Interview | Sad Mag

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You’re not the first to complain that Vancouver is no fun. You don’t like stretch pants. You don’t like gluten-free liars. You don’t like little dogs (you’re a sicko). That said, it’s true, there are some limitations to our fair city. We can’t drink outside. And we can’t bring dogs to the pub. You’re thinking of London, England. Sorry, but I’ve never seen a British comedy that I “got.”

Yet, every night of the week in Vancouver there is a room full of amazing comics baring their hilarious souls for you. Bet you didn’t know that. Every single night, all over the city.

You may not have known it before, but Vancouver is teeming with talented comedians you are going to wish you swiped right for once they get famous. And just like when you find out your cousin’s boyfriend’s brother’s friend does comedy, we’re going to ask them why they do what they do.

This month I sit down with comic Mark Hughes, and we talk about getting on stage for the first time, and the world of dark and dirty niche comedy.

Kristine Sostar McLellan: What’s the first thing people ask you when they find out you’re a comic?

Mark Hughes: Oh, where do you perform? And I go, all over the place. Oh really? Where? Have you ever been to that one on Burrard, Yuk Yuks? Then I go, that’s actually not Yuk Yuks. So I just say, you name it, I’ve done it.

KSM: There is that much comedy in Vancouver.

MH: Yeah, there’s dozens of shows a week. We have tons of shows, tons of comedy, but it’s like, the audience doesn’t know. I think they would come if they knew.

KSM: What I get asked most is why I do it.

MH: Why not? It’s fun. I started doing comedy a little over two years ago. I had been told for years that I should do it, because I used to write jokes on Facebook. One day someone said that I need a creative outlet, and I went, oh, okay. I think they meant pottery or oil painting or something like that.

KSM: And how did you start?

MH: Let’s take a couple steps back. I saw a comedian in 2012 named Jason Rouse do comedy… Keep in mind, I wasn’t like, a comedy guy. Unlike most comedians, who know all this comedians, I only knew the big names. That’s about it.

It was the first show I had ever been to and he did a bunch of comedy that I felt was really funny, it’s sort of offensive… I didn’t think you could do comedy like that. I thought it was too offensive and no one would… Even though I thought it was funny I didn’t know enough people would.

KSM: So you didn’t know there was niche comedy?

MH: Exactly. And this was at the Rio. Each of us paid ten bucks to be here. That thought just simmered. And the next year I tried standup.

KSM: That is a different story from most, who tend to grow up idolizing comics.

MH: It just had never been on my radar, I hadn’t been exposed to it. It’s funny… a lot of people I know, and noticed since I started doing comedy, have only seen the “big ones” too. Most people I know have never been to a comedy show. But I do think comedy is on an uprise. I think because of Netflix it will make a resurgence. More people will start trying it too.

KSM: So tell me about your first experience.

MH: I took a class, that’s how I did it. The classes are somewhat controversial. I’m glad I did it because it gave me… I paid $200 to get on stage. If I didn’t do that, I never would have gotten up. The class at least taught me, yeah, you gotta keep doing it, move the mic stand out of the way. I had a good time, I thought, I wanna keep on doing this.

KSM: And you’ve continued for more than two years… So I know you’ve had a bad experience by now. What was one of your worst?

MH: The most uncomfortable set I ever had was when, just as the MC was introducing me, half the room got up to smoke. Nothing to do with me, they just needed to smoke. The dynamic was just gone. And, I do the material and some of it’s a big edgy and there’s no annonymity in the audience, it feels like, like people aren’t allowed to laugh at it.

A girl even said to me “hey! That’s not funny” – and not in a bantery way. It was like, ugggggh. [motions a knife in the heart] I felt it in my soul. I wasn’t skilled enough to deal with that yet.

KSM: And now? How do you deal with hecklers now?

MH: I think I’m just more confident, so I’m better able to deal with it now. If shit like that comes up I can get into it with people. I’m not as scared about it.

KSM: Your comedy touches on a lot of personal stuff, but you really seem comfortable in your own skin and have a strong identity. Do you think that helps?

MH: Considering the way my life has been, it’s always weird to hear something like that. But it resonates with part of me, too. I think comics can talk about whatever they want as long as its funny.

Where I’m a bit different from maybe some of the comics we know is I’ve had a personal experience with every single dark subject I talk about. Friends dying of aids. Sexual abuse. Prostitution. Drug abuse. Overdose. Addiction. Kids being apprehended. My whole life for a long time was all that stuff.

KSM: So on the topic of dark comedy, let’s talk about the show you produce.

MH: I do a show called Comedy Shocker at the Rickshaw. It’s a dark and dirty comedy show, the only recurring one in Vancouver. On July 4th the headliner is Kathleen McGee. We have a lot of other people on it, too.

KSM: What drove you to create a show like this?

MH: My friend Jason [Kryska] and I started it because we got tired of hearing from people “oooooh, you can’t say that. You can’t say that. People don’t find that funny.” I know that there are people who find this funny. I wanted to make a show that is a safe zone for this kind of humor. No one is walking in, and not knowing what it is. If you’re someone who gets offended by x-y-z, then… We want everyone to have a good time… It really is like, a free speech room and if you don’t like it, then please don’t come.

KSM: You’d really rather not sell the ticket?

MH: I don’t want people who might get offended there, because no one is having fun then.

So, if you’re the kind of person who can handle it, don’t miss The Comedy Shocker Presents: Downward Spiral at the Rickshaw Theatre.

Talking Heads is an interview column devoted to contemporary arts and culture in Vancouver. Once a month, Sad Mag‘s Helen Wong sits down with a couple of interesting, unique individuals to discuss a topic of her choosing. This month’s topic? The sassy, fabulous and controversial world of drag.

Earlier this month I sat down with two queens, Jane Smoker and Tiffany Ann Co, to discuss their experiences and thoughts on drag. Jane Smoker is a professional drag queen. Having recently won Vancouver’s Next Drag Superstar, she’s slowly taking over the Vancouver scene and it has been a delight to watch. She is everything from edgy to glamourous as she continually pushes the boundaries of drag.

Tiffany Ann Co is an up and coming drag queen in Vancouver. Hailing from Richmond, she brings her Asian heritage into the mean girl world of Vancouver. Her performances are original and captivating, to the point where I’ve found myself watching them on repeat!

Helen Wong: How did you first get involved with drag?

Jane Smoker: I first got involved with drag when I moved out for the first time to live with my boyfriend and his roommate. We all lived in a one bedroom and found ourselves attending a lot of drag shows like Apocalypstick. Through this, I met the Cobalt queens and did my first show at Apocalypstick as Lindsay Lohan. From then on, it was just something I kept doing and it eventually evolved into Jane.

Tiffany Ann Co: I first got involved with drag during Halloween. My friends and I were brainstorming ideas for a group costume and we had settled on TLC. During our night out, we ended up winning a best group costume contest, which resulted in a promoter noticing us and booking us for future shows. The name Tiffany Ann Co emerged by playing with the letter T from my real name and incorporating the world of fashion, which is something that is very important in my life.

HW: How did you create the persona of Jane Smoker and Tiffany Ann Co? Does it feel like a construction?

JS: Jane’s persona is like a mix of Lindsay Lohan, Paris Hilton, Pamela Anderson, Courtney Love and Tara Reid. I’ve always been fascinated with these crazy, messy blonde celebrities. They appear to lead such chic lives with the way they dress but they are always getting arrested due to their partying and antics. Jane channels this contrast of beautiful people looking bad. Jane acts in a way that I wish I could act on a regular basis. She’s basically a hot mess. But with anyone, Jane has different sides to her and I like to play on her image, sometimes she’ll look more androgynous, and sometimes she’ll be very classy.

TAC: Tiffany kind of just takes over when I perform, but the idea of Tiffany was based off of the first performance I did on Vancouver’s Next Drag Superstar. She is the lovechild of an Asian Regina George and Blair Waldorf. I feel like Tiffany is an exaggerated form of my personality. She is like the rich Asian girl of Vancouver: a party girl at heart.

Tiffany Ann Co, photo courtesy of John Bello

HW: Does Jane Smoker or Tiffany Ann Co feel like an extension of yourself or like a completely separate entity?

JS: Initially, she definitely felt like a separate entity. When I first started out as Jane, I would always refer to her in third person. But the more I’ve been performing, the more I’ve become used to her. I’m at the point where I sometimes even refer to myself as Jane.

TAC: Tiffany feels like a character that is related to me, like a twin sister. I like to think of her as a characterized form of Tony that does things that I normally wouldn’t do. She is who I become on stage, but when I finish performing she just turns off and I go back to being myself. Tony isn’t a part of Tiffany; Tiffany is a part of me.

HW: What reactions have you received from friends and family when you first started performing?

JS: My parents were not okay with the fact that I was performing drag. They saw a picture of me dressed in drag at a Sharon Needles performance and confronted me about it. My parents are religious and believed that drag was a sign that I wanted to transition into a woman. I remember having to frantically scrub off my make up when I would meet up with them because I told them that it was a one-time thing. However, when it became impossible to hide, we had a big talk about it. Now, they see it as more of an artistic thing. I’ve always loved performing and view this as performance art.

TAC: I mainly received a lot of positive feedback and support from friends and family. I think Tiffany is a lot cooler than me, I find people want to know about Tiffany’s life more than mine! Sometimes it’s overwhelming when I have people coming up to me and recognizing me from Vancouver’s Next Drag Superstar because I feel so much like myself (Tony) even when I look like Tiffany.

HW: What is it that keeps you performing?

JS: I love to do it; it’s something that I’m passionate about. Other performers always inspire me and I have a huge vault of performance ideas to the point where I’m always trying to push my own limits and try new things.

TAC: I have been performing my whole life. I love the adrenaline and feeling I get on stage. It’s a fun process and something that I like to look back on especially since the way I perform on stage is largely constructed inside my head so it’s fun to watch performances back. I become a different person on stage, I have more confidence and attitude and I like how it’s different from who I am in everyday life.

HW: Drag as a performance often uses stereotypes associated with how woman are portrayed in the media regarding how they’re supposed to look. How do you think drag reaffirms or subverts this notion?

JS: I think this depends on the queen. There are classic queens who do create the look of big hips, big ass, big eyes and lashes. But I feel like drag has evolved. Drag is whatever fantasy you want to feel; it’s all about the fantasy because there are no rules in drag. For instance, I sometimes choose not to wear any padding on my chest or I choose to wear minimal butt padding, in this way I’m still beautiful without using any of the stereotypes portrayed in the media.

TAC: For lack of a better word, Tiffany is a bit of a slut. Like I said before, she does things that I normally wouldn’t do, such as deep-throat a banana. I think that there are different forms of drag and the way that I created Tiffany doesn’t necessarily use the normative stereotypes of what an ideal woman should be. I think the main difference is that I didn’t create Tiffany for men; I created her for girls.

HW: How do you think gender construction surfaces in drag? Do these issues occur to you while performing?

JS: I feel like I’m the classic example of a drag queen. I’m a gay man dressing up as a woman. But there are so many types of drag that it’s not so simple to categorize. Sometimes I will wear a bald cap, or I’ll have short hair; I’m androgynous one day and sometimes I won’t even look human.

TAC: Aesthetically I created Tiffany to be like a normal girl, someone you wouldn’t naturally notice in a crowd. A lot of drag queens like to go all out with their costume and make up, but the character I created doesn’t do that. Tiffany’s onstage persona is largely a comedic and sexualized version of how girls behave, so when I’m on stage I’m just performing.

HW: Drag by its very nature assumes and reaffirms gender roles through the performance of wearing clothing associated with certain genders. Do you think this further reifies traditional gender norms?

JS:There’s a wild cluster of clothing that performers are wearing. You can wear whatever you feel like. I generally like to look sexy but I can’t see why you can’t wear whatever you want. If you want to wear leaves all over your body and all over your hair, then do it. Real cisgender women don’t do that. Drag isn’t about clothing rules; kings can wear bras and underpants or queens can have beards. At the end of the day, it’s all just drag.

TAC: Clothing doesn’t have gender; society puts gender on clothing. I think drag allows us to put new norms on gender roles because clothing is a form of expression that doesn’t define who you are or dictate gender.

HW: How do you like being identified?

JS: I identify as a male, but, really, why put a label on gender these days? There’s such a broad rainbow spectrum of gender and I believe most people are gender neutral. We all have masculine and feminine sides within us.

TAC: I identify as male, but for some reason I like using the pronoun ‘she’ for everyone. Boy, girl, straight, gay—whatever. I don’t do this in a negative or conscious way; I find it’s just how I speak.

HW: What advice would you give to up and coming queens and kings?

JS: Be patient and don’t do it for anybody else but yourself. Do what makes you happy and don’t follow the rules. The beauty of drag is that it’s so punk you can make it anything you want it to be. I think you should find something that makes you unique. But also, have a mix of self-confidence and delusion.

TAC: My main advice would be to do whatever you want. Don’t let other people tell you how to act because a large part of your growth comes from experience. You should determine your own ‘right’ way, because who is to say if your art is right or wrong? Rules are meant to be broken. At the end of the day, you just have to be happy with yourself.

Want to see them in action? Jane Smoker and Tiffany Ann Co host Back It Up Thursdays at Celebrity Night Club. Jane is performing at Edmonton Pride and has weekly and monthly shows coming up, so stay tuned! Tiffany also has an event called Sorority House at Celebrities on July 16^th.

Ora Cogan is a BC-based musician first, jeweler second, with an environmentally conscious way and an affinity for creating. Ora is currently touring all over Europe, armed with tunes from her recent E.P., Crystallize, and a couple disposable cameras. On a down day she was so kind as to talk with us about her upcoming project, Fortresses–which she’ll be launching in Lisbon on June 4th–her creative process, and the common threads that tie her work together.

Photo by Luz Gallardo — Ora Cogan, photo by Luz Gallardo

Sad Mag: You’re no stranger to Vancouver. Where did we see you last? What have you been up to?

Ora Cogan: Vancouver is awesome! It will always be a home to me and I come pretty often to visit and work on creative projects, etc…

Since I’ve been gone… Well, I made some dear friends from Bella Bella and worked on a short documentary called No Tankers Territory about Heiltsuk Women’s perspectives on the Northern Gateway Pipeline and contributed some music to the sound track of a film called Northern Grease also dealing with tar sands and pipelines and all that insanity.

I also started making recycled silver jewelry under the name Heavy Meadow that helps to pay for all this music silliness.

With music, I’ve been working on a few projects other than Fortresses:

I’ve started playing with E.S.L.’s Joy Mullen. We’ll probably have some sort of band in the near future.

I recorded a new EP called “Crystallize” with Trish Klein from Hidden City Records at Otic Sound in Vancouver. It was a really wonderful experience. We got to work with Zach from Summering on drums, Caton (C.Diab) on bass and Chris Gerstrin among others. I’m really happy with how it turned out.

SM: What has drawn you towards this ethereal post-Americana style?

OC: I spent quite a lot of time listening to old blues like Geeshie Wiley, and Skip James as well as Mediterranean music like Marika Papagika and Rembetika… As far as aesthetics go, I’ve always been a bit of a dreamer… I like making music that sounds landscape-ish and romantic. I am also pretty nature obsessed, so I’ve written a lot of songs that are kind of about human drama, but also [about] a place I’ve had some kind of connection with.

SM: Was it always natural for you to be a performer?

OC: Haha… Hell no. I get so nervous. Sometimes the songs are so personal and it can be hard to get into being that vulnerable or I worry if it’s really valuable to other people, but I’m starting to finally see how similar we are and it’s easier to just connect thinking that way. Music is such a great way to find autonomy too and l love playing live shows even when it’s a bit scary. Improvising keeps things pretty real. I’ve also been using visual projections and experimenting with different approaches.

SM: From where do you derive your inspirations?

OC: Oh goodness…just the bizarre experiences you can have being alive on this strange little planet! I’m confused and fascinated all the time. People… especially people who are really true to themselves and each other.

I can dance in the kitchen to D’Angelo or Deerhoof or really whatever you throw at me. I’m in love with music and I have a few personal heroes for sure: Joni Mitchel, Irma Thomas, Billie Holiday, Karen Dalton, Bjork, Neil Young… If you’re talking about aspects of life… I write about love, about struggles, justice also about subtle feelings that are hard to communicate in any other way… The lyrics are usually a bit abstract and I wish I could be more articulate with the topics that I care about, but the lyrics come out vague, so I try to respect that.

SM: Could you describe what one could expect from Fortresses?

OC: Texture, beauty, and darkness. I want to play and feel free to try things with this project that I wouldn’t usually do as a folk singer… so it’s going to be an adventure. I’m using lots of layers of guitar, violin, harp, voice, etc., and then adding midi and synth drones/lines… It’s going to be very full and maybe even danceable at some point? We’ll see…

SM: What were your goals for Fortresses when the project was first conceived?

OC: To try something new, to have a bit more fun and to do something a bit bolder…

SM: Do you have a “creative process”?

OC: I write all the time, about anything, but a song always starts with a melody and it’s really not a very conscious thing… the lyrics just come from somewhere and then I step back and build around whatever comes up. It could start with something small when I’m messing around at sound-check or practicing… Sometimes I’ll start humming something when I’m walking or at work and just record it quickly, then come back to that idea later. The biggest trick for me is privacy and having a soft focus, not being too critical.

SM: Is there a common thread to the music that you make?

OC: I’m really up for trying anything but I come back to pretty, gentle and dark most of the time. Sometimes it’s angry or happy or whatever; I’d never want to be quarantined to a certain feeling or style forever, but there’s definitely a thread that keeps pulling me in that dark, gentle, introverted direction…

SM: What has been the most surprising thing about creating your art and then displaying it for the world to see?

OC: I’ve been really fortunate to get to connect with underground music communities all over Europe and North America. It’s been inspiring to see how much amazing art & music is out there and to meet so many kind and interesting people.

Take a first listen to Fortresses‘ “Winter” here, or check out the stunning music video (shot by Luz Gallardo) here:

This interview has been edited and condensed.

Within the emerging movement of community queer choirs, Cor Flammae has a distinct voice. There are many opportunities for queer people to sing together, but not many opportunities for audiences to listen to a professional queer ensemble perform queer content. Cor Flammae performs both modern and historical classical music with the aim of shifting the assumed perspective from a hetero-normative one to a queer one.

Sad Mag sat down with Missy Clarkson, who founded the ensemble with her wife Amelia Pitt-Brooke, and friend Madeline Hannan-Leith to talk about the choir, upcoming concerts, and re-queering the world of classical music.

Cor Flammae, Photo by belle ancell photography

Sad Mag: When and why did you start Cor Flammae?

Missy Clarkson: We came to the idea two years ago when we attended the Queer Arts Festival. There was a lesbian opera called “When the Sun Comes Out” by Leslie Uyeda. We are into classical music and opera subscribers. We didn’t know what was going to happen with lesbian opera. We didn’t necessarily have expectations. But it was amazing. It was sweeping and grand, poignant and lovely, and not too sad–sometimes queer work is very lament-y. Many of us are in ensembles in the city, and we wanted that for choir.

SM: It sounds like there was a niche that needed to be filled, and you found it.

MC: We were surprised with how much momentum it had. There are a lot of places for queer people to sing together in the city, but there aren’t a lot of places where an audience can experience classical music at a professional level with a queer ear.

SM: What can audiences expect from a performance?

MC: Last year, we introduced ourselves as quite secular. We chose secular works because there is baggage with queerness and organized religion. It can be an unsafe space for queer people. Because there is rich religious traditions to choral music–it was written to be performed in churches for the most part–it is an interesting genre for queer people to be exploring and doing professionally. This year, we didn’t want to miss out on having that conversation so we’re approaching the relationship between the sacred and the profane through a queer perspective in our performances. Queers have not necessarily felt welcome to choral music because of the religious traditions associated with it that have often labeled the queer body as profane, obscene, or unholy. We want to show our audience queer spirituality–all the composers we’re performing were/are queer and many were/are devout.

We’re producing two concerts. One of them is at the beautiful St. Andrew’s Wesley Church where we’re performing the music in the place for which it was written. Then we’re taking the same works and performing the next night in a social play space–a bath house essentially. It’s hat tipping the bathhouse tradition of queerness. Canada’s queer history started because of the bathhouse riots in Toronto. Where the United States had Stonewall in 1969, Canada had Operation Soap in 1981. Police officers raided bathhouses and arrested about three hundred queer men just for being queer. The public didn’t take well to that, and thousands of people took to the streets and marched the next day. It was first pride parade in Canada essentially. Cor Flammae is interested in how the listening experience changes when we perform choral music, historically deeply spiritual music, in the historically queer space of a sex club like Club 8×6.

SM: The audience gets to experience the music in a religiously charged space and a politically charged space.

MC: Totally. Obviously the acoustics are different in each space. And there’s going to be a dance party in the sex club after the performance so it’ll be a little different for that reason. [Laughs.]

SM: What are you most looking forward to about the upcoming set of concerts?

MC: Our outfits! They are a secret still.

SM: Don’t say any more about the outfits. It will be a teaser. Who has been your favourite historical composer to revive through Cor Flammae?

MC: There are so many composers that are hotly contested by scholars. [Franz] Schubert has been an interesting one for us because he was probably bisexual. He was hanging with lots of ladies, and probably hanging with lots of guys too. It’s a scandal to bring it up with any of the scholars. Really straight, traditional scholars are like, “No, not my Schubert.” We’ve also rediscovered Ethel Smyth, who was known for opera choruses. She was friends with [Johannes] Brahms, and she also had a complicated relationship with Virginia Woolf. She was loud, proud, a suffragette, and an out lesbian. She was rich so that made it easier for her to be all over. She had privilege that afforded her opportunity. She got to spread her works around, and make out with everybody. [Laughs.]

We also work with living queer composers. Classical music celebrates the past more often so new works don’t get traction. People want to hear things they have heard before. They want to hear Beethoven’s Ninth [Choral Symphony]. New music is less sellable. Cor Flammae can combine these two worlds. We can celebrate the past and connect it to the present.

SM: How does your experience in Cor Flammae compare to your experience in other ensembles?

MC: It’s illuminating. The first time we got together as an ensemble after our auditions was at our photo shoot. We had oranges and brandy and hung out for hours getting makeup and hair done. There was comfort and understanding immediately. That’s translated to this year. We had our photo shoot a few weeks ago, and we were all half-naked. I don’t get half-naked in front of just anybody. The queerness factor causes that comfort and connection, and that relates to the music as well. People have said, “Oh, I didn’t know this person was queer or that person was queer.” It’s not mentioned elsewhere. When we were researching [Gian Carlo] Menotti’s “The Unicorn, the Gorgon, and the Manticore” to perform last year, we found queerness wasn’t mentioned in the scholarship. There’s a unicorn in it so it’s pretty gay already, but it’s the story of a weird guy in a castle who dares to parade around with his unicorn. It was written in 1956. It’s a very queer narrative. Any research we did seemed like it was grasping at heteronormative straws when the guy is clearly gay. Doing Menotti has been illuminating. Benjamin Britton has been illuminating. The way I listen to music has changed so that’s what I want to give our audiences.

SM: What music are you listening to right now?

MC: Personally, I mostly listen to music I’m going to perform so I can get it in my ear. We always make a playlist for our singers because we have limited rehearsals. We have seventy-five minutes of music in our upcoming concerts, and to build it up to the level it needs to be at, we have to work hard. I have to stay pretty focused with what I listen to. If I need to clean my ears out though, it’s almost always Beyoncé.

SM: Do you have a comment you would offer to queer performers of classical music? Maybe people who don’t live in the city or don’t know about a queer ensemble.

MC: This has been so freeing for us. We’re trying to be as visible as possible because visibility is a powerful tool in helping other people feel less alone. I’ve sung in choirs that are probably 30 per cent queer but don’t identify as a queer choir. Because of the connection in Cor Flammae, we feel less alone. My wife grew up in a musical family–her father was a choral conductor and her mother sang in choirs, but the women were taught to sing this and the men were taught to sing that. A women would have to wear a muumuu, and she could not wear a suit when she was more comfortable in a suit. We want to be visible so that everyone feels invited, even if they are not here. We’re pretty prevalent online, and we hope that we’re reaching people.

SM: You spoke earlier about the instant comfort and understanding your ensemble felt when you got together for your first photo shoot–that says it all. How has Cor Flammae affected your own queerness?

MC: It’s helped me articulate my own queerness. I’ve always identified as a chorister. I call myself a queerister now. It’s actually a thirteenth-century word that used to mean chorister. I feel like I’m different things that don’t necessarily intersect, and this ensemble helped with the intersection.

Cor Flammae’s concert set FALLEN ANGELS: Sacred + Profane Works will be at St. Andrew’s Wesley Church on July 17th, 2015 at 8pm and Club 8×6 on July 18th, 2015. Tickets go on sale June 1st 2015 at 10am. For more information, visit Cor Flammae’s webiste or subscribe to their mailing list.

Vivek Shraya is a musician, writer, artist, and performer based in Toronto. His books and music have influenced the queer community and continue to provide an accessible outlet for youth around the country. Sad Mag’s Helen Wong interviewed Shraya about his music, writing and creative process.

Helen Wong: How do you transition between songwriting and writing for literature? Do you see these as entirely separate media or as extensions of one another?

Vivek Shraya: I tend to view them as separate formats. Songwriting has many limitations that writing for literature doesn’t have. In a pop song format, for instance, there is generally only three to four minutes to convey a feeling or idea. Writing involves an empty screen where anything and everything is possible. This is intimidating. However, they align in how they both involve hunting for the right words to express a specific sentiment.

HW: There is a certain poetry and lyricism present in your prose. Do you treat your books like songs?

VS: One of my editors for God Loves Hair told me that the first draft lacked the musicality inherent in my songwriting. This feedback has stayed with me and since then, (and without contradicting my last answer) I try to pull from my entire writing toolkit, including songwriting techniques, in any kind of writing.

When I wrote She of the Mountains, I would often hum out phrases, which would help me construct sentences or ideas.

HW: In an interview that you did with Scott Dagostino, he stated that ‘if you don’t see the book you need, write it!’ Does this carry weight for you?

VS: Absolutely. All three of my books have been ultimately motivated by wanting to write the kinds of books that would have made a difference and made me feel less alone in my youth.

HW: Is it hard to be self-reflexive? How has Leslie Feinberg’s books influenced you and your choice to write semi-autobiographical novels?

VS: During the creative process, being self-reflexive is what comes naturally to me. I pull from my own experiences. Where self-reflexivity becomes challenging is when the art itself is released, when people know (or think they know) aspects of yourself that I didn’t directly communicate to them. I also worry that self-reflexivity has become a bit of a crutch for me, because I am so comfortable with it. This is why I am excited about pushing outside this comfort zone and exploring fiction further.

Stone Butch Blues was the first LGBT book I read and it impressed upon me the power of personal narrative. I connected to so many of the experiences in the book and simultaneously thought about the differences between my experiences and that of the protagonist. What could a book that detailed those differences—having immigrant parents and growing up in a Hindu household—look like? The only way I could answer this question was to write God Loves Hair.

HW: There is a theme of “queering,” of creating strange normative ways of being, that I find present in She of the Mountains, especially in the sentence structure, formation of sentences, the fusion of language and image and the placement of words within the pages. All these aspects serve to deconstruct normative perceptions and patterns of what a book should be. Does your book act as a microcosm for a larger platform? How do these ideas relate to your work on a larger scale?

VS: Earlier in my career, I always played by the rules. I didn’t call myself a musician because I didn’t play instruments. I often heard I over-sang, and so I explored restraint in my songwriting. As I have grown, it’s been upsetting to realize how many of these rules are racialized.

Who has defined this idea that a real musician is someone who plays instruments, versus someone who makes music? Was I truly over-singing or was it that my style didn’t conform to Western expectations? Many of the reviews of She of the Mountains have referred to it as “experimental.” Who defines what a traditional novel should look like?

While I wouldn’t say the book is a microcosm for a larger platform (outside of wanting to challenge biphobia), I am in a place in my art practice where I am committed to exploring what feels instinctual to me instead of conforming to what has been prescribed.

HW: In a book review by Quill and Quire, they state that ‘what [Vivek] achieves with She of the Mountains is so new, we don’t have the proper words to articulate its success’. How do you express an idea or emotion that exists outside the construct of language? What do you do to carve out your own place within these systems?

VS: The truth is, I was terrified that no one would connect to She of the Mountains, especially after receiving feedback that the book was alienating. Also, when you observe what is popular or what connects, the message is seldom that difference is valued.

Thankfully, the response has been very positive and this has been a crucial reminder to not underestimate readers and to always stay true. The latter hasn’t always translated to success for me, but it has meant that I always have the knowledge that I was honest.

Carving space is a work in progress. My immigrant parents have been often told to make nice, be grateful, don’t push and be quiet. These ideas were then imposed upon me but the hope is that with each piece of art I produce, I am pushing back.

HW: In an interview with Mote Magazine you state that you conceive your music starting with a visual idea or abstracted image. How do you make these abstracted visual images concrete? Do you feel constricted by language?

VS: Writing is an abstract process that I would describe as churning out formless ideas into the physical realm. For example when I was working on She of the Mountains, I thought I had finished the mythology section, but I kept imagining Ganesh in a forest. I even heard the words: “Go into the forest.” All I can do as a writer is listen. I ended up writing a section that begins with Ganesh being haunted by an image of the forest, as a way to realize the idea, and in the end, this section became a significant part of the story.

Language, particularly English, does feel constrictive. I grew up singing Hindu prayers where each word invoked so much emotion. This is likely part of why I am an interdisciplinary artist, to have room to express myself outside just words.

HW: How do you link all your practices in media from music, film, literature, and art? How do you propel this interdisciplinary dialogue?

VS: The desire to link practices comes from wanting to challenge myself and to see how an idea can be further developed outside the central medium I have chosen for it. I also have a short attention span and am often trying to think about how to capture an audience. So, in book readings, I incorporate projected images, movement and song, and for a recent installation, Your Cloud, I released a cover of the Tori Amos song the project was named after.

I also propel this interdisciplinary dialogue by collaborating with other artists, to see how they too might be able to develop an idea. The illustrations that Juliana Neufeld (God Loves Hair) and Raymond Biesinger (She of the Mountains) came up with not only enhance the text, but also provide alternate perspectives and entry points for the reader.

HW: I like the idea of recontextualizing tradition, it is present in your novels and music. How do you manage to merge your background with the various art practices you partake in? Does it influence your sound?

My background is present at all times. I can’t separate it and I’m not actively working to separate. Earlier in my career I attempted to separate my background—my Indianness, my queerness, my femmeness—from my work, especially in my music. But this process was exhausting and ultimately dishonest. I am who I am at all times, and perhaps even more so when I am creating. Art is constantly pushing me to be my truest self, and this often means me pushing against traditional formats, to see what else might be possible.

David Balzer’s thought-provoking new book, Curationism: How Curating Took Over the Art World and Everything Else (Coach House Press/Pluto Press), explores what it means for the verb “curate” to be adopted by popular culture. Whether liking a friend’s post on Facebook, purchasing a cookbook on Amazon, or interacting with one of Subway’s “sandwich artists,” we’ve all become “curators” of our own identities. And with the advent of the Internet, it seems like we have more power over the choices we make than ever before. But is that really the case? And if everyone is a curator, then what is art? Is there any room left for spontaneous experience?

Balzer tackles these massive existential queries in the pages of his book, and will be exploring them during a talk at Vancouver’s Contemporary Art Gallery on April 10. Sad Mag’s Shannon Tien sat down with Balzer for a sneak peak of Friday’s event.

Shannon Tien: Can you explain how the term “curate” has changed over time?

David Balzer: So there’s the traditional curator who studies art history, gets their PhD, does a museum studies certificate, and then they work in the back rooms of museums with restorers and they’re kind of custodians of art historical works. That isn’t really what I’m interested in.

I’m interested in the contemporary curator. That idea can be traced back all the way to the Roman Empire. The Latin root of “curator” means to care for something. So the curators in the Roman Empire were basically caretakers.

The curator has never been easy to define; it’s only nowadays that we think of the curator as a “real” job. So I argue that the curator becomes super contemporary when the curator’s asked not just to care for things, but to give value to them. That happens in the early to mid-20^th Century. Then the real birth of the curator in terms of how we understand it happens in the conceptual art movement of the 1960s and 1970s. And at this point, curators are not just giving value to objects, but they’re also performing the value of art. That aspect of performance in curating is the thing I think is kind of key in understanding how curating transitioned from the art world to popular culture.

Basically, using “curate” as a verb—saying that you’re going to “curate” something, or that “I curated a collection of hats”—the Oxford English Dictionary traces that usage back only to the early 1980s. And the usage that they find for their draft edition is from the world of performance art, which I think is really telling. It’s a dance performance at this New York avant-garde space called The Kitchen being written about by The New York Times. From that point on you see the word “to curate” or “curated by” used in the context of dance or music festivals and then by the 1990s, when the contemporary curator becomes a really important part of the institution, that word is used more and more and then the Internet happens and everyone sort of appropriates its use.

ST: When exactly did our own cultural consumption become a curatorial act?

DB: You know the saying in retail, “The customer’s always right”? I think that it’s changed to, “The customer must always feel as if they’re choosing.” When you “curate” something you’re “choosing,” and businesses have really latched onto this as a means of superficially empowering consumers. I think we can pinpoint it in the late 1990s going past Y2K, when all of a sudden we were made to choose a lot as consumers. There’s deep sociological and demographic research that needs to back it up, but generally the Internet has become a fact of life for a lot of people. At the same time there’s a crisis in terms of cultural consumption. In the art world, art institutions are not being funded the way they like, and in other spheres such as book buying, for instance, you’ve got these huge chains emerging in the ‘90s like Borders and Chapters and they just swallow up the little brick and mortar stores. So culture’s getting really homogenized at the same time that everyone’s going online and wondering who they are and interacting with people in a more active and global way than ever before. But whenever I’m talking about “choosing” I’m being a little ironic because I think that the idea of cultural curating is not necessarily the most empowering thing in terms of giving us choice. It kind of provides us with this illusion of choice.

ST: Can you talk about the rise of “normcore,” or the idea that taste is irrelevant because the Internet makes everything available to everyone?

DB: I don’t think the idea of curating would ever become completely obsolete. But what I do argue—and these ideas are present in the work of K-HOLE, the group that birthed the term “normcore,” and they’re present in post-Marxist Italian theory—this idea that we’re online and we’re asked to perform what we like and what our taste is. But people who are thinking about it, who are aware of possibly inhabiting the Matrix or whatever, can easily sense that what we’re doing online is prompted by similar algorithms, and what we like is highly influenced by what other people like. In fact we’re encouraged to like what other people like. When we buy something on Amazon, Amazon tells us what other people bought in addition to what we’re buying as a prompt to see if we might want to buy that too. It’s a bit of disingenuous uniqueness that online curating promotes. And if you think of it for five seconds, you realize that the sorts of choices you’re being asked to make as a social media user are pretty flattening.

ST: Are algorithms robot curators? Are they the future of curating?

DB: Well in a way I think that the algorithm is curatorial but also anti-curatorial. If you program something that can do the choosing for you in a semi-cognisant way, this choosing is only based on what’s been chosen before. But I like the idea that a program can show us that curating is not the most unique or difficult thing that one can engage with. I think that it can really call into serious question our precious notions of what it means to curate. But I also think that a good thing to come out of it would be to bring us back to a more thoughtful meditation on what it actually means to curate or choose. It’s maybe the end point of this discussion where curating has reached such an accelerated moment that now we’re getting computers and software to do it for us.

ST: How has this book affected your own “curationism”?

DB: I think that as someone who as been a critic for a long time, who’s a voracious consumer of film, art, music, literature, and talks about it all the time, I’ve sort of reached a moment, and it was when I was writing the book—and maybe it had to do with a personal element of this [which] was that I just exited a very long term relationship that was very much built around the expression of taste—where I thought, “Why is taste so important? And why am I always trying to perform what I like for everybody? Why does it matter? Isn’t there a better way to engage with culture and show how much it means to me?” So this book maybe represents that existential crisis.

This interview has been condensed and edited. Catch David Balzer at Vancouver’s Contemporary Art Gallery on April 10 at 7 p.m.

Throughout April, bookstores, libraries and publishers in BC are encouraging the public to “Read Local, Buy Local, Think Global” as part of a three-week campaign. Launched by The Association of Book Publishers of British Columbia (ABPBC), Read Local BC features more than 25 free events with local authors throughout the province, including nine fiction, poetry, non-fiction and children’s readings in Vancouver.

In the spirit of Read Local BC, and the sharing of stories, ideas and histories that are bound to transpire between Vancouverites, Megan Jones sat down with Poetry is Dead editor, Can’t Lit podcaster and Davie Street Translations author Daniel Zomparelli to discuss local books, literary events, and why he still chooses to live and write in Vancouver.

Megan Jones: So many dedicated, award-winning writers call Vancouver home, and many choose to publish locally. Our writing community is stronger and more supportive than ever, it seems. But for someone who’s not a writer or publishing industry expert, it doesn’t always feel that way—readings and book launches have the reputation of being exclusive and even intimidating. How can we involve and include the non-writing public more in Vancouver’s literary scene? Does it even matter?

Daniel Zomparelli: Yes, it does matter. It’s always nice to have people outside the literary community at events, and I’m interested in how to make that happen. For example, we try to create Poetry Is Dead events that get everyone interested [such as the well-attended “Humour Issue” launch, with performances from poets and local comedians]. Does it always work? No, but when it does, it’s a great event. There’s always ways to make readings less intimidating for people outside of the literary community, such as: host it at an interesting venue and have a cash bar. Also, maybe avoid words like “ontological” in your event info.

MJ: Vancouver-born authors often choose to relocate to Toronto or Montreal, where there’s proximity to New York, and comparably cheaper rent (and beer and wine, which is perhaps just as important). Why have you decided to stay in Vancouver?

DZ: I stick to Vancouver for several reasons, but the main reasons are my family and my anxiety. As you’ve pointed out, there’s a great community in this city, and as a result I have a strong support system. Rent and food might be expensive and I might constantly play chicken with my credit card bill, but there is something about being close to the ocean that keeps me calm. Like, at any point if I wanted to, I could just walk out to the ocean and keep going (I basically want to reverse TheLittle Mermaid myself). My friend Alicia Tobin said it best with “I missed my bus stop & got off at the ocean & let the waves of a million years of losses and victories wash over my tired body. Sorry I am late.” (Quote thanks to Rebecca Slaven).

MJ: How does the province of BC – its wilderness, people and cities – inform your work?

DZ: People and how they relate to each other and to nature and the city inspires and informs my work. I’m concerned specifically with happiness in my work, and considering how Vancouverites are sometimes conceived of as “cold,” there’s a lot to work with here. For this reason, I’m looking forward to the Read Local BC event, Roughing It in the Bush, because a lot of the readings will deal with BC’s landscape in unexpected ways. Plus some of the writers are major influences on my own poetics. I’m very excited about this event, which I happen to be hosting!

MJ: What’s one thing about BC’s publishing industry that you love, and what’s one aspect you’d love to see changed?

DZ: I love that work composed and produced in BC is not afraid of specificity. I love writing that explores small town histories, writing unafraid of locating a reader. Small presses within BC make this possible.

If I’m going to be honest about what I’d love to see changed, it would be the choice of author photos in books.

MJ: What local book are you currently reading? What’s your favourite BC book ever?

DZ: I’m reading Leah Horlick’s For Your Own Good. I just finished Matt Rader’s What I Want To Tell Goes Like This. I have said it before and I will say it again: Artificial Cherry by Billeh Nickerson is a fucking delight. If you haven’t purchased a poetry book before, give that one a try. One poem has the word “anal” more times than I’ve said it my entire life, and I’m anal-retentive.

MJ: What’s been your favourite literary event in Vancouver in the past year?

DZ: So far, my favourites are events put on by the Real Vancouver Writers’ Series. I’m obviously biased, since I’ve been a reader, but they always choose a great space and host so many amazing writers, and their events are always jam-packed. Plus, hosts and dreamboats Dina Del Bucchia and Sean Cranbury let me (and others, too) read whatever I want. The audience is always receptive.

I’m also looking forward to the Read Local BC events. Basically all of my favourite writers are reading this month for the campaign, so I’m excited to see what happens at the events, especially An Evolving City with literary super duo Wayde Compton and George Bowering on April 9 at Pulp Fiction.

Read Local BC Events in Vancouver

Writing About First Nations with Jean Barman, Paige Raibmon and Jennifer Kramer
Tuesday, April 7 at 7 pm: Book Warehouse, 4118 Main Street

Three celebrated UBC Press authors discuss their discoveries in research, how writing about First Nations people has changed over time, and the challenges and successes of the process.

An Evolving City: Writing Vancouver’s Past, Present & Future with George Bowering and Wayde Compton
Thursday, April 9 at 7:30 pm: Pulp Fiction, 2422 Main Street, Vancouver

Join two of Canada’s literary heavyweights for a conversation exploring Vancouver’s vast networks of people, streets, and change over time. From the storied streets of East Vancouver in the 1960s to a haunting, speculative vision of the city of glass, these two renowned authors reveal their probing impressions of a beloved yet flawed city.

Roughing it in the Bush Revisited with Jordan Abel, Ryan Fitzpatrick, Evelyn Lau, Daphne Marlatt, W.H. New and George Stanley

Wednesday, April 15th at 7:30 pm: Artspeak Gallery, 233 Carrall Street, Vancouver

As big industry and increased construction continues Vancouver’s sprawl into nature, do we give thought to how we invade and modify our own natures through technology? Or to what happens when wilderness creeps back in, reclaiming the crack of a sidewalk or the corner of an abandoned lot? Five Vancouver poets explore the ever-evolving representation of urban and rural spaces in Canadian art. Hosted by poet and Poetry Is Dead editor Daniel Zomparelli.

Secrets, Booze & Rebellion: Vancouver’s Unknown History with Eve Lazarus, Daniel Francis, and Aaron Chapman
Wednesday, April 15 at 7 pm, Lynn Valley Public Library, 1277 Lynn Valley Road

Discover the historical underworld of Vancouver and the adventures that took place in many of the buildings and streets still standing today. Three of the city’s finest historians share its rollicking history, from cops turned robbers, to rum-running entrepreneurs during prohibition, and the glamourous yet naughty history of one of the city’s oldest nightclubs.

Read Local BC Children’s Readings
April 13-18 with various authors and locations

Emily Molnar, artistic director of Ballet BC, chats with us about the company’s upcoming triple-bill program, Trace. This evening of works includes the Canadian premiere of William Forsythe’s workwithinwork, a world premiere by Walter Matteini, and the return of audience favourite Petite Cérémonie by Medhi Walerski. Trace plays at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre from March 26 to 28.

SAD Mag: How does the term “Trace” relate to each of the three pieces?

Emily Molnar: Every time I’m given the beautiful problem of solving how to put three very distinct pieces together on a program and give them a title, I try to find an overarching theme. Most of the time the works that are on a program are related in the sense that they come from very distinct choreographers in the world of contemporary ballet, but they are very unique pieces in that they don’t look the same—they’re not necessarily working with the same theme. Sometimes our full-length evenings do have a thematic concept, but in most cases I try to keep it very diverse.

Trace came up in the sense that there are many different lineages, many different choreographers who have worked with various companies. On this evening there is an enormous amount of lineage between the history of dance, the future of dance, the styles of dance within contemporary ballet—so I thought of the idea of tracing or making a trace of these different time periods.

SM: We know world-renowned choreographer William Forsythe has a special place in your heart from your own time as a performer. What do you hope your dancers will learn from working with him on his piece for Trace?

EM: I think the most important thing is probably the idea of individuality, of courage, of daringness, of taking the classical idiom and really pushing the boundaries and limits of how one interprets and investigates that. Bill’s work—it’s such a sophisticated score—you feel like you’re getting smarter and developing each moment you dance his work. I love watching the dancers take more and more risks and accomplishments through each run-through and each day. The work is just so rich, and there’s so much attachment to musicality and the use of space. It’s just a really beautiful score to challenge the intelligence of an artist.

SM: The arts climate is difficult in B.C.; funding is low despite a thriving local scene. That said, Ballet BC has overcome some substantial financial hardships. How do you keep going?

EM: I think we keep our eye very closely geared toward the making of the art and the creation of an experience for our audience. Through that we try to bring people in who believe in what we do and try not to make the lack of money a means for lowering our standards. We try to do something with everything that we have and to make the most of it. That doesn’t mean we don’t wish we had more, but we’re also very aware that there are many artists in this country. Another way we deal with it is that we make sure that we speak about what it means to be an artist and to be a company that is making art—to make sure that we are educating our local and our national community about dance. We do this by supporting a number of different choreographers and by creating a global conversation about the making of dance and why dance is important.

SM: What does dance mean to you?

EM: It’s an art form that requires every part of you as a human being; it requires your physical body, your emotional body, and your spiritual sensibility. It really calls all of that into action. The moment you are dancing, you cannot lie. When you dance, everything about you is exposed, but there is something very beautiful about that because it challenges you to the deepest part of your being to put all of those things into alignment and to speak with them. As an art form, as a form of expression, it is so fully encompassing that I feel it really is one of the most beautiful journeys that we can make as human beings.

SM: How do you make dance accessible for an audience?

EM: We talk about the fact that all of us are dancers, even if it’s in our living room with a piece of music while we’re doing your dishes or brushing our teeth. It is an innate form for us as human beings. It is a form of expression that we can all touch on. What a lot of people don’t know is that a great dancer is like a great athlete and a great artist all put into one—like a painter and a soccer player. And it’s those two worlds that come together that I think makes dance so appealing. You see these physical impossibilities taking place, but then you have this form of expression, you have emotions being described and a narrative about what it means to be alive inside of the body.

SM: If you had to describe what it’s like to be a dancer, what would you say?

EM: It’s the hardest thing you could do and the most wonderful thing you could do. The life of a dancer is one that requires an enormous amount of dedication and commitment, and for that alone it’s a wonderful career. I’ve traveled the world, I’ve learned about the world by doing it. It’s not a career that many people get to do, so it’s a precious and very special thing to be able to say that you are a dancer.

SM: You were nominated as a YWCA Woman of Distinction. What does it mean for you to be a female leader in the arts?

EM: It’s something I take very seriously and try to honour. I feel very grateful for the nomination. There are many wonderful women of distinction around me who have been nominated as well, so I feel a bit out of place. I don’t see myself belonging to that group, but I take it with a huge amount of gratitude and gratefulness. I think that leadership is a very important thing for us to look at…for females as well as for males.

One of the things that interests me most in this world is human potential, and I just happen to be using dance as a vehicle to discuss that. But I think that leadership—people feeling empowered to speak and to be who they are—is the most beautiful thing, and the thing that we need to give a lot of attention to in this world. If I can be in a position of leadership where I get to create an environment that empowers people to excel and be the most that they can be, then that is a huge gift.

This interview has been edited and condensed.
Showtimes and ticket information available on Ballet BC’s website.

Sad Mag sits down with the founder and master of literary “Realness”, Sean Cranbury, about their five year anniversary party this Saturday.

SAD Mag: First of all, congrats on turning 5! We are co-toddlers in this city, also turning 5 this year. Can you tell me a bit about where you were in 2009 and how Real Vancouver started? There are rumors that Real Vancouver was born in a burning building. Is that true?

Sean Cranbury: Thank you for the kind words. In 2009 I was beginning to build projects like Real Vancouver Writers’ Series via my main project Books on the Radio, a radio show, blog, and literary project incubator.

That year (2009) I had created BOTR, helped to plan the first Bookcamp Vancouver Unconference, created the Advent Book Blog, and I also started writing and speaking publicly on things like digital file-sharing, piracy. It was a creative time and I had a certain amount of momentum.
In early 2010, with the Olympics on the doorstep, I helped to create the Real Vancouver Writers’ Series as a response to the Vancouver Cultural Olympiad’s decision to ignore our city’s incredible and world-class literary community with their programming during the games.

The original Olympics Editions of the RVWS were held in the Perel Gallery in the W2 Culture and Media House at 112 West Hastings Street. The building was the site for an installation by Quebec artist Isabel Hayeur. The piece was called Fire with Fire and it consisted of a digital projection of flames looping across the windows of the building’s top three floors.

It’s a powerful image and one that reflects the circumstances of our origin.

SM: Give us a snapshot of where you are now:

SC: Real Vancouver is growing but still very much a grassroots, volunteer-based literary reading series. We are now a non-profit society with a Board of Directors that we’re very proud of and who will help to steer the series into the future.
We’re still putting on events with the best writers in the city and we’re still collaborating with the likes of Project Space, Verses Festival of Words, Geist, SAD Mag, and others.

We’re still learning but we’re getting there.

SM: And what’s on your hit list for the next 5 years?

SC: We’re looking at doing unique events and collaborations that draw in other art forms and interesting, perhaps unexpected, venues. We’ll stay true to our roots by supporting emerging writers and more contemporary voices from across genres, schools, and sensibilities, and mixing poetry with non-fiction, fiction, memoir, spoken word, short stories, whatever people who are talented with the language are producing.

We’re going to get better and we’re going to try new things and we’re going to try to change people’s perceptions of what a literary reading can be.

SM: Tell us what we can expect by attending the 5 year anniversary party this Saturday at 434 Columbia.

SC: Good times! You’re going to be in a room full of good music, great writing, and even better people. We’ve got lots of prizes and gifts to give away. We’ve got a special occasion license and we’ll be selling beer and wine. And books. But even those things are beside the point.

We’re going to have a warm room full of great and talented people.

You’ll hear some of the best contemporary writing in the city and country and you’ll get to meet great new friends. It’s going to be an amazing night.

SM: All of your authors at these events are outstanding, but is there one particular reading you are extra excited about?

SC: I’m more interested in the chemistry that we can create on the stage and in the room by curating the placement of the writers throughout the night. Any time you can put put Chris Walter on same stage as Jennica Harper and Jen Sookfong Lee you’ve got yourself an interesting mixture. Sun Belt is a very interesting project and I’m curious to see what they do. I know that Daniel and Dina have something weird and probably ridiculous planned. The roster is stacked. I can’t wait.

SM: In your opinion, what is the single most important thing someone can do to help the literary scene in vancouver become the pinnacle of awesome?

SC: Come out to one of our events, or to any of the other amazing literary events that are currently being put on in Vancouver, and meet writers. Talk to them, listen to them reader their work, buy their books, take them home with you – the writers and the books, I mean.

We want to reduce the distance between the writer and the fan. We want to create a new kind of intimacy in the world of literature and books. Books and writing are very sexy things and we want people to understand and explore that perspective.

Read the books, share them with your friends, get to know the writers. Put pen to paper or fingers to keyboard. Get involved. Treat it like it matters.

SM: What do you do when you’re not working on Real Vancouver?
I work on my radio show, Books on the Radio, and my podcast, The Interruption, which is a collaboration with 49th Shelf. I also freelance as a communications consultant and I advise arts organizations on technology, social media, and stuff like that.

I am also the General Manager of the Storm Crow Tavern where I work with the greatest team in the city.

THE DEETS

Hosted by Dina Del Bucchia and Sean Cranbury.
Doors at 7PM. Saturday February 28th.
434 Columbia Street, Chinatown.

$5+ donation PWYC. All funds raised go to paying the writers and supporting future RVWS events.

SRSLY, LOOK AT THIS LINE-UP AND RSVP

Carleigh Baker – indefatigable bookseller, canoeist, confidante of Carrie Brownstein, crafter of memoir.
Jennica Harper – poet, RVWS alumni from the original Olympics Editions, pure sunshine.
Jen Sookfong Lee – novelist, broadcaster, RVWS alumni from the original Olympics Editions, haunter of hospitality suites.
Amber McMillan – poet, islander, friend of many Easterners, our friend, too.
Rachel Rose – Poet Laureate of Vancouver, award-winning poet, essayist, fictionist, literary sh*t disturber.
Sun Belt – experimental literary multi-media project.
Chris Walter – the O.G. of independent authors. Been doing it since before you even thought of it. He wrote East Van, Beer, and I was a Punk Before You Were a Punk. Self-published under GFY Press. RVWS Alumni from the original Olympics Editions.
Daniel Zomparelli – yes, that Daniel Zomparelli. Honcho of Poetry Is Dead Magazine, author of Davie Street Translations. Serial collaborator. RVWS Alumni.

Angel Morgan goes by many titles: psychic, medium, healer, television show host, motivational speaker, and, perhaps most notably, animal communicator. I have never spoken to a psychic before, let alone an animal psychic, so I’m not sure what to expect when I call her at her Toronto home late on a Tuesday night. An animated, matter-of-fact woman answers, and soon we are on the subject of spirit animals.

“Everyone has a spirit animal,” she tells me. “Yours is actually the elephant.”

It’s not until the interview is over that I notice I’m wearing my grandmother’s elephant charm around my neck.

Shannon Tien: How did you get into animal communication as a line of work?

Angel Morgan: [laughing] That’s quite the story, actually… I got an email that said, “Are you coming to the animal communications course?” And my friend calls me up and she’s like, “Are you going?” And I’m like, “Fine, I’ll go to disprove it.” By the time I had finished the two-day class, I had realized that not only was this real, but I was really good at it. I’ve been doing it for about 10 years.

ST: Can you describe your first ever experience communicating with an animal?

AM: I remember the first time that it really hit me. Shortly after I went to that course, I went to Marineland [the aquarium in Niagara Falls] and there was this whale that came right up to the glass. And my son and I were just standing there and I could feel a sadness in it that literally, physically dropped me to my knees.

The funnier story is that I used to have a cat, Marlowe, a ginger. And my cat used to pee in the heat register of our home. Of course, that was not a happy thing. So I thought to myself, “I’m going to ask the cat to pee in the toilet. That’s what I’m going to do.” And so everyday I would ask the cat. About two weeks later my son comes into the room and says, “Mommy, mommy, the cat’s peeing in the toilet.” We got up, we’re all looking at this cat peeing in the toilet, and the cat turns around as if to say, “Yeah this is what you wanted. Can I have some privacy now?” And to the day he passed, he went to the washroom in the toilet.

ST: So did you say the words out loud?

AM: There are four ways of talking to an animal. The physical, which we’re all used to — that’s “sit,” “stay,” “come,” all that jazz. And then there is the mental, which is when you give them pictures and they give you pictures and you communicate like that, or you hear their voices. And then there’s the emotional. And the emotional is when you feel what your animal is feeling. And you communicate your feeling.

And then there is the spiritual, so that’s when an animal crosses over, or they’re not in my presence, like they’re in a different country.

ST: When they talk, is it in a language? Is it in English?

AM: [laughing] Yes and no. My teacher taught us right off the bat that we have universal translators. So basically, if I have an animal that speaks Spanish, I can call on my guides and my guardians, and the animal has angels and guides and guardians that work with them, too. I can go up to that level and say, “Listen, I need to understand what they’re saying. Turn on my universal translator,” or whatever a particular animal communicator wants to call it. We all have different words for it.

ST: Do you have a lot of pets?

AM: Oh yeah. We have a dog, we have a cat, we have a bird, we have a snake.

ST: Does it ever get loud in your head?

AM: [laughing] It can. The bird is very visual. The dog speaks. The cat is really emotional. So each one of them gives me practice in different aspects.

ST: What are cats like to communicate with? I would assume that they’re standoffish, but that might be a stereotype.

AM: It is. Every single cat is different. Do they have attitude? Yeah. Most cats do have a bit of “cattitude.” They all have that very distinct, “I rule the roost” vibe. Once you get past that, though, they’re very individual animals. Some of them are brilliant and others just don’t care. When you’re looking at wild cats, like jaguars or panthers, which is more what I lean towards, those animals are more primal. You get less verbal/mental and more emotional/spiritual.

ST: Do you ever speak to dead animals?

AM: All the time. That’s actually where I get most of my cat clients from, ones who have crossed over. A lot of people will have me come to their home or clinic before their cat passes. I feel very blessed and fortunate to be able to do that.

ST: Are cats afraid to die?

AM: No. Animals are not like us. Animals are accepting. Regardless of how domestic they are, animals understand that it’s just process. It’s not like, “Okay, I’m ok to die now.” They’re just so in the moment that it’s just a part of what the present brings.

ST: What do you say when people don’t believe you? Do you ever have skeptical clients?

AM: All the time. By the time they leave, they’re not sceptical anymore. [laughing] That’s the first thing. But I respect it. Everyone has their own perspective on it. I’m not here to prove my work is real. I’m here to do work.

ST: What’s the most interesting thing an animal has ever said to you?

AM: Want to know anything about a family? Talk to the animals. They’re always willing to tell you about the affairs, the funny things, the bad things.

ST: Do you eat meat?

AM: I do, actually. We believe that we all have contracts with each other and we make those contracts well before we come into this world. And the contract of that particular animal is to help me survive, to help me maintain who I am. It takes a lot of courage for that animal to make that contract. But if you’re someone who goes hunting for sport, I take issue with that.

ST: What do you think of Dr. Doolittle? Does he accurately portray the profession?

AM: [laughing] My mom, when I told her, “Look, I talk to animals,” it was weird because she turned around and said, “Yeah. That doesn’t surprise me. You’re Mrs. Doolittle. You always have been Mrs. Doolittle.”

This interview has been edited and condensed.

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