Saturday 26 November 2011

[midnight musings]


Have you ever wondered what picture of you they’d use
If you died tonight?
Big grin and pointy teeth
High ball in hand,
Or solemn countenance
Looking down and reading -
Or something of the sort.

The threads entwining life are tenuous,
Fibrous,
Delicate.
Would they post up that picture of me
The wrong side of my face,
The gloomy side?

The dictation of remembrance,
“remember her this way,
she wrote and slept”
look into this photograph
and know everything.

If the car veered off the road
Tonight
And the leather upholstery strained
To hold you in,
If gravity ceased
And hands hung in the air,
Would you be laughing or crying?

Fate’s truancy,
Hung on the chill of the night,
Gossamer threads pulling foggy taillights
Deep into a pond.
If I was trapped beneath,
The womb of death,
Full body or shoulders up?

Sunday 20 November 2011

sometimes i get nostalgic [and take photographs]

     About seven months ago, I moved back home after living in Montreal for a year.  The time spent there, and the time in between, exists as a sort of timelessness for me - temporally, everything that has happened to me exists simultaneously.  It's hard for me to remove my current sense of being from the sensations I experienced across the country - padding across the dark wood of the apartment, the sound of cheap beer cans cracking open, the fierce chill of a blizzard on my cheeks. 
     When I came home, it was an odd adjustment.  The weather was different - the air smelled like cherry blossom petals - there was this community I had existed separate from for so long.  I felt like I was existing in two places at once, and in many ways I still do.  I put on my winter coat, reach my hand into the pocket, and take out a metro pass, "correspondance et preuve de paiement."  I remember nights sitting around our kitchen table, two bottles of wine and two pizzas split between two waif-ish girls.  I feel like I'm still watching Survivorman with one of my best friends.  I get nostalgic.
      I also took pictures of everything.  I have photographs from the past and the present, moments which exist at the same time.

 
Arndell doing some serious mixing
We had a Great Gatsby themed party
Heather in little Italy, NY NY
Anne in 40's garb
Vicki and I ride
                                                                  

Wednesday 16 November 2011

Review of the 125 Vancouver Poetry Cabaret


The Revue Theatre on Granville Island fills with eager lovers and writers of poetry.  Tonight is the Vancouver 125 Poetry Cabaret Evening One, part of the 24th Annual Writers and Readers Festival.  The evening was held by Brad Cran, Vancouver’s Poet Laureate, essayist and photographer.  His collection of poetry The Good Life, has been hailed in the Vancouver Sun as a must read. The host of the evening, Poetry Is Dead Editor-in-Chief, Daniel Zomparelli (bow-tie and suspender clad!) was consistently adorable and charming, nearly stealing the show with his not-so-subtle flirtations with the performers. He begins the evening by quoting the Globe and Mail, that “hopefully more than 15 people come to this thing…that is if there is not the competition of paint-drying the same night.” Despite this, wine glasses and red velvet seats are filled, and the first performer takes the stage.
            Catriona Strang, Vancouver-based poet, read a piece from Proust and memory, accompanied by Francois Houle on the clarinet.  The words of Spill Kit rose and fell with both Proustian abstraction and lofty expressions, but it was matched well by Houle’s haunting and distant melodies (at one point, he was playing two flutes at once!).  Strang’s elusive poetry didn’t so much as grab the listener with what was being said, so much as how.  It demonstrated how language can be just as impervious as a complicated math equation.
            The next performer, Jordan Scott, discloses his performance with “This is the paint drying version of the evening.”  This was certainly grossly inaccurate though.  Scott is a stutterer, so every word was a battle, every line needing to be combated, and appropriately his poetry was woven with themes of body versus speech and the procedures of interrogation.  He wonders, “What words are you putting in my mouth?”
            Our third performer of the evening, Wayde Compton, read from all new works, entitled Loxodromic.  His travel narrative was actually written on the plane, on the way to Taiwan, exploring such themes as the riots in Paris and Hogan’s Alley (the old black neighborhood in Vancouver).  His treatment of race, “race is a verb.  It takes place,” is incredibly reminiscent of a Harlem Renaissance era Langston Hughes.  I was impressed with the infusion of jazz-like qualities in Compton’s poetry.
            Next up was Kevin McNeilly, accompanied by trumpet player Taylor Bo Hynum.  McNeilly’s piece, entitled Embouchere, dealt with impersonations and the varying careers of jazz musicians.  Jelly Roll Morton and Thelonious Monk gamble themselves broke, perfectly paired to Hynum’s incredibly impressive trumpet improvisation.  Hynum goes red in the face and sputters his final notes, just as McNeilly does.
            Mugbait, an ambient noise duo from Alberta, picks up right after the intermission.  Sitting cross-legged on an Arabian carpet, the duo used various tools and electronics to create the slightly abrasive, high-decibel volume that filled the theatre.  Copper sheets were scraped together and a guitar was manipulated.  Sandra and Ben Doller walk up to two microphones on stage and begin their performance-based spoken word.  Repitition of “shirt” and “baby” serve to confuse the audience as to where the focal point of the performance is, and yet there is a comedic element to the confusion of language, as words collide and meanings are altered.  The performance ends with Ben Doller, dryly punctuating with “applause,” a mere suggestion.
            One of my favourite performers of the evening, Matthea Harvey, warns us that her poetry deals with “mermaids, terror, and aliens.”  The petite brunette begins with a tale (catch that pun there?!) of Frankenmermaid, a mythical creature doomed with being in love with her creator.  The two of them identify the resemblance of two fries with ketchup to her two severed legs.  Yes, there were gasp/laughs in the audience abound.  Her poems about aliens were inspired by a headline in the newspaper, claiming that “Using a Hoola Hoop Can Get You Abducted By Aliens!”  Harvey reasons that “they want the creative ones, those that dream of another place.”  If this is true, everyone in this room is at risk of being swept off to Saturn.
            The final performance of the night was super charged with energy from Christian Bök’s reading of Xenotext.  The Giffin Prize Winner explained the piece as an allegory about the nightmarishness of poetry, and this creature-of-word certainly defied the ordinary daydreaminess of Wordsworth’s poetry.  Bök is actually, literally, trying to find a way to encode the verses into an extremely resilient form of bacteria (extremophile bacterial DNA called Deinococcus radiodurans), so then art imitates life imitates art.  He explosively describes this indestructible being out of one side of his mouth, his face flushing with intensity.  This bacterium will not perish if submerged in the Antarctic Lake Vostok and it can withstand 392 degrees Calvin.  Basically, it will survive billions of years after humans are gone.  And thus so will Xenotext.  This guy is nuts (brilliant!).
            This was just a taste of the International Vancouver Writers and Readers Festival, and if this eclectic collection of Canadian writers is any indication of what else Vancouver has got to offer, sign me up!

- October 2011

Saturday 12 November 2011

11:38

There is no explanation other than God was in the car with me tonight.

The windshield wipers stopped mid-swipe, two black slashes across the glass.  Droplets formed and formed and formed and all I could see were two blurry red lights ahead.

I muttered solemn prayers all the way home, alternating between panicked urgency and calm clear vision.  Lend me your eyes, Jesus.

There is no other explanation but God's hands taking mine at ten and two; but illuminating the light tenfold.

This is my only explanation.

True story

Wednesday 9 November 2011

[YUL]

Leaving treasures in the ocean,
The way I cast nets things get left behind.
I have suitcases full of nothing.
My walls are white and white and white
And
We are two of a kind and I’m leaving
You behind.

Spoiled wine, I’m choosing drunkenness
These last days.
I can’t fit it into my pocket
Even though I’ve tried.

Photo of Anne, March 2010

Monday 7 November 2011

Vancouver from then to Now: A Reflection on the History of the Downtown Eastside

     Too often we walk past buildings in our own city that have histories we don’t know about. We walk past that gated-off plot of rubble and think nothing but, “What a mess,” forgetting that it used to be the landmark of the Pantages Theatre. We forget that when this theatre was built in 1907, the anti-Asiatic riots had just begun. We have no idea that one of the bricks from the construction of this historical building was used to break the first window, beginning a racial riot that lasted three days.  We see these buildings all the time, as we walk to our classes at Harbour Centre, as we grab a coffee from our local coffee shop, as we forget about the lush history that exists in our own city, but every now and then we are reminded of our past and how it plays an integral role in our present, and in our future.
     Last week I had the privilege of being guided around the more historical parts of the city by Vancouver-based writer Michael Barnholden. Our tour began at Victory Square off West Hastings Street, a hop and a skip from SFU’s Harbour Center.
“You see that corner over there?” he asks our group as he points over to the corner of Hamilton and Hastings. “That’s where our city began.”
Victory Square, that often-gloomy park with the Vancouver War memorial looming over the street corner, stands as the intersection of old Granville Town (now Gastown) and the CPR townsite. This corner stands as the very tip of the original CPR legacy, and is essentially the birthplace of Vancouver.
People roam around the park in the background as Barnholden tells us the story of the incorporation of Vancouver in 1886. These people are carrying bags of bottles and glancing furtively at us, curious as to why we are standing here in the dark, where people are more often found sleeping on benches. One man is wearing sunglasses — though the sun went down an hour ago — and is carrying a milk crate, and I can’t help but think that this corner is greatly representative of much of modern-day Vancouver. A war memorial stands tall, yet in its shadow people are sleeping in the cold.
     We saunter further up Hamilton Street and stop in front of a narrow, four-story building with the words “Unlimited Growth Increases the Divide” printed across the top of the first floor. The text was part of an art project, aimed at addressing the problems associated with the old being disregarded and replaced for the means of market value. The Del Mar Hotel, built around the turn of the century, stands defiant against those who control the free-market economy and neglect the interests of the community. The current owner, George Riste, has had numerous offers to buy the building, namely from B.C. Hydro, whose mammoth enterprise now stands directly behind the Del Mar. He has turned every single offer down, choosing rather to keep the building as a haven for low-income housing. Standing there, looking at the tiny building with the brace on its side, you can see B.C. Hydro directly behind it, heavily indicative of the new devouring the old.
Our walk continued down to the threshold of Chinatown and onto Abbott Street, which is actually built on fill; the water used to come up this far into the city. “If you’re looking to buy property, don’t buy it here. If we ever get hit by a big one this place is just going to float right out to sea.”
     We continue into Chinatown and our group clusters around the corner of Shanghai Alley and Pender Street, where, according to Ripley’s Believe it or Not!, the thinnest building in the world stands.
     The storefronts have been updated, but the date “1913” is still printed on the upper scaffolding of the building. Supposedly, the original owner, Chang Toy, was only allowed two metres of building space as an expansion of Pender Street. Toy met the challenge, and the building still stands at 8 West Pender Street. Articles proclaiming the building’s fame are plastered all over the windows of the tiny stores.
Supposedly, the original owner, Chang Toy, was only allowed two metres of building space as an expansion of Pender Street.
     As we walk back into the heart of Gastown, I am struck by the changes that our city has undergone since its conception.  Areas which once stood as flourishing public domains are now filled with ruin, with sad, bearded men mumbling to themselves, as if they have been quarantined here. An overwhelming feeling of melancholy rushes in.
     Barnholden leads us down Blood Alley, a block of dilapidated apartments which receive the most police calls out of anywhere else in the city. The alley gets its name from the butcher houses that used to line the street, resulting in blood running through the streets. Rumour has it that it also used to be the location for public executions, though this is likely a draw for tourists more than anything else. The lamp posts here are also rumoured to be equipped with vein light technology, making shooting up nearly impossible.
Directly across the alley from all of this though is Judas Goat Taberna, a Spanish-inspired tapas bar with hip art on the walls and a long wooden bar outside. You can sip your glass of merlot as you admire the historical low-income housing across the way (cue the irony). The juxtaposition here is a prime example of the gentrification in much of the eastside, and a striking example of the stark contrasts between the old and the new.
You can sip your glass of merlot as you admire the historical low-income housing across the way (cue the irony).
      Our tour ends at the old Woodward’s building. What used to be a flourishing department store in the early 20th century now holds SFU’s School for the Contemporary Arts. Most of the original building has since been demolished, but the iconic ‘W’ atop the building still stands as a compass for those needing a reminder of where the heart of the city began.
     Greeting us above the Woodward’s atrium is a photo installation of the 1971 Gastown riot, when police in full riot gear broke up a peaceful ‘smoke-in’ protest. The 50-by-30 foot picture is an image of young hippies, struggling out of police officer’s arms, running through the streets with long hair and bell-bottoms alike. The peaceful protest, also known as the Battle of Maple Tree Square, represents the disunity of government officials with the public’s desire for space in the Downtown Eastside. This giant photograph seemed a poignant end to our tour, a reminder of the past, and a stirring manifestation of current conditions.

Originally published in The Peak, issue 9, volume 139 
Painting by David Wilson, via Ian Tan Gallery

Sunday 6 November 2011

"ay, if a woman live to be a man"


 Two women, Portia and Nerissa, dress as men and play the lawyer and the clerk, and save their husbands.  Oh, the masques we wear.
The Merchant of Venice dabbles in Shakespeare’s controversial stance on Semitism, teetering on that fine line of wide-eyed shock for the post-Holocaust audience, and acknowledgment of an Elizebethan world where Jews were considered alien and usurer.  Bassanio challenges the nature of loyalty – who is more important to him, his wife or his friend Antonio (bros before hos?)? The bonds of marriage are strained, the rings given to the faux judge and clerk (aka Portia and Nerissa in pants).  Little does Bassanio realize that when he says “life itself, my wife, and all the world/are not with me esteemed above thy life,” he has just snubbed his wife while she stood by.  An all knowing, albeit snarky, aside ensues.
Not just another male-dominated play, The Merchant of Venice proved to elevate intelligent women and marriage vows alike.  One of my favourite moments?  When Portia and Nerissa threaten to go and make the ‘lawyer’ and the ‘clerk’ their ‘bedfellows.’  Now that is leaping into a whole other pool of sexual psychoanalysis.

P.S. ‘Portia’ has definitely been added to my list of baby names for girls.

it's about time

There comes a point when you feel certain that you are going the right way.  That the path has made itself known, that both socks are the same colour, and your hair is fabulous and everything is working for you.  There comes a time when you can't keep it for yourself anymore.

And while my hair may certainly not be consistently fabulous (I have come to terms with the fact that it has a life all its own), there has come a time for me to tweak my craft.  To share my art.  To stick my whole hand into the pickle jar, so to speak, and hope that it doesn't get stuck.

My whole life I've known that this was it - that I was to eternally be devoted to the crafting of words, and that I was maybe okay at it.  I've observed some and written much, and now is the time to lay it all on the table.

There are feelings/experiences which we do not have the words for in English.  One of them being that feeling you get after leaving a conversation and realizing there were things you should have said.  Only after you walk away, do you think of the best comeback ever, the most witty thing you've ever thought, the most tender sentiment.  I hate that feeling.  I know that feeling so well, and the one domain in my life where that never occurs is in my writing.  Writing is eternal; it does not abide by the temporal laws which speech or conversation must adhere to.  Writing is not fleeting the way "I love you" flies away from you, the way you reach out for the tail of "you" in the wind, without success.

The French have a phrase for this.  It is l'esprit de escalier, loosely translated as "the spirit of the stairs."

In writing things down, I have stamped all the sentiments and agonies and witticisms I am capable of into print. 

It is time to leave the conversation having said all that needs to be said.

-Daryn