Author Archives: Andrea

At the Mike: Ace, Bullock, Stewart and Smallman

At the Mike Reading
Thursday, May 23, 7 pm
Chronicles of Crime
1048 Fort Street, Victoria, BC
Everyone Welcome

Authors Cathy Ace, Chris Bullock, Kay Stewart, and Phyllis Smallman share the thrills, chills, and occasional spills of mystery writing.

Welsh Canadian mystery author CATHY ACE is the creator of the Cait Morgan Mysteries, which includes The Corpse with the Silver Tongue and The Corpse with the Golden Nose. Born, raised, and educated in Wales, Cathy enjoyed a successful career in marketing and training across Europe, before immigrating to Vancouver, Canada, where she taught on MBA and undergraduate marketing programs at various universities. Her eclectic tastes in art, music, food, and drink have been developed during her decades of extensive travel, which she continues whenever possible. Now a full-time author, Cathy’s short stories have appeared in multiple anthologies, as well as on BBC Radio 4. She and her husband are keen gardeners, who enjoy being helped out around their acreage by their green-pawed Labradors. Cathy’s website can be found at www.cathyace.com or follow her on twitter at @AceCathy.

Read about THE CORPSE WITH THE GOLDEN NOSE HERE: http://bit.ly/15Iyblg
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CHRIS BULLOCK is co-author of the mystery novels A Deadly Little List (2006) and Unholy Rites (2013), the first and third books in the Danutia Dranchuk series. He taught English at the University of Alberta for thirty years and co-authored a textbook on writing, Essay Writing for Canadian Students. He has published extensively on men’s issues in literature and is currently writing a series of essays on grandparenting. He lives in Victoria, British Columbia.

Read about UNHOLY RITES here: http://bit.ly/15q75iJ

KAY STEWART is co-author of the mystery novel A Deadly Little List (2006), the first in the Danutia Dranchuk series; sole author of the second, Sitting Lady Sutra (2011); and co-author of the third, Unholy Rites (2013). She taught English at the University of Alberta for twenty years and has co-authored two textbooks on writing, Essay Writing for Canadian Students and Forms of Writing. Her creative work has appeared in the periodicals Other Voices and NeWest Review, and in the anthologies Eating Apples and Wrestling with the Angel. She lives in Victoria, British Columbia. Please visit www.kaystewart.ca.

Read about UNHOLY RITES here: http://bit.ly/15q75iJ
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After being shortlisted for the Debut Dagger in the UK and the Malice Domestic in the US, PHYLLIS SMALLMAN’s debut mystery won the first Arthur Ellis Unhanged Arthur in 2007. In 2009, Margarita Nights was shortlisted for Best First Novel by the Crime Writer’s of Canada. In 2010, Good Morning America named the Sherri Travis Mysteries one of the six top series for a summer read. Her fourth book, Champagne for Buzzards, was one of three mysteries chosen as a best cottage read by Zoomer Magazine for summer 2011. Phyllis worked in a library and as a potter before turning to a life of crime. Depending on the time of year, she can be found on Salt Spring Island, British Columbia, or Manasota Beach, Florida. Highball Exit is the fifth book in the Sherri Travis series. Visit www.phyllissmallman.com

Read about HIGHBALL EXIT here: http://bit.ly/MeZ0OC

Drop by for an evening packed with great stories and conversations. Everyone Welcome. Free admission. Cash or Debit sales only.

For more information, contact Chronicles of Crime at 250-721-2665 or TouchWood Editions at info@touchwoodeditions.com.

www.chroniclesofcrime.com
www.touchwoodeditions.com

Afghanistan service captured in poems

Kanina Dawson was a master corporal in the Canadian military when she spent 10 months, 2005 through 2006,  serving  in Afghanistan. Her first book of poetry, Masham Means Evening, published by Coteau Books in Regina, Saskatchewan, explores the vivid images and stark experiences of that time. Dawson entered the armed forces right out of high school, she says, because she “wanted to do something that counted.” Now 37, living in Ottawa with her family, Dawson runs her own small business, The Blue-Eyed Bunny, which distributes environmentally sound pet supplies. Forever affected by her experiences in Kabul and Kandahar, Dawson recently linked her business with a foundation that helps women in Pakistan, www.acidsurvivorspakistan.org, to support themselves by making and selling scarves and blankets. “It’s a small thing,” says Dawson, “but the women are paid per scarf, and it’s their livelihood.” Dawson spoke recently with Lynne Van Luven about her writing and her life post-Afghanistan.

Kanina, why did you decide to use poetry, not prose, to explore your deployment with Canada’s military in  Afghanistan?

I think largely because the time in which those moments occurred was so very short, sometimes a matter of minutes. I viewed those experiences as heartbeat moments that, while connected to each other, existed for a split second in isolation. For me that doesn’t translate into prose. I didn’t want those moments getting lost in lost in the longer thread of a narrative. I wanted–needed–each of them to stand out on their own. Protected in a sense, from the peripheral noise of a longer story–and yet unprotected in that they stand alone. In fact, that may be an accurate comparison to the way in which conflict is experienced.

Were there poems you could not write, ideas you could not explore, due to issues of national or military security?

Not so much, no. Obviously, there are things we’d all be hesitant to discuss–like the way in which troops might conduct a patrol or what sorts of drills they might do–anything that might negatively affect the outcome of their situation. As we say, “that’s just common dog,” and most soldiers instinctively abide by that code. But for me, those kinds of mechanics were largely irrelevant to what I wanted to convey–what the sky looked like in the minutes after we lost someone. What evening smelled like–or heat–or Kandahar airfield in November. How grief can taste like a weedy-bottomed lake. Those were the more crucial truths for me.

Do you stand out among your military peers as a “scribbler,” or is that quite common amongst members of the armed forces?

Am I allowed to use LOL here? Me as a “scribbler” was something I definitely hid–especially when I first joined the Canadian Forces. Otherwise, yes, I likely would have stood out. I feared it would earmark me as a loner, or perhaps as someone too “artistic” to be a good soldier. The people that know me, know better. Although, yes–I did swallow hard when I told [military friends] it was a book of poetry that was getting published. Scribbling is one thing–soldiers do that in email form all the time–but poetry? In practical, mission-focused circles, that kind of thing tends to generate a lot of preconceived ideas. I think there’s the antiquated notion that war poems need to involve rhyming couplets and heroic verse, neither of which holds any interest for me. Despite the odd, raised eyebrow, I actually find today’s environment in the Forces so much more open to creativity and diversity among its members than it has been in the past. I think Afghanistan generated quite a bit of that–unnecessary rigidity is more likely to fall away in the face of conflict.  And it’s clear from the government’s War Artist program that there is both a need and a place for artistic corporate memory.

You describe your poems as “snapshots” of lives lived in the midst of conflict. Are there specific pictures, such as those in “Disconnected,” and “A Night in Hospital,” that you wish you had never seen?

That’s a hard question to answer. I can tell you I took no enjoyment out of seeing those things. But did it make me a deeper, more focused person? Did it give me a perspective I wouldn’t otherwise have had? Absolutely it did–and that’s not something I would want to undo. But that still doesn’t stop me from wishing the same effect could have been achieved differently. I believe in the value of experience, but when I think of the far more horrible images that so many in this conflict have been left with, I can’t help but want to undo it for all of them. Since I can’t, I prefer not to be ignorant.

Your daughter was five and six when you were in the military, and she’s now 12. How will you share these poems, and your “visuals” with her when the time comes?

We actually kind of joke about that–I’ve dedicated this book to her and yet have laughingly forbidden her to read it until she’s 16. She was quite young when I left for Afghanistan. Consequently, she has sort of grown up with this idea of international conflict and my participation in that. She’s very motivated by issues of social justice and quite knowledgeable in terms of some of the problems facing the world. I use my experiences to feed that interest and to inspire her to do things she might not have thought possible, so I think she will take this [book] in stride.

I’ve let the water out of the dam slowly on this one. I think it’s likely that my language will shock her more than my experiences. Ultimately, as a parent, my job is not to shield her from everything, but to give her a safe place in which to feel.  So when she finally makes herself that cup of tea and sits down to read, I hope that’s what I’ve done. I also wouldn’t be surprised to see a swear jar appear on the kitchen counter . . .

Never Shoot a Stampede Queen (at Granville Island)

Never Shoot a Stampede Queen
By Mark Leiren-Young
Directed by TJ Dawe
May 10 to May 25
Granville Island Stage, Vancouver, BC

Based on the award-winning book (2009 Leacock medal for humour), the stage version of Stampede Queen just closed in Kamloops at the Western Canada Theatre where it played to full houses, standing ovations and rave reviews. This version just finished a brief preview run in Duncan–also playing to a couple of packed houses, a standing O and delighted audiences. The show is big fun and 100% Stampede Queen approved (Stampede Queens showed up and approved it).

 

Collaboration results in seamless poetry

Every now and then, a book turns up that is immediately intriguing. Such was the case with the beautifully produced Whisk, published by Pedlar Press. But what/who are the authors, identified jointly as Yoko’s Dogs. It was no big mystery, once Lynne Van Luven took a closer look. The collective consists of Jan Conn, Mary di Michele, Susan Gillis and Jane Munro. They live in different cities, and yet are truly collaborative. The group can explain itself, and its process–and does so below, speaking with one voice. 

I was intrigued to learn about your group of poets called Yoko’s Dogs. Can you tell me its history: how it got started, how long the pack has been together, and what you hope to achieve?

The idea for Yoko’s Dogs came about in 2006 around a small tin table in Montreal when the four of us, living in different places and time zones, decided to explore collaboration in an engagement with new forms to expand our individual practice.

In 2008, we met for a three-day writing party in “Marshland,” Ontario where we composed our first site-specific poem. At this meeting we found our name in one of our early images: “Yoko’s house is dark, her dogs/ tied in front, too cold to bark.”

Following tradition, which we happily and radically break to invent anew, the Doggies’ practice is rigorous, exacting, challenging, and exuberant.

I notice many, many animals make appearances in the poems in Whisk. So does the natural world.  Was that intentional, or do you all just happen to slant that way?

Our focus on animals and the natural world is deliberate and purposeful. Many of our verses are composed while walking outdoors. We want to think and write about the world outside ourselves, the animate world we humans are part of. Other animals sense and know the world differently from us; by observing and interacting with them, we learn about these other ways of knowing. Again and again, we’re reminded that the world carries on without us.

We tend to think of poets as writers terribly invested in personal voice, so I find it really interesting that readers may not know who wrote what poem in the collection.  What did you hope to achieve with this sort of “anonymity”?

We’ve moved towards anonymity in our public work in an effort to accurately represent our process. We sign verses as we compose, mostly so we know where we are in any given sequence. We follow a standard rotation when composing, taking turns with who starts a poem, linking and shifting in various ways as we go. The order doesn’t change, though the kinds of links and shifts we make do. Any one of us might send someone’s verse back to the drawing board if we feel it isn’t working. So even in the earliest stages, composition is collaborative. Removing signatures from our published work, as in Whisk, is a reflection of this process, and of the fact that we work on revisions together. By the time we’re done, no one “owns” any particular verse.

Japanese linked verse is traditionally composed by a group of poets. Some methods of composition put a lot at stake for individual poets within a group: to have the host or master of a cycle choose your verse, well! We didn’t compose that way with Whisk, though we have experimented recently with this kind of selection process as a discipline to sharpen our chops. In the form of kasen composition we’re now practicing, we all offer verses and only one gets chosen. Even this approach leads to collaboration in the revision and shaping; our first kasen “Yellow,” appearing soon in Room, was composed this way but prepared for publication collaboratively. We learn from and inspire one another–it’s work, but it’s also a lot of fun.

And leading from there, each of you is an established poet, with her own career and fans.  What has the response been, when you explain the project that is Whisk?

Nearly everyone with whom we’ve spoken–in person or electronically–about Yoko’s Dogs and Whisk has been interested and sufficiently curious to ask questions. There’s been some skepticism, of course, but even that comes with curiosity.

How difficult was it to agree upon selection for the book, and upon the style of poems?  Did you each take on a style or a certain number of selections?  

Not difficult at all, and no, the entire book is a collaboration, whole cloth. We all worked on all of it.

We work by email and Skype, normally, only meeting in real time and place about once a year, and that’s how we worked with this manuscript. For the book we decided we wouldn’t tamper with the order the verses were written in, we would only decide where to stop and start. Most of the material resolved neatly into four-stanza poems because that’s how we’d composed them, but we realized as we discussed the manuscript that some of the links carried through more than four stanzas to make engaging and resonant longer poems. Agreement on these divisions was much more easily achieved than you might think–the poems sort of divided themselves, not unlike when you dig up large plants to separate them for propagation and find the root divisions are kind of clear. And titles were just plain fun to write.

It’s hard to remember if there were things we chose to leave out; quite likely we didn’t disagree much about that. Generally if one of us has a strong urge one way or another, the others listen and consider. Learning to articulate our experiences with and responses to any given poetic move has been enormously important; so too has listening.

The thing that often happens around the table as we work through our poems stanza by stanza, the discovery we make together when we hit on the right note in an image or for a move, the aha! of a good fit–might be illustrated by this verse that closes a cycle that has travelled through several landscapes and conditions, settling finally in sub-continental India at monsoon season: “so that’s how the cow/ got in the tree!”

 

 

Play cures sweet tooth

The Golden Dragon
Theatre Inconnu until May 18, 2013
Written by Roland Schimmelpfennig
Translated by David Tushingham
Directed by Clayton Jevne

Reviewed by Leah Callen

When I sat down in the theatre, I had a bag of sugar-coated Fuzzy Peaches in my purse–candy that I sucked on as I walked to Fernwood. Little did I know the challenge my vice was about to undergo. The Golden Dragon is an avant-garde fable featuring industrious, ant-like workers in an Asian restaurant where everything is always served hot–whether it’s the Thai soup or the sex slave. Shiny woks and dark holes dot the abstract set as the cooks stir up trouble inside and around the Golden Dragon, a place where humanity hungers but is never satisfied. At times, the actors bang the woks with percussive force that is both dynamic and jarring: beware if you have hearing aids!

The story starts with a young Asian man howling with a fierce toothache. His whole mouth is black, perhaps because of his lifelong craving for candy or for home. His fellow chefs decide to yank out the tooth no matter what the consequence; we are quickly shown how all the little choices we make in life add up like ingredients in a recipe. A series of exploitative relationships play out as people will accept almost anything to relieve their emptiness. There are three kinds of patrons at this metaphorical restaurant: those who dish out pain to subdue their own, those who walk away from it, and those who swallow it.

An inventive retelling of Aesop’s fable of the hardworking ant and the carefree cricket takes such a dark turn that your mind will spin. It could even go so far as to represent capitalism’s exploitation of art. The Golden Dragon’s menu comes with a warning: beware of people who will chew you up like a cherry and spit you out like a stone. It’s all point of view: one man’s rotten tooth is another’s lucky dragon; someone’s pain tastes delicious to another.

With some clever, unexpected casting, actors express nontraditional gender. Michael Romano’s fragility as a stewardess and The Woman in the Red Dress was truly touching (he has a lovely voice). Mily Mumford straddled both innocence and arrogance as the Young Asian Man and the Barbie-Fucker. Blair Moro was the epitome of pathos as the pitiful cricket, his chopstick feeler ripped out by the unfeeling. Bingdon Kinghorn and Catriona Black spiced up the story with enjoyable Yang energy. It was curious how characters punctuate their dramatic speeches by announcing each short pause. It’s both comedic and heartbreaking, as characters hesitate to construct their truth. Is all life a script where we speak the lines we think we should or are we always genuine?

At first fragmented and unrelated, the scenes link eventually in heart-stopping ways. The real and surreal mix as the playwright heats everyone up in his paper wok. I just wish there was more of a hook at the beginning. The deceivingly prosaic set-up tries the patience somewhat. At first the fable came across as cute when it was anything but; the production builds up to beautiful choreography that is physical poetry.

Theatre Inconnu productions always stir up the audience emotionally and psychologically. The Golden Dragon challenges us to ask ourselves: are you a caged, self-destructive cricket or an angry, sadistic ant? It’s a warning to not fall into either of those holes. And after watching what happens to those who indulge their cravings, I think this play cured me of my candy addiction. For now.

Leah Callen is a poet-playwright-screenwriter graduating with a BFA any second now at the University of Victoria.

Four distinct visions in MFA show

MFA Thesis Exhibition
Visual Arts Building
University of Victoria Campus
Until May 11, 2013

Reviewed by  Dorothy June Fraser

Any kind of graduate show is going to be an interesting experience. Wandering from gallery to gallery requires a degree of care, as we shake off the intensity of one show in order to see the next. Overall, it becomes an interesting and transformational experience.

Yang Liu’s exhibit, All the Little Things You Left Behind, is built on small pieces, constructions of home and life and the little things that come to represent lived experience. He takes tiny objects and then rearranges these bits of life into larger forms, which he then photographs. The end result is a show that evokes both the architecture of daily life and the values that define culture. The divide between memory and object, construction and composition are present and at odds within Liu’s work.

Hilary Knutson’s Au Secours, drew me in as soon as I set foot in the room. Her approach included cross-stitch, needle-point and screen-printed fabrics, woven together with her virtual presence in the gallery via video. I loved the connection to feminist fibre and craft work that she invoked within the concrete studio setting. The inclusion of chronic pain gave voice to the  physical suffering that comes with art making and is rarely addressed in spaces which we associate with the “artist.”  By providing an alternative to the cold studio space, we see her personal workspace as productive and comforting, subverting the idea that there is one correct model of studio space.

Inside the Outside, despite an innocuous title, succeeds on several different aesthetic levels. Artist Chris Lindsay explores texture and structure as a means of conveying personal experiences. A constructed landscape forces the viewer to a supplicant’s role, stepping over the steel wires that hang on the ground. Across the hall is the sound installation of Lindsay’s that instantly spoke of individual experience within a larger network, reception of information and a larger interaction than the singular human experience.

Lindsay’s fabricated silk thread sculptures are painstakingly crafted: he strings several hundred silk threads through wooden forms to create a dazzling prismatic effect. All of Lindsay’s work vibrates, reminding viewers that frequencies differ between every individual person, every standpoint.

Paola Savasta uses sculptural forms to play with the space of the in-between where 3D objects need 2D representation and vice-versa in her show, The Heir. The sense of play necessary to cover a stool in a bathmat or faux fur provided an intriguing and surprising use of textiles that drew attention to expectations of these objects in daily experience. Soft, faux-fur lined cubicle shelf constructions of The Heir repudiate hard, Minimalist sculptural qualities. In a totally different aesthetic expression, her small end tables and 3D paintings patterned with colourful plaid build sculptures from everyday purposeful, flat surfaces. I think that Savasta’s work questions authority, experience and expectations of objects in the gallery space.

The visual arts students’ works provoke a questioning of everyday existence and suggest the possible (in)sufficiency of spatial reasoning to explain our surroundings.

Dorothy June Fraser is an MA History in Art student at UVic and the online gallery curator for Plenitude Magazine.

Island Music Award winners performing this Friday

Spaceport Union, Nicola Linde, Man Made Lake, Photon
9 pm, Friday, May 10
The Cambie, 856 Esquimalt Road, Esquimalt
$6

Photon creates live visuals to accompany the auditory journey of Spaceport Union. Also performing is singer-songwriter Nicola Linde, and award-winning band Man Mad Lake.

Here’s a little taste of the kind of thing Photon will bring to the show:

Woodsmen carve their mark

Despite being a fairly young band, the eclectic indie-rock collective Woodsmen has quickly made a name for itself within the tightly knit Victoria community. Even before releasing their debut EP, Woodsmen has shared the stage with such acts as Jon and Roy, Kytami, and The Zolas, and has received airplay through CBC Music. The band’s opening track “For Keeps” was nominated as the Island Song of the Year in the 2013 Vancouver Island Music Awards. Members Maryse Bernard and Sean Kennedy talked recently with Chris Ho about their successes.

Woodsmen has been described as “an accessible blend of blues, jazz and rock” with “unconventional time changes and experimental song structure.” How do you find a balance with accessibility and experimentation in your music?

MARYSE: I wouldn’t say it’s a conscious thing—that we sit down to write with the intention of creating music that surprises without distancing the audience—but it is an important balance to keep in mind. I think the best songs evoke in us both a sense of familiarity, as well as the unexpected. It’s always fun to throw in some wacky time changes, but songs still need to follow a certain structure. We aim to deliver new discoveries without pulling people out of the listening experience.

SEAN: Yeah I’d say it’s pretty spontaneous. A lot of the cooler parts of our songs come from mistakes we made while writing that we thought sounded awesome. The hard part is to  recreate them and incorporate them into our songs.

I have to say Maryse’s vocals definitely tie our songs together in terms of accessibility. They’re really emotive and draw a lot of attention, which I guess distracts from some of the strange things going on in our songs. For instance,  “Memo” changes time signatures 4 or 5 times and “Not the Same” has separate vocal and instrumental choruses, but you’re focusing more on Maryse’s melodies and lyrics throughout those songs. Essentially we all get weird behind the veil that is her voice.

Was the recording process of your debut EP just as experimental as your musical style, or was it by contrast very straightforward? What was your overall vision for the EP, as far as song selection and general soundscape goes?

MARYSE: We generally stuck to the same vocals as when we perform, but came up with the three-part harmonies for “Not The Same” in the studio. I’m a creature of habit when it comes to singing, so it was fun to add more of a spontaneous side and come up with parts right during the recording process. We carried them into our live shows, and I love now getting to jazz-geek out for that part of the song. I think Sean also got experimental with the keys for “Memo”?

SEAN: Yeah we reversed some of my key parts in “Memo,” added some reverb, then used the sound for transitions and building tension in certain parts. We also put a microphone in a refrigerator for some of the drum parts to make them sound more dirt-nasty.

MARYSE: Vision-wise, the songs go in chronological order of when we wrote them. It was our first time recording “Memo” and “Not The Same”, but we also wanted to include a revamped version of “For Keeps,” since it’s one of our favourites from our 2012 Demo. Hopefully there’s some growth that can be heard both in sound and content over the course of the EP. To me, each song brings up a distinct chapter in its theme.

What would you say are the ideal listening conditions for your self-titled EP, and why?

MARYSE: I can’t assume this for everyone, but I like to think of it as a really good driving soundtrack. When Sam Weber first sent us the rough tracks, I listened to them during a road trip to California, and that environment of looking out at the passing landscape to the music kind of stuck. Our friends recently took the EP with them on their drive to whistler. They said afterwards that whenever a Woodsmen tune came on it made everyone feel good, which is one of the best things musicians can hope for: for it to be enjoyable in a group setting, but also appreciable on a more personal level when listening to it alone. I hope that when people really pay attention to the lyrics, they can find something that rings true with them.

Would you describe your band as being unified in its musical influences and preferences, or is there quite a bit of diversity?

MARYSE: I think our influences are all pretty diverse, and that that creates one of our sound’s best qualities. I love that everyone comes from different musical backgrounds and brings their own flavor to the conception of our songs. It inspires lyrics and melodies I may never have come up with otherwise. I was trained in jazz with heavy RnB and blues influence, but also adored punk rock as a teen, so it’s awesome to create this fusion that becomes our own genre of alternative. In the studio, Sam Weber called us the “Motown Grizzly Bear.”

Oftentimes a band’s perception of their best song doesn’t line up with what others perceive as their best song. Is this the case for your track “For Keeps,” which has evidently garnered attention through its nomination in the Island Song of the Year?

MARYSE: In my opinion, if you’re making music for the sole purpose of it being popular, the lack of substance is going to be obvious. If it doesn’t resonate with us, then it probably won’t with fans either. What’s great about “For Keeps” is that it can be taken as a lighter track—danceable and a little poppy—but also as a darker confessional when you listen to it closely. There was some heavy turmoil going on when writing the lyrics— the fear of essentially being broken when it comes to relationships. So I think it can be connected to on a number of different levels, depending on how listeners want to approach it.

Video night experiment succeeds

Video Art @ Garrick’s Head Pub, Victoria, BC
Featuring works by Rick Raxlen, Janet Rogers, Scott Amos, Carolyn Doucette, Pamela Millar, Alejandro Valbuena, Constance Cook, Carrotkid Films, and Morgan Tams.

Reviewed by Julian Gunn

I recently attended an experiment. There were no electrodes involved, though electronics played a key role. Open Space Gallery, MediaNet, and the Garrick’s Head Pub hosted a showcase of local video artists.

The Garrick’s Head expansion crowns Bastion Square and has a friendly, over-scale feeling, with a mixture of ordinary seating and enormous banqueting tables attended by stools. Our party of three occupied a corner of one such edifice, facing the large screens arrayed along the south wall above the bar. Another filmmaker (not part of the show, but very friendly) and an artistic associate sat down across from us, and another pair of viewers joined us further down. There was a general sense of creative camaraderie. The evening was a little ad hoc, in that there were no printed programs, but Doug the MC very kindly lent me his script so that I could make notes on the titles and creators of the works.

The night began with Morgan Tams’ Killer’s Crossing, subtitled “A Pacific Northwestern”–a surreal cow-metal rock opera in miniature, with words and music by Brooke Gallupe (of the late lamented Immaculate Machine). Richard Raxlen‘s playful envisioning of Jane Siberry’s “Everything Reminds Me of My Dog” followed. Raxlen showed two pieces; the second was a visual accompaniment to “Mumbles,” the jazz tune known for its cheerfully incomprehensible vocals, a kind of virtuoso glossolalia. Raxlen’s jumpy, layered lines and half-seen figures worked similarly at the edge of interpretability.

The pub noise sometimes presented a challenge during the quieter or more verbal pieces. Victoria Poet Laureate Janet Rogers‘ contribution, Just Watch, used a simple juxtaposition to powerful effect. Tiny silhouetted figures crossed an unstable surface that seemed to rise and fall above a brightly coloured static scene. I won’t explain the trick of it here, since I found the disorientation so effective, but it’s worth seeking out. Unfortunately, I couldn’t really hear what the speaker in the video was saying.

Scott Amos‘ highly textured experiments in Primordial Soup stirred O’Toole to comment wistfully that it was “Very NFB,” and it did have the exploratory feeling of the golden era of NFB film-making. (A YouTube description notes that Primordial Soup is “an experiment with acrylic paints, India inks and drain cleaner on an old 16mm film.”) In contrast, Paul Whittington‘s L19 Disposed is a bleakly funny dystopian animation that accomplishes a lot of (non-verbal) storytelling in two and a half minutes.

Originally shown on Bravo!, Alejandro Valbuena’s Caffeine uses a cafe and the delicious drug it dispenses to frame dance sequences. My favorite segments reminded me of the risk-taking momentum of Québécois dance troupe La La La Human Steps. Caffeine was followed by Carolyn Doucette’s Little Plank Walk, in which live-action foraging to chanted vocals gave way suddenly and delightfully to experimental saxophonage and edgy animation. Pamela Millar’s Blue Minute Bridge is a metallic noise poem, a visual and auditory dissection of the Johnson Street Bridge, previously screened as part of the BC Spirit Festivals. The evening ended with Constance Cook‘s Anarchist Footwear, a playful depiction of a community’s feet that filled me with reminiscences.

Even with minor sound issues, the night was a success. Many of the video pieces shown are available online through YouTube, Vimeo, and other sources. I recommend that you look them up.

Julian Gunn is a local writer with eclectic tastes.

 

 

Book Lovers Unite!

Group Book Launch from Orca Book Publishers authors
7 pm, Wednesday, May 15
Union Pacific Coffee, 537 Herald St, Victoria

Join local authors Sylvia Olsen, Nikki Tate, Michelle Mulder, Robin Stevenson, Kristin Butcher, John Wilson, Sarah N. Harvey, and Sean Rodman as they launch their new books for this spring.

Meet the authors, enjoy some refreshments and get a book signed! All ages welcome.

For more information, contact Leslie Bootle at (250) 380-1229