8800 +/- sq ft (8) unit multi-tenant commercial strip mall. Jerry Hodge: 780-7066652; Brokerage: Ritchie Bros. Real Estate Services Ltd.; rbauction.com/realestate.

MODULAR HOME - Keephills, AB. Ritchie Bros. Auctioneers Unreserved Auction, October 24 in Edmonton. 1416 +/- sq ft 2008 Winalta modular home, 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom. Jerry Hodge: 780-706-6652; rbauction.com.

Baby Jey Someday Cowboy Maintenance Records

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RV PARK & CAMPGROUND - Drayton Valley, AB. Ritchie Bros. Auctioneers Unreserved Auction, October 24 in Edmonton. 11.3 +/- title acres, 51 sites and 6 cabins, 2000 +/- sq ft shop, stocked fish pond. Jerry Hodge: 780-706-6652; Brokerage: Ritchie Bros. Real Estate Services Ltd.; rbauction.com/ realestate.

MODULAR HOME - Millet, AB. Ritchie Bros. Auctioneers Unreserved Auction, October 24 in Edmonton. 1216 +/- sq ft 2012 Forest River Housing Inc modular home, 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom. Jerry Hodge: 780706-6652; rbauction.com.

NEW SOUNDS

Baby Jey’s sophomore album Someday Cowboy is a big leap forward for the former Edmonton duo—Jeremy Witten and Dean Kheroufi. The nine songs delivered on this outing work together to make a cohesive listen, which was lacking on their debut.

The record is best described as retro soft-rock with country flourishes. It sounds nostalgic, yet completely unique, and it conjures up dream sequences of love, heartbreak and childhood innocence.

Some of the lyrics have an intentionally corny vibe which doesn’t hinder their charm and are actually vital to the album’s retro perfection. The tracks feature a unique blend of piano, synths, lap steel, and even man-

•• auctions ••

to make Someday Cowboy an instant classic. After hearing this album, it’s safe to say Witten and Kheroufi have avoided the sophomore slump by creating the best music of their careers.

Jeff MacCallum

To Book Your Classifieds, Call 780.426.1996 or email classifieds@vueweekly.com

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UNDEVELOPED LAND - Town of Edson, AB. Ritchie Bros.

Auctioneers Unreserved Auction, October 24 in Edmonton.

151.97 +/- Title Acres, $2788 Surface Lease Revenue .

Jerry Hodge: 780-706-6652; Brokerage: Ritchie Bros. Real Estate Services Ltd.; rbauction.com/realestate.

NEWBROOK RV PARK Newbrook, AB. Ritchie Bros.

Auctioneers Unreserved Auction, October 24 in Edmonton.

8.66 +/- Title Acres, 40 Year Round RV Site Campground.

Jerry Hodge: 780-706-6652; Brokerage: Ritchie Bros. Real Estate Services Ltd.; rbauction.com/realestate.

3 PARCELS OF REAL ESTATE - Whitecourt, AB. Ritchie Bros. Auctioneers Unreserved Auction, October 24 in Edmonton. 160 +/- Title Acres Land, 5.49 +/- and 5.26 +/- Title Acres Residential Acreages .

Jerry Hodge: 780-706-6652; Brokerage: Ritchie Bros. Real Estate Services Ltd.; rbauction.com/realestate.

FARMLAND - Sundre, AB. Ritchie Bros. Auctioneers Unreserved Auction, October 24 in Edmonton. 3.3 Million +/- Tonnes Proven Gravel Reserves, 143.18+/- Title Acres, $5000 Surface Lease Revenue. Jerry Hodge: 780706-6652; Brokerage: Ritchie Bros. Real Estate Services Ltd.; rbauction.com/realestate.

INDUSTRIAL REAL ESTATE - Whitecourt, AB. Ritchie Bros.

Auctioneers Unreserved Auction, October 24 in Edmonton.

73.1+/- Title Acres, Hwy 43 Frontage, $2228 Power Line Revenue. Jerry Hodge: 780706-6652; Brokerage: Ritchie Bros. Real Estate Services Ltd.; rbauction.com/realestate.

INDUSTRIAL REAL ESTATE Lloydminster, AB. Ritchie Bros.

Auctioneers Unreserved Auction, October 24 in Edmonton.

VUEWEEKLY.com | OCT 11 - OCT 17, 2018

4.74 +/- title acres w/ 11,000 +/- sq ft shop, 3.11 +/- title acres. Jerry Hodge: 780-7066652; Brokerage: Ritchie Bros.

Real Estate Services Ltd.; rbauction.com/realestate.

FARMLAND - Strathmore, AB. Ritchie Bros. Auctioneers Unreserved Auction, October 24 in Edmonton. 136.39 +/- title acres, $5300 surface lease revenue. Jerry Hodge: 780-706-6652; Brokerage: Ritchie Bros. Real Estate Services Ltd.; rbauction.com/ realestate.

INDUSTRIAL PROPERTY - Winfield, AB. Ritchie Bros.

Auctioneers Unreserved Auction, October 24 in Edmonton.

2.97 +/- title acres, 3600 +/- sq ft shop & office, Hwy 20 frontage. Jerry Hodge: 780-7066652; Brokerage: Ritchie Bros.

Real Estate Services Ltd.; rbauction.com/realestate.

FARMLAND - Thorhild, AB. Ritchie Bros. Auctioneers Unreserved Auction, October 24 in Edmonton. 149.61 +/- title acres, 75 +/- ac cult.

Jerry Hodge: 780-706-6652; Brokerage: Ritchie Bros. Real Estate Services Ltd.; rbauction.com/realestate.

FARMLAND - Clyde, AB. Ritchie Bros. Auctioneers Unreserved Auction, October 24 in Edmonton. 71.27 +/- title acres, 68 +/- ac cult, Hwy 2 frontage. Jerry Hodge: 780706-6652; Brokerage: Ritchie Bros. Real Estate Services Ltd.; rbauction.com/realestate.

MEIER UNRESERVED AUCTION selling over 250 Firearms-Ammunition-Reloading equipment-BayonetsTaxidermy equipment-Antique tools. Saturday, October 13, 11AM; 20241 TWP Road 500, County of Camrose. Visit www.meierauction.com.

FALL EQUIPMENT CONSIGNMENT Sat. Oct 20 @ 9am. MAS Sales Centre, Blackfalds. Selling Farm Machinery, Skid Steer Attachments, Genie Lift, Vehicles, Trailers, RV’s, ATV’s, Motorcycles, Boat, Lumber, Livestock Equipment, Storage Units, Lawn & Garden, Tools & Misc. www.montgomeryauctions.com 1-800-371-6963.

COUNTRY RESIDENTIAL ACREAGES - Cremona, AB. Ritchie Bros. Auctioneers Unreserved Auction, October 24 in Edmonton. Mountain Views, 2.03, 2.12 and 2.02 +/- Title Acres. Jerry Hodge: 780-706-6652; Brokerage: Ritchie Bros. Real Estate Services Ltd.; rbauction.com/ realestate.

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•• equipment •• For sale EISSES. SUPER B GRAIN Trailer Rentals. Lacombe, Alberta. “We provide quality certified grain trailers”. For rates/ booking call Steve @ 403-7823333 Monday-Saturday.

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•• real estate •• 3000 acres of complete high end cattle & grain operation for sale in Saskatchewan. Manages 2k to 3k cow/calf operation with complete solid infrastructure. 2200 acres cultivated.

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GO

SAVAGELOVE NOT THE RIGHT PROPS

I was involved with a straight man who enjoys cross-dressing and taking explicit photos. The problem is that the props he uses belong to his three children, all under age 12. For example, he dressed up as a slutty schoolgirl and wore his daughter’s backpack. He dressed up as a slutty cowgirl and posed with his son’s stuffed horse. He even had the horse eating his ‘carrot.’ I told him he should not use his children’s things as props. He believes that his children will never see the photos, so no harm will come of it. I’m horrified at the thought of these kids (perhaps as adults) stumbling over these pictures.

He posts them on Instagram and Facebook, so they aren’t private, and he can’t control where they go. It’s one of the reasons I ended the relationship. Is there anything I can say to him?

CANCELED DEFINITELY PROMISING RELATIONSHIP OVER PHOTO SESSIONS You told him what he’s doing is wrong, you explained the enormous risk he’s running, and you dumped him, CDPROPS. You could take one last run at it and try to explain that his children finding these photos isn’t one of those “low-risk, highconsequence events,” i.e., something that’s unlikely to happen but would be utterly disastrous if it did. (Think of the super volcano that is Yellowstone National Park erupting or a deranged, racist billionaire somehow managing to win a U.S. presidential election.) Nope, if he’s posting these photos online, at least one of his children will stumble over them—or one of their friends will. (“Hey, isn’t this your dad? And your backpack?”) Your ex needs to knock this shit off, and will most likely need the help of a mental-health pro in order to do so.

Dan Savage

SKELETONS IN DAD’S CLOSET

My parents were married for almost 40 years—and on paper, things seemed fine. They rarely fought and were an example of a strong, monogamous marriage until the day my mother died. Recently, I found writings by my dad revealing he had several casual encounters with men over the course of their marriage. Do I tell him I know? We are close, but sex isn’t something we usually discuss. What should I do with this information, if anything?

A DEEPLY UPSETTING LIE THAT SCALDS When you say their relationship seemed fine “on paper,” ADULTS, what you mean is their relationship was decent and loving.

Well, now you know it wasn’t perfect—but no relationship is.

Your mother is dead (I’m sorry for your loss), and either she made peace with this fact about her husband long ago or she never knew about it. Either way, no good will come from confronting your father about the handful of dicks he sucked decades ago.

THE 47-YEAR-OLD VIRGIN I’m a 47-year-old virgin straight man. What advice can you give me on losing my virginity?

WANTING AND HOPING

SOMEONE’S SECRET

I’m married and poly, with one partner in addition to my husband.

My partner has a friend-with-benefits arrangement with a woman he’s been with since before we met. The FWB is not poly, but she’s always known my partner is. She has always insisted they’re not a couple, but he knows she would be hurt if she found out he was with someone else, so he has avoided telling her he’s now also with me. I don’t like being someone’s secret. My husband knows I’m with someone else and is fine with it. If my partner’s FWB felt the same, I wouldn’t see a problem. But this feels oddly like I’m helping my partner cheat on his FWB, even though they’re “not a couple” (her words). So it’s not cheating … is it?

PRETTY OBVIOUSLY LOST, YEAH It’s not cheating—it’s plausible deniability. Your partner’s FWB would rather not know he’s seeing anyone else, so she doesn’t ask him about his other partners and he doesn’t tell. Accommodating his FWB’s desire not to know about other partners—doing the DADT open thing—does mean keeping you a secret, POLY, at least from her. If you’re not comfortable with that, you’ll have to end things with your partner.

WHAT DO?

I’m scared of two things. (1) I’m scared that if I break up with my girlfriend of four years, I will be throwing away the best thing I will ever have because I’m scared that I don’t love her in the way she deserves (in the way people say you will “just know” about), or because we have normal relationship problems and both have our own mental-health issues. (2) I’m also scared that if I don’t break up with her, I am keeping her in a relationship that is not good because of my fear of never finding someone as good as her, and we would both actually be happier with someone else.

SCARED OF BEING ALONE 1. Nobody “just knows,” SOBA, and everyone has doubts—that’s why commitments are made (consciously entered into) and are not some sort of romantic or sexual autopilot that kicks in when we meet the ‘perfect’ person. We commit, and recommit, and forgive, and muddle through—but when we’re asked about our relationships, we tend to lean on clichés like “It was love at first sight,” “I just knew,” “The One”— clichés that often fill others with doubt about the quality of their relationships.

2. Get on iTunes and download

the original Broadway cast recordings of Company, Follies, and A Little Night Music. Pay particular attention to “Sorry-Grateful,” “The Road You Didn’t Take,” and “Send in the Clowns.”

PRIVATE PARTS

If I write you a letter asking for advice and don’t want it published, even anonymously, will you answer?

KEEPING IT CONFIDENTIAL, ‘KAY? While I can’t respond to every letter I receive, KICK, I do sometimes respond privately. Just one request: If you send a letter that you don’t want published, please mention that at the start. I will frequently read an extremely long letter—so long that I start making notes or contacting experts before I finish reading it—only to discover “please don’t publish this” at the bottom. If a letter isn’t for publication, please mention that at the beginning. I promise that doing so increases your chances of getting a private response.

On the Lovecast, adult babies explained, finally: savagelovecast. com. mail@savagelove.net @fakedansavage on Twitter ITMFA.org

There are lots of 40-year-oldand-up women out there who are virgins—they write in, too— so putting “middle-aged virgin seeks same” in your personal ad wouldn’t be a bad idea. Find someone in your same situation, WAH, and treat her with kindness, gentleness, and patience— the same as you would like to be treated.

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JONESIN’ CROSSWORD

Matt Jones

“Getting Shift-E”--moving over.

Across

1 Cut coupons, say 5 Show whose 50th season would premiere in 2024 8 Holiday driver, in a phrase 14 Sea movement 15 Japanese for “yes” 16 “Let’s hide out!”

17 Animal that’s a source of Musk?

19 Home theater component 20 Every last one 21 Handler of meteorology?

23 Indian yogurt drink 25 “I Am America (And ___ You!)” (2007 Stephen Colbert book) 26 Lofty 29 Agcy. combating price fixing 30 Hanoi lunar festival 33 Falco of two HBO series 36 Fantasy group 38 Circumvent 40 Clapton-inspired New Orleans dish?

43 Kick back 44 Old Norse letter 45 Name associated with IRAs 46 Shadowy figure 47 Use a crowbar 49 Group associated with Brooklyn since 2012 51 “No Logo” author Naomi 53 Jon of “Napoleon Dynamite” 57 British prep school offering singing lessons?

62 Actress Gabor 63 Wheat-free soy sauce 64 Advice to “Star Wars” fans?

66 Hot dish stand 67 “It’s a dog ___ dog world out there” 68 “Akeelah and the Bee” star Palmer 69 Says 70 ___-pitch softball 71 They may be beady

Down

1 Great buy 2 ___ Wafers (Nabisco brand) 3 Matinee stars 4 You can’t take a Scantron with it 5 Oxford, e.g.

6 “The Lion King” lioness 7 Does some workout tasks 8 Cut in half

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ARIES (March 21-April 19): In his book The Snow Leopard, Peter Matthiessen describes his quest to glimpse the elusive and rarely seen creature in the Himalayas.

“Its uncompromising yellow eyes, wired into the depths of its unfathomable spirit,” give it a “terrible beauty” that is “the very stuff of human longing,” he writes. He loves the snow leopard so much, he says, that it is the animal he “would most like to be eaten by.”

I bring this up, Aries, because now would be a good time, astrologically speaking, for you to identify what animal you would most like to be eaten by. In other words, what creature would you most like to learn from and be inspired by? What beautiful beast has the most to give you?

9 Like some shady calls 10 Metallic quality 11 “Wheel of Fortune” creator Griffin 12 Neighborhood 13 Luminous sign gas 18 It ended in 1945 22 Scientist Albert who studied LSD 24 “Come Back, Little ___” (William Inge play) 27 Rockstar Games game, to fans 28 Shakespeare play split into two parts 30 Luau root 31 Do some cutting and pasting 32 Part of MIT, for short 33 Messes up 34 Like one end of a pool 35 Sit ___ by (take no action) 37 Tempe sch.

39 Poet’s output 41 Da Gama, for one 42 Word in some obits 48 Makes alterations to 50 The other side 51 Unscrupulous man 52 Features to count 54 Loser to Truman and FDR 55 Draw forth 56 Landscaping tools 57 “Julius Caesar” inquiry 58 Pie shop purchase 59 Leave out 60 Skewed type (abbr.)

61 ___ the Elder (Roman statesman) 65 Scrape by, with “out” ©2018 Jonesin’ Crosswords

FREEWILL ASTROLOGY

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): Richard Nelson is an anthropologist who has lived for years with the Indigenous Koyukon people of Alaska. He lauds their “careful watching of the same events in the same place” over long periods of time, noting how this enables them to cultivate a rich relationship with their surroundings that is incomprehensible to us civilized Westerners. He concludes, “There may be more to learn by climbing the same mountain a hundred times than by climbing a hundred different mountains.” I think that’s excellent counsel for you to employ in the coming weeks.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): “It is sad that unless you are born a god, your life, from its very beginning, is a mystery to you,” writes Gemini author Jamaica Kincaid. I disagree with her because she implies that if you’re human, your life is a complete and utter mystery; whereas my observation has been that for most of us, our lives are no more than 80 percent mystery. Some lucky ones have even deciphered as much as 65 percent, leaving only 35 percent mystery. What’s your percentage? I expect that between now and Nov. 1, you can increase your understanding by at least 10 percent.

CANCER (June 21-July 22): You Cancerians may not possess the mental dexterity of Virgos or the acute cleverness of Geminis, but you have the most soulful intelligence in the zodiac. Your empathetic intuition is among your greatest treasures. Your capacity to feel deeply gives you the ability to intensely understand the inner workings of life. Sometimes you take this subtle acumen for granted. It may be hard for you to believe that others are stuck at a high-school level of emotional skill when you have the equivalent of a PhD. Everything I just said is a prelude to my advice. In the coming weeks, I doubt you can solve your big riddle through rational analysis.

Your best strategy is to deeply

VUEWEEKLY.com | OCT 11 - OCT 17, 2018

experience all the interesting feelings that are rising up in you.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): Do you ever experience stress from having to be so interesting and attractive all the time? It may, on occasion, feel like an onerous responsibility to be the only artful egomaniac amidst swarms of amateur egomaniacs. I have a suggestion that might help.

Twice a year, celebrate a holiday I call dare to be boring week.

During these periods of release and relief, you won’t live up to people’s expectations that you keep them amused and excited.

You’ll be free to be solely focused on amusing and exciting yourself, even if that means they’ll think you’re dull. Now is an excellent time to observe dare to be boring week.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): A Chinese proverb says, “Tension is who you think you should be.

Relaxation is who you are.” I’m happy to let you know that you are currently more receptive to this truth than maybe you have ever been. Furthermore, you have more power than usual to change your life in ways that incorporate this truth. To get started, meditate on the hypothesis that you can get more good work done if you’re calm and composed than if you’re agitated and trying too hard.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): My astrological analysis suggests that life is conspiring to render you extra excited, unusually animated, and highly motivated. I bet that if you cooperate with the natural rhythms, you will feel stirred, playful, and delighted. So how can you best use this gift? How might you take maximum advantage of the lucky breaks and bursts of grace that will be arriving? Here’s my opinion: be more focused on discovering possibilities than making final decisions. Feed your sense of wonder and awe rather than your drive to figure everything out. Give more power to what you can imagine than to what you already know. Being practical is fine as long as you’re idealistically practical.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): How far is it from the land of the lost to the land of the lost and found? What’s the best route to take? Who and what are likely to provide the best help? If you approach those questions with a crisply optimistic attitude, you can gather a wealth of useful information in a relatively short time. The more research you do about the journey, the faster it will go, and the more painless it will be. Here’s another fertile question to meditate on: is there a smart and kind way to give up your attachment to a supposedly important thing that is actually quite burdensome?

Rob Brezsny

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): In her only novel, Save Me the Waltz, Zelda Fitzgerald described her main character like this: “She quietly expected great things to happen to her, and no doubt that’s one of the reasons why they did.”

That’s a bit too much like fairy-tale wisdom for me to endorse it unconditionally. But I do believe it may sometimes be a valid hypothesis—especially for you Sagittarians in the coming months. Your faith in yourself and your desire to have interesting fun will be even more important than usual in determining what adventures you will have. I suggest you start now to lay the groundwork for this exhilarating challenge.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): Russian philosopher George Gurdjieff taught that most people are virtually sleepwalking even during the day. He said we’re permanently stuck on automatic pilot, prone to reacting in mechanical ways to every event that comes our way.

Psychology pioneer Sigmund Freud had an equally dim view of us humans. He believed that it’s our normal state to be neurotic; that most of us are chronically out of sync with our surroundings. Now here’s the good news, Capricorn. You’re at least temporarily in a favourable position to refute both men’s theories. In fact, I’ll boldly predict that in the next three weeks you’ll be as authentic and awake and at peace as you’ve been in years.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): In the late 19th-century, American botanist George Washington Carver began to champion the nutritional value of peanuts. His influence led to the plant being grown and used more extensively.

Although he accomplished many other innovations, including techniques for enhancing depleted soils, he became famous as the Peanut Man. Later in life, he told the story that while young he had prayed to God to show him the mystery of the universe, but God turned him down, saying, “That’s for me alone.” So George asked God to show him the mystery of the peanut, and God agreed, saying, “that’s more nearly your size.”

The coming weeks will be a great time for you to seek a comparable revelation, Aquarius.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): Every year, people discard 3.3 million pounds of chewing gum on the streets of Amsterdam. A company named Gumdrop has begun to harvest that waste and use it to make soles for its new brand of sneakers, Gumshoe. A spokesperson said the intention was to “create a product people actually want from something no one cares about.” I’d love it if you were inspired by this visionary act of recycling, Pisces. According to my reading of the cosmic omens, you now have exceptional powers to transform something you don’t want into something you do want.

CURTIS HAUSER

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24 Hope

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