July 2008 – Page 2

Fringe launch

Started today as a Fringe volunteer, and it was, er, somewhat less than inspiring. Parking, that’s me. I patrol the parking lane by the Old Market Square outdoor stage, and make sure only performers or vendors are parked there, and that they have the appropriate permit. You know what they say: give a little man a little power….

Nah, it wasn’t that bad. Just a bit boring. But i got to watch all the acts on the open stage — mostly aimed at kids, so a bit puerile.

But then came … the Fringe. Caught two plays after my shift:

Busty Rhymes and MC Hot Pink — a one- (Kiwi-)woman show about … mostly, her breasts. And the rest of her full figure. And problems with men. And Lots of energy, but the material didn’t seem fresh. I did learn the interesting fact that Auckland has 35,000 more single women than men. Hmm.
‘Beth, which i went to because the timing was right and i could get a ticket, was an attempt at retelling Shakespeare’s Macbeth story in a modern, money-grubbing, doctor-the-will context. Didn’t quite work, but a brave effort. (I’m pulling punches here because i really admire Fringe performers’ guts — it’s naked theatre — and i cringe whenever i see a callously negative review.)

Both shows not terrific, but it’s inspiring to be surrounded by artistic energy. Theatre matters, and art matters, in this context.

Whores, pimps, gamblers, sons of bitches

Poking around in the library this morning, i came across John Steinbeck short but wonderful novel Cannery Row, which i’ve never read but always meant to, and now shall (it’s only about a hundred pages). Check out this stellar first paragraph, one of the best i’ve ever read:

Cannery Row in Monterey in California is a poem, a stink, a grating noise, a quality of light, a tone, a habit, a nostalgia, a dream. Cannery Row is the gathered and scattered, tin and iron and rust and splintered wood, chipped pavement and weedy lots and junk heaps, sardine canneries of corrugated iron, honky-tonks, restaurants and whore-houses, and little crowded groceries, and laboratories and flop houses. Its inhabitants are, as the man once said, ‘whores, pimps, gamblers, and sons of bitches,’ by which he meant Everybody. Had the man looked through another peep-hole he might have said: ‘Saints and angels and martyrs and holy men,’ and he would have meant the same thing.

What a stab of homesickness! If those words don’t evoke Tofino and Ucluelet, i don’t know what does. (No offence, friends.)

La vida lento

Well, i’m just a-givin’ ‘er here in Winnipeg, living the fast, wild life of the retired octogenarian with my Mom in her 55-and-over retirement condo. This is the golden years that our parents worked their lives away for — what we ourselves have little hope of — and let me tell you, it ain’t bad. Apart from that can-only-end-in-the-grave aspect.

It has been an adjustment, slowing down to retirement pace, especially since Mom broke a bone in her foot and has to wear a temporary “boot cast” (you’ve seen the like in a Frankenstein movie, i’m sure) that i help her put on every morning. So it takes us (i timed it surreptitiously) 1.5 minutes to get from her apartment to the elevator, 1-2 minutes to get down to the parking garage, and 4-6 minutes to get to the car, depending on whether we check the mail and meet other people in the building. Add a good 30 seconds just to get into the car and you’ll see how damned impatient i really am, deep down.

On the plus side, there’s a whole city out there to explore. Not that i’ve strayed for from this computer, with its fast Internet connection and big, clear screen, in the past few days. But i got plans: Mountain Equipment Co-op lies downtown; the Fringe starts next week and i hope to volunteer; and the circus is in town.

For my candle-loving friends

I have long been a bit creeped out when i enter a room full of burning candles. I love the ambience, but paraffin, folks, is a hydrocarbon just like diesel, and hydrocarbon exhaust is hydrocarbon exhaust. I wouldn’t feel good about hanging out in a room filled with burning diesel lamps, no matter how mellow the ambience.

Fortunately there are alternatives: beeswax and soy wax, for two, that avoid some of the downsides of paraffin and also don’t feed the oil industry.

This from a pamphlet put out by Avalon Sunset Candles, makers of beeswax candles:

Many commercial candles are made from paraffin, the greyish-black sludge that oozes from the backside of the petroleum refineries. It’s bleached, textured with a carcinogenic product called acrolyn, chemically coloured and artificially scented.

Did you know? — Paraffin candles create black smoke and soot that coats your home and even your lungs. Fumes from a paraffin candle are like breathing diesel exhaust fumes.

What about the wick? — Health Canada is urging the Canadian candle industry to stop manufacturing and importing candles with lead and zinc core wicks. They are hazardous to human health — even in small amounts. Some candlemakers use lead and zinc cores to make the wicks rigid.

Beeswax facts:

Beeswax candles produce negative ions that attract positive ions. But positive ions aren’t so positive. They’re the pollutants such as dust, odours, toxins, pollen, mold, bacteria and viruses that are floating in the air. Beeswax neutralizes the pollutants and they simply fall to the ground. The dustier your home, the more “black debris” you’ll find deposited in the wax around the wick.

Beeswax is a safe, valuable fuel — one of the purest known. It burns slower than paraffin, so it’s cheaper to use. Beeswax burns with a golden halo and is significantly hotter than paraffin. Please note: candles listing beeswax as an ingredient may contain as little as 30% beeswax. If it doesn’t state on the label “100% beeswax,” it probably isn’t.

And here’s a page of info on candles made of soy.

You have to do a bit of searching (in nonmainstream stores, of course) but i’ve found both soy and beeswax candles in Ucluelet, so they must be available pretty much everywhere. Be mellow, be healthy!

tARTing around

Marathon yesterday seeing the Queen City (Regina) sights. Saskatchewan, with just over a million people, seems to have artists up the yin-yang, and apparently 80% of them are heavy into ceramics. Tons and tons of artfully executed cups and bowls and vases — some real beauts — but i couldn’t help wondering how many more cups, bowls and vases the world needs. I wonder that about a lot of what comes across as “art.”

On the opposite hand, at the sizable MacKenzie Gallery (civic owned, free admission, all Sask. artists), i checked out with glee Kent Monkman‘s multimedia exhibit Miss Chief Eagle Testickle’s GROUP OF SEVEN INCHES — A titillating taxonomy of the customs and manners of the European male, turning the 19^th century European documentation of North American Indian culture nicely on its head.

Another First Nations eye-popper was Wally Dion‘s multipanel, oversize paintings in his Red Worker series, and the 3D constructs of his Starblanket series (all beautifully made of circuit boards). Worth checking out if the show travels!