Sara French received her Masters of Applied Arts from Emily Carr University of Art and Design in 2011 after completing a Bachelor of Arts in Visual Arts and Art History at the University of Windsor.
She is a multidisciplinary artist who works in drawing, performance art, sculpture and video. Since graduating, Sara has participated in a variety of group exhibitions throughout Vancouver including, 221a, Gam Gallery and the Lion’s Den. Most recently she exhibited Bills, a solo show in Winnipeg at gallery 672 Sargent that displayed a collection of embroideries.
Currently Sara is working with the artist collective Department of Unusual Certainties, out of Toronto, on an upcoming exhibition for fall 2013.
In 2014 she will engage in a one-year artist in residence for Harcourt House artist run centre.
Inspiration strikes. Like lightening? Or something much less dramatic? This year, at Vancouver’s Queer Arts Festival, a group of inspiring and inspired writers has been brought together for “A Literary Soiree: A Celebration of Poets and Writers.” It will be hosted by Rachel Rose at the Roundhouse Exhibition Hall at 7:30 on August 6th.
Rebecca Brown c/o Andrea Auge
Of the five participating writers, the following four: poets Rachel Rose, Billeh Nickerson, Betsy Warland and writer Rebecca Brown, were kind enough to allow Sad Mag glimpses into the inspirations for their new or forthcoming works (Gregory Scofield will also be there on the 6th). Sad Mag asked about new projects and favourite Vancouver moments, in order to glean a little about what compels these writers’ interest and engagement. Reading over their responses, it became clear that to be inspired is the most flexible and atemporal of feelings: a response that might occur immediately or might take years and decades to coalesce. Like lightening, then, but with a slow burn.
For Rebecca Brown, who is the author of twelve books of prose, inspiration means being elevated by others: “Though I am not ‘inspired’ as an artist, other artists’ work inspires me,” says Brown, “I am rarely, if ever, ‘inspired.’ The word suggests someone filled with urgency or commitment. Or the simple, necessary act of breathing. On the one hand art making/writing is necessary to me (though not as necessary as breathing…). On the other hand, it is for me usually quite labored and erratic; hardly as even or regular as breath.”
“I used to have this notion,” continues Brown, “[which was] inspired, that is to say, misinformed, by romantic notions of an artist being possessed, as if by a god or passion, to make something. That some muse or spirit comes upon one, possesses one, and gives one some message/object/word. More like some divine madness than the sweaty slog I go through to find words. Having said that, though, I am inspired, in the sense of being encouraged or sustained, by others’ art and words. When I see the amazing things my friends create or do, when I read and read again work by Kafka, Woolf, Stein, Flannery O’Connor, Fanny Howe, I am moved, elevated, encouraged to live more.”
Brown’s newest project is the curation of a group show on the theme of “Devotion” at the Hedreen Gallery in Seattle on August 7th. Participants in the shown include professional visual artists, as well as “folks who don’t think of themselves as artists,” notes Brown, such as “a beekeeper, a teenage boy who collects sports caps, a librarian, a priest, a dj, a restauranteur– but each of whom is lovingly devoted to something.”
Rachel Rose is similarly inspired by those outside forces, past and present, with whom and with which she has engaged. Her newest project, which comprises writing poems about “mythic and monstrous women,” aims “to give voice to the female beast.” It was inspired “by many things,” says Rose, “studying Beowulf 20 years ago; VIDA and CWILA, rage and hope and curiosity and wanting to honour those women who misbehaved, whether literally or mythically, and who were transformed into fearsome legends in order to keep the rest of us in line.”
Billeh Nickerson
Betsy Warland, in contrast, recalls the exact moment that inspiration struck. Warland, who has been writing “Oscar of Between” since 2007, describes her inspiration as that moment “when a trapdoor of understanding sprung open beneath my feet when seeing the Camouflage Exhibit at the Imperial War Museum in London.”
Warland explains “Oscar of Between” as a series in which “Oscar, who routinely is addressed as a woman, then as a man, then man, then woman within seconds apart in public [finds] a label for herself that finally fits: a person of between.”
Billeh Nickerson, whose fifth book, Artificial Cherry, will be released by Arsenal Pulp Press this upcoming February, was inspired to return to “the naughtier side” of his writing. After books about fast food and the Titanic, Nickerson’s newest is an offering that he describes as “cheekysweet.”
What strikes me most about all these different inspirations, is the way they expand and contract over time. Some inspirations become recognized only retroactively, or, in Brown’s case, one notion of what it is to be inspired is dismissed and other notions taken up. When I met Rose the first time, it was at the Vancouver 125 Poetry Conference, which was organized by then-Poet Laureate Brad Cran. At the time, I was tasked with interviewing poets who were involved with the conference, and I had decided to ask each one of them the same final question: if you could describe your work in one word what would it be? Rose’s answer, which broke my “one word” rule, did so beautifully, and has really inspired and stuck with me. She said her work was about “Connecting-yearning. Yearning to connect.”
Connecting, and yearning to connect, is so often about finding confluences and points of shared interest. When I asked the QAF poets about their favourite aspects of Vancouver, I received responses that gave me that thrill of recognition for all the inspiring moments that the city has to offer. For Rose, it is “the flats at Spanish Banks at low tide…” which, of course, go on for what seems like infinity. For Betsy, there was “No question about it = The Drive!” and for Nickerson, Betsy’s answer provides a kind of coincidental connection: Nickerson noted “I live on Commercial Drive. I love it when a large shipment of fruit comes in and the grocers sell big bags of the older stuff for a dollar. Once a thrifty artist, always a thrifty artist.”
The Queer Arts Festival is here! Co-curators Kristina Lemieux and Jen Crothers have come together with their production, Reflection/Refraction, which will be showcased on August 1st. Chatting over antipasti and casual drinks at Charlie’s Little Italian Pizzeria on Main, Sad Mag correspondent Monika Malczynski learns more about Kristina and Jen and how they found their inspiration.
Kristina Lemieux
SAD MAG: Who are you?
KRISTINA LEMIEUX: My name is Kristina. I am originally from Edmonton, well [laughs], Drayton Valley. I’ve lived in Vancouver for about seven years now and I’m an arts and cultural manager and thinker. Currently my primary project is with Brief Encounters -we take an even number of artists (ranging from opera singers to architects) and we pair them together and give them two weeks to create a five to twenty minute performance piece. I also am working on Reflection/Refraction. I also am a co-director of a community dance troop called Polymer Dance. And I host a dialogue series called SANKASETwhere I get arts professionals together to talk about directed topics in the arts. Lots of things, all kinds of things!
SM: Sounds like it! And what about you, Jen?
JEN CROTHERS: I am Jen Crothers. Crothers rhymes with brothers, not that you need to know that in a written document
KL: [Laughs] It’s going in there now!
Jen Crothers
JC: [Laughs], yeah. So I guess I’d say I’m an artist and an organizer. I am the treasurer on the board on the Queer Arts Festival and I’m pro-curating the show in the Queer Arts Festival with Kristina. I am an organizer with the All Bodies Swim which is a regular private event at Templeton pool where people who might feel normally feel awkward or excluded from swimming pools are invited to come and swim and have fun in the pool. We invite all kinds of people – fat people, people with scars, lots of tattoos – and we run this occasion every six weeks or two months. I’m a filmmaker as well; I made a couple of films one of which is called “Butch Tits” and it’s been around a bit. I also organize Queer Bodies Film Night which is a semi-regular film night that I show short films that deal with issues such as gender, sexuality, mental health, those kind of things. So yeah, you know, random projects. And I’m, obviously, not from here [since she speaks with an accent]. I’m from Australia, from Tasmania, and I traveled to a bunch of places before I got here but I’ve been here for six of the last eight years and I will stay here for the foreseeable future although Australia kind of has my heart.
SM: You two have paired up to co-curate Reflection/Refraction for the QAF. How did you begin working together and what is this production all about?
JC: Kristina and I knew each other before the project. We were friends for probably about six years before the project began and we sort of connected over the love of spreadsheets, organization and ‘geekery’.
KL: [Smiles] Yeah, and I think we were just talking one day about how we both wanted to do more organizing or more programming in the arts as we were seeing a bit of a gap in what kind of programming was happening in the queer communities and Jen loves films and I love performing art – although we both love films and performing arts – but in terms of expertise, we thought we could blend the two together and bring both of what we are most passionate about. So we came up with the idea of having five short films by five queer filmmakers that would then be responded to by five queer performing artists. We did this back in 2011 for the Queer Film Festival and then our lives got busy last year and we realized that we didn’t do anything for 2012 so we thought we should definitely get involved again and approach the queer arts festival and we did. So, here we are.
SM: So essentially the shorts will be shown and then each performer, having spent approximately four months coming up with their own interpretation or response to their film, will perform. Is that right?
JC and KL: Yes, that’s right.
SM: So if you can recall, because you originally came up with this idea in 2011, where did your inspiration come from?
JC: I think the inspiration- we were sort of just talking and all of a sudden it kind of just came. We were doing a lot of this: eating a restaurants, have some casual drinks and ideas were being discussed.
KL: Yeah, and I don’t think it came out in the way that it was a completely laid-out format, that this was going to be the way it was done, but that after some conversations back and forth we sort of figured things out. We were brainstorming ideas and ways which a performance could address certain issues. And the other thing we both really like is creativity within certain boundaries: time frames are limited, time performances are limited, what happens when you sort of constrain the creative process. And that’s how we came up with Reflection/Refraction; it was something that we thought could fit into that creative boundary.
JC: Yes, and we talked quite philosophically about it. We talked a lot about the difference between film and performance and we found that when a filmmaker makes a film, at some point it becomes fixed. That first you edit, then show some friends and you might edit it again and again but at some point it becomes a fixed piece of art that you can no longer change again. Whereas with a piece of performing art, you perform it and you have an audience reaction and you might tweak it and then you have another performance then talk to someone or have another reaction and then you tweak it again. I mean, this doesn’t always happen, sometimes people perform the exact same thing. But even on a good night a performer might respond to the energy of the audience. If the audience is giving a lot of responsive energy, the performer might give a bigger performance. Whereas film is fixed and it’s flat. So when we were thinking about the idea of putting people into the position where they were kind of forced to be inspired. It was somewhat of a theoretical approach. Kristina is a total theory nerd and I’m a bit more scared by her intellectualism but nevertheless, I try to keep up [they both smile].
SM: Have you seen the progress that the performers have made with their approach or will you be seeing their performances for the first time next week?
JC: We did want to curate the performances; we did want to interact with the performers, critique them, give them suggestions of how what they’re doing might work or not. So we did meet with them once about their initial ideas about the films. Some of them were like “yes, I’ve got an idea of what I’m going to do” and others were like “I have twenty ideas and don’t know which one to choose” and other people were like “uh, I have no clue what I’m going to do.” This weekend we are going to see them again and see what they’ve come up with and give them some feedback again and then they’ll have a chance to fine tune their performance and then yeah, then we’ll get to see it again.
all photos c/o Monika Malczynski
SM: Having been involved with many creative projects over the last several years of living in Vancouver, and coming from different cities, how do you feel about the “creative scene” in Vancouver? Do you think this city poses challenges for artistic people or do you find there to be easy and creative avenues to explore?
KL: There is a lot of amazing stuff happening in the arts in Vancouver but I think that if anything could be improved that there be stronger avenues to communicate with people on what they’re doing. In the last eighteen months we’ve lost, like three cultural reviewers? Don’t quote me on that but a good chunk of cultural reviewers from our major publications. And not that I think our general public is reading print media but because where we are getting our information from is in flux, there’s nowhere to go to get a curated list of what’s happening. Almost every week I’m asking myself, “which one of these amazing productions do I want to pick to go to tonight?” which shows there’s a lot going on.
JC: Yes, and just to clarify that – in a sense that information is out there like with Sad Mag, Vancouver is Awesome, the Province and so on but it’s just so across the board that you have to be reading all of those publications to get the full sense of what is going on. I personally hear about things through friends, Facebook, social media and word of mouth. Usually, unless I know someone who’s involved with something or unless someone suggests we go to an event so it makes such a difference when someone says to me “you should really see this show.” So, word of mouth is really important. And being a smaller city, Vancouver is good for word of mouth but there still lacks a space where people, critics, are giving opinions and suggestions about the arts. There’s just an overwhelming amount of choice which is both good and bad. Vancouver is a lot smaller than Sydney, for example, but there’s usually a lot of choice so I personally get overwhelmed and that’s why that personal connection or suggestion really pushes me and makes a difference for me.
KL: Yeah, and just to also point out, I’ve personally been involved with arts management for the past 15 years and one of the reasons I moved to Vancouver is because it is a city that does allow one to make a living in an artistic field. Sure, I may not ever own a home but I’m not sure that that’s important anyway. And in the smaller cities, at least the more isolated ones, you don’t have the same level of municipal and provincial support that you have from the government so there are lots of opportunities for the arts here.
For more information and to buy tickets, check out Reflection/Refraction on Facebookand on the QAF website.
Sad Mag is excited to announce that the Vancouver Queer Arts Festival is happening this week! There are so many events, so many activities, and so many artists involved that you, fair reader, yes, you will find something inspiring and engaging which you will feel compelled to attend. Merely click here, and enjoy!
FATE's Summer Collection is at Today Boutique in Gastown
Nervous about my coffee date with young fashion stylist Sara Gourlay, I stare down at my simple black dress. Is she going to approve? Ever since running into Gourlay at Vancouver Eco-Fashion Week in April, I’ve been in awe of her talent and style. She has the ability to rework vintage clothes into the coolest pieces. In an effort to calm my nerves, I rationalize irrationally: our names do rhyme, Farah and Sara; that must be a good sign!
I sit at WE coffee on Main and begin to reminisce about Gourlay’s line from the Eco-Fashion runway. FATE had many adorable black pieces, with various textures, patterns, and styles. It was my favorite line out of the thrift chic challenge and I would definitely wear each piece.
Gourlay walks in. Rocking a faux fur leopard print jacket, men’s denim button-up, shiny leggings and retro platforms, she looks epically cool. The beautiful 23-year old Capilano College fashion-marketing graduate sits down next to me with a big smile on her face. We begin the interview:
Farah Tozy: How did FATE Vintage come to be?
Sarah Gourlay: I started a year ago picking clothes; I really liked fashion. With the growing concern for the environment, there’s kind of a gap. So I saw a need for [FATE]. There aren’t many options for sustainable fashion. FATE is trendy and [has] wearable pieces that are modern and classic.
[During] Eco-Fashion week, my mom even said, ‘I could actually wear some of these!’ [FATE] is sold at Today boutique in Gastown, and I just sent my first shipment of clothing to Rebel Rebel in Victoria. Hopefully I’ll be selling online soon.
FT: Why did you call your brand FATE?
SG: First off, I like how it was four letters. It’s concise. I really like the aesthetic of how it looks but also the meaning behind it, the FATE of giving clothing a second life. Vintage is cool in that way; someone wears it and passes it on.
FT: Do you ever plan on expanding from women’s clothing to men’s?
SG: I like focusing on women’s clothing. At the markets I sell more men’s clothing [that is] more unisex.
FT: What’s been your best find so far?
SG: Well, I love flow-y kimonos. One time Stormey Rhiannon and I found this sheer fringe kimono.
FT: How did you resist not keeping it for yourself?
SG: We have to stick to the universal rule: you can’t keep anything!
FT: How was the Eco-Fashion show? Was it good exposure for FATE?
SG: It was awesome! Just being recognized as someone on the tip of sustainable fashion was quite an honor. I was surprised as to how much of a production it was. Behind stage it was just buzzing!
FT: What’s your favorite season for clothing? Sundress summer, winter sweaters, rain jacket spring or autumn flats?
SG: I like fall. Because I’m partial to black clothing; it’s definitely my specialty.
FT: As an experienced thrifter, when do you think is the best time to thrift shop?
SG: I like to go in the morning because everyone is usually asleep or at work. It’s best to get in there when the world is not as busy.
FT: Where would you like to see your designs one day?
SG: I [want] FATE to definitely be more countrywide; to be known as sustainable fashion, [done] really trendy. Online would be ideal. Keep my model of as selling FATE as a brand in boutiques; I really like that. In the future, I want to cross a bit more into music with fashion. My boyfriend and I are going to collaborate on a fashion film.
Sad Mag loves Kathryn Mussallem. She’ll be part of our next issue, she has “cool” written all over her (not literally, but she is tattooed!) and she’s been given the title “social biographer” in TONIGHT’s project: “SKIN & BONE: Salty Sailor Tales.” It’s “an evening of saucy stories, history, and discovery at the Vancouver Maritime Museum” and Kathryn will be making a splash. Sad Mag’s going to be there, and you should be too!
Sad Mag: Salty Sailor Tales describes you as a “social biographer”: What does that mean? How do you conceive of your role?
Kathryn Mussallem: Well I didn’t title myself that but I do think it fits. My photography for this project is mainly street portraiture, but in these quick meetings on street corners, outside of bars and on ships, or other brief encounters I hope show a small glimpse of the personality of each sailor, whether it be them hard at work on a ship or drunk off their asses fresh into port and charged up for shenanigans. I know the names of almost every sailor that I have photographed, they are so quick to tell me everything in such a short amount of time and I hope that the images convey just a glimpse of who these boys are. I have spent the last 2 years following the US Navy from port to port and making a few friends in between.
SM: What prompted your interest in tattoos?
KM: I have the requisite “I was coming of age in the 90s” shameful tattoo that I’ve had for almost 20 years, so from a very young age I was fascinated with the subculture associated with tattooing specifically nautical tattoos. Sailors brought tattooing to the world and these souvenirs acted as a reminder of their time at sea and in the not so savory ports of call. I now am covered in quite a few tattoos, all of the traditional nautical variety and my favourite a small anchor on my ankle that I got from a sailor on a ship in New Orleans. I met some sailors one night drunk on the street, one of them liked my tats he told me that he tattooed and that he should tattoo me and of course I said yes. I think he thought I was kidding but the next day I texted him to arrange a session. So in an electrical shop on the USS Wasp in New Orleans Louisiana I got a tattoo from a sailor. A tattoo should always be a reminder of something, it should represent a moment in your life, a struggle you have overcome, a journey or an adventure you have had.
You can see Kathryn at Skin and Bone TONIGHT, along with curator Patricia Owen, tattoo artist Chris Hold, and Charles H. Scott Gallery curator Cate Rimmer in dicussion about the idea of erotic imagery and taboo concepts in the sailor arts of tattoos and scrimshaw.
Vancouver Maritime Museum – 6:30PM – 10:00PM – for tickets, Eventbrite
A maven of music, a food snob and a stickler when it comes to good design, those of us who know Pam regard her as a passionate person for all things creative. Pam received her Bachelor of Fine Arts from Emily Carr University of Art& Design in 2006 and her diploma with honours in Illustration and Design from Capilano University’s IDEA Program.
When Pam isn’t doing her design magic for Sad Mag, she enjoys being a soprano diva in the Kingsgate chorus, making elaborate meals and then eating them, and making daily playlists for your listening pleasure.
Dean Thullner is my neighbour. He and his husband, David Veljacic, opened Volume Studio Gallery Ltd.’s doors a couple of months ago, only a block from my apartment. What was once a flower shop has been turned into a bright and sparkling hair salon-cum-art gallery. And they’ll still sell you flowers (with 10% of the florist’s annual profits going to St. Paul’s Hospital, no less). It’s been sidewalk chats, pink tulips, and puppy love ever since.
I mean the puppy-love part seriously. Whenever I walk by with my boyfriend and our dog, Safie, she scrambles along the sidewalk to get to Dean’s door. There Dean will be, with his husband or one of his stylists, with a dog treat in hand and a word about the beauty of the day. The shop is always filled with people, fresh art hangs on the walls, and they even have a shop dog whose “stage name,” Sweetie, is a testament to her geriatric gorgeousness.
Volume Studio is an important addition to the West End, and to Vancouver. It represents a new kind of gay lifestyle in Davie Village, one that brings health and community-involvement to the fore. Dean speaks about a generation of men who suffered during the HIV epidemic of the 1980s, who fell, perhaps, into drugs and alcohol as an escape, and who, in many cases, are no longer with us. Dean, given three-months to live at age 29, is now, along with his husband, taking community-building to the next level through their involvement with St. Paul’s Hospital, Brilliant! A Show of Love for Mental Health, HIV and AIDS, and Pride Week 2013.
Sad Mag: Who are you?
Dean Thullner: I’m Dean Thullner—community enthusiast, creativity curator, HIV-positive thriver—I am also a founding partner of Volume Studio Ltd. at 1209 Bute Street, in the heart of Davie Village.
Volume Studio is my seventh business, and it is also my favourite business, because this business isn’t about me. I turned 50, and all of a sudden I’m in the latter part of my life, and so this business is about giving back. I love it.
But, as you know, in my late twenties I almost died. When you are told that you only have three months to live, and you are HIV positive during a big epidemic, you really learn to take care of yourself. Oddly—and people don’t like to hear this—but being diagnosed HIV-positive was probably the single most wonderful thing that ever happened to me, in hindsight.
I’m not judging anybody. But having to live your life for the everyday, having to think that each small illness might be the beginning of the end, and not really knowing that I was going to be here until November 11, 2011 when St. Paul’s Hospital announced that HIV is about living and not dying. Up to that point, I really didn’t want to sustain a future. Now that I am 50 and I have this second chance—and I have the community’s backing—I really want to say thanks to the people who have helped me, and who’ve helped others living with HIV/AIDS.
SM: Can you describe the support networks and caregivers that have helped you recover from your HIV health crises?
DT: I survived the worst of the epidemic. Now, thanks to St. Paul’s—and St. Paul’s Hospital, a lot of people don’t realize, are one of the leading hospitals that came up with the cocktail, a treatment known as Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy or HAART. They changed the world. Whereas other hospitals may have opened their doors, at St. Paul’s they opened their hearts and their doors. In the 80s, St. Paul’s opened up a whole floor for gay men suffering with HIV/AIDS and St. Paul’s looked after them until they died. And the Hospital did that for the first twenty years of a thirty-year epidemic, without even knowing what the repercussions were going to be.
It was a really unique situation. Because Vancouver had probably one of the highest gay demographics in the country…we really felt [the HIV epidemic]. In the early 80s, when I moved here, Davie Street was filled with gay restaurants and coffee shops and flower shops and drag queen revues and then, bang. All the older men were gone. All these younger men, with no mentors, were basically living fearful lives, and this really contributed to [gay drug culture in the 1990s.] It was a difficult time in the community.
Now, we are turning it around. I see [in the West End] not at 80s or 90s version of what Davie Village was, but a new, fresher version of healthier choices, healthier lifestyles, and younger people wanting to give back to the community. It is exciting! And I hope that I can help out.
SM: What does community mean to you?
DT: It means recognizing where help has come from, and giving back. Volume Studio believes in the fortitude of the organizations that it supports, and we give back to those organizations.
SM: What is Volume Studio and how does it help build community in Vancouver?
DT: Volume Studio is a hair salon, an art gallery, and a flower shop.
At Volume, we really support all levels of the artistic community.
The first Friday of every month we invite a local artist to show their work. The artist donates 20% of their proceeds to the ward of their choice at St. Paul’s Hospital or to the charity of their choice.
[I have been throwing] Brilliant! A Show of Love for Mental Health, HIV and AIDS, every year, an event which reaches out to as many artistic people as possible. This year we’re featuring fashion, hair, makeup dance, theatre…we’ll have an art auction where we take local art. Everything is community-community.
SM: What hurdles or challenges has Volume Studio had to overcome?
When we took this space over on a sub-lease, we thought that we would get a couple months free rent and we would just put some glitter and feathers around and it would be fine. Instead, it was filled with dust and mould and rats. We couldn’t go near it for three months. That saga [getting it cleaned up and passing the health inspection] went on and on and on.
The other thing that happened was that no one has ever had a flower shop and a hair salon and an art gallery in one, and because of the city’s colonial laws, we had to fight for our right to sell flowers and art in the same building we were cutting hair. Now, anyone can get a license to open a hair salon and a flower shop or gallery space.
SM: People often accuse Vancouver of being “no fun city.” Do you agree or disagree?
DT: I don’t believe that at all! I came here from a small area in Winnipeg and, when I arrived, it was during Expo and I’ve had fun every day since.
SM: Favourite Vancouver person place or thing?
DT: My husband David. I love him. He’s my best friend and he’s the florist at Volume. He’s an amazing person…we’ve been together eight years. We’ll be together forever.
SM: What are you most excited about right now?
DT: Brilliant! A Show of Love for Mental Health, HIV and AIDS, I am so excited. I’m so excited about how excited the community is. The theme is “Fashion Through the Ages” this year, so we’re celebrating 120 years of fashion and music and talent and iconic figures. We’ve drag queens, we’ve got singers and dancers and choreographers and performers, not to mention all the fashion: the hair and makeup and clothes.
It’s going to be probably about 168 people in a 55-minute fashion show that’s going to blow Vancouver away.
Tickets are only $75 and you get a $50 tax receipt.
I am also very excited that, this year, the Vancouver Fireworks [the Festival of Light]has finally decided to recognize that Gay Pride begins at the same time, which they’ve never ever recognized before. So, the community reached out and I took it and decided to host the event with Simone [drag queen Christopher Hunt]. So Simone and I are doing a “Sport a Speck of Pink” party—you have to wear a speck of pink to get in—and it will be at Brand Live, which is sponsored by the Keg. Partial proceeds from the fireworks ticket sales go to St. Pauls’ Hospital.
The party is on August 3, in a huge tent, and it’s is usually just a party for the Keg, so primarily heterosexual, but it came up that why, on the evening of Gay Pride’s launch, we never recognized it? So that’s what we’re doing! Next year it’ll be even gayer.
The other thing that I’m really excited about is that John Ferrie is showing at Volume Studio and he is one of Vancouver’s hottest artists. We are expecting a great turn out —it’s on the 2nd of August.
The perils and misadventures of online dating in No Fun City, with bonus date-stalking tips from a tech-savvy single lady.
I am officially in party mode. I eat toast for dinner off the lids of Tupperware because all of my dishes are dirty. I’m trying to shoehorn as much fun into my life as possible. There is no time for such banalities as cleaning. I’m gross. This, I’m sure, is the residual effect of being in a relationship for most of my twenties. This last year (last gasp) is my chance to party, and I’m taking it seriously.
I have tickets to see a band I like that no one else seems to know so I’ve decided to go alone. As I ready myself to head out I get a message online from a guy in town from LA. He’s bored. I ask him to accompany me to the show, which starts in half an hour. He responds immediately and just like that I have a date.
I wait for him outside the venue and as he gets out of the cab I wince a little cause he’s in a suit. He’s tall, and the suit…is not. But it is wide–as is his tie. Is this how people dress in LA? He’s perfectly polite and apologizes profusely for being five minutes late and quickly buys me a drink. We chat a bit about the band and watch the show, which ends early. I’m feeling restless and not ready to end the night when a friend/coworker texts me that there is a party in Railtown and do I want to go with her and her hubby? Elated that I actually have a date (albeit a poorly dressed one) I accept.
I introduce him to my friends and, probably due to the few drinks we’ve already had, he starts explaining how he’s writing a graphic novel. He pulls up a terrible Deviant Art-y rendering on his phone and explains how it’s kind of like Tomb Raider. I gesture to my friend silently that this guy is the biggest nerd by pushing up my imaginary glasses. I’m an asshole.
I continue drinking.
My girlfriend and I proceed to drink so much that later, when her husband runs into the guy who threw the party he’s confronted with,”Oh yeah, you were with those drunk girls.”
I am those drunk girls.
That was me almost falling up the stairs then trying to recover by making it look like some quirky lunge. That was me yelling, “I know yoooooooou!” to someone I recognized from a magazine. That was also me attempting a pull-up off the ceiling pipes. And that was definitely me making out in a stranger’s loft just to feel the pressure of someone else’s face against mine.
I don’t remember how I got home.
I wake up confused. I feel tangled up and it’s hard to move my arms. I then realize I’m half out of my bra and shirt with an arm out of each. I have no pants or underwear on. I step onto the floor narrowly missing a gelatinous substance–is that vomit? It’s white. I touch it. It jiggles. Did the cat do this? I don’t usually hurl when I drink, this couldn’t have been me? Could it? Can a human make this…texture? I continue to the living room to where the contents of my purse make a trail from the front door to my bedroom. I’m 95% sure I didn’t get violated but I did lose my bus pass and it’s the beginning of the month. I have reached a new low.
I call my girlfriend and describe what’s on the floor.
“Oh that, that’s just bile.” Oh, no big deal. This is not something I’m accustomed to finding on my floor! Her flippant attitude further illustrates how many experiences I must have missed by being in a boring couple for the last eight years. Still, I could stand to have missed the bile.
I get a message from LA guy and he says he had a great time (I bet) and that my friends are so nice and wants to see me again. I say I’m busy and don’t mention that I hope to never see him again, ever. He’s a perfectly nice guy, an actual gentleman. But kinda milquetoast. This is precisely why the idiom “nice guys finish last” exists. He’s just not exciting in any way. Also he doesn’t live here, so he could never really be a contender. This is how I justify blowing him off.
The day after is a workday and I wake up with a residual shame-over followed by the relief of knowing I didn’t do anything crazy the night before. It’s like my body remembered the previous morning’s guilt, “Shouldn’t we be checking our phone for errant drunk texts by now?” No. Thank God.
At work I walk past my girlfriend’s desk and she’s on Adrianne Curry’s Twitter page. I ask what she could possibly be doing there and she says, “Don’t you remember? Your date said he was seeing someone who was on Top Model, then, later in the evening he said his ex had over 300,000 followers. I’m piecing it together, this must be her!” I love her for doing this. This makes me judge him even more because Adrianne Curry seems like a dummy. Suddenly any wavering thoughts about blowing him off dissipate. I could never date anyone with such questionable taste.
He writes me a few weeks later when he’s back in town for work. I politely decline to see him again and he sends me the most decent response saying, “You deserve someone really great. I hope you find that person.”
Suddenly I feel guilty. I treated this guy like a rental car. I needed someone to take me to the show and he was right there. It hadn’t occurred to me that I could try to parlay this into something more or that he would even want that. Maybe I subconsciously prohibited myself from liking him to avoid the hassles of a long-distance relationship.
