Arts and Culture

Beautiful Barcelona, Figueres, Good-bye

/ Lauren / 1 Comment

“Beautiful Barcelona!”

It’s a cliche phrase I know I’ve heard somewhere before and I was hesitant to use it. And then I thought, what the hell, it’s cliche because it’s true. Barcelona is beautiful. This is what struck me about the city. It’s actually a bit small, a bit crowded, a bit touristy, but my god, it is beautiful. Emerge from the Metro–beauty. Duck into an alley–beauty. Turn a corner–beauty. And that’s when you’re not even looking for it, so imagine the gob-smacking beauty you encounter when you actually make the effort to go to a park or a touristy site.

My relationship with Barcelona began as anything but beautiful. When I climbed out of the Liceu metro station onto La Rambla it was pouring rain. This rain became even harder once I checked into my hostel (located most conveniently right in Placa Reial, though I was too dejected at the time to notice). I knew it would be a bit hard to return to a hostel after my two nights at the Holiday Inn in Madrid, but I was unprepared for how hard I’d actually take it. The internet in the hostel was expensive. The hostel was a party hostel and all I could hear when I checked in, tired and hungry, was noise noise noise. The hostel didn’t rent towels, just sold them for 10 euros. My trip almost over, there was no way I was going to spend 10 euros for a giant towel I didn’t have the room to bring home again, so I was forced for four days to dry myself with the Doctor Who facecloth I had bought as a souvenir in London (it has a picture of a Tardis on it, and, Tardis-like, there was more to this tiny flannel than met the eye because it actually did not half badly). And to top it all off, I couldn’t even escape the noisy stupid no-towel hostel, because outside it was raining and thundering and being as miserable as I felt.

Basically, at that moment, I was emotionally done with my trip. I didn’t want to spend five more nights in Barcelona, I wanted to go home. To hell with the Sagrada Familia and the pretty streets. I wanted my kitchen and my bed and my glorious bathroom filled with glorious towels.

Luckily for me, all storms pass over and my emotional one subsided as soon as I met some people from my room, ate a decent dinner, and spent the better part of the evening discussing the finer points of Harry Potter with an Australian and a Brit (note: Dobby would win in a cage fight against Dumbledore). Fun fact: the Brit is a boom operator on Coronation Street! Wow!

On Tuesday morning the sun came out and I am sure glad I didn’t say to hell with the Sagrada Familia because it is the most beautiful building I have ever seen. From the outside it looked pretty cool, I mean, I’d certainly never seen a church before that replaced gargoyles with giant lizards, but it is also still under construction and cranes and scaffolding sort of take away from the general splendor. Waiting in line, I was impressed but wasn’t really sure what the church’s insides would hold.

Sagrada Famila, Barcelona

Beauty. Exquisite, unconventional, organic beauty. The Alhambra was beautiful, but the Alhambra is heavy and saturated with luxury and tradition. The inside of the Sagrada Familia is a surprising forest of pillars and light. It is open, it is airy, and it is incredibly incredibly joyful. Even the crucified Christ is suspended beneath a circus-like tent hung with grapes made of glass, and bathed in so much natural sunlight that it makes his predicament seem, again, joyful. Each angle inside the church reveals a whole new sense of wonder. The architect, Antoni Gaudi, carefully studied natural supportive structures formed by mineral crystals and plant growth in order to create his designs, and it shows. The Sagrada Familia does not feel built, or human-made. It feels like it grew. I met people in my travels who saw the Alhambra and were unaffected, but I have not met one person who has seen the inside of the Sagrada Familia whose eyes do not light up when retelling the experience.

I soaked up every bit of the church that I could, visiting all of the museum areas (highly recommended, especially the exhibit relating to Gaudi and nature) and taking the lift into the towers. I decided that after my Gaudi morning I wouldn’t mind a Gaudi afternoon so I made a point of visiting Barcelona’s Park Guell, a park designed by Gaudi whose gates are flanked by two Hansel-and-Gretel style houses. It is an interesting and very pretty park (and free!), and I was pretty much obsessed with everything Gaudi at this point, but the place was crawling with tourists and illegal souvenir vendors and after the devout and tranquil beauty of the Sagrada Familia it was a bit anti-climactic.

Candy stall in La Boqueria

The Sagrada Familia and the Park Guell were my only real goals for Barcelona, so on Wednesday I made loose plans for myself (the best kind of plans when travelling) and basically wandered around all day loosely achieving them. I wanted to check out the beaches of La Barceloneta so I wandered down there and did that. Kneeling on the shore to touch the Atlantic a giant wave came and soaked my sandals so I was forced to sit on a beach chair and read in the sun for half an hour while they dried off (poor me!). Got lost and wandered around some more, ate a doughnut, bought some fruits and vegetables at La Boqueria (St. Joseph’s Market) just off La Rambla. Ate a muffin and read a TIME magazine.

Parc de la Ciutadella

Wednesday afternoon: visit the Parc de la Ciutadella. Lovely fountain. Inexplicable giant statue of a woolly mammoth. Another pond with rowboats. Ducks. And then, music. Two guitarists sitting under a tree playing extremely well. Someone on the grass saw me watching and waved me over. When they found out I could sing I was brought to the guitarists and we had a magical musical hour or so. We sang the Beatles. We sang Bob Dylan. We jammed (vocal improvisations on my part…not my finest moment probably but I did my best). I think our best numbers were “I Will Survive” and “Eye of the Tiger” with amazing guitar solos courtesy of Pedro, a Venezuelan who moved to Barcelona ten years ago and was, the day I met him, on day four of being sober and delighted to discover he could play the guitar without alcohol. While I couldn’t quite shake my self-conscious caution throughout our jam session (I never took off my backpack) and insisted on excusing myself as soon as it began to get dark, jamming with these open-hearted musicians, total strangers to me, was a new and wonderful experience. If you know me you’ll know that while I am loud and talkative with those I know, I’m actually a little frightened of those I don’t. Opening myself up and being brave is actually something I’m a little bit proud of.

I knew that Thursday would be rainy so instead of spending it in the hostel or tramping around Barcelona pretending not to mind being wet and cold, I took the train to nearby Figures to see the Teatre-Museu Dali, the museum Salvador Dali built in his home town. My two-hour train ride also gave me lovely views of the interesting (and old-looking) city of Girona, which I would love to explore sometime.

Painted ceiling, Teatre-Museu Dali

I am a fan of Salvador Dali’s paintings and jewellery and I enjoyed those displayed in the museum (for example, I was surprised, though I shouldn’t have been, to realize that “Atomic Leda” is obviously a painting of Dali’s wife, Gala, with whom he was artistically obsessed). I am not sure I like the museum itself. Housed in Figueres’ old theatre, the passages between the rooms were narrow and crowded and many of the spaces seemed cluttered and full of installation-type art that felt….junky. As if you hung Dali’s paintings in a gallery space and then you had your tacky “artsy” grandmother fill the rest of the space with old brocade, velour, and stuff she found in her garage.

Mae West Room, Teatre-Museu Dali

Do I think my trip to Figueres was a waste? Nope. If I hadn’t gone I would have wished that I had. Besides, captivating art is captivating art no matter how you feel about its surroundings. (By the by, Figueres also has a Toy Museum, which, if you’re looking for something to tack onto your day in the city, is a cute, and kind of creepy, attraction.)

Friday was my last full day in Barcelona and I decided to check out of my loud crowded party hostel and check into the super pricey Hotel B, just off the Placa Espanya (right near a stop for the airport bus) for my last night. Before I did that, though, I visited the beautiful Santa Maria del Mar church. I sat in a pew and stared at the stained glass oriel window above the altar for a long time and thought many thoughts. I thought about the past year and those I have lost. I hoped that wherever they are, if they are anywhere, that they have peace. I thought about the people I know who are struggling with difficult circumstances and I hoped that those things would get better. I thought about the trip I had taken, and how lucky I was that I had the opportunity to travel for a month on my own, how lucky I was that I had been safe and, for the most part, my plans had worked, and how lucky I was that I was going to return the next day to the people who loved me.

I do not practice any faith. But I do like a nice, quiet place to reflect once in a while and an old Barcelona church did the job nicely. After four weeks of constant movement to return to a point of internal stillness and contemplation helped prepare me to say good-bye to my adventure, good-bye to the beautiful city that had been so good to me, and say hello to my old life as the new person I have become, a person who is older now, more independent, less anxious, and has more beguiling images stuffed in her memories than anyone should be allowed to have.

So until we meet again, my beautiful bewitching Barcelona, gracias. Thank you so very much.

View from my hostel room, Placa Reial

Madrid: A Tale of Boos and Yays!

/ Lauren / 2 Comments

Boo: Waking up in Granada on Thursday morning and throwing up all the lovely Moroccan food I ate the night before.

Yay: Making it on time to the train station anyways and having a solid nap on the train.

Boo: Having to wait an hour and a half at the hostel before my friends from Canada (whose paths I was crossing in Madrid) arrive.

Yay: Meeting a man named Ricardo in the hostel lounge who speaks only Spanish and French and actually using my French to have a half-hour conversation with him, albeit a very limited one. (“Ne sont pas cher!” I exclaim as we look at his souvenirs, because I can’t remember the word for cheap. “Magnifique!”).

Boo: Still feeling too nauseaus to really eat dinner or enjoy walking around the city with my friends.

Yay: Eating dinner and walking around the city with my friends. It’s nice to have them there.

Boo: Waking up on Friday and throwing up again.

Yay: Free and very bland hostel breakfast that makes me feel much better.

Boo: The Spanish Civil War. It was very bloody and lots of people died on both sides.

Yay: Informative, educational, and enjoyable Spanish Civil War walking tour. Did you know that Madrid was the first city to be blitzed (that’s right, the Nazis tried out blitzing in Madrid BEFORE WWII)? You do now!

Boo: Madrid’s glaring lack of monuments to the Republican (i.e. non-fascist) victims of the Spanish Civil War (not surprising given the decades of Franco rule that followed, ending only with his natural death).

Tempe Debod, Madrid. Bigger inside, "Tardis effect".

Yay: The Egyptian Temple Debod, which is full of cool things like heiroglyphics. It is the only Egyptian monument to be gifted to a European country (as in, all that stuff in the British museums is STOLEN!), for Spain’s help in preserving Egyptian monuments during the building of the Aswan Dam.

Also Yay: Ice cream and row boats on the large pond in the Parque Buen Retiro. Also yay to singing Canadian sea shanties while rowing (such as “Farewell to Nova Scotia” and “I’se the B’y”) and my friend Kayleigh’s siren song, performed while lounging siren-like at the prow: “Come to me boys/ Come into my lair/ I love you so much/ La la la la la!/ These rocks aren’t very sharp at all/ They’re actually very rounded/ La la la laaa!”

Rowing ´round Buen Retiro

Boo: Still not feeling up for drinking while on tapas/Flamenco tour.

Yay: Having a great assortment of tapas (with chorizo and goat cheese and potatoes with garlic sauce and fried hollandaise balls) at a nice bar while on tapas tour, and then moving on to a Flamenco show.

Boo: Pillar that blocks my view at Flamenco bar.

Yay: Actually seeing a Flamenco show and NOT getting kicked out, and seeing a show with dancing this time! Feel the fire! Feel the passion! Let’s just say if everyone behaved the way these people dance all the time, the streets would be red with blood. Epic.

All in all, Friday was a great day in Madrid. And then, just as I am laying myself down to sleep……

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO: Bedbugs! Ew ew ew! Crawling next to my pillow.

Yay: Checking out the very next morning (after checking my pjs for more bugs and finding none) and heading out to spend the next two nights in the Holiday Inn Express – Alcobenda. Luxury!

Boo: Me being too careless to write down the actual address of the Holiday Inn, or drawing us a map, or anything. Showing up at the metro station in Madrid’s equivalent of industrial South Burnaby with no idea where you’re going is silly indeed.

Yay: Helpful taxi driver who saw us wandering around being lost. He goes into a gas station, gets directions to the hotel, and takes us there. Gracias, senor!

Boo: LONG metro ride back the centre which means we will need to take an expensive cab back after Saturday night dancing.

Yay: Free afternoon at the Reina Sofia art gallery.

Boo: The destruction of Guernica and death of its citizens during the Spanish Civil War.

Yay: Picasso’s “Guernica” (it’s huge) and the preparatory sketches also on display at the Reina Sofia. The piece is full of movement and grief and, in comparison to some of his sketches, surprisingly subdued. He was searching for exactly the eyes, hands, tongue, etc. that would best show the horror of that night, and the exploration next to the final painting is very interesting.

Boo: Paying 20 euro admission at Club Kapital, where they throw away not only my water and juice at the door, but also my baguette, for some reason.

Yay: Dancing in a massive club in Madrid on a Saturday night, a club so big and crazy it has exotic dancers on a stage and a sound and light show that rates about as epic as a “Pirates of the Caribbean” film, and silver confetti, and seven floors, AND some kind of crazy machine that blasts the dance floor with ice cold air every once in a while that makes you think the world is ending but completely rejuvenates you for more dancing!

Boo: Realizing on Sunday that my shins hurt and I’m tired of walking.

Yay: Riding the Teleferic cable car over the city! Wheeeeeeeee!

Boo: The first rain I’ve seen my entire trip.

Yay: Getting to spend a lot of time indoors at the Prado (fine art gallery) where I enjoy the Titians and Goyas but mostly the painting known as “The Garden of Earthly Delights” by Bosch.

Boo: Final night in the awesome comfort that is the Holiday Inn and having to say good-bye to my friends while we continue our separate journeys.

Yay: Heading onwards to beautiful Barcelona! Stay tuned…

England: Punting, Picasso, and Mystery

/ Lauren / Leave a comment

Christchurch College, Oxford

After landing in London Gatwick on Saturday morning and dropping my bag off at my sister’s place, I was whisked away to Oxford on a double decker bus (and yes, I got to ride on the top!). London was experiencing the warmest beginning of October in probably ever, and with temperatures at 28ºC I couldn’t think of a nicer way to spend my first day in England than double-deckering it to Oxford and punting on the Thames.

Punt-boat Captain Lauren, at your service

For those who don’t know, ‘punting’ is the time-honoured tradition of sitting in a low, long, flat-bottomed boat and relaxing while someone who isn’t you pushes the craft along the river by pushing a long pole against the riverbed. ‘Punting’ can also be the time-honoured tradition of pushing a long pole against the riverbed while locomoting some lazy-bones passengers around the Thames in a flat-bottomed boat. For a jet-lagged traveller such as myself, it was a wonderful way to spend an afternoon (did I mention was also eating a cornish pasty and feeding the ducks?).

For the record, I did try actually punting, but it didn’t work out so well for me. I’d like to say I spent most of the time careening from one riverbank to the other, but in actual fact, I spent my entire poling experience careening into the same riverbank again and again. Sigh.

Compost-lovers, it’s your lucky day

Sunday was another hot day which my sister and I spent in Kew Gardens. Their star attraction right now seems to be some ‘aerial walkway’ that puts you ‘right in the canopy’, but to be honest, the tree-top adventure at the Capilano Suspension Bridge in North Vancouver really puts this one in its place and I wasn’t too impressed with it. What I was impressed with was almost half a square mile of garden space with pleasant walks, benches in the shade, water features, and the massive old-fashioned glass houses that house their tropical and temperate plant collections. Spending Sunday afternoon strolling the grounds in Kew Gardens felt like a very English thing to do and was very pleasant indeed.

Required tourist shot of Big Ben over the river

On Monday I decided to take some time to be a real tourist and take in London’s South Bank. I took a snap at the outside of Shakespeare’s Globe but at £12.50 admission I decided to head back to the Tate Modern where I could get in for free or by donation (encouraged). With eating and other attractions feeling so expensive in London, the fact that their galleries and museums are, for the most part, free or by donation is really helpful to the cash-strapped traveller. I popped £3 in the donation box at the Tate Modern because that’s what I had on me and wandered around the place for two hours. I don’t usually read the title cards/info beside the artwork but I did notice that I was looking at some Picassos, Matisses, and Jackson Pollocks. Just sitting there. On the wall. Y’know, there’s a Picasso. Oh look, there’s another. No biggie. It was pretty cool.

I also visited the Covent Garden marketplace and got my Punch & Judy fix at Benjamin Pollock’s Toy Shop. The shop is worth a look for their paper diaramas and reproductions of old stages, even if you’re not into buying anything.

That evening, my sister and I went to St. Martin´s Theatre and took in the Agatha Christie play, ‘The Mousetrap’. ‘The Mousetrap’ has been running in London for over 50 years and is, I believe, the longest-running play of all time. I would tell you more about the show but the audience is sworn to secrecy at the end of the play so that future audiences will enjoy the mystery for themselves. The play itself was rather delightful but it does leave me with artistic questions about the pros and cons of a show that runs for so long, in the same way. It does not seem as though there is much emphasis on reimagining or rediscovering the play or the characters. And how can there be? Even when the show moved to a different theatre, or had its entire set replaced, it did not miss a single performance. In a way, ‘The Mousetrap’ is more like a moving museum piece than a play. It’s funny, and enjoyable, and I do love a good-old-fashioned murder mystery. But it is a play that speaks to the world and the genre in which it was written, and not to me on a personal level. I’m not sure that I needed it to, though. I love tradition, and I love the idea of physically keeping a tradition alive on the stage.

As delightful as London was, unfortunately it was time to move on and yesterday I flew out to Porto, Portugal. Stories from Portugal to come.

Adventure stats:

Number of necessary items forgotten in Vancouver: 3

Number of above replaced: 1

Number of items lost on trip: 1

Dan Mangan & 100.5 The Peak’s “Secret Show”

/ Lauren / 2 Comments

I’ve been a Dan Mangan fan since 2009 when I heard first heard the song “Robots”. The sweet-beard-faced Vancouver boy with a voice like rusty angels and lyrics that mix humour and heart managed to convince me that “robots need love too” and I was hooked.

I sang along every time one of his songs was played on 100.5 The Peak, the kickass radio station I listen to at work (listen online at thepeak.fm).

I listened to his album, “Nice, Nice, Very Nice” in my rocking chair in my old apartment many times, or in bed when I wasn’t feeling well. The music lulled me and I thought to myself, “Here is a young Canadian artist I like as much as Hawksley Workman. Possibly more.” Which doesn’t happen very often.

I saw Mr. Mangan in concert last November at the Vogue in Vancouver and was struck by what a warm, talented, and gracious performer he was. His audience loved him and he loved us and even though I was not having a great autumn I had a great evening.

Then I began to feel like I was hearing his music on the radio TOO much. I would hear the opening chords to “Road Regrets” and sigh to myself. I began to lose faith in Mr. Mangan, and wondered if he would ever light my fire again.

Then the Peak began to play a song from his new album, “Oh Fortune”. I realized that I enjoyed humming along. I thought to myself, “I suppose I’d be interested in seeing him in concert again. He was quite delightful.”

THEN the Peak said that they were having a FREE secret show with Dan Mangan on Saturday, September 24 and all I needed to do to find out the exact time and location (which would be revealed two hours before the show began) was either follow their Facebook or Twitter pages, or sign up to be a Peak VIP. I was already doing all of those things!!! PERFECT.

Turns out, Dan Mangan was performing in the Olympic Village at 1:00 pm that day. Holy banana, TC and I could ride our bikes there! So that’s what we did. And it was great. Dan Mangan is just as talented and just as gracious as I remember him. He made sure to introduce his band mates and also mention the other musical projects they were working on. His voice is, if possible, even stronger live than it is recorded. And even though I wasn’t able to sing along because I didn’t know all of it yet, his new stuff sounds lovely (“Oh Fortune” was released yesterday, BTW). And don’t worry, he played all the oldies but goodies from “Nice, Nice, Very Nice” too and I bopped the afternoon away.

Mr. Mangan kindly made my day awesomely complete and neatly bookended my Dan Mangan experience to date by finishing up with “Robots”. Nice man that he is, he noticed that two girls standing at the back had made elaborate robot costumes and he invited them to join him onstage, so they did.

This concert was simply a wonderful way to welcome the autumn on one of Vancouver’s last mild Saturdays. “Secret shows” like this help to cultivate what I think both 100.5 the Peak FM and artists like Dan Mangan are going for: a community of fans that simply love Vancouver, good music, and sharing these loves with one another.

Dan Mangan at the Peak's secret show. Photo credit: my TC

“Why Doesn’t He Like Me?”:Teen Angst at the Cottage Bistro

/ Lauren / 5 Comments

I think I thought this journal was SO artsy. My "Livre d'Amour de l'Orient" certainly wasn't that exotic.

Last night I had the privilege of reading an excerpt from my Grade 11 journal at Sara Bynoe‘s Teen Angst Comedy Night. Sara has been hosting Teen Angst readings (essentially verbatim readings of angst-filled diaries, fiction, and poetry written in the teen years) since 2000.

I saw the Facebook page for this event a month or two ago and thought it would be a laugh to sign up to read some stuff. Unfortunately, my adolescent diaries remain at home in Saskatchewan, so I had to pull only from my last two years of high school, which, while a little less hilarious, still had plenty of drama. The entries I shared revolved around a non-boyfriend “boyfriend” I dated for three weeks at the end of Grade 11. I concluded my reading with a loose-leaf poem I found tucked between the pages of my journal, about the aforementioned non-boyfriend “boyfriend”. It was titled “Letter from the Unloved” and finished with the line, “WHY DON’T YOU CALL ME ‘BABE’ ANYMORE?!”. I think it summed up my feelings about this particular fellow nicely. Needless to say, this young man has not called me “babe” for quite a number of years now.

I was surprised by two things during this evening: firstly, even though I was embarrassed at my naivety, and my listeners found a lot of humour in what  was very serious business for me at the time, I felt oddly supported, as if all the people listening agreed that this non-boyfriend did me wrong, and definitely should have continued to call me “babe” if he knew anything about good manners. The sympathetic warmth of the listeners at Teen Angst reached back in time and made my 17-year-old feel just a little bit better and a little less alone.

Secondly, although I knew this evening would be funny, I wasn’t quite prepared for how much fun I would have. I laughed so hard I cried. Words cannot describe how hilarious and outrageous the writings of teenagers are. I unfortunately do not remember the list of the readers so I cannot credit them properly but a few choice phrases I will remember forever include:

“Nosferatu, I got you”

“Hitler was a moustachist”

(From a teen girl’s attempt at beat poetry)

“I hate ___’s purse. It’s way too small. It looks like a stoner purse.”

(From a young man who really liked the book “The Outsiders” and also several young women, but maybe not their purses)

“Go to bed.”  “NO!”

(A 12-year-old girl describes how her planned rebellion will go down)

Sara Bynoe MC’ed the evening and shared her touching poetic tribute to Kurt Cobain after his death, and her 14-year-old self’s thoughts about writing poetry in general, which she writes that she enjoyed doing despite the “screams of adolescents”. Our evening also included a game involving Sara reading angsty song lyrics as if they were teen poetry and the rest of us having to guess what the song was/who wrote it for a prize of a toffee.

I couldn’t contain my excitement when Sara read, “I’m never alone/I’m alone all the time”. I shouted out “GLYCERINE! It’s GLYCERINE!” and the toffee was mine. Oh yes, Gavin Rossdale, you melt my heart, you and your lonesomeness and dirty hair. Thank you Big Shiny 90s Volume 2 compilation CD. You have made me cool! Finally!

Making good segues was never a talent I exhibited in my teenaged journals and I don’t feel the need to do it now. In conclusion, Teen Angst was great and Sara is great too. If the event comes back to town I’ll definitely try to do it again. I laughed my face off and almost peed my pants. A good time was had by all.

(But why doesn’t he like me? Sigh……………I guess we’ll never know.)

On Early Modern Lit, the Afterlife, and WHOA.

/ Lauren / 2 Comments

Whether religious or not, every person is expected to have some kind of belief about the afterlife. Even atheists have a belief about the afterlife (their belief is that there isn’t one). Since dying is an inevitable part of life, and we as humans are conscious beings with the ability to picture what lies beyond our own physical existence (both where we might be, and the physical world, continuing without us), thinking about what may (or may not) come after death is unavoidable. Even for those who practice an established religion, views of the afterlife are not absolute or concrete.

Why am I thinking about such a morbid subject on such a beautiful day you may ask? Blame my Early Modern literature professor. Learning about the Medieval Catholic doctrine of Purgatory fired my imagination, artistically and intellectually. Learning about what this doctrine meant to the average English person during England’s Reformation forced me to think about religion, death, and art in a way I hadn’t before.

In a very VERY quick and dirty nutshell, the Medieval Catholic doctrine of Purgatory breaks down to this: after death, some very wicked sinners go straight to Hell. Some very virtuous people (usually saints) go straight to Heaven. And the rest of us not-too-bad but not-too-great people go to Purgatory, where our souls spend some time in torment before we are purged of the sins of our lives and go to Heaven. (To any Catholic readers I am very sorry if I am getting this offensively wrong, I am not Catholic and am only going by what I’ve learned about specifically Medieval Catholicism.) According to Medieval Catholics, the living could lessen a soul’s time in Purgatory through prayers for the dead. That is, even after your death, the living could provide aid and succor to you while you were in Purgatory. This belief in Purgatory and the power of intercessory prayer helped both to map the Afterlife for Medieval Catholics and also, more importantly, allowed those in mourning to maintain a connection to their departed loved one, and even provide help and comfort to them after their death.

There were problems with this, however. Firstly, Purgatory is not mentioned in the Scriptures. For 1200 years a Latin translation of the Bible, the Vulgate, had been used, and sermons had been conducted in Latin. The average English person did not actually know what the Bible said, and had to rely on their priest for translation and interpretation. The invention of the printing press, the translation of the Bible into English, and the increase of literacy among English people (we’re looking at the 16th century here) meant that for the first time people began to read and interpret the Bible for themselves and began to question those Catholic rites and traditions that are not described explicitly in Scripture.

Secondly, the Catholic Church at the time was gaining a reputation for corruption as many 16th-century Catholic clergymen would perform intercessory rites and prayers only for the souls whose bereaved families could afford to pay for them. Those families who could not pay were further grieved by the belief that their loved ones were suffering untold torments in Purgatory and were not being helped. Pressing this image was a good way to squeeze a couple of pennies out of a poor and guilt-ridden family.

Through many political and religious machinations, messy negotiations, and a lot of bloodshed, England undergoes the Reformation and badda-bing, badda-boom, England becomes an officially Protestant nation (again, a very quick and dirty nutshell, and probably without the badda-bing). No more corrupt priests everybody! Woohoo! But oh, that Purgatory thing? You know, that place where you thought that your dear grandmama was receiving help and prayers from you? Doesn’t exist. She’s dead. If she’s not in Heaven, she’s in Hell. Well, have a nice day.

It’s a little shocking, to say the least. In a relatively short period of time an entire nation had to re-imagine their concept of the afterlife. The effect this had on the literature of the period is profound. Take, for example, the Ghost in Shakespeare’s Hamlet: where does he come from? Within the Catholic religion, ghosts can easily be explained as souls in Purgatory who have not moved on to Heaven. Sounds good. But hold the phone–in Shakespeare’s time, Protestantism was the official religion and therefore Purgatory technically did not exist. So where, exactly, is this Ghost from? If you read or watch the play you’ll find that the Ghost himself is fairly vague on the subject. If the Ghost has nowhere to come from, how is it that it keeps popping up? Where does it disappear to? Does it really exist? How come we can see it? ARE WE ALL LOSING OUR MINDS?

Gripping stuff. Hamlet’s a real page-turner.

Lucifer's Fall - Gustav Dore - based on Paradise Lost

In Milton’s Paradise Lost, the author decided not to be vague and described Heaven, Hell, and the Chaos between in vivid detail. The descriptions in Paradise Lost were so influential that even today, the images many people’s minds conjure of Heaven and Hell are actually based on Milton’s epic poem. One of my favourite YA series, the His Dark Materials trilogy by Phillip Pullman, is inspired by Paradise Lost:

Into this wilde Abyss,
The Womb of nature and perhaps her Grave,
Of neither Sea, nor Shore, nor Air, nor Fire,
But all these in their pregnant causes mixt
Confus’dly, and which thus must ever fight,
Unless th’ Almighty Maker them ordain
His dark materials to create more Worlds,  (Milton 2. 910-916)

Phillip Pullman does not seem to view The Fall in the same way as John Milton (so they say, I’ve so far only read two of the twelve books in Paradise Lost, but I can safely say at any rate Pullman’s work does not agree with Augustine’s doctrine of Original Sin) but that doesn’t change the fact that Early Modern imagining of the afterlife by artists and intellectuals obviously still influences and inspires Western art and culture.

And that’s AWESOME. It’s hella interesting. When I signed up for a course in Early Modern literature I remember thinking that it would be bone dry, and now my brain is just itching from all the creative possibilities these ideas have presented me. I mean, WHOA.

But back to the afterlife. Maybe after all this excited rambling about Shakespeare and Milton and Purgatory you’re wondering what I believe. On Facebook I list my religion as “I would like to meet a luck dragon” but in all seriousness I identify as agnostic. So far in my young life, most death I have experienced has not been in my immediate family, so I like to believe that the afterlife is whatever the family of the departed person believes it is. Believing that the thing that might bring a grieving family comfort is true brings me comfort. As for what I hope happens to me when I die (hopefully as a funny old lady), well…I hope the people I leave behind remember me fondly. And me? Where will I be? I just don’t know.

But isn’t it interesting to think about? I mean, WHOA.

(SIDE NOTE: Did you know that the term “pandemonium” is a term coined by Milton in Paradise Lost? Pandemonium is the name of the palace the fallen angels build in Hell and means “all demons” the way Pantheon means “all gods”. INTERESTING.)

Tired Musings (The Give and Take of Trying to Be an Artist Sometimes)

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Those of you who have been reading my blog lately will know that in a week’s time I will be performing in a show called Troika! at the Little Mountain Gallery at Main and 26th. I’m also working my Real Job and taking an Early Modern Literature class at SFU.

This means that right now I am running around with my head cut off and trying to take deep breathes and go to sleep sometimes. I spent every free moment last week painting props for Troika! while listening to The Essential Leonard Cohen and trying not to go insane. It’s probably a little too late for the attempt, but I do feel as though this level of insanity is at least manageable. It also made me want to make lists!

Things I will give up, put off, or forgo to get to be an artist sometimes:

  • Sleep
  • Hanging out with my friends (sorry guys, I’ll see y’all after the second week in August or so)
  • Cleaning my apartment (if you know me well or have ever lived with me you’ll know this hurts me)
  • Wearing clothes that match, or, you know, are clean
  • Reading my Maclean’s magazines (this one really hurts too–I’m so uninformed nowadays)
  • Doing my hair in a style that isn’t “pony tail” or “bobby pinned”
  • Sanity and dignity. M’h. They’re overrated.

My apartment is not supposed to look like this! (Prop design by Sonja Kresowaty, painted by me)

Things I will NOT give up, put off, or forgo to get to be an artist sometimes:

  • Some degree of financial stability (this means I work a Real Job, but that’s okay, it’s a good one)
  • My family (have you ever heard that “show must go on” hypothetical to gauge how serious about theatre you are, the one that goes “Would you skip your mother’s funeral if it was the same night as opening?” Well I have. And the answer is no. I wouldn’t.)
  • Eating. I once lost 6 lbs. in three weeks while I was directing, because I was too busy to buy groceries or to eat. Which is pretty extreme for me. Lesson learned.
  • My health. Headaches, sore throats, and nausea are pretty normal for me during a show, but illnesses I have come down with while being theatrical include pink eye, shingles, and H1N1 (though luckily quite mild –and this is when I’m trying to take care of my health).
  • Hygiene

At the moment, the two things I’ve noticed giving up the most are sleep and cleaning my apartment. I was already getting a little too busy to give the place the thorough cleaning I would like, and the frantic making of props did not help. It makes me mentally and emotionally irritated to exist in a mess but since it can’t be helped, well, I guess that’s that. I’ll live.

But I just want to sleep. Oh my god, I just want to sleep. I want to put my head on this desk right now and sleep and sleep and sleep. I want to go home, make a cave out of my duvet and pillows, crawl inside, and emerge two days later, feeling refreshed enough to move to the couch, read a magazine, and have a nap. And then when I was feeling more energized, maybe I’d go to my TC’s place and nap in his hammock chair. Quality time. You know how it is. Always some new place to curl up and sleep a little.

Finally finished at 1:30 am. Say hello to my new friends!

But I can’t. Not just yet. I’ve got another two weeks or so of mayhem. Good mayhem. The kind of mayhem that doesn’t let me sleep or scrub the bathtub but does let me work with my friends. The kind of mayhem that lets me paint props (which was actually really fun) and sing along to Leonard Cohen. The kind of mayhem that means next week I will be performing on a stage with my friends, sharing our stories with old friends, new friends, and strangers alike. That kind of mayhem. The kind of mayhem that says life is bigger and deeper and brighter than the cycle of work-home-eat-watch TV-drink on weekends-work-home-TV, etc. that is so seductive if my mind and my body aren’t active. There’s no mayhem in that cycle, but it’s not relaxing, it’s soul-draining.

So I’ll resist the call of my duvet and scummy bathtub, take rain checks on plans with my friends for a couple more weeks, try to stay focused, take my multi-vitamins, stay cheerful, and do the best work I can. I know my fellow Troika!-ers are feeling just as tired, just as scattered, and just as excited.

If you would like to see Troika! and its double-bill other half, The Troubles (presented by Resounding Scream Theatre), the show will run August 3-7 at the Little Mountain Gallery. Tickets can be purchased in advance at Brown Paper Tickets.

If you have any questions regarding this production, please contact Gina Readman, Production Manager, at troika.thetroubles@gmail.com.

Poster design by Arthur Yee

Summer Double Bill: “Troika! / The Troubles”, August 3-7

/ Lauren / 3 Comments

poster by Arthur Yee

It’s a summer theatrical double bill extravaganza! This August, Some of the New Bees are proud to present Troika! as a double bill with Resounding Scream Theatre’s The Troubles at the Little Mountain Gallery off Main.

Before we go any further, SHAMELESS PLUG ALERT: I will be performing in this show. Some of the New Bees is an ad hoc theatre grouping borne of the 2009 Fringe Festival piece, Hive: The New Bees whose members change depending on which new bees are participating in any given performance. This summer, Some of the New Bees will be presenting Troika!:

Weaving together folktales, memoirs, history, and pop culture, Troika tells the story of growing up Ukrainian Canadian in Western Canada. With cast members hailing from the big city of Vancouver, the suburbs of Edmonton, and a small town in Saskatchewan, Troika uses elements of music, movement, and storytelling to take a sometimes poignant and sometimes humourous look at what it means to celebrate culture and heritage two generations removed from the motherland. Troika is created and performed by Aliya Griffin, Lauren Kresowaty, and Natalie Schneck.

Troika! - Photo credit: Sean Griffin

I’m in a play! Fancy schmancy! After almost nine months of being a theatre artist talking the talk in this blog, I am very excited to be walking the walk and treading the boards at Little Mountain with my friends (and fellow SFU Contemporary Arts alumni). This is the first time I have explored my own childhood and family history as a performer onstage. The three of us began this journey almost a year ago and even in the midst of frantic rehearsing and prop making we are eager to share this experience with an audience.

I am also very excited to be part of a double bill production with Resounding Scream Theatre (also friends), and their original one-woman play The Troubles, which will be travelling to the Victoria Fringe Festival (August 25-September 4) and Fringetastic in Nanaimo (September 8-11) after their Vancouver run:

Resounding Scream Theatre presents The Troubles
Written and Performed by: Stephanie Henderson
Directed by: Catherine Ballachey
“What would they call you? Not your name, love, your side?”
Based on personal accounts of the conflict in Northern Ireland, The Troubles is a thought-provoking show that draws upon the voices of five distinct characters to explore questions around community, morality, and loyalty. A boundary-pushing story of love and violence, The Troubles speaks that which has been forgotten.

The Troubles - Photo credit: Everett Jelley, The Jelley Photography, http://www.thejelley.com

Whether you want to enjoy a night of original theatre, support local artists, visit East Vancouver, or just watch me and my friends engage with our cultural roots, I look forward to seeing your shining faces at Troika!/The Troubles.

Troika!/The Troubles runs August 3 – 6 at 8:00 pm. Matinee performances will be held at 2:00 pm on Saturday, August 6 and Sunday, August 7.

The venue for the production is the Little Mountain Gallery, 195 East 26th Avenue (just off Main).

Tickets for Troika!/The Troubles can be purchased online at Brown Paper Tickets (recommended).

If you have any questions regarding the production, or mobility (or other) concerns regarding the venue, please contact Gina Readman, Production Manager, at troika.thetroubles@gmail.com.

Jessies 2011: Nifty Reports for Hummingbird604.com

/ Lauren / 4 Comments

The Jessie Richardson Theatre Awards are held each year to recognize and honour outstanding contributions to theatre in Vancouver. This year, I was there, attending as media and covering the event for my friend Raul Pacheco-Vega and his blog, Hummingbird604.com.

For my coverage of the 2011 Jessies, please visit Hummingbird604.

I bought this dress for $5 from a naked hippie on Wreck Beach!

Because I tried to keep my post a little more professional (keeping in mind that I am a guest on Raul’s site), I’ll use my space on NiftyNotCool to express just how totally jazzed I was. I was totally jazzed. I did my hair. I put on dangle-y earrings. And heels. And a sparkly dress that I think is just a bit cheeky. Red lipstick. Hooray.

I had a great night. I was inspired and educated (there is still so much theatre I need to see, and so many companies whose work I want to be more familiar with) and just plain ol’ JAZZED to be there.

The lovely Lois Dawson and me. LOVE that blue!

I also got to boogie down with Lois Dawson and the Pacific Theatre crew, whose season I was able to enjoy mostly through Lois’ generosity. Everyone was fabulous. Theatre people are the best dancers.

Furthermore, theatre people clean up well. Since I spend most of my theatrical time in rehearsals in sweat pants, or onstage in some crazy get-up, I sometimes forget what a fine-looking bunch theatre people really are. Damn. We are a fine-looking bunch. Don’t believe me? Come to the Jessies next year and cut a rug with us.

Want more information about what happened at the 29th Annual Jessie Awards? Read all about it at Hummingbird604.com.

Of course I must give a huge THANK YOU to Raul at Hummingbird604 for sending me to the ceremony on his behalf. Being able to cover the 2011 Jessies was a lovely end to a great season of Vancouver theatre.

My Hot Night with Maria in the Shower at the Waldorf Hotel

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Friday night. Pre-Rapture. The dance floor in the boiling hot belly of the Waldorf on East Hastings. I was there. That’s right: Friday, May 20, 2011, I absolved my sweaty sins with Maria in the Shower, celebrating the release of their latest CD, “The Hidden Sayings of Maria in the Shower” with the kick-ass, virgin-tempting show they called PANSTEREORAMA.

My first brush with the glory that is Maria in the Shower was in 2008, when I went to the Ukrainian Hall to see the Dusty Flower Pot Cabaret‘s magical production, “Valley of Ashes”.  I recall marveling at the spectacle, the rusty sorcery, and the puppets. I also remember thinking to myself, “Hot diggity, this music is great.” I then became interested in something else, I dunno, university or whatever, and forgot to ask myself where some of that music came from.

As it turns out, some of that music came from Maria in the Shower, so when I saw them for the first time doing a set of their own at this April’s ArtsWells Fundraiser at the Rickshaw Theatre, and then again last Friday at the Waldorf, I wasn’t seeing a new band so much as bringing into focus musicians I had already experienced through attending Dusty Flowerpot productions. And holy petunia, it was worth it. Wonderful as they are as a component of a larger theatrical production, on their own these musical men are overflowing with showmanship, theatricality, and a pure and unadulterated love for what they’re doing.

Photo credit: Brayden McCluskey

Before Maria in the Shower, I had never seen someone play an accordion and a trumpet at the same time. I had never seen anyone play a stand up bass while standing on their stand up bass. For that matter, I had never seen anyone playing a trumpet while standing on a stand up bass that someone else was playing. Trifling logistical details perhaps, but the kind of details that make me shout, “Holy F—” and scream a LOT.

All of this would have been cheap razzle dazzle had Maria in the Shower not had the musical chops to back it up. And they do. I got swing, I got jazz, I got a bit of Klezmer, I got trumpet and accordion (which are two of my favourite instruments after cellos), I got songs of burning hot passion and just plain fun. Poetry, love, death, religion, sex: I got it all with music I could dance to, sing to, feel through, that was at once totally irreverent and totally sacred.

At one point, I remember seeing the band onstage, with all their fey and sweaty fans dancing below, listening to a song about love that sounded like a cry from the most wounded man in the world, and thinking that THIS is exactly where I should be. This is exactly the kind of place and show I should be at when I am 25. I am idealistic, I am full of romance, I am nostalgic for a history I never had, I have energy and sensuality and a thirst for a performance that’s so damn good it makes me grit my teeth.

Maria in the Shower is so damn good they make me grit my teeth and fantasize about running away to join a gypsy caravan. I’m pretty sure I left the Waldorf pregnant through immaculate musical conception (totally appropriate pre-supposed-Rapture) and through the raw sex appeal being created all over that stage by musicians who are very good at what they do (and is anything more magnetic than that? No.).

I just hope the baby plays the trumpet. Fingers crossed.