Performed on stage by Lynn Crosbie at Ryeberg Live Toronto 2012.

I read that Snooki was having a baby, and this made me think about mothers, about mothers in pop and their changing faces.

I want to start with a clip of a 1981 film I watch each Mother’s Day, as a tribute to this creature’s lioness power and fearsome style.

Frank Perry, “Mommie Dearest” (1981)

A high camp classic, which has caused more than one delirious viewer to yell, “Hit her again!,” this movie critically undermines Christina’s highly suspect sob story and in fact, shockingly vulgar use of wire hangers on her beautiful little gowns.

In 1976’s “Of Woman Born,” Adrienne Rich discusses the maternal “heart of darkness,” and tells horrible tales of actual (not demented and cinematic) violence against children, torture and infanticide, committed by mothers for reasons I believe the great feminist writer calls “complex.”

And these women, these angry, even homicidal, women were losing their shit before what I call the “Panoptimom” came into existence.

What is this? Jeremy Bentham’s 18th century prison/Panopticon, designed for maximum visibility of the prisoners, prisoners who could never tell when they were being observed.

The Panoptimom is, simply, western culture’s constant scrutiny of the pregnant body, and then maternal conduct — a far more easier feat now, thanks to camera phones: was that crazy screaming bigot mom on the British subway simply a monster or a pretty bad mother who thought, Sunset Boulevard style, that given all the cameras, she was on TV sharing vital information about the working classes?

We watch: we watch the smoking mother, the beer and liquor drinker, the screamer, the smacker, the ignorer, the slob, the Diabetes-maker, the TV-allower, the unambitious-by-proxy, the tacky mom, the huge mom, the vain mom, the slutty mom, the mom with the bejeweled, lazy, chrissie ass.

How do mothers stand all this scrutiny, let alone the stealth photography/recordings?

They have started to become gorilla-like: the gorillas who stand, captured, behind glass, eating their vomit defiantly. That is, embracing the maternal aesthetics of the 1960s and 70s, and being as bad as they want to be.

Let me clarify: these are women in POP I am talking about. Here’s one.

Paul Feig, “Bridesmaids” (2011)

If the wretched Pop mother is a thrilling reference to women’s discontent, actual bad mothers are dull, and deeply disturbing. Look at this short clip.

HEADY1313, “Worst Mom Ever” (2009)

It’s not that what she does is so bad, in the context of all bad things, but in its utter triteness, it is almost unbearably cruel.

Pee Mother is the antithesis of my talk: actual, all evil substance, no style.

NMATV, “Frances Bean Cobain: Courtney Love Was A Bad Mom” (2012)

I am just letting videos run in the background of Courtney Love as an anime character (video abridged @ Ryeberg Live) and “Teen Mom,” Amber Portland, having a fight with her hideous baby daddy (played up to 0:16 @ Ryeberg Live).

xxpreppygalx, “Gary & Amber’s Fight” (Teen Mom, 2011)

These Mom villains, the first based on a true story, unfortunately, are clearly reveling in their rejection of such bourgeois values as nurturing and caring for their young; of not debasing them and murdering their pets with Oxycodone Snausages.

When Pop veers into reality, or reality TV, a site between truth and fiction, it is, obviously, harder to enjoy. Reality TV and YouTube have given us, long after the truly disturbing “America’s Funniest Videos,” virtually unprecedented insight into the fraught relationship between mother and child; into what constitutes their relationship and selves. Childhood is still, erroneously, viewed as an age of complete innocence (powerlessness is not innocence) and idolized: it is watched over hawkishly for reasons good and bad.

So when Snooki, Jersey Shore’s hard partying, heavy drinking, whipped-cream guzzling dwarf-goddess was revealed to be pregnant, one felt a collective, concerned gasp.

Here is Saturday Night Live’s take [sorry Canadians and The Rest Of The World Outside The United States, you're out of luck, though there is a very low quality version of this clip here].

Saturday Night Live, “Update: Snooki’s Preganancy” (2012)

YouTube posters are far more unkind: responding to her maybe-pregnancy, “enforced sterilization” has been suggested, contempt that “she thinks showers are a bunch of sprays of perfume” and the following: “I’m not in favor of abortion, but in this case I’ll make an exception. Please do not have the child. This woman should not breed, she should be fixed. This is the most retarded imbecile in the planet, the last thing a child needs is to be is born into her wierd, perverted, twisted version of the world. Let’s not forget that this is the same BEING that when in Rome, stood in front of the statue of David and commented on his peunus size. This moron should not be allowed to breed.”

This poster spells penis “peanus,” by the way. Allowed to breed? She should be “fixed”? The modern woman, filtered through pop culture, is here to tell you she is not a house cat but a tiger, a strong, vital creature ready to do battle for her right to be herself and a mother.

Which leads me to my favourite child, and by extension, the mother who raised her: I want to show Alana and her mother June, the Diva Beauty Queen and the Coupon Queen, respectively. Featured on “Toddlers and Tiaras” recently, they became a viral hit: Alana, for being the greatest child on earth; June for being “the world’s worst mother.”

TLC, “Coupon Queen & Honey Boo Boo” (Toddlers & Tiaras, 2012)

See when I watch June, her eyes rolled back into her skull, her body rocking perversely, and screaming with ecstasy: WORK IT SMOOCHIE! THAT”S IT BABY! , I feel warmed by her passionate love for this remarkable child.

Simone de Beauvoir notes, in “The Second Sex,” that we do not “make” our children, that they form themselves inside of us. Yet June raised Alana, and Alana’s charisma and wit speak to a very good life.

Make a list of all the children you would kidnap, if given the opportunity then admit she is pages above the Beckham or Jolie-Pitt dullards.

Among so many trying to break free, there is the great June. She is a brave, intrepid new mother: she is woman, roaring, too big too ignore.

- Lynn Crosbie

Performed on stage by Nick Mount at Ryeberg Live Toronto 2012.

Swinging in the backyard,
pull up in your fast car
Whistling my name

Open up a beer
And you say get over here
And play a video game

I’m in his favourite sundress
Watching me get undressed
Take that body downtown

I say you the bestest
Lean in for a big kiss
Put his favourite perfume on

Go play a video game

Amid all the talk about the name, the pout, the lips, all the hype about the hype, it’s been easy to miss that Miss Lana Del Rey writes damn good pop lyrics: or Miss Del Rey & Co., if it makes you happy. “Video Games” has 44 million views¹ and counting partly because its lyrics create a fully realized physical and emotional world, a world described with remarkable consistency by those who like it, and those who don’t.

But the story, of course, was the video, that video, apparently also the product of her eye and hand: for colours and clips, for emotional connections across decades, home movies and found footage.

Lana Del Rey, “Video Games” (2011)

That’s the “real” LDR, the one on YouTube. “Video Games” is a YouTube Video in every sense: made from YouTube parts, born on YouTube, made famous by YouTube. The song’s later live performance, on SNL or anywhere else, is as irrelevant to its significance as it was to its success.

We agree on what we see in that video; we just don’t agree on whether we like it or not. “Video Games” is as polarizing a video as I can remember, and I mean between otherwise reasonable adults, not the kind of pubescent confusion that’s made Justin Bieber’s “Baby” at once the most “liked” and the most “disliked” video in the world. My wife, to cite only the most important example, can barely conceal her contempt for the same video that I find pretty much endlessly compelling.

The reason for our difference isn’t the reason you’re leaping to, but they’re probably connected, and probably in the place you’re leaping.

The difference, and the disagreement, comes down to the question we’ve been asking since we first saw the video: Is it sincere? When she says her idea of fun is playing video games, does she mean it?

It is a strange question to ask of a pop star. Nobody asks if Madonna really was a virgin, if Lady Gaga really was born that way. But Lana Del Rey got branded from the start as indie, and since everybody knows indie music is never fake, she confused us. At the other end of the confusion, twentieth-century art taught us that real art is always ironic, that sincerity is for Hallmark and Disney, while twentieth-century feminism taught us to have a have hard time liking a song like that, a woman like that, unless it’s ironic.

Not surprisingly, the question has proved hard to answer. Last September, Amy Klein of the punk band Titus Andronicus crucified Lana Del Rey for everything that’s wrong with America: the decorative tabula rasa that sits at home waiting to mix its man a martini then, play video games now. This January, she took much of it back. Ms. Klein hasn’t changed her mind about America, but she’s done an about-face on Lana Del Rey: now she’s “a pop star playing a role.” She’s still a bimbo, but she’s an ironic bimbo, which is better.

In February, Liz Phair similarly confused her indie girl fans by coming to Del Rey’s defence in the Wall Street Journal (!): again, not for her music, but for “giving herself a part to play.” Liz likes Lana because Liz thinks Lana is being ironic.

Men, meanwhile, generally like Lana because they think she’s being sincere. Back in September, Amy Klein complained that Del Rey “conquered America with plastic surgery, video games, a regression to nostalgia, and an appeal to the sex drive of every male music critic on the planet.” That’s not entirely fair: not all music critics are men, and not all of those who are men drive that way. But from the reviews I’ve read, never mind the YouTube comments, I’d say it’s not far off. We see what we want to see in “Video Games” — what we want, and who we desire.

But setting sex aside, maybe we struggle to decide if “Video Games” is ironic or sincere because the entire performance is deliberately balanced between the two.

Like, you know, in art.

Lana Del Rey has prompted concerned comparisons to “Lolita.” But they are comparisons she invites, repeatedly: in her performance, her videos, her lyrics. She’s read the book, which is more than I can say for sure about those making the comparisons. Of all Nabokov’s novels, the key to the special genius and appeal of “Lolita” isn’t the sex (there isn’t any): it’s that it’s both a confession and a parody of a confession, always sincere and always ironic, at the same time, in every line. Give Lana Del Rey credit: maybe she knew that, and maybe she did that.

Or, maybe she’s taken a page from an art movement that’s as much in love as she is with mid-century American popular culture, so-called Lowbrow Art.

Mark Ryden, “Saint Barbie” (1994)

That’s by Lowbrow’s best known artist, Mark Ryden. It’s called “Saint Barbie.” It’s not ironic: it’s sincere. I know this the only way you can know such things, not from the painting but from what I know about Lowbrow Art and Mark Ryden. “Saint Barbie” is what a friend, Jeremy Keehn at Harper’s, once called “bironic”: something that our education and our culture has trained us to see as ironic, but is actually sincere.

Two years ago, when Lizzy Grant was becoming Lana Del Rey, the British punk zine Repeat asked about her inspirations. She named Mark Ryden first.

* * *

Like many popular products of recent years, “Video Games” returns us to a vaguely defined 1950s or early ‘60s, the ‘50s of our collective memory, of nostalgia. It’s not hard to understand why it’s the ‘50s turn for the nostalgia engine, why now: in that collective memory, it was a time of economic security. Those people had jobs.

Some of the recent retro ‘50s music videos are straightforwardly ironic, like Beyoncé’s send-up of the pinup at home, “Why Don’t You Love Me?” Some are sincere, like Low’s “Try to Sleep” and Tyler T. Williams’s video for Youth Lagoon’s “Montana.” The one I know that comes closest to the birony of “Video Games” is called “Lord Knows Best.” It’s by Alex Zhang Hungtai, a young Taiwanese Canadian who records as Dirty Beaches.

Dirty Beaches, “Lord Knows Best” (2011)

Lana Del Rey, meet your boyfriend.

- Nick Mount (Toronto, 19 March, 2012)

Performed on stage by Sean Dixon at Ryeberg Live Toronto 2012.

I wanted to start with a humorous video. Of course there isn’t a lot of humour associated with the niqab, but this one I’m about to play turned out to be the easiest to find, by far, on the subject.

Til Obladen, “Liaison Dangereuse Commercial” (2009)

Okay so that wasn’t funny, maybe. Or maybe a little bit funny in the sense of surprising. But maybe it wasn’t that surprising. Maybe you saw it coming. Maybe you’ll see the next one coming too. The next one is definitely more funny than the last one, if a little more difficult to find, and I’m playing it even though I really don’t like the idea of giving hits to the source, which is SunTV (video played to 2:56 @ Ryeberg Live).

Ezra Levant, “Jason Kenney On Burka & Citizenship Oath” (The Source, 2011)

Okay. I confess I was really hoping he’d develop his New York license plate argument further. I’m just trying to figure out what he’s saying: Is he saying, that, some Americans came up here to masquerade as Canadian immigrants? To pretend to take the oath of citizenship and pretend to become Canadians? I can’t think of any advantages that would provide to these, alleged, New Yorkers.

It’s funny though: the Kenney video, for some reason that I can’t fully articulate and is perhaps not quite fair, reminded me of this.

Stanley Donen, “The Little Prince” (1974)

Do you see how that wasn’t fair? It wasn’t fair to the niqab-wearer because it ends up equating the niqab wearer with another veiled image, that of an elephant being digested by a boa constrictor, and of course that’s the furthest thing from my intention. I have sympathy for the niqab-wearer. But it wasn’t fair to Kenney either because I really don’t think our immigration minister would ever mistake a burqa-clad woman for a man’s hat. Jason Kenney knows what’s beneath that burqa. According to him — well he says it, in the earlier video — there’s a New Yorker, beneath that burqa, or something. A woman or maybe a man hailing from that great breeding ground for New Yorkers that is New York.

Still, I wasn’t fair to Kenney, maybe, arguably. So I’m going to allow a far more sympathetic party speak on behalf of both Kenney and the poor beleaguered niqab-wearer, not to mention on behalf of all Canadians, whether they wear niqabs or not. Here we have a private citizen giving free psychoanalytic advice (video played to 2:50 @ Ryeberg Live).

LuminolBlue, “Ban The Burka and the Niqab, it’s Time to Move On!” (2011)

You may have noticed he does the same thing Kenney did. He starts out with all these surface reasons that sound vaguely sympathetic, and then he can’t help but get to the deeper more compulsive and instinctive prejudice that his opinion is really rooted in. That wearing the niqab is just wrong, in and of itself, prima facie.

But he also brings up the new law in France, the complete ban of the niqab, in public spaces, and he adds that all countries should adopt this law from France. But the funny thing about France is, France has allegedly designed this niqab-ban to protect women, but I’ve seen it provoke these same women whom it’s designed to protect make some weird choices that leave me confused as to the origin of their oppression: like for example I saw one video on youtube in which a woman in a niqab allows us to think that she’s going to take off her niqab, but then, when does remove it she reveals a surgical mask beneath, which she plans to wear with her headscarf in order to get around the law, citing matters of health.

And then there’s this equally surprising response to the sartorial emancipation of muslim women under French law.

vetofilms, “Just The Face: Trailer” (2011)

If I can defend the actions of the French lawmakers and Jason Kenney for a moment, these western leaders are trying to act with our best intentions at heart. They are merely trying to ensure that the backward ways of the Arab world cannot gain a foothold here in our more enlightened west.

For them it’s a scary nightmare, and has been a scary nightmare in the west for maybe 1400 years or so.

They’re just nervous. Our leaders are nervous because the niqab is here and it is obviously a powerful symbol of oppression being flaunted in their faces and public spaces. Obviously. I’m not even stating the opposite of what I mean. It is a symbol of oppression. You need look no further than the Arab world to see evidence of that. Like this video from Abu Dhabi, for example.

Abu Dhabi TV, “Aydah Al Aarawi Al Jahani On Millions Poet” (2009)

Iconoclasm is sometimes defined as the destruction of the meaning of a powerful symbol. So which of the two powerful symbols in the previous video is being destroyed? The oppressive eastern-style veil or the brightly lit trappings of western-style celebrity? Or do we rather have to reexamine the veracity of our symbols?

That was a clip from a 2008 American Idol style program called Millions Poet. It features poetry though, not music, and it has an audience of 70 million viewers throughout the Arab world, who help pick the winner.

The clip we saw featured a Saudi woman named Aydah Al Aarawi Al Jahani, who in my opinion, has an amazing speaking voice, but who did not get as far in her contest as a similarly dressed woman from the 2010 round, who did not speak as well, but whose poetry had a far more resonant and controversial theme, which vaulted her to third place overall that year. Her name was Hisa Hilal, and, like Aydah Al Jahani, she was supported in these crowdsourcing endeavours by her husband. Here’s a clip of the poem that made her famous, with translation.

TheNationalNewspaper, “Hisa Hilal Reads Her Controversial Poem” (2010)

All this is just to say, no one is suggesting there isn’t oppression in the world, or that there isn’t much work to be done. All I ask of my own government is that we don’t add to it.

Coleman Wilde, “It Doesn’t Matter” (Fosters Beer Commercial, 1980s)

We can’t say for certain, in any individual case, why a woman has chosen to wear what she has chosen to wear. We don’t know whether it represents an oppression or a personal choice. Personally, I don’t like the niqab; it does seem oppressive, it feels impersonal, faceless. I’m glad I don’t have to wear it. And, like, what if she isn’t who she says she is? It occurs to me though, asking this question and watching those Million Poets videos: with the veils that hide their faces and five million dirhams in cash money at stake, how can those judges possibly determine with confidence that these poets are who they say they are? They might not even be Arabs, they might be from New York.

I would suggest that in order to beat fraud and impersonation, the judges might consider calling up our Immigration Minister, Jason Kenney. He’s a very serious man, he’s given a lot of thought to the matter, and he might be able to offer them some tips.

- Sean Dixon*

*Sean has a play this summer in the Summerworks Festival, a farce, actually, called “France,” on the subject of the niqab laws.

RyebergCuratedVideo, “Ryeberg Live Toronto 2012: Monday, 19 March, 2012″

After the good times in Vancouver, Ryeberg returned to home turf: Toronto. Many fine people descended into the Drake Underground, lights dimmed and brightened, and the show got started. Sean Dixon performed the first Ryeberg of the night, using a few video clips to illustrate his thoughts on the decision by Canadian Immigration Minister Jason Kenney to ban niqabs and burkas for new Canadians taking the citizenship oath. There will come a day when you know what is right. Lynn Crosbie took a tour of duty through the maternal heart of darkness, showed us what was bad about good moms, and good about bad moms. After intermission, Nick Mount had everyone in the room whistling her name: Lana Del Rey. Consider us converts. Jowita Bydlowska revealed the snarling wolf within and a great deal more. In the life and death of self-portraiture, she is a leading protagonist. The evening’s photographer was Thomas Lee. Here’s an idea of what it felt like to be at Ryeberg Live Toronto 2012.

Erik Rutherford, Ryeberg Editor

Sean Dixon, “Banning The Veil“

Lynn Crosbie, “Pop Takes A Tour Through The Maternal Heart Of Darkness”

Nick Mount, “Lana Del Rey, Meet Your Boyfriend“

Erik Rutherford, Ryeberg Editor

Jowita Bydlowska, “Life And Death Of Self-Portraiture”

Jowita Bydlowska, “Life And Death Of Self-Portraiture”

Many thanks to everyone who came out and made it such a warm and engaging evening! Thanks also to Mia Nielsen, Culture & Communications Curator at the Drake Hotel — best venue in town. Thanks to Steph Bonic, who helped get the word out. Thanks to Stephane Monnet, Agnes Wong, and Georgia Toews for their hard work on the night. Thanks Thomas Lee for the excellent photos. Most of all, thanks to Jowita Bydlowska, Lynn Crosbie, Sean Dixon, and Nick Mount, the evening’s Ryeberg curators. See you at the next Ryeberg Live!

]]> http://www.ryeberg.com/curated-videos/ryeberg-live-toronto-2012/feed/ 2 http://www.ryeberg.com/curated-videos/facts-come-to-light/ http://www.ryeberg.com/curated-videos/facts-come-to-light/#comments Sat, 14 Apr 2012 07:30:55 +0000 Stephen Osborne http://www.ryeberg.com/?p=15523
STEPHEN OSBORNE rides the history tram from item to item. From Ryeberg Live Vancouver, said the news item. ]]>

Performed on stage by Stephen Osborne at Ryeberg Live Vancouver 2012.

Facts Come to Light is a collection of items taken from the news of the day. I’ve been collecting news items like these for the last fifteen years or so, and have only recently found a way of using them to explore city life as a collation of third person reports. The video that you see here is a fragment of film shot by Seattle filmmaker William Harbeck in 1907 — using a camera mounted on the front of a streetcar. It’s the earliest surviving footage of Vancouver, and has recently been brought to light by the Vancouver Historical Society. The streetcar is making its way north along Granville Street from Georgia up to Hastings; it turns east onto Hastings, then north onto Carrall, west on Cordova, south on Cambie and over to Robson Street. (Notice that Canadians were still driving on the left, a practise that continued until 1922.) The movie was intended for projection in tiny movie houses built to simulate streetcars in motion — an early multi-media platform popular in cities throughout North America and Europe. [The video was projected without sound in a continuous loop throughout the reading.]

William Harbeck, “Vancouver Street Car” (1907)

View-Cone

A well-known city architect stated in a news item that he was tired of tall buildings in the downtown core that are all the same height. He wants the city skyline to be dome-shaped and not flat, the item said. We are in a global market and need to show everyone that we are not afraid of the future, the architect said from his office, said the item. The item said the architect proposes increasing the height of a new building going up behind the Georgia Hotel from 154 metres to 183 metres. A planner for the city opposes the architect’s proposal because it violates view corridor policy, and would block the view of the mountains from the downtown core, said the item. The item said the view corridor, or view cone, affected in this case would be the view cone at Cambie Street and 12th Avenue. The architect claims the increased height of the new building would block only part of the mountains for about 22 seconds for someone driving down Cambie Street past 12th Avenue, said the item. The item failed to supply potential viewing times that would be lost to pedestrians walking down Cambie Street toward, or up Cambie Street while looking backwards at, the protected view in the view cone or view corridor. The architect said that his proposal is not an ego trip, it’s about the city, said the item. The item failed to identify the corner of Cambie Street and 12th Avenue as the site of City Hall. The architect wants to preserve the downtown core by making it bigger, better and more spectacular, and to keep up with other world-class cities, the item said.

Brazen

A black belt karate expert who intervened in a brazen jewelry-store robbery in a Langley mall was attacked with pepper spray when he grabbed one of the robbers in a headlock, said an item in the Friday paper. If they didn’t have pepper spray, I am sure I would have taken them all down, said the karate expert, who was helped outside the mall and treated by paramedics, said the item. The item said it took the karate expert about forty minutes to regain his sight. The item said police officers had the men involved in the robbery under surveillance and had followed them to the jewelry story. Police detectives and Emergency Response Team members responded and intervened as soon as it was safe to effect the plan that was in place to arrest the men involved, said the police spokesperson, said the item.

Affair

In February, a US Army draftee on a flight to Seattle threatened to blow up the plane, “unless we go to Cuba,” he said, said an item on the CP wire. When he was told that the aircraft didn’t have enough fuel to get to Cuba, he settled for Vancouver, said the item. The item said the tense sky drama came to an end when the hi-hacker, said by the item to be a California youth with long black hair and a moustache, surrendered to RCMP officers at Vancouver International Airport. “No one told us where we were until they hustled him off,” one of the passengers said, said the item. “We thought we were in Seattle.” The RCMP, acting on a request from the FBI, had clamped a lid of silence on the whole affair, said the item. In March, the Prime Minister married a young woman of twenty-two from Vancouver, who was said to be a flower-child in several wire service items issued in the following weeks.

Polyester

Police arrested a seventy-year-old fraud artist known to burst into Christian song while working swindles in engine parts, high-tech dryers, luxury cars and East Asian orphanages, said an item in the weekend news. A one-time friend of the fraud artist, identified by the item as an evangelical public relations man now retired, said he never expected to recover the $400,000 he lost to his ex-friend the fraud artist, said the item. The fraud artist was a creature without a conscience, said the ex-public relations man, the item said. He will rip you off and think nothing of it, he said, said the item. The item said the fraud artist was wearing a white polyester suit when he met the ex-public relations man, who was moved, he said in the item, to go out and buy the man some good clothes.

In 1985 the fraud artist stole his own false teeth from a denturist on the west side who had allowed the fraud artist (or fraudster, as he was also called by the item) to put a brand new set of false teeth into his mouth and walk out to his car, ostensibly to get his cheque book, said the item. Six years later, ironically, said the item, the fraud artist took the same false teeth for refurbishing to another denturist’s office in the downtown area, where the first denturist, who claims to be one of the few people who ever recovered money from the fraud artist, had taken employment and, on recognizing either the fraud artist or the set of false teeth (a detail omitted by the item), succeeded in collecting the outstanding sum of $537.00 before releasing the fraud artist’s teeth for a second time, said the item. The fraud artist maintains his innocence of the charges laid against him, and says that he has forgotten a lot of what has happened in his life, and many people from his past, he said, never bring anything up, said the item.

Target

Thieves targetted the Planet Bingo Hall on Main Street on the last day of the year, and fled with the bank deposit bag containing an undisclosed sum, said the first news item in this report. The item said one of the suspects was five feet eight inches tall and wore a black toque and a black handkerchief over his face. A second news item said that a resident of Adams Lake had died while attempting a so-called Polar Bear Swim. Attempts by witnesses to save the drowning man failed, said the item. and he succumbed prior to being reached, said an RCMP constable with the enviable name of Swann, said the item. Early the same morning, gunshots fired at a home in Surrey went through a child’s bedroom wall, said a third item, but luckily none of the ten occupants of the home was injured, the item said. Police said they were unaware of a motive for the shooting, nor would they say if the shooting was gang-related, said the item. At about the same time, in Richmond, said a fourth news item, the corpse of a young man was set afire in a secluded area near the Fraser River. The RCMP constable on the scene said there was a strong possibility that the murder and the burning of the corpse were both gang-related, said the item.

William Harbeck, “Vancouver 1907 Footage Sped Up” (1907)

Doorknock

A nineteen-year-old man identified in the news item as a known gang leader was gunned down in an alley near East 43rd Street at two o’clock in the morning, said an item in the evening news. Police found the body, which the item described as bullet-riddled, after responding to a shots-heard-nine-eleven, said the police spokesperson in the item, a constable familiar to the public through her frequent appearances in the media. The deceased had been Vietnamese, said the constable, employing a syntactical nuance implying that nationality ceases at death, and reminding readers at the same time how abrupt is the transition from the present to the pluperfect, once a full stop has been placed at the end of the sentence of life. Officers had not found any witnesses to the shooting, even after doorknocking the neighbourhood, the constable said, said the item. Later items described the incident as a gangland-style shooting, but none of the later items explained the difference between gangland styles of shooting and other styles of shooting practiced in the city.

Warning

City police issued an arrest warrant for the leader of an organized group of Algerian pickpockets, said an item in the news early in June. The man, identified by his first and last name, was alleged by police to be part of an organized ring of Algerians specializing in stolen credit cards, the item said. A court document said the volume of thefts and organization displayed by this group place these activtities far above the petty class, said the item. The item said the man identified had been arrested at the Fairmont hotel, and then failed to appear in court. Police said he was alleged at the time to be in possession of $2,100 in Canadian funds, two new watches valued at $1,000 and credit cards and passports belonging to 7 other people, said the item. Police believe he distributed stolen ID and credit cards to other Algerians who used them to commit fraud, the item said. No further items concerning Algerians appeared in the news that year, but 13 months later, police warned the public in an item on the radio to beware of a large pickpocket ring made up of up to thirty middle eastern men working in groups of 3 to 5, stealing wallets and credit cards from purses and backbacks, said the item. A police spokesperson said the pickpockets are trendy well dressed criminals who spot a victim and then move in, asking for the time or spilling some water, said the item. By creating a diversion, then they go ahead and pickpocket or somebody else goes through the purse, the item said.

The item said police estimate their take at up to $5000 a day. The pickpockets, who frequent restaurants, coffee shops, food fairs, Robson Street, Stanley Park and the airport, are all city residents known to police for three years, said the item. Six months earlier, an item on TV had warned travellers to beware of luggage thieves at work at YVR and at local hotels, where their favoured MO is distraction theft, said the RCMP, said the item. If you can think of it, they’ll use it, they’ll drop money, they’ll accidentally bump into you, they’ll squeeze foodstuffs in front of you, said RCMP, said the item. In the previous week, two Peruvian nationals had been caught trying to carry out distraction theft in the check-in line at the airport, said RCMP, said the item, but were apprehended thanks to a a tip from Ontario police warning them of an international luggage theft ring headed toward the Lower Mainland, the item said. The Peruvian nationals were arrested and sentenced to sixty days in jail, said the item. Police are on the lookout for two other thieves of Central American descent who distracted a victim at a Richmond hotel, the item said, by squirting mustard on the ground.

Avid

A headline on the front page of the Friday paper said that rogue pine nuts can spoil your appetite for weeks. In the accompanying photograph a thin bald man identified in the item as an organizational psychologist and an avid wine collector holds up a glass filled with small yellow kernels. Since eating some pine nuts in his wine cellar two weeks ago, said the item, this man can’t even drink a glass of wine. It’s the sort of thing that could drive you crazy, the item said. The wine collector has lost two pounds since he was struck by Pine Nut Syndrome two weeks ago, said the item. He simply cannot eat, because everything tastes so terrible, the item said. The nuts were brought to his home, the wine collector says, by an artist friend, says the item.

Classic

An item in the April issue of the Buzzer, the Transit Corporation newsletter, announcing the return of the Number 14 Hastings bus, refers to the Number 14 as a classic route. An item posted the same month on the Buzzer blog says the Number 14 was an iconic trolley route that ran from 1957 to 1997. No other route in the transit system has been designated classic or iconic. In its new form, the Number 14 will be taking over parts of the Number 10 and the Number 17 routes from Hastings to the University, said the blog item. Drivers on the Number 10 route, according to another item in the news, are more frequently attacked by passengers than drivers on other routes, although drivers on the Number 20 route often suffer about the same rate of attack as drivers on the Number 10 route, the item said. Total attacks on bus drivers in recent years have been as high as 15.25 assaults a month, said the item.

In January, an irate passenger verbally attacked a driver before beating the driver with an umbrella, the item said; in April, a driver suffered chest pains after a passenger threatened him with a skateboard; passengers have also struck drivers with canes, fists, and, near Rupert Street and Grandview Highway, said the item, with grizzly bear spray. The first issue of the transit newsletter soon to be called the Buzzer was published without a name on the 2nd of June, 1916, and featured an item offering a prize of $15.00 for the best name suggested by a member of the public. The names of similar publications listed by the item by way of example included the following: Seattle: The Electrogram; Portland: Watts Watt; Baltimore: Trolley News; and Sioux Falls: On The Cars.

Notice, 1891

Wanted: 30 men without moustaches and 20 Ladies. Tuesday evening for “La Tosca.” Apply to Business Manager, Opera House.

- Stephen Osborne

Matthew Weiner, “Zou Bisou Bisou” (”Mad Men,” Season 5, 2012)

Not long ago, I was pondering the meaning of the word kittenish. I knew it was about flirting, about the heady combination of sexy and cute, but it brought something to mind that I had read many years ago, or had been told, many years ago: that true flirtation involves absolutely no references to sex, mating, dating, or courting. That flirting, properly executed, requires no more than the absence of those things while the flirter carefully blends together wit and unthreatening mystery — contrived mystery: a flash of skin at the right moment, like a flash of the eyes, a flash of wit.

Is not the most erotic portion of a body where the garment gapes? In perversion (which is the realm of textual pleasure) there are no “erogenous zones” (a foolish expression, besides); it is intermittence, as psychoanalysis has so rightly stated, which is erotic: the intermittence of skin flashing between two articles of clothing (trousers and sweater), between two edges (the open-necked shirt, the glove and the sleeve); it is this flash itself which seduces, or rather: the staging of an appearance-as-disappearance. — Roland Barthes, “Pleasure Of The Text”

I have always loved the dancer and actress Cyd Charisse. It is only in retrospect, watching her dancing on film, that I was able to realize that the type of character she played as a dancer amounted to exactly the type of person I imagined I would grow up to be when I was a girl. I didn’t know it then, but the person I really wanted to become, when older, was Charisse as she is in most of her movies. Every girl at some point desires not only to possess things owned by others, but longs to be some other, and Charisse fit the bill perfectly.

Nicholas Ray, “Cyd Charisse in Party Girl” (1958)

It was a watershed to come to an awareness that I spent about 14 years in my childhood and adolescence in ballet, tap, jazz, and modern dance classes, perhaps only in order to support living a rich and fantastical imaginary life as a highly sophisticated woman who looked like, and danced, as she did in the 1940s and 1950s opposite Gene Kelly, Fred Astaire and Ricardo Montalban

Nicholas Ray, “Cyd Charisse in Party Girl” (1958)

I believe she is the most kittenish Hollywood actress ever. It is not just her ability to dance, but during that dancing, her flirtatious moves. She excels at kittenish with every choreographed swish and step-ball-change of a character shoe, every exaggerated sidelong look through those false lashes, every cruel turn of her body. She is reluctant to fall into a man’s arms, but, finally, does it straight, with determination.

She is equal parts power and grace, poise and mischief. She is the beauty that does not care. She humbles the man, and he can do nothing but follow her lead.

Stanley Donen, Gene Kelly, “Cyd Charisse in Singin’ in the Rain” (1952)

-Nyla Matuk

Performed on stage by Miriam Toews at Ryeberg Live Vancouver 2012.

To begin my piece tonight I’d like you to join me and 30,000 others for a minute of silence.

sgrosvenor, “A Minute’s Silence: Stoke City Fans” (2011)

When I was a kid in grade two a new girl named Frieda came to our class. She had a square boy’s haircut and dark blue eyes that were always shiny. She was cute and good at soccer. She seemed older than the rest of us but she wasn’t. She was sombre and quiet. Really quiet. She never talked. We all wondered what was wrong with her.

She could write things down and read and she could understand the other kids and the teacher and nod and smile faintly but she never spoke. Sometimes at recess a few of the kids would ask her why she didn’t talk and she’d look at them and shrug.

She was weird and it bugged us somewhat. We didn’t treat her badly but her silence made us unsure of ourselves around her. We felt idiotic, like she held some secret to the universe that we hadn’t figured out yet. She seemed to like us well enough and anyway we were very young and open to odd behaviour because we didn’t know much. Our teacher didn’t seem to mind that Frieda didn’t talk. She didn’t call on Frieda to answer questions in class or make her do oral presentations. I remember telling my parents that a girl in our class didn’t know how to talk but otherwise she was pretty okay.

One day Frieda wasn’t in school and our teacher took the opportunity to say that we should stop asking Frieda questions about why she was silent. She told us something that shocked us. She said that Frieda knew how to talk, she could talk perfectly, in German and English, actually, but that right now, these days, for whatever reason, she couldn’t talk. Or chose not to talk. But whatever it was, it didn’t matter and we were instructed to accept her as our friend and never treat her muteness as a problem.

So Frieda moved with us from grade two to grade three to grade four, five, six… all through elementary school in total silence. In junior high, we all moved to a much bigger school, and I lost track of her. We weren’t in any of the same classes but then I heard that some new girls from a different little town, who came to our town for school, had started mocking Frieda. Then I heard that these new girls had arranged for some kind of showdown where they were going to force Frieda to talk. They knew she knew how to and it made them crazy, indignant.

I didn’t see it happen but I heard that these girls jumped her after school one day and just started kicking her, punching her, telling her they’d stop if she said she was sorry for not talking and would promise that she’d start talking from now on. Frieda didn’t say anything. She just took the punishment, bleeding from the mouth and curled up on the ground with her arms over her head until some adult walking by told the new girls to get lost and leave that kid alone. Soon after that I think Frieda quit school or maybe transferred to some other one. I never did find out.

Recently I watched Ingmar Bergman’s film “Persona.” In it there’s an actress who refuses to talk and it got me thinking about Frieda. It made me realize, in retrospect, that the girls who beat Frieda up were indignant because they were terrified. Terrified not just of the strange ascendancy it gave her but because they could not understand it or explain it.

In Bergman’s film, the actress — played by Liv Ullman — is a celebrated stage performer named Elisabeth Vogler. Suddenly, in the middle of a scene, and for no apparent reason, she stops, she falls silent. She will no longer say a word. Why? No one knows. She must be ill. She must be suffering a mental breakdown.

But at the hospital where she is being cared for, the psychiatrist is skeptical and suggests that maybe Elisabeth’s condition is somehow voluntary.

Ingmar Bergman, “Persona” (1966)

I don’t know whether Bergman is explaining Elisabeth’s mutism to us via the doctor, or if he is simply offering up the conventional reading of her condition. My feeling is that he wants us to take this monologue — however lyrical it may be — with a grain of salt, and that he is skeptical of psychiatry’s ability to deal with certain kinds of behaviour.

My older sister also stopped talking from time to time. She didn’t fall silent one day to the next. It happened over time until she had stopped talking entirely. That was many years ago and after that she regained her desire to speak and then lost it again, regained it and lost it. We never knew when she’d be talking or not talking but again. It was frustrating at times and at other times somehow not.

She’d write her answers to questions and whatever comments she had in small notepads and we’d communicate like that, often for months at a time, until whatever mysterious force had made her silent disappeared. But it was bewildering. She was pleasant and content, engaged it seemed, and yet remained silent. As though the silence was, finally, the solution to her problem and she, at least, could relax even though it made the rest of us somewhat insecure.

Admittedly, I felt hurt by it at times, like she was turning away from me or pushing me away from her. I recall occasions when I would start to cry and have to leave the room. At other times I’d tell her I didn’t feel like answering her scribbled questions, basically telling her that two could play this game, but the sad look on her face implied that it wasn’t her choice, really, not talking, but something beyond her control.

My daughter was about three the first time my sister stopped talking and it puzzled her. She began to ask everyone she met, on the bus, at her daycare, in the grocery store, if they talked. Do you talk? became her trademark greeting and her burning query.

A few weeks before my sister died she decided to see a psychiatrist. She wanted to be normal, to not feel crazy, to be herself again. But she was in one of her silent periods so she had to communicate with the shrink by writing things down. The shrink, apparently unaccustomed to this particular form of psychic pain, became exasperated and said he couldn’t deal with her silence. He told her that she was wasting his time and if she wanted help she would have to cooperate with the basic conventions of communication. She would have to talk.

My sister had gone to him desperate for help, and he, the guy trained in and responsible for curing mental illness had basically told her that until she got rid of that illness he would refuse to treat that illness. Because to treat her, he would have to bend to her dictates. He probably couldn’t bear having the tables turned, his silence taken from him. Maybe he felt accused by her silence, or defied. He just didn’t like the power that her silence gave her. That’s what silence can be: power, accusation.

One of the scenes that most struck me during last year’s Occupy Movement took place on the campus of University of California Davis, just outside Sacramento. That’s where the campus cops drove batons into the ribs of students protesting tuition hikes, and then casually pepper sprayed them in the eyes when they refused to move. Students reacted by calling for the resignation of the university chancellor, Linda Katehi, who had authorized the police crackdown.

The next day they gathered outside the building where the chancellor was giving a press conference. The chancellor refused to leave, apparently wanting to give the impression she was being held hostage. When she finally came out, many hours later, accompanied by a student representative who had assured her it was safe, there were no chants and no placards (video stopped at 1:10).

lhfang86, “UC Davis Chancellor Katehi Walks To Her Car” (19 November, 2011)

It’s a shame when the journalist asks a question, ceases to respect the silence. The protest’s effectiveness doesn’t come from a chanting chorus of voices. When the silence is broken, the protest is broken.

I recently googled a few questions like: why do people become silent for long stretches of time? And why do people stop talking? But I only came up with blog entries about the insecurities people feel in social situations, like, “why do guys stop talking to me after we’ve hung out only once?”

I did find one amusing site though. People were asked if they would be willing to go one year without speaking a single word in return for a million dollars in cash, tax free. I couldn’t believe how many, almost everyone, said no way, impossible, not worth it! For me it’s a no-brainer. I’ll talk to you in a year about that money.

Finally I did find the official name for what Frieda and my sister were practicing: selective mutism.

In Bergman’s film, Elisabeth Vogler leaves the hospital for an island retreat, where she’s meant to recover her health — that is, her desire to speak. She lives there with a nurse named Alma — played by Bibi Andersson — who indulges her mutism and who tends to her every need. It’s a very intimate arrangement, and Alma fills in the silence with her own monologues. Elisabeth responds with benign smiles and even the odd caress. Alma begins to believe that perhaps she’s found a new friend, someone who deeply understands her. One night she gets drunk and tells Elisabeth of her most private shames.

The dynamic changes when she opens one of Elisabeth’s letters, written to her psychiatrist, in which Elisabeth speaks condescendingly of her and all her genuine intentions to help. Alma feels betrayed. Now the silence becomes unbearable.

This is the moment she confronts Elisabeth, who is finally forced to cry out and say something. But instead of providing relief for Alma, it frightens her. The strange and delicate structure of their relationship has been destroyed by words and sound.

Ingmar Bergman, “Persona” (1966)

Where is Frieda now?

It’s because of the non-speaking role she played that I remember her.

- Miriam Toews

E-books are all the rage. They make us smarter, better, and more attractive people. Have you ever yearned to make your very own e-book? If you haven’t, then you are probably some sort of elitist asshole. Well, with these 8 easy steps, you’ll be well on your way to becoming a true literary pioneer like me or the great Shelley Hitz! You can make your own e-book and finally prove your various social workers, youth pastors, and parole officers wrong.

8 Easy Steps to Publishing Your E-Book

1. Feed assembled knowledge (currently in book form) into a giant mega computer.
2. Transfer the knowledge onto magnetic tape.
3. Transform the information from the tape into static cosmic energy.
4. Discharge the static cosmic energy into a tiny information storage module.
NOTE: Once you have obtained the sphere containing the assembled knowledge, you must escape to another galaxy.
5. Enter rocket.
6. Blast off.
7. As you leave your planet, watch it explode.
8. Shed a single tear and say farewell to everything.

These instructions are also available as a video tutorial.

Al Guest, “Dementia Five,” Rocket Robin Hood (Season 3, 1968)

- Jon Paul Fiorentino*

*Certified author and publishing coach (certification pending from the Central Hawaii Institute of Technical Writing and Psychic Podiatry)

Hey, I just got a new guitar.

I think I was inspired by this guy, who is some sort of music magician. This is a My Bloody Valentine cover! Crazy!

gihm, “When You Sleep” by My Bloody Valentine (2011)

Which is sort of like saying Blake Griffin inspired me to buy a new pair of shorts.

NBA, “Griffin’s INSANE Dunk Of The Year!” (2012)

I’m not a particularly good, or even mildly proficient, guitar player. But mucking around on a guitar is a good thing to do when you’re home and don’t feel like pointing your face at a screen, book, or spouse. Undeterred by a lack of talent, I used to play the guitar often, sometimes with friends and their guitars, which I remember being fun; recently I finished a shit-ton of work on something that was sometimes fun, but most of the time was not very fun at all. So I was looking for some fun.

Except buying a guitar, if you’re not Slash or Marty McFly, is a terrible, humiliating experience. Of course walking out of the store with a new Samick in hand can feel a real triumph, but having to deal with the ass-hats who work in guitar shops, especially if you don’t really know what you’re doing, is one of life’s great “someone drop a dirty bomb, right here, right now” experiences. Who are these people? Miserable failed musicians and petty shitheads, every one.

I know this is unfair. Working in a guitar shop is likely as patience-trying and soul-sucking as any job in customer service. Imagine a Lamborghini dealership where any Mario Andretti-wannabe off the street could come in and give each Countach a spin… around the showroom?

averyellis, “What It’s Like To Work In A Musicstore” (2009)

But let me vent for a second. I’m insecure about this stuff, obviously, and insecurity ignites all my petty shitheadedness, and the Internet is the writer’s guitar shop, kind of… I mean, it’d be one thing if I wanted to buy the “Wayne’s World” guitar and could barely get my fingers down to play a G-chord, or picked up some gold-plated, pearl-inlaid 12-string that Robert Johnson and Johnny Cash built together at Folsom Prison out of wood salvaged from Mozart’s violin, or whatever, and noodled out, again and again, the opening riff to “Today.”

But, man. An Epiphone, the Reebok of guitars — that’s all I wanted. And all I even tried, despite a kind fellow shopper in Zubaz, who actually was playing the guitar from “Wayne’s World,” or something like it, and by all accounts (mine) deserved to be, and who interrupted his Yngwie Malmsteen shredding to encourage me to try the upscale Gibson version of my Dot. (Though he was a little sad, too, the way he hung Excalibur back on the wall, admitted he was poor, and told me, basically, “It will be mine. Oh, yes. It will be mine.”)

Penelope Spheeris, “Wayne’s World” (1992)

My friend Mat is something of a guitar hero — to me, anyway. He’s really good at guitar. He owns a Flying-V! Mat gave me the following advice when guitar shopping, which I am going to reproduce in full, almost, minus some potentially alienating references to our 20-year friendship:

1. Sit down with it, spend time with it. I have a pattern of styles I go through when trying new instruments. A) Clean tone: shift through various pick-ups, volumes and tone settings; I like Tom Petty, soft Beatles, Albert King, with dashes of Kenny Burrell and John Scofield. B) See how the chords feel with low level blues gain; if they feel super muddy, the guitar won’t likely perform in this style of music. C) Rock, same crap. D) Hard Rock, same crap minus the chording, anything beyond fifths will start to sound muddy. E) Furious Metal Mayhem — simply ask: Does this sound like Slayer?

Slayer, “Seasons In The Abyss” from the album, “Seasons In The Abyss” (1990)

2. The fretboard: I cannot stress how important this is. You need to love your fretboard. Tonal quality is important, but if you don’t love your fretboard, you just won’t play as much. Pay very close attention to the action, listen for fret buzz, play all over — I often play scales and arpeggios all the way up and down. While doing this focus on how it feels; unplug it and complete the same exercise. Also, never let the salesman plug the guitar you are trying into a different amp. Every guitar sounds awesome through a Mesa Boogie. Make sure the amp is as similar as possible to what you play at home.

3. Construction: Look for splits, cracks, peeling, bridge-health, tuner-health (do they feel slippery?). Ensure natural harmonics occur where expected and glisten. Also, give it a good aggressive pounding—see it how it holds up, stays in tune, etc.

4. Never pay sticker price for a guitar unless it is already discounted, and then still try to haggle a bit.

Needless to say I failed at most of these things. I don’t have an amp at home, I had to look up Kenny Burrell, I don’t really like Slayer, my arpeggios are the wretched fumblings of a Parkinson’s-ridden alcoholic, no one would ever claim what I do on a guitar “glistens,” and I’m only capable of haggling with one person, the Ismaili guy down the street who tries to rip me off on mangoes.

Despite all this and a gnomish Ray Davies clone trying to up-sell me by strapping some goofy modish thing on himself and, I kid you not, strumming the first few bars of “You Really Got Me,” I stuck with my gut, and went with the Epiphone. It’s black, and big, and I don’t know shit-else about it, but man! Every Pete Townsend windmill feels like I’m punching Darth Vader in the face, and is it ever fun.

So what now? I guess I try to “get better.” Though I’m not really interested in ever being that good. The only guitar solo I’ve ever liked is Prince’s at some Rock and Roll Hall of Fame thing — and only then because at the end he throws his guitar in the air and it doesn’t come back down.

Prince Reigns at “Rock n’Roll Hall Of Fame Induction” (2004)

Wait, I kind of like this kid too — does what he gets into at 5:24 classify as “wailing”? I think so, probably. Also he’s about Prince’s size.

Avi Buffalo, “Remember Last Time” (Live on KEXP, 2010)

What I really want is to play guitar like that Japanese YouTube magician who calls himself Gihm and Hennes Katt. He’s no Stevie Ray Vaughan or Kirk Hammett or whoever else ends up on the cover of guitar magazines; there’s nothing particularly virtuosic about what he does — at least not of the soloing-on-your-knees-with-your-earlobe-and-also-the-guitar’s-on-fire variety. But I like that he takes songs he clearly loves and gets at something essential in all of them, yet still makes them his own. His cover of Rachel’s “Water from the Same Source” is amazing; I’d argue it’s even better than the original.

gihm, “Water From The Same Source” by (Rachel’s (2008)

What I’m after, I guess, is fluency. Though first I should probably buy an amp?

- Pasha Malla

Presented on stage by Charles Demers at Ryeberg Live Vancouver 2012.

About a year ago, my friend Nicholas sent me a wide-ranging list of videos for a presentation we were doing on various end-of-the-world scenarios. There were videos about the imminent and alarming extinction of blondes; proof that Prince Charles was the Anti-Christ; proof that Oprah Winfrey was the Anti-Christ; and, on a cheerier note, images of floating, space-age Polish cities in the year 3050 over a bed of techno music.

But the videos that most captured my interest were those from the “Prepper” sub-culture — the some-say paranoid, some-say ants-to-our-grasshoppers amongst us preparing for social breakdown, or what they ominously refer to as ‘SHTF’ situations (Shit Hits The Fan — though, as Nicholas pointed out, none of them ever actually uses the swear word). Here’s a peppy introduction to Prepper culture from the “Today Show.”

Today Show, “Suburban Stockpiling” (2009)

To me, there’s something so perfectly American about this clip. A smiling, multi-ethnic panel of affluent, friendly morning talk show personalities — including weather and weight loss legend Al Roker — unironically throw to a lunatic chiropractor hoarding peanut butter in his basement for when the world ends. The good almost-doctor was initially terrified by Y2K, but when that terror failed to materialized, he just pulled up his socks like the sectarian follower of a shifty 19th-century Millenial preacher and got ready for the new date.

The segment’s easy back and forth between apocalyptic survivalism and smiley-faced talk show tropes is hilarious: sure, the subtext is the inevitable breakdown of civilization and the world’s first modern democracy and lone superpower’s descent into off-the-grid chaos, but that doesn’t mean we can’t have a little fun! You say he’s stocking up on food? Well, then let’s score the footage with “Hungry Like the Wolf!” He’s got “peaches, pancake mix, peas and plenty of peanut butter”? Well, then let’s alliterate that shit! This is what fighting for survival amongst the ruins of affluence would look like — is it humanly possible to imagine a more emblematic indication of a bourgeoisie on the brink of collapse than someone buying water purification tablets for the pool in their own backyard? It’s apocalypse upscaled — Mad Maxwell.

As they come out of the piece, the hosts eat some of the kook’s freeze-dried poppyseed cake, complaining that it’s dry — then, recovering from this brief moment of snarky incivility, they recover: “But you know what? It has wonderful flavour.” America may be ending, but it’s important to be polite when someone gives you a hunk of space-cake.

Socio-economically downscale in the Prepper hierarchy is the scrappy Yankee Prepper, who offers his family-friendly recipe for the whimsically-named “Martial Law Burgers” in this video (video shortened for Ryeberg Live).

PrepYank, “Martial Law Burgs” (2010)

There’s a lot to love about this video, starting with its opening 2 minute 51 second steady, unbroken shot of a bag of dried adzuki beans. Then, there’s Yankee Prepper’s desperate need to telegraph that he is not, for the love of God, a vegetarian. He loves meat, okay? He’s going to teach you how to make a bean-based burger, you know, in case Revelations comes true, but he wants you to know that he’d rather it be meat! It’s like the world’s biggest homophobe is offering a tutorial in how to suck cock JUST IN CASE IT COULD SAVE YOUR LIFE. “Listen: I love pussy. We all do. But in a SHTF situation, you may have to get by on a big bag of dried dicks.”

The best part is Yankee Prepper’s relatively sunny idea of what civilizational collapse will entail. From what I can tell, the only thing affected will be the availability of animal meat. Otherwise, you can still count on the ready availability of exotic spices like chili and cumin. Needless to say you’ll still have a steady supply of electricity for your food processor. Processed and cheddar cheeses will be accessible (from milk produced, one assumes, by fleshless cows); and you’ll be able to gorge yourself on that staple of bomb shelter cuisine: “tightly-packed fresh cilantro.” Yankee Prepper even implores you to opt for a smoky salsa, out of the infinite range of salsas you’ll have to choose from amidst the carnage, wreckage and looting. If this is how it’ll be, who can wait for the SHTF — salsa hits the fajita.

But how will you pay for your cilantro after the currency collapses? Well, by bartering, of course.

Svivalists2012, “Bartering Material” (2010)

It’s possible that this is the most heartbreaking video on the internet. Let’s review: every year, this man’s father buys him the same terrible, $19 Christmas gift — waxy chocolate liqueurs that he proceeds to hoard for bargaining chits at the end of the world. In the meantime, he allows himself a single tray to repeatedly bring out for parties, watching it slowly empty out. The one redeeming bit of good news is that he has never tried to get drunk on them. Then it’s right back to tragic when he says ‘Grand Mariner.’

Other Preppers have a different view of how the post-currency economy will play out.

CadDem Channel, “Bartering After Collapse” (2010)

When I watched first watched this video with Nicholas and our friend Sean, each of us came away with something different. I noted how the Prepper keeps compulsively holding up the thing he is talking about, even if he has just shown it to us. “Wait — what’s he talking about? Ammunition? What does he mean? Doesn’t he have a little box of it that he could lift into frame?”

Sean pointed out how this guy seems to think that SHTF reality would be just like some kind of video game, wherein you’d walk around ‘acquiring’ errant firearms, and maybe charisma points (not that this guy is lacking). It was Nicholas who noticed how, even in this man’s conception of a dissolved, charred and smoking post-American landscape, friendly Canada is still just over the still-functional border (!), and still has better medications. There’s something super comforting about the permanence that comes with Canadian boringness — you can almost hear the Canadian border guard: “Good afternoon, sir. You folks still havin’ that nasty lawless descent into a Hobbesian nightmare of all against all? Say, that’s a tough bit of business, eh? Oh, well — here are your antibiotics, you take care, eh?’

Of course, SHTF isn’t just a masculine affair.

lmialife, Baby & Gun (2009)

The most ‘liked,’ top comment underneath this video on YouTube is the following: “Beautiful woman, cute kid, great firearm. What’s not to love!” See? Just because the black, Kenyan Muslim Marxist-Abortionist president is bringing society to a fiery collapse doesn’t mean there’s no time to stop and lech over a chipped Aryan nose, carefully-tended eyebrows and giant handgun.

This lady is the personification of a backyard pool filled with purification tablets: she’s not just a MILF, she’s a PMILFWSHTF — a prepper mom I’d like to F when shit hits the fan. Something about the make-up, the Costco art, and the violently traditionalist femininity is reassuring to the hyper conservative prepper. Just like Yankee Prepper’s apocalypse won’t stop flow of delicious cumin, the end of the world doesn’t mean that normative gender performance goes out the window: soft-voiced ladies will still look pretty and take care of the babies after the collapse; they’ll just have to carry guns, too. “That is it,” she says after her firearms tutorial. “We’re going to go out shopping now.”

I’m sorry if these visions of the end-of-times are depressing: trading bullets for chocolate liqueurs, MILFs eating burgers made out of beans. It’s enough to really bring you down. But buck up, the news isn’t all bad. In 3050, this is what Poland looks like.

alejandronsky, “Poland In 3050″ (2009)

- Charles Demers

Presented on stage by Michael Turner at Ryeberg Live Vancouver 2012.

“Distance is not an evil that should be abolished. It is a normal condition of any communication.” — Jacques Ranciere, “The Emancipated Spectator” (2004)

In the 1930s, college kids in Bridgeport, Connecticut began to play catch with pie plates from the local Frisbie Pie Company — spelled F-R-I-S-B-I-E. When the Wham-O Toy Company released its first plastic flying disk in 1957, called “Pluto’s Platter,” Bridgeport kids referred to it as a Frisbie. Wham-O took notice, and the following year re-introduced the disk under the name Frisbee (F-R-I-S-B-E-E), unintentionally misspelling the name of the Bridgeport pie company.

Wham-O Toys, “The Frisbee” (1958)

In this 1958 TV ad we learn what a Frisbee is (“a soft round airfoil with gyroaction,” a “toy”), what it is reminiscent of (“a flying saucer,” “a bird,” “a boomerang”), what it can do (it “flies,” it “bounces,” it “curves,” and “returns”), who can play with it (both sexes, “family,” white people), and how much it costs (“a dollar”). We are also told (five times) that a Frisbee is “fun.”

Here is the Frisbee eight years later, in 1966.

Wham-O, “Surf’s Up” (1966)

The kids in this ad are in their early-twenties. They continue to do with the Frisbee what we saw in the previous ad, only now they are doing it without their parents, at the beach, and at a greater distance from one another.

Here, the generic happy music has been replaced with the music of the mid-1960s west coast youth experience: surf rock. The voice-over has been reduced, and longer shots have been dropped for shorter, snappier edits. Playing Frisbee is what you do – what affluent white people do — in addition to surfing, chatting with friends, or sitting around listening to someone play the guitar. And there are different kinds of Frisbees, “regular” and “professional.”

Next is the Frisbee eight years later, in 1974. Not a TV ad but a promotional film, the kind shown to sales reps while someone from marketing intones into a microphone, like Steve Jobs used to do. This time I’ll provide the voice-over.

Wham-O, “The Super-Pro Frisbee Promo Film’ (1974)

Note the double-exposure, the melding of bird, sun flare and Frisbee.

Note the darkening sky, how the Frisbee stands in for the setting sun.

Like the previous ad, Wham-O’s promotional film is not about the product but the lifestyle that goes with it, a marketing trend that began in 1963 when advertising executive Alan Pottasch introduced the “Pepsi Generation.” And what is that lifestyle? Implied by the film’s camera work, post-production effects and stoner soundtrack is another product, one that, like those round table scenes in “That 70s Show,” can only be alluded to.

I am attracted to this film for its calm, contemplative nature. I am also interested in the year in which it was made. Nineteen-seventy-four was the end-stage of an American-led world economy that had grown unabated since WWII and whose stagnation continues to this day. Could the film’s slo-mo effect be read as an inadvertent attempt to hang onto that last wave of expansion? An American idyll? Or is the lifestyle it depicts a justification for those Americans who support a deregulation of government that began in 1976 with the election of Jimmy Carter (and continued through the Reagan years) and resulted in, amongst other things, a reorientation of public space – not only of parks and beaches but within our cities’ downtown cores?

This next video is of an Ultimate match. Ultimate is a low-impact, competitive team sport that requires not a Frisbee but the Ultimate’s own trademarked disk. The first Ultimate tournament took place at Yale University in 1975, and today the game registers over five million players. In this video we will see an example of what is known amongst Ultimate players and fans as the “Greatest.”

UltimateFrisbee567, “Ultimate Frisbee’s Greatest Play” (2001)

The final video is a 2007 ad for Cell C, the third largest cellular network in South Africa.

Cell C, “Fano Frisbee: City Frisbee Commercial” (2007)

In an effort to be more competitive, Cell C spent a great deal of money on an advertising campaign that has the invisibility of cellular communication represented through the use of a Frisbee, or disk. Worth noting is that the thrower and the receiver never see one another, and that their interactions take place not in a park or at a beach but in the city’s downtown core.

The Frisbee has travelled great distances since its introduction over fifty year ago. In tracing its journey I am reminded of the changes I have seen in my lifetime and the importance of remembering. As the novelist E.M. Forster once wrote: “Only connect! … Live in fragments no longer!” I would like to think the same could be said of historical knowledge – bridging the distance between past and present, not to mention the distance between ourselves and each other.

- Michael Turner

RyebergCuratedVideo, “Ryeberg Live Vancouver: Tuesday, 6 March, 2012“

Ryeberg travelled to Vancouver and found its people. Sincere thanks to every one of you who packed into the Cabaret Room of the Waldorf Hotel to make Ryeberg Live Vancouver such a glorious event. Michael Turner kicked off the show by throwing a frisbee into the audience and urging us to “live in fragments no longer.” Miriam Toews followed, asking us to join 30,000 Stoke football fans in a minute’s silence. After intermission, Charles Demers showed us whose houses to raid when the shit hits the fan, and Stephen Osborne closed the evening with his own “view cone” of historic Vancouver. Everyone went home with a copy of Geist Magazine and a whole lot to talk about.

The four Ryebergs performed at the show are yours to read on Ryeberg, and here are a few photos from Ryeberg Live Vancouver taken by Vancouver photographer, Christine McAvoy.

Waldorf Hotel (1489 East Hastings Street Vancouver, BC)

Lizzy Karp, Ryeberg Live Vancouver Coordinator; Erik Rutherford, Ryeberg Editor

Michael Turner, “Frisbee: Form, Style, Competition, Analogue“

Erik Rutherford, Ryeberg Editor

Miriam Toews, “Silence”

Charles Demers, “SHTF Happens“

Charles Demers, “SHTF Happens“

Stephen Osborne, “Said The News Item”

Stephen Osborne, “Facts Come To Light“

Thanks to Geist — Stephen, Ben, Lauren, Chelsea, Michal — for publishing a fine magazine and for supporting Ryeberg Live. Thanks to Lizzy Karp for initiating Ryeberg Live Vancouver and for getting the word out to Vancouverites. Thanks also to the Waldorf Hotel — Danny, Michael, Kasha, Brittney, Tom, and tech wizard Garzita. Brilliant venue. Thanks Christine McAvoy for the great pictures. Finally, huge thanks to the Ryeberg curators: Michael Turner, Miriam Toews, Charles Demers, and Stephen Osborne.

Ryeberg returned home soon after for Ryeberg Live Toronto 2012, which featured Jowita Bydlowska, Lynn Crosbie, Sean Dixon and Nick Mount. It was another amazing show. Click here to see a few photos.