Author Archives: Ephemeral Pleasures

City and Colour

Last night I went to see City and Colour at the Jubilee Auditorium.

I think it was the first time I’d been in the audience at the Jubilee Aud, although I’ve been seated on the stage for a couple of convocations. I couldn’t think how to work that into conversation, though. The audience included lots of people showing full-sleeve tattoos like Dallas Green the singer, or emulating his style wearing checked shirts or severe black-framed glasses.

The opening act was called Low Anthem. My friend W had been telling me she was more excited about seeing them than seeing City and Colour. Wikipedia calls them folk rock or indie folk, and I could see them fitting in well at Folkfest. They are from Rhode Island. But the cool thing, that I didn’t realise from listening to tracks ahead of time, is that something about their sound and their main singer reminded me a lot of some band we used to listen to in the old days. And I couldn’t think who. Clapton? Tom Petty? I thought of another group but couldn’t remember their name, and it distracted me all through their set, but a quick application to Wikipedia and a quick response to texts from a music fan in my family told me I was thinking of Traveling Wilburys, and so probably Tom Petty’s voice with the more country-like acoustic arrangements. Whew.

Dallas Green and his band were really good. He has good rapport with the audience, responding to shouted comments, asking very politely for one song with no electronic distractions (the one about a funeral) and getting it, with applause, and getting different sections of the audience to sing the backup bits on What Makes a Man, including knowing how to rehearse us (choral conductors do this well, rock musicians generally don’t). He played almost all my favourites from the earlier albums (except for Save your Scissors) and some from the new one I don’t know so well. The encore was Dallas singing alone while playing the piano on, I actually don’t remember which song now, and then with the rest of the band on Coming Home (wild cheers when he mentioned Saskatoon, even more when he mentioned Nova Scotia).

The “Jube” is an attractive comfortable hall seating about 2500 people. I was near the back of the first balcony, so not as engaged as I might have been but I still had good sight lines even with tall people in front of me. I noticed, though, that for both bands it was hard to distinguish lyrics that I wasn’t already familiar with. In comparison, when I saw the band Stars at the Winspear Centre downtown where the symphony plays, the lyrics were very very clear. (This is fortunate, since Stars has better lyrics!) And from what I read this morning, the symphony used to play at the Jubilee Auditorium until audiophiles and philanthropists were able to arrange a hall with better acoustics — so it’s cool that even I could hear that.

Headstones on New Year’s Eve

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Partway through my friends’ New Year’s Eve party, I caught a bus downtown to the Headstones concert at the Shaw conference centre.

The last concert I went to there had an “all-ages” setup, with the draft beer confined to a standing-room cavern at the back. This time it was like my friend D had described, most of the room filled with round tables and chairs, and the back rows of tables even had friendly looking candles in glass as well as tablecloths. I got there during the second band of the night, Tupelo Honey. I hadn’t heard them before but they were local and I thought they were good, and also their lead singer looked like an old friend which is a plus. For the end of that set I was standing a few rows from the front, comfortable and dancing, so I decided to move up as I could between sets, until I had a tiny piece of real estate on the centre of the barricade. This wasn’t as comfortable, because there were a couple of drunk guys being a little aggressive with other and smarmy with me, and when the concert promoters came on stage to count down to midnight the one guy made a really creepy pitch for kissing strangers ‘and if you can’t get a kiss get a grope’ and stuff like that.

Still, I stuck it out and then the Headstones came on and started to play Tweeter and the Monkeyman and I was the closest fan to Hugh Dillon and he looked and sounded just like on television only right there in front of me sweaty and happy and full of energy and yelling “fuck” a lot. By then I’d worked out the territorial claims to my side, but as the show continued the crowd behind was dancing and thrusting forward and I kept getting elbows in my back and the barricade in my front, so after a couple of songs I found a friendly big guy behind me to swing me backwards and I got out of the standing-room crowd. The crowd was a funny mix of intent music fans and dressed up people out for a party evening, some dressed in little sparkly dresses and some dressed in Team Canada hockey sweaters. As I’d predicted, I wasn’t the only one in my age group, and there wasn’t as much cellphone-documentation up close to the stage as there was at Death Cab for Cutie.

I saw no appeal in paying concert-hall prices for a Canadian or Coors Light when I was working on not being hung over anyway, so my choices were basically a $3 Sprite or a $4 bottled water, both with the caps removed. I sat down and cooled down, then ambled back to the side of the crowd with my drink and got pretty close without being squished. I didn’t stay for the encore, (and I knew from earlier setlists that they hadn’t played my favourite song this tour).

I didn’t see any taxis and caught a bus from, whatever that big bus stop is called with the sliding-doors heated shelter (and where there was once a fatal altercation, although not when I was there), back to my little car and home before 2am. Big-picture thanks to the family member who recommended the Headstones to me in the first place back in 2007 or so.

Three meat meals

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Last weekend I ate at LUX Steakhouse. The atmosphere was not too pretentious and I would be interested in going back. I had a rare New York strip steak, which didn’t quite meet my pinnacle of steak-excellence but I’m not sure I have words for why not. Partly it wasn’t thick enough so it wasn’t charred on the outside, but it was properly rare and tender inside. For a side dish, I had “lobster poutine”, (sort of a misnomer since there were no cheese curds involved).

When Jo was visiting, , we went to Yianni’s, a Greek place on Whyte Ave (the one by Mettera). I think of it as the Greek place, but it’s true that now there are others. When I was checking whether they were open on Mondays, I discovered that their website is http://eatmorelamb.com. I had a lamb souvlaki plate and it was good;Jo’s roast lamb was possibly even better.

And on Friday night I went out with neighbourhood friends to Pampa Brazilian Steakhouse, a new restaurant downtown which was full while we were there. There’s a salad bar with interesting assorted offerings, and then carvers keep bringing various kinds of meat around and cutting you off a bit of everything you want. I sort of lost count, but I think I had everything except the more ordinary looking chicken. Our party didn’t have consensus on what was the best, because a lot of it was really good. It was all from conventional domestic meat animals: pork, beef, lamb, and chicken. I also had some mango dessert which was good.

Tales of the (River) City and other stories

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The Garneau Block, Todd Babiak, 2006

You know that kind of story genre that’s a whole series of newspaper-column-length chapters? Like Armistead Maupin’s Tales of the City and sequels, Alexander McCall Smith’s 44 Scotland Street series, and so on.

I just discovered that a newspaper columnist here, someone whose tweets I sometimes follow, wrote a book like that about five years ago. I found it when I was looking for library books to stick on my kobo for my trip last weekend.

It turned out that it’s a very funny sendup of the institutions and character archetypes of this city and mostly the parts between my home and my work. Of course because it’s five years old, there are some dated lines like how if you want to oppose the Conservatives around here of course you join the Liberal party even if you’re a communist or something. But otherwise I enjoyed it for the recognition just as much as I enjoyed it for the story.

I love this place.

—–

Following on from The Garneau Block, I’ve since read two more novels set in versions of my usual orbit of Edmonton. The protagonist of one seemed to be living at around 108 Street and 87 Avenue; the other was a bit harder to place and could be anywhere from 109 to Bonnie Doon, somewhere between Whyte Ave and the river. Maybe all of these people did their writing in Remedy and looked out the window for their settings.

Gayleen Froese, Grayling Cross, 2011: This is the kind of supernatural+detectives story that people like Tanya Huff and Mercedes Lackey have done well. A psychic and a public-relations specialist have an agency, and get tangled up with big mysterious powers. It wasn’t as good as Summon the Keeper, the Tanya Huff book set in our old neighbourhood in Kingston, but it was fun. Turns out it’s second in a series, and I’ll probably look for the other one.

Janice MacDonald, The Monitor, 2003: Another recurring feature in all three books about this neighbourhood is that they all include characters who would like to be U of A academics and aren’t. Sigh. Anyway, this one is a more straightforward amateur-detective-with-cop-boyfriend thing, part of a series. The weird thing is that it’s a book about internet chat rooms set about 10 years ago I think and copyright 8 years ago. So some of it is really dated, the stuff the author has to explain, the number of characters who aren’t on the net at all, etc. And I was never involved in any kind of internet-socialising thing that was quite as flirt-heavy as what was described, but other features sound credible. Some things near the end were annoying me, but not so much that I want to spoil the book for anyone else who might feel like reading it. Again, I’d probably read the rest of the series but I wouldn’t buy hardcovers.

Two kitchens

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Spice Kitchen re-opened Thursday under new management. Their menu is different, and they don’t have takeout menus yet. They have new tablecloths and new tea service (the pots still drip). They were not full Saturday night. Their new menu doesn’t seem to have the Szechuan Ginger Chicken that I liked as something similar to General Tso’s chicken. The fried rice noodles with beef is different and maybe better. I also had some Kung Po chicken, which had more peanuts than chicken and was really good, not as spicy as the Kung Pao chicken my former partner used to make at home.

I’d definitely be up for a group excursion with people who remember more stuff from the old menu. I do not know whether they still have the puffed-up kind of green onion cake.

Highlands Kitchen used to be called Culina Highlands, and Bacon before that I think. It was actually my first time there, and I haven’t yet made it to the yarn store next door either. They had really good fresh decaf coffee, and I had the waffle special (andouille sausage, compote of apples and blueberries, cream). Mostly they don’t have a brunch menu, but there are really interesting sounding things on the lunch menu. I’d definitely go back there.

Continuing the library visits

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Last year I started a project to visit all 17 branches of Edmonton Public Libraries, having only seen my local branch and the downtown one. I visited six more, but I only ever got around to writing up four of the visits – and I can’t find the pictures I took on those visits either.

From memory, then:

7. Lois Hole Library is a large brand-new facility set in a huge parking lot in parkland in the west end in the Callingwood neighbourhood (which, as far as I can tell, is pronounced exactly the same as the Ontario town of Collingwood). It’s modern and attractive and spacious, with the kind of high-ceilinged plate-glass foyer that feels like a new arena complex. That part of town is one of the ones that reminds me a lot of Mississauga, meaning that it was probably developed in the 1970s. On this visit I ended up explaining to a library employee what I was doing, because I was showing her the bizarre phenomenon of having two checked-out books (different titles by the same author) which the bar-codes thought were actually one copy of one book. She noticed that I was having my holds sent to Strathcona so she offered to fix it, which is why I had to explain. I went there one Saturday last fall when I had a rented car.

8. Woodcroft Library is a small branch across the road from the Westmount shopping centre. I went there by bus, when I had time to spare doing some other errands north of the river. I don’t remember what I borrowed from that branch; I do remember a nice display of the pro-library campaign signs and buttons that they were inviting people to display during the municipal election.

That brings us to this weekend. On Saturday I pulled over to the side of the road on my way back from Namao (the base) when it looked like I was probably within a developed enough area to find a library. I used the EPL application on my iphone to find the closest library (I just love that concept!) and it directed me to Londonderry.

9. Londonderry Library is actually in the basement of a shopping mall. Despite its low ceilings and lack of natural light, they’ve done a good job with white walls and angled low bookshelves to make it look inviting. The kids’ section and a little bit of browsing space are upstairs at ground/shopping level. Although there isn’t much study/lounge space, the collection is about double the size of that at my home branch.

londonderry

So now I’ve been to more than half of the current branches (two new branches and two re-builds are planned, and one re-build is under way) . Some of the others I’ll need to visit on weekends when I have a car, but there are still a few that are feasible by bus. And the weekend visiting is easier than it used to be, because now all the branches are open on Sundays except in summertime.

Jack Layton memorial

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Yesterday I went to a candlelight memorial thing for Jack Layton, on the steps of the Legislature.

Edmonton note for readers from elsewhere: it seems that pretty much anything important with lots of people happens on the steps of the legislature. They are big sandstone steps. The City Hall doesn’t have nearly as big a gathering place, and it’s filled up with wading-fountain and there isn’t a high spot to speak from. I’ve been to the steps of the Leg for speeches during a charity walk, and on Canada Day, and I’ve been invited to lots more rallies and things and not gone. Oddly, I’ve never actually been inside the legislature. Also, when I first moved here, I thought “The Ledge” was some geographic formation on the hillside of the river valley, not the riverside buildings and parkland of the seat of provincial government. Fortunately I figured it out without betraying my ignorance.

I went with a couple of knitting friends, and I wore my orange sweater. There were lots of people there – the paper said thousands. The formal part had several important local NDP people, including a well-loved former provincial party leader and a U of A student. There was a really good social-justice choir, but we didn’t sing O Canada. I thought it was almost perfect – not too long, mostly inclusive, funny bits and celebration and lots of repetition of the Jack Layton quotes and common sayings (I’d forgotten how much the roll-up-our-sleeves was iconic). Our MP Linda Duncan was obviously very sad and close to choking up, but she managed that well enough not to make people uncomfortable either way. Afterwards, people left their candles and other shrine-gifts and wrote chalk messages on the steps, but I didn’t stay.

The one thing I’d have done differently if I were a speechwriter with time to think about it would be to make sure there was more explicit inclusion of people who might not see themselves as NDP but who wanted to honour Jack’s contributions and be part of carrying on a progressive agenda – I wondered, sometimes, what some of the looking-forward hints in the speeches would sound like to someone whose loyalties were Liberal or Green or old-school red Tory (although they might have voted for Linda or Lewis or Ray federally and Rachel provincially), whether they’d sound too partisan or excluding.

It occurred to me later that the candlelight memorial rally thing last night in memory of Jack Layton was entirely secular, unless the Sanskrit poem was more religious than Aditya Rao’s translation sounded. How much my subcultures of choice and our Canadian society have changed during my lifetime – it didn’t feel like anything was missing without any mention of afterlife or prayer, and I didn’t even notice that until sometime today. For me, I feel a lot more strongly about religion being private and consensual than about grief being private, so almost any mention thereof would have felt inappropriate in that context, and I’m really glad that none of the speakers stuck it in. And I know nothing about Mr. Layton’s own religious background or current preferences, any more than I know whether he was legally married as opposed to common-law married, because that has never mattered to me and it hasn’t been obvious in anything I’ve read. (NOTE, this does not mean that you should tell me anything about their marital status; I like not knowing.) I imagine it would not be that way in the USA.

I don’t really like riding my bike at night in a crowd on the High Level bridge. (I prefer it to the descent and ascent needed to cross at the other bridges.) But there was something really neat about being part of that crowd coming and going, the exuberant kids and quieter adults, the flecks of orange ahead and behind, and then just riding home on Sask Drive which has almost no traffic due to the construction, looking across at the river and downtown, appreciating the warm night, and thinking what a great place this is to live.

A proto-musical at the Fringe

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If you’ve watched the TV show Slings and Arrows, remember the musical “East Hastings” that Richard got swept up in, in the third season? It was a perfect parody of shows like “Rent”, but the bits we heard were such a good imitation of the modern Broadway musical that the tunes were catchy and the lyrics rhymed elegantly and it sounded like something I might actually go see if it existed.

Twenty-Five – I just finished watching this song cycle at the Fringe. I enjoyed it. “Song cycle” apparently means that it doesn’t have plot moving it along or narrative between the songs, just a set of songs loosely connected on a theme. I kept thinking how easily it could be expanded into that kind of successful Broadway show, with a bit of storyline and some costumes and probably a few more performers and songs … but on the other hand, it was really cool to be sitting in the second row in a tiny venue, catching the performers’ eyes at the parts I loved, and then buying the original cast recording for “five or ten bucks, whatever”.

I don’t have the vocabulary to say why the songs were such great examples of the kinds of songs in the idiom of the modern Broadway musical, and I don’t know enough about different lyricists/composers to say whose work they reminded me of. The absolutely perfect rhyme and meter of the lyrics, slightly prioritised over poetry and sense? The kind of predictable harmony? The way that the accompaniment and rhythm were less noticeable than the singers? The choruses and repetitions, and the title tune reprised a couple of times in different ways?

My favourite songs were actually the two that varied most from this genre, the one that sounded like a Scottish lament and the rap with beatbox about being caught up in G-20-related protests. The songwriter/accompanist Joel Crichton and the performers Darren Paul (baritone), Richard Lee (tenor), and Joelle Prefontaine (alto) are all young and seem to be local, so I will watch for them in other shows in the future. The singers all have good trained voices and a nice mix of losing themselves in the story while singing but being aware of the venue before and afterwards.

I’d say this is my second favourite show so far.

A calm Fringe Sunday

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Yesterday morning I went to the Chapters store where I had arranged to meet up with a friend from Montreal. She ended up being quite late, being dependent on relatives for rides, but we texted back and forth. Basically, we just went to the beer tent at the Fringe and hung out in the shade knitting and talking all afternoon. It was really nice and relaxed, and made me laugh at myself a bit for how reluctant I’d been to be social and disrupt my weekend.

Then I went to see one play, and then came home and went to bed.

ONEymoon – at the library, sold out. Light, funny, fictional, one-actor show. The actor is good at the Fringe-promotion thing – she added me on twitter just because I’d mentioned something about #yegfringe. She talked in Dutch for some of it (pretending to talk to her relatives at the wedding), and she had a couple of audience members come up to read speeches she gave them – one was in Dutch and the guy said “Can I do this in Spanish instead?” and the other guy started to add in extra stuff, which was actually pretty funny. Bob our retired computer guy was there (I remember seeing him at Fringe shows in other years).

Twitterverse tells me that American comic actor Zach Galifianakis attended a show I was at. I don’t think anyone’s seen Nathan Fillion though.

Fringe 2011: an easy day with five plays

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Today I saw five plays at the Fringe. I also did some tidying and dishes and laundry this morning, went to the market, and between plays dropped off the shopping at home and lay down for a rest. As long as I park my bike on the perimeter instead of trying to walk it through the crowds to the main parking, this is easy.

Food notes for today: Nomad’s Kitchen is still good, the naan from the other place is precooked and nowhere near as good as the fresh naan from New Asian Village, and the wood-fired veggie pizza is really good.

Afternoon Delights and Emergency Exits – I’ve seen this modern dance company before, and I enjoyed them again, especially in the longer funny piece about flight attendants. They had the stylized gestures down pat.

The Big Smoke – This one-person narrative was my favourite show of the Fringe so far. It was poignant and very realistic. I won’t put any other spoilers until the run is over.

My Name is Jonas – comedy sketches loosely based on Weezer’s Blue Album, done by members of local improv company RapidFire Theatre. The funniest was the Jane Austen-esque dialogue that was full of sexual terms like cockblocking and wingman.

N.O.N.C.E – Another one-person narrative, this one written by the performer and mostly autobiographical. He’s an English performance poet, telling the stories of his time spent teaching poetry in a prison. I’ve recently read two books by people who taught creative writing in California prisons, and this guy was more interesting than either. It was more thought-provoking than I expected.

Bye Bye Bombay – A cast of one, but filling out the overwhelming impressions of a visit to India with video, music, puppets, dancing, a sari, and other props. The character was also dealing with the death of the mother she hadn’t gotten along with, and I was glad to see that theme done in an understated way.

Now that I understand how it works so I’m not embarrassed, I really like the way the Fringe artists advertise for their shows by talking to people. When done right, it feels intimate and sincere. Almost always it makes me more inclined to want to see the show (although I think the guy whose brother sings like Roy Orbison is annoying, reciting the same patter without making eye contact or maybe without knowing the right way to interrupt people comfortably). Also, after the applause the actors often recommend other shows and invite actors in the audiences to shout-out for their own. The N.O.N.C.E. guy talked to me yesterday. The When Harry Met Harry guy talked to our queue tonight and I told people I’d enjoyed his show. And there are several more on my wish list after encounters and recommendations.

I’ve always started out my show-shopping by trying to avoid one-person shows, because I used to feel like it was more interesting to watch the interactions in a larger cast. But I think I should change this rule, because I’ve seen so many good one-actor shows here and not just this year.