Author Archives: gus

Lorna Crozier pays tribute to the essence of objects

Lorna Crozier’s latest book, The Book of Marvels, was published this Fall by Greystone Books. Student Jenny Aitken visited Crozier’s cozy office at the University of Victoria to discuss the creation of this new work, which will be launched October 3 , 7:30 p.m. at the UVIC Bookstore.

Q: How was it different describing household objects as opposed to characters?

I have probably had more fun writing this book than I have [had] writing any of my other books. When you become obsessed with something outside of your self, it is a release because you leave behind your worries and concerns and the stress of what you’re going through. I got to look at an object like a bowl or a doorknob and try to get to the heart and essence of it. I didn’t want to overdo that literary trope, so I tried to let the objects speak to me and show me what they were — beyond the human context but also involved in a human context . . .

Q: What gave you the idea of writing an entire book about often-overlooked objects and how did you choose which objects to include?

I actually got the idea about three years ago with the coffee pot. I was doing a writers retreat in Saskatoon, and we had to share a kitchen with a coffee pot and I was getting more and more annoyed at the person who wasn’t making the next pot. I was always getting the last black burnt inch on the bottom . . . One day I went back to my room and wrote a short piece about the coffee pot. I tacked it on the wall and everyone loved it, so I thought why don’t I keep going? After about 15 objects I thought maybe I should cover the whole alphabet. So I had to ask myself what interesting objects start with X? With Y? If you look those letters up in the dictionary, they don’t get much space. (laughs)

Q: How did the writing process differ in a book of prose like The Book of Marvels compared to your memoir Small Beneath the Sky?

In some ways the memoir was actually my inspiration for writing in this form. My memoir consisted of short chapters that were interspersed with prose poetry. For the poems, I gave myself the task of writing short pieces describing the essence of the prairie landscape, like the dust, gravel and snow. Writing those compact pieces made me obsessed with that format, which led to me using that same form in these object pieces.

Q: How did you plan on balancing fact and comedic observation in this book?

I didn’t plan on it, it just happened. Sometimes I did a bit of research because I wanted to learn more about an object. I didn’t know, for instance, that LeRoy, New York, has its very own Jell-O brick road. Those facts were fun to stumble upon, and I wanted to incorporate them with my own experiences with the object. For me, Jell-O brings back memories of jellied salads at church suppers. I have a passionate stance on jellied salads because I have always hated them. (laughs) I think these facts added another texture and livened the pieces, so whenever I could incorporate them, I did.

Q: It seems the narrator looks back when describing the objects; were you aware of this approach?

They are mostly written in the past aren’t they? I definitely look back on the objects that are central to my childhood but hard to find now, like the Yo-yo or linoleum. People don’t even talk about linoleum anymore. Or even an eraser: someone interviewed me on the radio and told me they had never even used an eraser; I was shocked because as writers I think we are always using them. I didn’t deliberately set out to write these poetic essays with nostalgia; it wasn’t a conscious effort, but sometimes it just happens . . . There is something compelling about objects in that we know many of them will outlast us. I could die tomorrow but that wooden table could remain; even my coffee cup could have a longer life than the animals and people I love. I think because of that objects are animated with specialness and I think we endow them with meaning but some of the meaning is their own.

The Very Thought of You: Trombone with String Orchestra by Ian McDougall

The Very Thought of You: Trombone with String Orchestra,
Ian McDougall SOCAN TMMPCD01,
2012, compact disc.

Reviewed by Jennifer Messelink

Juno Award winner Ian MacDougall is perhaps best known for his work in the Big Band idiom, with the Toronto Jazz ensemble Boss Brass. But his former students at the University of Victoria know the now-professor emeritus as a supportive and inspiring trombone instructor for fifteen years. With the release of his most recent recording, The Very Thought of You, Ian McDougall once again has the opportunity to make a difference in the lives of young musicians.

The Very Thought of You benefits the “Ten Mile Fine Arts Student Assistance Fund” with ten dollars of every $20 CD sold going to support struggling fine arts students. The fundraiser was conceived one night after McDougall witnessed a student buying his dinner at a local grocery store: a single potato. McDougall and fellow Boss Brass bandmate Rob Wilkinson have arranged fourteen jazz standards for trombone and string orchestra. Performed in a relaxed, intimate swing ballad style, McDougall brings that warmth and intimacy to this recording of well-known 1930s and 40s classics.

The Thirties fostered the development and popularity of the swing era, and Big Band orchestras led by Duke Ellington, Count Basie and Tommy Dorsey were well regarded. Tommy Dorsey was the first to play the trombone as a lyrical instrument. His featured soloist Frank Sinatra stated, “My greatest teacher was not a vocal coach, not the work of other singers, but the way Tommy Dorsey breathed and phrased on the trombone.” Ian McDougall continues in the tradition with “Everything Happens to Me,” a recognizable standard originally recorded by the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra. McDougall effortlessly blends the lyrical qualities of the trombone with the rich harmonies of the orchestra. “I’m Through With Love” features solo oboe, as well as trombone, and a comfortable conversation develops, creating a multi-voiced orchestral experience. In the memorable title track “The Very Thought of You,” McDougall offers us familiarity with a unique view, reminding us that what is old can still be fresh and new.

The Very Thought of You is available at Lyle’s Place, Munro’s Books, Larsen Music, UVIC School of Music, Fine Arts café, and Ian McDougall’s website.

Jennifer Messelink is a fourth-year student in the School of Music at UVIC.

 

 

A Steinway Celebration: Robert Silverman & Lafayette String Quartet

September 23, 2012, Philip T. Young Recital Hall at UVic School of Music
Rhapsody in B minor, op. 79 no.1 –Johannes Brahms
Six Piano Pieces, op. 118 –Johannes Brahms
Rhapsody in E-flat major, op. 119 no.4 –Johannes Brahms
Piano Quintet in E-flat major, op. 44
Robert Silverman, piano , with the Lafayette String Quartet

Reviewed by Kelvin Chan

When you realize you should shove aside your daily routine to explore a composer further, you know the performance you’ve just heard has left “a lasting legacy.” Robert Silverman’s magnificent playing at his recent Sunday afternoon concert made me shelve my Mahler symphonies cycle and pull out the late piano works of Brahms for the night.

The program for the first half comprised a selection of works from Brahms’ late period—this is fantasy-like, probing, at times introspective music, and Silverman has an obvious affinity for this kind of expression. He paid meticulous attention to the treatment of both the sustain and una corda pedals, and a lush, burnished approach was apparent by the time of the second theme’s arrival in the Rhapsody in B minor, which he played with highly polished voicing in the treble register (which is notorious among piano majors at the School of Music for being recessed on the old Steinway, the instrument of Mr. Silverman’s choice).

The Six Piano Pieces, op. 118, one of a few cycles of piano works Brahms wrote toward the end of his career, is regarded as among the finest works in the Romantic literature. Being a pianophile, I have heard and studied multiple recordings of these pieces before, but never experienced them in a live setting, where the spontaneity truly adds to the quasi-fantasia nature of the music. Silverman presented the cycle with its strong thematic unity in mind, only briefly pausing between each of the six pieces, and in some cases, such as at the end of the Intermezzo in A minor, carefully linking the first notes of the following piece with the sustain pedal. Throughout the cycle, Silverman exhibited his mastery of tonal control, especially in soft playing: the last note of the serene Intermezzo in A major, for example, was produced with breathtaking softness—yet still with a remarkable degree of firmness, allowing it be projected over the lavish bass he frequently and beautifully conjured. He wrapped up the first half of the concert with a thrilling rendition of the Rhapsody in E-flat major, which allowed him to display his highly-refined tone at a wider dynamic contrast. The results were impressive.

After the interval, UVic’s Lafayette String Quartet joined Silverman on stage. The ensemble work throughout the Schumann Piano Quintet was first-rate. In the Development section of the Allegro brillante, for instance, the string players breathed and swayed freely yet were synchronized at the same time. Silverman provided a sensitive accompaniment throughout, frequently glancing at the violinists for visual cues. The brilliant chemistry in the ensemble was especially evident in the exhilarating Allegro, ma non troppo finale, where rhythmic excitement and structural buildups moved uniformly from first violin to piano to cello. The majestic culmination at the coda drew deservedly loud applause from the audience members, the majority of whom stood in ovation.

Kelvin Chan is a student in the School of Music at UVIC

Two of Canada’s top journalists in one night

UVic’s Environmental Law Club Presents: China, Canadian Oil, and the ENERGY OF SLAVES

Join Noted Authors:

ANDREW NIKIFORUK – Author of The Energy of Slaves: Oil and the New Servitude

TERRY GLAVIN – Author of Come From the Shadows: The Long and Lonely Struggle for Peace
in Afghanistan

To Learn More About Oil & The New Servitude

Monday, October 1, 7 p.m. FRASER BUILDING, UVic ­ Room 159

Victoria Writers Festival 2012

Tickets now on sale for Victoria Writers Festival 2012

The “resurrected” festival runs at Camosun College, October 12 through 13, with
readings by Esi Edugyan, Bill Gaston (from his new novel, The World), Anakana
Schofield, Madeline Sonik, Jan Zwicky, Robert Bringhurst, Daniel Griffin, Craig
Boyko (with a new short story collection, Psychology and Other Stories) and Yasuko
Thanh.

Also on the agenda are panel discussions, writing workshops, a write-off and the
Carol Shields Lecture presented by RONALD WRIGHT.

 

Tickets and passes are available at
www.victoriawritersfestival.com<http://www.victoriawritersfestival.com> or at Ivy’s
Bookshop and Munro’s Books in Victoria. But act fast – there are a limited number
of $30 passes available.

 

Seeing Red at the Belfry

Red by John Logan
Directed by Michael Shamata
Until October 14/12

Seeing Red

Reviewed by Leah Callen

Red, The Belfry’s latest offering, highlights the relationship between Master and Initiate in the infernal chapel of artistic genius. Ken, a young artist, starts out as the assistant to the “high priest of Modern art,” Mark Rothko. We enter his inner sanctum where paint pots, ashtrays, and booze bathe in red light. It’s Luciferian, edgy and brooding. Like an alchemist, Rothko mixes paints and blows smoke as scarlet vapours rise around him, repeating his personal mantra: Rembrandt, Rothko, and Turner. Ken, his green assistant, pleads “pray for me.”

Rothko gazes out on the audience, appraising us as his masterpieces in progress. He urges Ken to be human, to have compassion for art. It lives and breathes, vulnerable to injury like a blind child in a room full of knives. He worries his murals will never forgive him if he hangs them in the Four Seasons Restaurant at the Seagram Building – his latest commission.

Red and black are the emotional colours of Rothko’s art — and playwright of John Logan’s words. Light and dark, intellect and heart, even Santa Claus and Satan have a tug of war. Ken and Rothko take turns embodying opposite energies. Ken tends to practical matters such as mopping, canvas construction and take-out food while Rothko guards the sacred tasks of selecting the perfect mood music, pigment, and cigarette. The scenes are dark as murder, but full of wry humour. I laughed out loud more than once, was touched by other moments. Red is very human.

At the heart of Red lies Rothko’s inability to connect. His compassion is towards his canvas. Even as Ken shares a traumatic memory, Rothko seems unable to offer real comfort. The two keep their physical distance throughout the play until the end.

At first, I resisted Rothko’s art. I’ve never been a huge fan of Abstract Expressionist anything. The set replicas invoked post-traumatic memories of Voices of Fire from my childhood. Curiously, the characters’ conversation about the canvases altered my point of view; I left appreciating the symbolism and movement in Rothko’s work. Music added a sweet touch to this production. When artist and apprentice share a canvas frantically, the overture from the Marriage of Figaro runs up and down in the background, foreshadowing that the servant is going to rise to the Master.

Actor Oliver Becker channeled Rothko with realism. I loved his feistiness and honesty. The character begs us to be fully human, to embrace our black as well as our red. There’s an inevitable narrative arc. The bond between master and servant builds; Ken, played energetically by Jameson Matthew Parker, grows a spine. Still, the actors pull off the transition without steering into cliché. I wanted to follow them as they worked on each other like canvases.

In spite of Mozart, I walked home humming Black and Red from Les Miz. Red: the colour of desire, black: the colour of despair. The themes in Red and Rothko’s art are universal.

Leah Callen is an aspiring poet-playwright-screenwriter studying at the University of Victoria.

 

Malahat Editor to launch book of poetry

John Barton will celebrate the publication of his tenth book of poems, For the Boy

with the Eyes of the Virgin: Selected Poems (Nightwood Editions, 2012) at Cadboro
Bay Books, in Victoria, at 7 pm on Thursday, September 27, 2012:
http://www.harbourpublishing.com/event/393.

The book is a survey of his nine previous collections and represents thirty years of
writing.

 

Witness to a Conga and Other Plays

Witness to a Conga and Other Plays
By Stewart Lemoine
Newest Press
206 pp; $19.95

Reviewed by Jenny Aitken

Stewart Lemoine’s most recent collection of plays demonstrates the comedic timing and wit that earned him the position of resident playwright at the Teatro la Quindicina housed in Edmonton’s Varscona Theatre. Over the past few decades he has written over 60 plays, yet his work remains poignant and fresh.

Published plays like these are crucial because they offer the reader and audience member a chance to appreciate the quality of writing as well as the quality of acting. Published plays also function as exemplars for students and aspiring playwrights to demonstrate that character, depth and humour can be revealed through dialogue.

The book begins with Happy Toes, a fast-paced comedy featuring five characters but focusing on two. Lemoine’s characters are cleverly constructed; there’s Edgar the middle-aged clarinet teacher with a crush on his bank teller, and his friend Alex, who fears he may be the “other man” in his relationship with Janine. The drama comes to a head during one of Edgar’s orchestra recitals, when a screaming match between Alex and Janine delivers the energy and pizzazz the orchestra lacked. “Happy Toes” is like your Uncle Alfred, quirky and even a little weird, but likable nonetheless.

As for the second play, The Oculist’s Holiday, I can see why it would be sandwiched in the middle. Set in Toronto in 1934, the story unfolds through Marian Ogilvy’s recollections of her vacation in Switzerland three years earlier. Although I appreciated the explanation of her position as storyteller – that she is a guest speaker at a graduation of a Women’s Business College – the monologues grew tiresome nonetheless. That being said, there was still humour throughout, as when Marian discloses information of her sexual encounters despite the “windmill gestures” being given to her by the college’s teachers.

The book closes with Witness to a Conga, truly saving the best for last. In preparation for their upcoming wedding, Martin’s fiancé Laura has asked him to prepare a list of people he wants to invite. Unfortunately, he can’t think of anyone. Told entirely from his perspective, this play chronicles Martin’s relationships with the people who have affected him most: There’s his now-deceased mother Eleanor, who left Martin’s father for another woman. We learn of his father Walter, whom he calls once every couple of years, and finally there’s Sheila, a former professor he probably shouldn’t still be thinking about. As Martin faces these “ghosts” from his past, he also must decide if he is the type of person who leads a conga, or someone who just sits and watches.

I found this book exemplified the quick and occasionally pointless manner in which we speak. Although the dialogue seemed random and unconnected at times, it worked because of the offbeat nature of Lemoine’s characters. Witness to a Conga and Other Plays is very much like a conga line – sure it may seem silly at times, but if you jump on board, chances are you will have a good time.

Jenny Aitken is a third-year creative writing and journalism student at the University of Victoria. She grew up in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, and has written for the University’s student paper, The Martlet, and for Boulevard Magazine.