Trash: Issue No. 25

IT TAKES A VILLAGE

Vancouver’s thrifting landscape

$14.99 cdn printed in canada

7

25274 94971

ISSUE NO. 25: TRASH

DEAR JOHN

A love letter to the pope of trash

7

DESIGN.

Zero-waste grocery stores

01

ART.

WASTE NOT, WANT NOT

ISSUE 1 $14.99 CDN

STORIES.

Develop skills and techniques to confidently communicate your messages in print and online with Langara’s one-year Publishing Diploma. Gain hands-on experience and build a professional portfolio that includes LangaraPRM.com and a new issue of Pacific Rim Magazine.

Learn more. www.langara.ca/publishing

PREMIUM STOCK PHOTOS + VIDEOS. CURATED DAILY.

Stocksy is an artist-owned cooperative raising the bar — and the industry’s expectations — of stock photo and video.

STOCKSY.COM

LETTER FROM THE EDITOR Trash is a word I never use. But, putting together a trash-themed issue of SAD, I found myself confronting and chewing over every permutation of the word. Trash can describe guilty pleasures, television and music we know isn’t sophisticated but can’t help but love. Trash can be an attitude, entitled and/ or myopic, as in the oft-repeated zeitgeisty phrase, "men are trash!" (which refers to a state of unacknowledged privilege rather than a segment of the population). Trash is even a put down, an elitist take on anything not invested in "high" cultural norms. Trash is also, of course, the physical objects that have lost their hold on us: detritus and debris. Trash, it turns out, has many meanings and, even better for an editor, it’s a loaded word—contributors to this issue approached trash in a multitude of ways, each one inspired by a different slant on the notion of trash. One of the most enduring interpretations of trash is that it’s the opposite of treasure. Here, I disagree. I see trash as a compliment to all that is shiny and wholesome; something we must embrace to be fully embodied, well-rounded people. Many of the subjects and writers in this issue have a gleeful, celebratory take on trash: from infamous filmmaker John Waters to brave amateur strippers and unapologetic pigeon lovers—these pages are full of inspiring examples of people who embrace the parts of life, and themselves, that are less than immaculate. That’s what this issue is all about, the SAD-approved definition of the word trash—the messy and beautiful parts of life without which, we wouldn’t really be living.

ONLY

FILM

MEREDYTH COLE

IT’S ALL FILM, BABY!

True story. All of the photographs you see in this issue (and every issue) were shot on film or Polaroid. We believe that the world is rough around the edges, and there is beauty in that imperfection. We hope you do too.

#SADTRASH

hello@sadmag.ca / Instagram @sadmagazine / facebook.com/sadmag / twitter.com/sadmag

ABOUT

SAD Mag is an independent Vancouver publication featuring stories, art, and design. Founded in 2009, we publish the best of contemporary and emerging artists with a focus on inclusivity of voices and views, exceptional design, and film photography.

ADDRESS

SAD Mag is published two times per year by The SAD Magazine Publishing Society 302E 1638 East 3rd Ave Van­cou­ver, BC V5N 1G9 Distribution coordinated by Disticor

INFO

ISSN 1923-3566 Contents ©2018 SAD Mag All rights reserved.

ON THE COVER

Cover artwork by Priscilla Yu.

CONTENTS 08 GRIN & BARE IT

One night, about a hundred Wednesdays ago I was a stripper. It wasn’t because I needed the money, which I did, or because I adored the attention, which it turns out I do, but because I was curious … Serena Shipp

10

AROUND TOWN

When I started working in supportive housing in the Downtown Eastside several years ago, harm reduction had long been the established attitude of major programs … Ljudmila Petrovic

12

SHIT-GRABBER, MÜLLBEUTEL

“Hands; the only part of ourselves we see right,” Mom muttered once to no one in particular while she opened her palms … Rachael Moorthy

14

IN DEFENSE OF CLUTTER

Whenever I touch down in a room, a tornado ensues. I don’t mean to be messy and it’s not out of disrespect to other people; organized is just not how my mind works … Kally Groat

16

UNCLAIMED REMAINS

To some, what happens to our bodies after we die is irrelevant. They have a “throw me in the ground or throw me to the wolves” mentality … Alica Forneret

18

BITE THE HAND THAT FEEDS

At five minutes before the event was scheduled to begin, 221A gallery had already reached capacity, with close to 70 people … Brit Bachmann

20 RACING TIME

“Let’s trash it!” Screamed my cousin, who, aged nine, was a few years older than me but equally wise. He handed me a sledgehammer … Tyson Storozinski

22

FUNNY ANGRY PEOPLE

25 IT TAKES A VALUE VILLAGE

There’s nothing more satisfying than telling someone “I found it at Value Village!” … Keagan Perlette

Unused, unfunctional, unaware. A slick patch of decomposing detritus. The Reclaimer steps into this filth and observes … Gory Little

Ah, John. Sweet, egregious John. Bless you for entering my life at a time when all seemed strange and uninspired … Sarah Bakke

It’s a singular experience, admitting to a cab driver that you have entered their vehicle with a concealed bird. I felt I owed him an explanation… Sarah Thompson

Trashy food featuring marshmallows, chips, hot dogs, Mr. Noodles … Christoph Prevost

Bowed lowly under a yolk-yellow sun-up, another stucco-slathered structure … Erin den Hartigh

It has not yet been a year since #metoo became a worldwide movement, set off by Harvey Weinstein’s chain of crimes … Katherine Chan

Mama placed me on her knee in front of her vanity with dollar store mirrors and second hand lipsticks strewn on … Kaja Jean

Dancers interpret the music, tell a story with their bodies, are self-possessed and beautiful. That’s art.

Not only art … Jackson Weaver

It started with a glove. A black, rigid, siliconetipped glove. Later it was joined by a toothbrush.

Then a $2000 spatula. Then a $100,000 tool bag … Liam Siemens

26 DEAR JOHN

28 ART

32 TALKING TRASH

34 TRASH FACTOR

36 IS RECYCLING A

GARBAGE SYSTEM?

I kind of hate recycling. It’s so important but seems to miss the point … Claire Atkin

38

ART

Just when you think you're not alone, you're nothing but alone. When I tell you I don't feel good, I really mean I'm sad … Marena Skinner

40 LIFE'S LEMON

45 TRASH DOVES

46 BIRDS / TNT

47 DUST BLOWN DOWN

48 REACH FOR THE STARS

49 WHEN THE SKY DROPPED

When the sky dropped it left prickles on my arms and legs. Everything was sticky and pretty back then, air always humming … Amy Higgins

50 GARBAGE IS COZY

Ryan Quast is working on a hot knife rig made of a Mr. Noodle cup. For those unfamiliar, hot knifing is a resourceful way … Genevieve Michaels

52 DISPATCHES

On Sunday mornings my wilted ambitions get sorted. Oil in compost begets rats. Food in the trash … Lesli Brownlee

Miami, California, and Manchester … T. Rackowe & V. Pencz & J. Bell-Etkin

41

GARBAGE DUTY

It would be easy to glance at the artwork for Meditation Tape, the debut EP from Vancouver band Necking, and think that it’s the soundtrack to a children’s cartoon … Michael Luis

When I started working in food service almost ten years ago, I knew taking out the trash was part of the job … Jenni Capps

I first walked into the vintage shop where I now work in the summer of 2015. Having no prior knowledge of vintage clothing or anything modestly cool … Ashleigh Hawrysh Haier

When you think romance, you think the heavyweights—your Danielle Steels, your Nora Robertses, your lady human who wrote all those incredible 50 Shades … Rachel Burns

24 RARE VINTAGE

44 CONTAINER RECLAIMER

42 REJECTED ROMANCE NOVELS

54 ART

Things you can do with trash - wear it, start a trash collection, write a poem to it, build a trash mountain, be friends with it, take it camping, pretend it's flowers … Hiller Goodspeed

55 WASTE NOT, WANT NOT

While working as a marine mammal observer in northern Quebec, Brianne Miller had a lot of time to herself … Madeline Barber

WHO IS SAD? boar d of dir ectors

special thanks

Emilia Kalka Digital Art Curator

Maryam Bagheri

Dylan Maranda Ljudmila Petrovic

Jonathan James

Natasha Campbell Michelle Cyca

Kristin Ramsey

Taryn Hardes

Quietly

Zeenat Lokhandwala

Sylvia Skene

editorial staff

Pamela Rounis

Co-Publisher & Creative Director

Katie Stewart Co-Publisher & Programming Director Meredyth Cole Editor in Chief

Michael Mateyko Designer Mustaali Raj

Designer

Business Manager

Ashley Visvanathan Marketing & Promotions Designer

Hannah Bellamy Development Director

Katrina Vera Wong

eve nts

Danielle Palfrey Kristin Ramsey

Megan Jenk­ins Managing Editor

Proofreader

Madeline Barber Managing Editor

Fact-Checker

Sabrina Miso

Jackie Hoffart Booker & Host of SAD Comedy

Robyn Humphreys

Sarah Bakke Web Editor

Todd LeBlanc Audio/Visual Coordinator

Keagan Perlette Poetry & Prose Editor

Web Editor

Art Coordinator

Emily Ross Adam Timler Gillian Wong

Sarah Thompson

FEATURED CONTRIBUTORS Illustrations by Kyle Scott

PRISCILLA YU

MAIA BOAKYE

Priscilla Yu is an artist, illustrator, and muralist. Her colourfully painted worlds dwell in a strange gravity and her work has been featured on Booooooom!, Uppercase Magazine, and Upper Playground. Her favourite things include dogs, the ocean, beautiful glass and lucite objects, shiny and patterned fabrics, xiaolongbao, and “Chef ’s Table”.

Maia Boakye is an artist based in Toronto and Vancouver, Canada whose illustrations depict black femininity through a nuanced lens. She is currently studying at the University of Toronto to receive a Bachelor of Arts in visual studies and architecture. In her spare time, Maia enjoys writing poetry, eating peaches, and hoarding houseplants.

CONTRIBUTORS' FAVOURITE SEASONS OF THE BACHELOR Too trashy even for us

contributors to sadmag . ca

S19 / Chris & Whitney

Ella Adkins

Paloma Pacheco

S17 / Sean & Catherine

Fiorela Argueta

Ljudmila Petrovic

S12 / Matt & Shayne

Sarah Bakke

Irina Rakina

Madeline Barber

S11 / Brad

Joel Redekop

Katherine Chan

The Real World. All day, any day.

Liam Siemens

Becca Clarkson

Not trashy enough.

Sarah Thompson

Alice Fleerackers

S347 / Xanthor & Glorbulon-9

Helen Wong

SteamPunked Season 1

Krista Gibbard Elizabeth Holliday Megan Jenkins Sophie Maguire Monika Malczynski Genevieve Michaels Cole Nowicki

The Real Housewives of New York Elon & Grimes?

I'm a pretentous neo-luddite Is this on Netflix?

S11 / Brad, but I've never seen it Hoarders & Locked Up

ALICA FORNERET

LIAM SIEMENS

Alica Forneret is a creative exploring grief, death, and dying through storytelling. With over 10 years of experience as an editor and writer, she now works with a network of artists on tangible and digital projects. Alica’s work can be found in Modern Loss, Gather Journal, Kinfolk, and Modern Farmer.

Liam Siemens is a Vancouver writer with an unfortunate love of bullet chess, steamed buns, and small books. Online, you can find him in a few publications.

Outside, you can find him over-bundled and in search of cheap food. Check back in two years to see if his writing about pyrotheology, sad music, rock climbing, love, living online, and all things strange have landed him a job as an adult, or if he's still living in monkish barista-hood.

Illustration by Aimee Young

GRIN & BARE IT ONE NIGHT AT RENT CHEQUE, VANCOUVER’S “ANYTHING GOES” AMATEUR STRIP NIGHT Words by Serena Shipp

One night, about a hundred Wednesdays ago, I was a stripper. It wasn’t because I needed the money, which I did, or because I adored the attention, which it turns out I do, but because I was curious.

Rent Cheque is a monthly event hosted at Vancouver’s Astoria Pub. The last Wednesday of every month, they invite amateurs to come strip in front of an eager audience of friends, strangers, and beerdrinking hooligans.

Everyone is welcome, and anything goes.

Well, almost anything. There was a rumour going around, the month before I took to the stage, that a couple started having actual sex during their performance. The hosts had to politely restrain them.

And, almost anyone is welcome. No professionals allowed; it’s strictly amateurs all night long.

All bodies, all genders, all abilities, and all styles are encouraged to strut their stuff. Every amateur who bares it all at Rent Cheque is bringing with them their own unique brand of sexy. It’s that individualism, creativity, courage, and self-confidence that makes every performance so sexy and perfect. There is no script, and spontaneity is the stuff of sexiness.

The month previous, my partner Charles had braved the stage, stripped down to a man-thong and won himself a hundred bucks. I thought he was sexy as can be. And so did the audience, according to their lusty applause.

Rent Cheque winners are chosen by applause. After every performer dances their routine, they are narrowed down to the three top acts. Of the three finalists, whoever drums up the most ecstatic applause from the audience wins the grand prize—$500 and an eternity of bragging rights.

My partner is a performer at his core. Being the lead singer of a rock band, he is accustomed to sweating shirtless on the stage. I, on the other hand, am a bashful writer, and I have been taught to keep my clothes on in public.

When I decided I wanted to perform, it felt right to do a duet with the Rent Cheque veteran in my life – Charles could give me moral support from the stage and we could cash in on our “opposites attract” appeal.

We chose to strip to A Perfect Circle’s Pet, a song that is raunchy, raw, shameless, and ideal for our purposes. With the song as our muse, we spent the week leading up to Rent Cheque choreographing and rehearsing our routine.

8 8

We had all-night access to a jam space, complete with a mirrored dance studio at the rear.

We plotted a storyline alongside the lyrics, accounting for every beat in the song so we wouldn’t find ourselves frozen, naked on stage. Years of ballet and modern dance training had me taking the debut of our performance rather seriously. It’s clear that the majority of Rent Cheque performers are similarly dedicated, I’ve heard tales of people skateboarding off the stage or arriving for their act with a motorcycle in tow.

Although they ultimately end up on the floor, costumes are key. I borrowed a sassy outfit from a friend who moonlights as a Burlesque dancer; an entirely unzippable velvet onesie, a brazier that forgot to cover my boobs, and a leather thong. These negligible bits of fabric made me feel meltyour-face sexy. Because I lean towards timidness, I adopted a stage persona for the night. I called my alter-ego Bianca, and she killed it.

The experience was euphoric. I felt sassy; appreciated; nurtured and exposed at once. After one night as a stripper, I can safely say I would do it again. But only with an audience equally encouraging and nonjudgemental as that of Rent Cheque.

This open-mindedness is what makes the event utterly unique, and enduringly popular. After first appearing in 2006 at Gastown’s Lotus Sound Lounge, Rent Cheque has changed venues and hosts, even going dormant for years, but never lost its focus on celebrating sex appeal in all its forms. Today, the event is a fixture at The Astoria, and the organizers are considerate of the contentious, rapidly gentrifying neighbourhood that hosts them. Case in point: Rent Cheque donates 10 per cent of the monthly grand prize to WISH Drop-In Centre Society; the mission of WISH being based on the health, free choice and well-being of women working in Vancouver’s street-based sex trade. WISH is about acceptance, caring, dignity and respect. These qualities, as well as a party-party vibe, are present at all the Rent Cheque nights I’ve witnessed.

Did Charles and I win? Not quite. We placed second; walked away with 200 bucks and a boosted sense of sexy. We lost to a dude who painted a self-portrait using his own dick. I missed his act, I was out drinking sneaky whiskey in the side alley with high socks and no pants on, revelling in the role I was playing for a night.

After all, I’m just a shy writer.

Illustration by Lou Papa

10

AROUND TOWN

LESSONS IN COMMUNITY FROM VANCOUVER’S MOBILE NEEDLE EXCHANGE Words by Ljudmila Petrovic

When I started working in supportive housing in the Downtown Eastside several years ago, harm reduction had long been the established attitude of major programs, both residential and otherwise. With harm reduction, there is an acceptance that certain things, such as drug use or sex work, will continue to happen regardless of legal or social sanctions. In a pragmatic sense, this approach aims to meet individuals where they are at and ensure that whatever they are engaging in is done as safely as possible.

In the case of drug use, this includes distributing clean needles and other supplies (to reduce infection and the spread of HIV, Hepatitis C, and other communicable diseases) and running safe injection sites (to reduce the risk of death by overdose).

At my job, residents often poke their heads into the office and ask, “Can you call Needle Exchange?” The Mobile Needle exchange is a service run

by Vancouver’s Portland Hotel Society (PHS), which aims to bring harm reduction materials to people wherever they are and to safely dispose of used needles across the city.

Usually within that same shift, a Mobile Needle Exchange driver would buzz at the front of the building, balancing multiple boxes of harm reduction supplies (including clean needles). They would leave with any full sharps containers we had to get rid of.

The PHS started in 1993 and blazed the way for the acceptance of a harm reduction approach in the city through its mandate of low or no barrier supportive housing.

Many PHS programs and initiatives are fixtures on the Downtown Eastside, and the Mobile Needle Exchange is so widely used that some support workers have the number saved in their cellphones. However, despite their obvious presence in East Vancouver, the Mobile Needle Exchange operates far beyond that one neighbourhood, driving out as far west as the University of British Columbia campus and even as far east as Burnaby. The Mobile Needle Exchange operates from 7 am to 3 am, 356 days a year. They provide harm reduction supplies for safer injection and safer sex, as well as distributing Naloxone to community members for the reversal of opioid overdoses and supplies for safer inhalation (including screens and glass pipes). The Mobile Needle Exchange provides anybody who asks with sharps containers for areas that commonly need safe needle disposal. They also pick up hazardous waste, such as used needles. A Mobile Needle Exchange van might be called to pick up garbage bags full of sharps containers from a supportive housing program in the Downtown Eastside, or they may receive a call about a single uncapped needle in a park on Vancouver’s West Side.

“Our goal is to respond in two hours depending on where we are and how many calls we have at a time,” says Susan Alexman, Director of Programs at PHS. “We do work very hard to get there as soon as we can. We always prioritize areas where there may be children or a lot of people.”

With the sheer area covered and hours of service provided, one would think that the Mobile Needle Exchange is made up of countless vehicles and employees. The reality is that for the time being, it’s one van and a handful of permanent staff operating the service for 20 hours a day.

Their service is supplemented by the six-person Spikes on Bikes team, who ride around the Downtown Eastside and Oppenheimer Park area on bikes picking up used needles and handing out harm reduction supplies when necessary.

PHS took over the Mobile Needle Exchange in 2011. In 2012 alone, they had distributed 755,000 clean needles and had retrieved 1.6 million used needles. But, once that frazzled but cheery Mobile Needle Exchange driver has collected bags full of sharps containers, where does all that hazardous waste go? Where do millions of used needles end up?

“When we pick up a syringe, obviously we use special equipment, gloves that are puncture resistant, we use tongs to pick up a syringe when we find it and it goes directly in to a puncture proof safe disposal container with a lid, so once it is in there it cannot be retrieved,” explains Alexman. “Once those containers are full, they go back to our storage area and then there is a disposal service called Stericycle that comes and picks up those syringes from us…and then they dispose of them properly.”

In 1989—the same year Stericycle was founded in the US—the Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment (CCME) began working on a set of national guidelines and uniform standards to address the irregularities and differences across provinces in biomedical waste disposal. The company grew as the regulations around medical waste disposal tightened and awareness of the environmental consequences spread to the general public.

Because of the environmental repercussions of incineration, most medical waste, including used needles, is now disposed of through the use of an autoclave, which is an industrial pressure chamber that uses a combination of heat, moisture, and pressure to ensure that medical waste is safe and free of any bacteria, viruses, or communicable diseases. After that, it is disposed of through municipal waste disposal services or can be used in waste-toenergy endeavours. The waste that is incinerated is kept to a minimum because of increasingly strict air emissions regulations, but pharmaceuticals and pathological, chemotherapy, and cytotoxic waste still have to be incinerated for safety reasons.

From the moment that a clean needle is handed to an individual until it is safely disposed of, the number of regulations, laws, organizations, and individuals that are involved is immense. In order for that clean needle to be used outside of a hospital or clinic, there has been decades of fighting to get our city where it currently stands on the issue of harm reductive approaches to drug use. In order to get those needles disposed of safely, there have been years of work on a local and organizational level. This is not time wasted; our entire city benefits from a well-regulated system for disposing of used needles and bio-hazardous waste, even if it’s not something many people care to think about.

Although it is rarely a part of the conversation regarding harm reduction, the safe disposal of used needles—not to mention the community work of the Mobile Needle Exchange—are pragmatic components of a greater fight for accessible health care and basic human dignity. When we can minimize the spread of communicable diseases, infections, and overdoses, we are doing more than saving lives; we are making a clear statement that these are lives worth saving and communities worth empowering.

MÜLLBEUTEL Words by Rachael Moorthy

“Hands, the only part of ourselves we see right,” Mom muttered once to no one in particular while she opened her palms to cup a stream of white sunlight. Ever since she left her body, I’ve been looking at my own hands real close. I’ve started writing backwards.

First thing I see when I wake are my fingertips: calloused and floodlit by the orange glow of my lantern. With sleepy hands, left arm sore from Tobias’ lasso, I chip the crust from my eyes, pull my farm boots on and fasten my laces tight. Then I grab the milk pail and step out into dawn.

I lope across the dry aisles of oats to our little white barn. I live with my Aunt Gertie now, on account of Mom died after giving birth to Lily.

Ruptured intestines. My father was every drunk on the streets of New Westminster. He was Irish. Maybe Dutch.

I like Gertie. She looks and sounds like Mom, only well fed and not so in her head. Can’t see the bones in her face, and her chest doesn’t cave in.

She’s got soft hands; always caked in flour. Lineless, too, unlike Mom’s.

Hers were so withered and creased they looked a hundred years old next to her angelic face. Mom used to daydream in the bath ‘til her hands shriveled up like dried slugs.

Aunt Gertie married a man from Melk called Tobias. Tobias has a face that blends into his neck—looks like a giant tube. Tube-ias. Yesterday, after he saw that my dictation homework was written mirror-image, he said I was born so wicked the whole world broke out into war when I entered it. He moved here to escape that very war. Tobias is probably seven feet tall with hands the size of a plough. It takes him two steps to get from the house to the barn, while here I am, hauling my trashborn, candy-ass through the oat rows and the wheat as waking sun turns the sky a million different colours; ribbons of claret burst into orange flames, melt into halfchurned butter, bloom into cornflower blue—all before settling on an ugly overcast. I squint. Can’t tell if it’s going to rain today or not. It’s one of those constipated skies that could go either way.

Four flat, identical hooves. I imagine what it’d be like if human hands were so equal as I pull down on her leathery teats: left hand, release, right hand, release, left again. White rods of milk bolt into the pail.

In all my fourteen-and-a-half years, it never occurred to me that I’ve been using the wrong hand for everything. Mom never brought it to light; reckon she didn’t want to hurt my feelings. Or, maybe, she didn’t see anything wrong with it. Maybe Mom didn’t know that using your left hand meant you had bad spirits tangled up inside you. It’s no matter, though, on account of Uncle Tobias is switching me and I’ll be right-handed in no time. At the dinner table, he ties my arm behind my back with a lasso and forces me to eat with my right hand.

“Müllbeutel. No shitgrabbers under my roof,” he says.

And you’d think it’d be easy when a lasso is searing into your flesh and your circulation is cut off and you haven’t eaten all day and there’s baked bread on the table, but I swear, every time my left arm almost breaks through the rope. Tobias says that’s proof of the evil trying to keep in me.

Moby starts to trundle and whine. Must have been all tangled in thoughts and pulled a little too hard, “Sorry, sorry.”

Her tail swishes as I bend up to pet her and she starts to piss. It hits my tongue, hot and yeasty. I hurl in the hay. Gertie warned me not to milk with my mouth open. When Tobias drinks his lager out on the veranda she shakes her head; tells me that beer tastes like cow piss, she’d know first hand.

After all forty heifers are milked I pace back to the house. The day’s decided on rain. I stick my tongue out to wash away the taste of cow piss with the coppery raindrops. I carve the cow shit off the heels of my boots before stepping on the veranda and entering the house.

I’m still not used to the cow-shit smell of Abbotsford. Before Mom died, we lived in New Westminster. There, the streets were riddled with glass bottles, crushed cans, and cigarette butts. It smelled of the Fraser River: log booms and candlefish. Here, there isn’t a butt on the ground, but the air is smoggy and shitty. In New West, I always felt like I was moving toward something. But here, sometimes I swear I’m going back in time.

Gertie nods ‘good morning’ from her wicker cottage chair, while spooning mouthfuls of creamed wheat for Lily. Right now, my sister looks something like a little ball of dough; an unleavened loaf of Lily bread with marble eyes, a plastered on nose, and a tiny O-shaped mouth. I wonder how she’ll look when she sprouts up. A handsome face like Mom and Gertie?

Too-close-together eyes and a hook-nose like me? If she ends up being left-handed, I’ll save her the trouble and break her arm.

After the calves have all been nursed, I fill the feeding trough with grains and let the heifers graze for a while. I pull my stool up on the right side of the great white cow I call Moby-Dick. Moby’s a mad kicker, always gives me trouble. I place the milk bucket beneath Moby without a breath; the shitty-silage air sits heavy in my lungs. I squat down slowly, don’t want to startle her, but my bum knee clicks and Moby lets out a great whale-cow moan. Moby-Dick starts to tap dance around the bucket and swish her tail around. I duck as she thrusts her hind legs at my face.

My brain feels like it’s flipped backwards and I think it has something to do with my hands. I’m dreading school, but I love the bike ride there.

I got a used clementine-coloured Ric Super. Mom found it on the side of the road and brought it home some sapless Tuesday. Reckon she actually stole it. She’d seen me light up after a paperboy bolted past me on his cherry-red Schwinn. Tobias would spit, “trash can prostitute,” but she was the way a mother should be; a barrier between her child and the awful world.

Tobias’ cows are all mad kickers—touch ‘em the wrong way and you get a hoof to the forehead. Learned that one the hard way. That’s why my nose is all mashed up now. Not that I was any James Cagney before. Still, the crooked beak ain’t doing me any favours.

When I’m on my bike, cycling past the acres upon acres of undulating farmland and tallgrass, it feels like I’m sailing over an ocean of gold. Every hill is a wave, and I sail so fast that I can’t smell anything but cold. I let go of my handlebars and imagine having wings instead of hands; span in the air, ready to fly up and out of the valley, above the horizon and away from the shit, behind the clouds where the colours hide and the world can’t get its hands on me.

Moby settles and I seat myself down slowly. I look down at her feet.

It’s as if, at some point, the bottom of a cow decided to turn to steel.

12 12

Photos by Jackie Dives

Ilford HP5 Plus 400

In DEfeNSe

Illustration by Ashley Visvanathan

14

oF cLUTtER

THE JOYS OF A WELL-CRAFTED MESS Words by Kally Groat

Whenever I touch down in a room, a tornado ensues. I don’t mean to be messy and it’s not out of disrespect to other people; organized is just not how my mind works.

Once, in university, I paid my roommate to clean my bedroom. By the end of the chore she walked away carrying a laundry basket full of 18 mugs and cups. One weekend, while staying with my sister, I woke up to her disinfecting doorknobs; she said I left finger marks everywhere, as if I were an amateur criminal and she was dusting for evidence of my messy existence.

Last winter, when I moved to the ski town of Fernie, the girl whose room I took over neatly packed away her modest belongings, while I came prepared with my own essentials: keyboard, guitar, paintings, three lamps, and my most favorite coffee table (for an already furnished room).

These choice items have become a horcrux of sorts to my artistic self: pieces of me without which I would not be whole.

It’s in my nature to be a collector, just as a bird can’t help but collect twigs and hair. I’ve learned that this is how I function best, even if messiness goes against the grain of our overly curated, modern world.

When I step into a place that feels too basic, too thought out, I shut down. Modern white walls with succulents placed in such symmetry you can basically see the Gingham filter; the millennial, urban equivalent of live, laugh, love quotes. Too static. In an uncluttered space, my creative fire wanes, and I go into artistic hibernation. Like a grizzly come spring, I will resurface when I can again interact with my environment.

I want oddities and furniture that doesn’t match. I want clothes on the floor. Give me books strewn about; invite me in with wild plants.

There I thrive. I would argue that too much organization for the sake of aesthetics is a man-made construct that goes against the laws of nature.

Navigating clutter is sort of like having a memory map to a treasure you know exists. The search might take time, but will often reveal lost fortunes along the way. Finding an item in clutter is like solving a long algorithm: it seems jumbled and random until you are nearly there; then, everything unfolds with a certain rhythm.

To the untrained eye, a coral reef might look like bumps and humps of exotic color and bold texture, or squiggly tentacles tossed together with other bubbling, alien things. You can probably point out the basics: there’s a starfish, that’s an anemone, a clown fish. But it takes insider knowledge to plunge into an ocean landscape and know intuitively what hides there.

Maybe my messiness comes from being shy, the need to be coy or secretive, to have the ability to hide things. Maybe it’s an emotionally regressive psychological rebellion from being told since childhood to clean my room. Maybe it’s an artistic rejection of the modern aesthetic, of perfect compositions and no-character design. It could be societal, not wanting to be put in a predictable box. Perhaps it’s more personal, the need to be revealed in layers like a mystery rather than being bare and star-fished in an empty room. Maybe it’s laziness. Whatever it is, I’m at my creative best in mess. And whether it’s a lost item or idea, I know I will always find—like drunken recall—what I’m looking for exactly when I need it.

UNCLAIMED REMAINS WHEN SAYING GOODBYE SEEMS IMPOSSIBLE Words by Alica Forneret

To some, what happens to our bodies after we die is irrelevant. They have a “throw me in the ground or throw me to the wolves” mentality and consider blood not pumping to be conclusive enough. For others, it’s necessary to carry out certain obligations and rituals—whether culturally, religiously, or otherwise motivated—to dispose of a body in a way that feels final.

Today, North Americans have many options for how they lay a loved one to rest, and right now, one of the hottest options is cremation. In 2016, cremation rates were up 70.2% in Canada and 50.1% in the US. It’s expected that by 2020 they’ll rise by another 9% and 6%, respectively.

The Cremation Association of North America (CANA) attributes this growth rate to multiple factors, many of which are tied to the fact that these populations are increasingly mobile and transitory. Cremation is also more cost-effective, coming in at an average of $1,000 USD for the cremation itself versus $11,000 USD for a traditional funeral with burial.

It’s simple and makes multiple resting places a possibility. And, when it comes to the environment, fewer bodies in the ground means fewer toxins in the ground.

But, with a growing number of people requesting cremation services, there’s also a high number of ashes being left behind. CANA estimates that there are nearly 2 million urns left at funeral homes across the United States, and as a result, they’re forced to make decisions about how to proceed.

WHAT TO EXPECT WHEN YOU’RE EXPECTED TO PICK UP CREMATED REMAINS

Picking up cremated remains can be incredibly hard. Until you’ve had to do it, you might think, “But what could possibly be so hard about picking up the ashes of someone you loved?” And that question is probably followed by, “Because if you don’t... what the hell happens to them?”

When I picked up my own mom’s cremated remains, it was days after the funeral and my dad and I had already said goodbye to all of the out-oftown guests. My sister had returned home, and we were left to retrieve the box of ashes from an office in a strip mall parking lot. I felt nervous about having to make a decision about where to keep the urn until we scattered her ashes. I felt weird about having to carry my mom around in a box. And I was scared of what it would do to us to know that she was “really” gone.

For some, similar fears and sadness keep them from ever driving to their version of that strip mall parking lot—they wait days, then weeks, then months to pick up their loved ones. Then it’s been a few years, and though their shelves remain empty, the shelves of funeral directors all over the country are filling up with unclaimed ashes.

On one end of the spectrum, she’s found that people find other ways to grieve, and by the time the ashes are ready for pick up, it feels pointless to start the process all over again. “For these people, the rituals have been effective. Ritual has allowed these people to release their investment in

16

On the other end of the spectrum, there are people that struggle with denial and avoidance. “[They] come to me to have a cremation done, maybe never take pause and allow memories in, to accept love and support, and to openly express their grief through mourning. Their reason to avoid coming to pick up cremated remains is different—it’s a pain avoidance technique. These people have been hurt by the loss, and the idea of coming in again and being hurt again is too painful.”

Though the complexities of grief are oversimplified by the commonly referred to “five stages”, “denial” is all too real. “I picture these people touching a live wire—it’s still there, zapping and buzzing away, but the idea of grabbing hold of it again is just too painful, so they let it continue to zap around. It’s there, but it can’t hurt them if they avoid it. Avoiding the reality of having that tangible urn in their hands buffers the pain and allows these people to move forward, albeit differently, through their grief.”

SO, WHAT HAPPENS WHEN AN URN IS LEFT BEHIND?

In many states and provinces, there are strict, specific laws about what is required of funeral homes when it comes to disposing of abandoned ashes.

In some states in the US, they’re required to wait 90 days to dispose of unclaimed ashes, while in some parts of the UK it’s up to five years. “We have the right to dispose of the remains after a year of no contact, once we publish the required notices that the legislation has dictated, but we choose not to do it,” said Martell. “We are a small enough provider that we are able to keep remains for an indefinite period.”

This isn’t the case with all funeral homes, and some have taken matters into their own hands, scattering ashes in mass ceremonies, or once a year as part of a ritual “spring cleaning” of sorts. In 2014, funeral director Phil Painter decided to scatter the ashes of 150 people at once, expressing that though he wanted to give families the opportunity to claim the remains of lost loved ones, there were ashes dating as far back as the 1950s, and he believed that those people deserved a proper burial at last.

Elemental Cremation and Burial, in Washington State, makes a point to detail the legal realities of what happens if people leave ashes behind. In a blog post entitled “Abandonment Issues,” an employee of the funeral home describes how these conversations commonly play out: “When I instruct people to sign the cremation authorizations, often, people want the nutshell version of the legalese before they sign without fine-tooth combing. My short version of this one is, ‘It says that you aren’t going to abandon them, and if you do I can scatter.’ This invariably elicits a look of horror like, ‘You honestly think I would do that?!’ and they say, ‘People get left behind?’ Yes. Otherwise I wouldn’t have it on the authorization.”

Some funeral homes continue to keep the ashes, choosing not to dispose of them, checking in with the families every once in a while to remind them that they have the option to retrieve them. “I try to touch base with these families when I am able, but sometimes they continue to avoid me,” said Martell.

“Or, they just tell me they will come sometime, but never do.”

Illustrated by Pamela Rounis

I spoke with Valerie Martell, of Martin Brothers Funeral Service in Vancouver, British Columbia, about why people perpetually put off picking up ashes, and what happens when they do. In her experience, there’s two reasons people never come.

having that person in their life and allowed them to reinvest in memories and to move forward. These people seem to be at peace with their grief.”

Illustration by Wendy Ma

NOTES ON GENTRIFICATION, IDEALISM, AND COLLECTIVE RECKONING

Words by Brit Bachmann

At five minutes before the event was scheduled to begin, 221A gallery had already reached capacity, with close to 70 people perched on stools, seated cross-legged between shelves, and lining the walls. The room was oddly tense, and when the organizers approached the podium, the audience gave their full attention.

Bite the Hand That Feeds was conceived as a catch-all event with some specific objectives: to give artists and art workers across disciplines the soapbox to speak candidly about their struggles in Vancouver, with the ultimate goal of having people realize the importance of supporting anti-gentrification causes and advocating for social housing.

The event was organized for February 28 by W.W.A.S.—a research collective composed of Josh Gabert-Doyon, Gabi Dao, Byron Peters, and myself—along with Pollyanna librarian Vincent Tao. W.W.A.S., an undetermined acronym that has stood for the “Woodward’s Amateur Society and Woodward’s Anti-Capitalist Society” in the past, was formed as part of Gabert-Doyon’s Notes On Permanent Education fellowship at 221A. The objectives of Bite the Hand That Feeds spoke to our idealism as organizers, without accounting for our limitations as hosts: our goals were only partially achieved.

The W.W.A.S. collective’s initial focus was to create a comprehensive timeline of Woodward’s, an urban block at the intersection of Hastings and Abbott, between Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside and Gastown, that once housed the Woodward’s Department Store. When Woodward’s went bankrupt in 1993 and the building became vacant, advocates in the Downtown Eastside pushed for social housing. W.W.A.S.’s research paid particular attention to this struggle, which included the illegal occupation known as Woodsquat in 2002, and the site’s eventual redevelopment as a commercial/residential project by Westbank Corporation completed in 2010.

Community Facilities (including cultural facilities) and Parks and Open Spaces (including public art) received a combined $44 million through CACs. In Vancouver, we also see developers fund major arts institutions, epitomized in the new campus for the Emily Carr University of Art + Design, which includes the Chip and Shannon Wilson Plaza (Low Tide Properties, Lululemon), Ian Gillespie Faculty of Design + Dynamic Media (Westbank), Audain Faculty of Art (Polygon Homes), Reliance Theatre (Reliance Properties), and Rennie Hall (Rennie Group).

In the absence of other funding, developers have become crucial.

Although most developer-funded art projects are required by the City of Vancouver as a condition of property rezoning, they are spun as cultural philanthropy. Developers brand themselves as supporters of the arts, all the while building luxury developments that push many artists out of their homes and studio spaces. More importantly, developer-driven gentrification displaces longtime residents, who are often low-income and from marginalized communities. In the case of Vancouver, these developments are also taking place on stolen, unceded Coast Salish Territory.

This is where the question of accepting developer money gets more complicated for everyone, because it forces people to evaluate their own privilege and social responsibility, to weigh personal needs against community interests.

As a moderator sitting at the front, I could see people’s body language change as this reality started to sink in. The energy of the room shifted noticeably following a powerful speech by Sydney Ball (Vancouver Tenants Union, The Mainlander, CiTR/Discorder), who addressed how developers take credit for artists and art spaces, spinning the situation thus: “It’s not that artists are subject to being used as tools for gentrification, but their very existence in gentrified spaces is proof that capital is succeeding, and is producing culture, and is good for community.”

Bite the Hand That Feeds attracted artists, writers, gallery administrators and preparators, event organizers, activists, and even a City of Vancouver employee, but the room seemed to divide into three dominant archetypes: those who prioritize fights for social housing before everything else, artists who want secure studio spaces in gentrified neighbourhoods, and art-based entrepreneurs who may not necessarily consider connections between developers, artwashing, and unaffordability.

Our document gathering coincided with Westbank’s Fight for Beauty campaign in Fall 2017, a campaign that, frankly, pissed us off. W.W.A.S.’s research—including department store nostalgia, City of Vancouver archives, reprinted handbills and zines, oral histories from community organizers and newspaper clippings dating back to the early 90s—clearly maps the accelerated gentrification and displacement of Downtown Eastside residents following Westbank’s redevelopment of the Woodward’s complex.

It is anything but beautiful. Westbank’s Fight for Beauty was an attempt at rebranding, to go from real estate developers to “culture company,” and it pushed our project in a radical direction. We organized an “alternative tour” of Fight for Beauty in December, where a dozen artists and activists gave speeches that described the community opposition to Westbank’s most prominent developments. Following that action, we wrote an open letter for artists and art workers to disavow Westbank projects across Canada, in solidarity with the communities displaced by their luxury condo developments.

Among the latter group, one of the most vocal was Vancouver Mural Festival’s Adrian Sinclair, who argued that artists could show solidarity with affordable housing initiatives by demanding lower property taxes instead of fixating on the motives of developers and the organizations who work with them. Sinclair, whose festival was repeatedly named as an example of artwashing in the Mount Pleasant neighbourhood, found himself having to defend the Vancouver Mural Festival and like-minded groups. “I just want everyone to work together,” he said, “and not be too finger-pointy.”

Not everyone liked the letter. So, W.W.A.S. wanted to make public the conversations about developer-funded art that we were having in private, hence Bite the Hand That Feeds. The problem with our open letter, and the event itself, was summarized by the first artist to speak, Rebecca Brewer: “Some people are not here who should be, and it has to do with the shame.” Brewer explained that talking frankly about developer money requires artists to confront the shame associated with accepting it, and that’s not easy to do publicly.

After three exhaustive hours without a break, Bite the Hand That Feeds wrapped up without discussing strategies for moving forward.

W.W.A.S.’s intention was to have people discover their common ground, to want to help each other, and to realize that helping each other meant checking individual privilege and keeping developers out of sensitive neighbourhoods. Though this may have been achieved on a small scale, in conversations between those who lingered after the event, the lasting impact of Bite the Hand That Feeds is inconclusive.

Arts organizations are so underfunded that many have accepted developer support in the form of sponsorships or Community Amenity Contributions (CACs) allocated by the City of Vancouver. Although specific statistics are not available, the 2016 annual report shows that

However, this event accomplished something essential: it made apparent the ideologies and values that divide Vancouver’s arts community.

It’s a start.

RACING A FAMILY TRADITION TAKES PLACE ON THE TRACK Words by Tyson Storozinski

The main goal of Hit-to-Pass, other than having fun, is to amass the highest number of laps around the track. After a few hours of collisions, you can imagine that this becomes difficult. When the last surviving car has gone around the track at least once, they win.

Screamed my cousin, who, aged nine, was a few years older than me but equally wise. He handed me a sledgehammer I could barely lift off the ground.

The car we were about to destroy only had the windshield left to smash, everything else had been gutted.

The car was, in some ways, built to be destroyed; my father had assembled it to compete in Hit-to-Pass, a semi-annual auto race in Prince George, BC. Hit-to-Pass operates like any other auto race, except in order to pass someone you must also hit them. Get it?

It’s all for the sake of the show; less a qualifying heat for NASCAR and more a community of good ol’ boys getting together to entertain each other and their families. Hit-to-Pass comes together with what’s on hand: an old car, an auto-body shop, and some great friends. The cars are modified by drivers on their days off—it’s a strange labour of love, toiling over something that is bound to get smashed to hell on the track.

Prince George is where I grew up and, as my father would say, it’s “a real meat and potatoes people kinda town.” He is referring to the large population of blue collar workers in Prince George.

Most of the participants in Hit-to-Pass fit this description, my father included. He worked as transport for pulp, lumber, and paper mills throughout my childhood. My father’s job gave him an extra edge racing cars in Hit-to-Pass, and he was, at one time, a reigning champion.

20

My parents both raced and opened up their shop to friends for the construction of their cars. Kids usually got to help in some capacity, for the smaller jobs, like stripping the interiors or mixing concrete.

In order to prep a car for a race you need concrete as a filler for the driver's and passenger’s side doors, which are welded shut with spare rebar. You take two parts concrete powder, two parts dirt, add water, and stir. Cardboard is placed inside the stripped door to form a seal for the concrete. This serves as the main defense against the driver being crushed during a collision. Concrete and a roll-cage are essential additions to your car if you plan on racing.

My dad has been a truck driver, or, as he would put it, “driven truck,” for more than 40 years. He started his own transport company while he was still a teenager, hauling dirt, gravel, and other loose soils all over town. When I turned eight, he started taking me to his shop and explaining the basics of his business.

Whenever my father wasn’t working, he was racing or building cars.

That is, until his final race when he hit the wall head-on at high speed, broke two ribs, shook the eyeball inside of its socket to the point of temporary blindness, and scared the hell out of me and my family.

Shortly afterward, he decided that the risk of our family losing him or any of his abilities far outweighed the reward of being Hit-to-Pass champion.

Hit-to-Pass was my birthright, but I never raced until some friends and I were producing a film, cleverly titled hit 2 pass, about my

Photograph by Mark Salter Kodak Instant Camera

family’s involvement with the races, and we had to shoot some driver’s-eye footage of the race. My first day on the track was beautiful. After years of being a spectator, I was finally following my family’s one tradition and the sun was shining. Until it wasn’t; two hours in to my first race, I hit the wall in a gentle coast, about 50 kilometers an hour, and smashed my knee into the concretefilled driver’s door as my car (and I) slid down the divider between the track and the crowd. My car was totaled and my knee was shot.

The next day, my mechanic found a new axel and, miraculously, had my car up and running in time for the next race. My knee had swelled up at least two sizes overnight and walking was a very arduous chore.

“I really don’t want to race again today,” I mumbled to my dad that morning over coffee.

“That’s too bad son, ‘cause you’re gonna race.”

After my father’s gruesome accident, his response may seem a bit harsh. Growing up, my father made me work for him even if I was sick, and I credit my strong work ethic to watching and learning from my father. Everything I have, I have because my father worked for it, or I have it because he raised me to create what I wanted for myself.

Chastised, I did race. We needed more footage for the movie, and the only way to get it was for me to get back behind the wheel.

When the checkered flag dropped, I felt all the pain in my knee go away and I hit the pedal to the floor. My family and people I’ve never met cheered me on. As I careened around the track, I noticed a car coming up ahead of me and I could only think of one thing.

“Let’s trash it!”

ANG Photos by Kerria Gray Kodak Portra 400

FUNNY

ANG

AN INTERVIEW WITH NECKING Words by Michael Luis

It would be easy to glance at the artwork for Meditation Tape, the debut EP from Vancouver band Necking, and think that it’s the soundtrack to a children’s cartoon. After all, it features a girl in a rainbow sweater riding a pastel-pink horse. However, the record contains no goofy songs about hugs and sharing. The listener is instead blasted by 12 ferocious minutes of social and political punk fury. “I like to think of it as an angry message in a cute package,” jokes guitarist and visual artist Nada Hayek. “It’s a smaller pill to swallow.”

Hayek, drummer Melissa Kuipers, vocalist Hannah Kay, and bassist Sonya Rez have been playing as Necking since they formed in February 2017, and while their sharp riffs, shouted vocals, and overtly feminist lyrics channel riot grrrl pioneers such as Bikini Kill and Sleater-Kinney, the members will quickly tell you that the comparisons have grown stale. “Somebody came up to me and they said ‘I love your bass playing. Your basslines sound just like Sleater-Kinney basslines,’” says Rez. “[I said] ‘Thank you.’ And then I was like ‘Wait, Sleater-Kinney doesn’t have a bass player.’” They list contemporary Vancouver bands such as Puzzlehead, Jock Tears, and YEP as groups who are more directly inspirational.

The group has already planned a follow-up to Meditation Tape on Vancouver-based label Kingfisher Bluez and continue to book a steady stream of shows. I sat down with Necking to chat about music, humour, and feminism. Here are a few excerpts from our conversation: SAD MAG (SM)

As a band in the thick of the Vancouver DIY scene, I’m curious if you can tell me bit about it. Is the DIY scene thriving or really difficult?

MELISSA KUIPERS (MK)

"I think the DIY community—just because the spaces are so limited in Vancouver, we can’t even figure out housing, let alone places to socialize and play music and come together—is becoming really resourceful. It’s coming into spaces that you wouldn’t typically consider a “DIY space,” but the community is encroaching on these spaces and trying to make something of them, so I think that’s something that’s really cool.

HANNAH KAY (HK) The community is the people and not the spaces, so if we’re talking about the people then it’s absolutely lovely. All the people that we’ve met through this have been so wonderful and supportive.

22

SM I really enjoy the EP, Meditation Tape. My favourite aspect is that

there are these pissed-off political songs, but there’s also a great sense of humour, as well as the colourful artwork. Was that a conscious effort, combining serious topics with a sense of humour?

MK I think what we were aiming for was to deliver something punchy

and interesting that people will want to listen to and be able to dance and have fun and enjoy, but we’re also all funny angry people [laughs]. The way that we deliver our messages is the same way that we talk with each other. Coming together and being really pissed off and angry about something, but instead of screaming and crying about it, we make light of it, and still be able to talk about these things and have a sense of humour about them, which I think makes things a lot more accessible.

SM I want to move onto the political and feminist side of your lyrics and

message. With the #MeToo movement being so influential, do you think we’ll start to see a trend of more female representation in punk, rock, or even music at large?

MK I think this is a thing that’s been going on for a while, and Trump

being elected brought it into the mainstream maybe, but we can go far back into a number of different movements where women were using music as an opportunity to have a voice and share things that matter to them.

HK But now there is a big push that people want to hear it. People I think

are a lot more excited about these voices. I know I am, and I know a lot of people are who I talk to after shows.

MK I’ve heard so many times people think that bands with all white

dudes no longer need to exist. I think a lot of people are realizing that people who aren’t white men have talent and skill and they’re around and they’re making music. The fact that people are interested in listening is really cool.

HK We’ve just heard the white man’s story forever and I think people

are sick of it.

GRY

GRY PEOPLE

RARE VINTAGE

ADVENTURES IN THE WORLD OF VINTAGE CLOTHING

Words by Ashleigh Hawrysh Haier

I first walked into the vintage shop where I now work in the summer of 2015. Having no prior knowledge of vintage clothing or anything modestly cool, for that matter, my new workplace was unlike anything I’d experienced before. The store was filled with enchanting retro patterns and countless “just right” jeans; perfectly soft band tees were plentiful and lived-in flannels stuffed the space. I eagerly worked my way up from being a common sales wench to being the “momager” (a manager who cares too much). I dove head first into the abyss that is vintage clothing.

Hailing from Winnipeg, where the only vintage clothing shops were basically just antique stores that took donations from dead people, the Vancouver vintage scene ushered me into a brave new world. I learned about deadstock (considered to be new vintage); Canadiana (Americana, just better); vintage picking (the art of sorting through heaps of shit to find the good shit) and how lucrative the vintage world could be.

Spending my work life submerged in what I consider to be wearable history was a dream come true.

Vintage clothes are part of the past, but the industry is constantly changing. Regularly, confused customers would say to me, “but I thought this was a vintage shop?”, after browsing what was mostly

24

After managing a vintage shop for two years, I set out to see the frontline of the vintage realm with my own eyes. The first time I walked into a rag house, my jaw dropped. A rag house is where copious amounts of clothing, from all over the world, go to find a new home—a recycling depot for textiles. It was like some Lovecraftian dystopia—soaring industrial ceilings; cold cement walls with cracks you could walk into and the most deranged array of clothing I had ever seen. Everywhere people sorted through heaps of clothing, everyone looking for that “holy grail” item to bring back to a vintage shop and sell. These people are called vintage pickers, and they move mountains of clothing every day.

To the average person, the illusion is that the clothes come directly to a vintage store, but the reality is that we seek them out. Based on trends, requests, and the vibe of whatever vintage shop they work for, pickers hunt down specific brands and styles. They usually do this before most of us are even awake. It is only after store owners receive exactly what they have asked for that a great vintage shop begins to take shape.

At the end of the day, running any type of vintage shop (be it virtual or tangible) is hard. There is a complex ecosystem behind all your favourite vintage stores and a lot of hardworking people who really care about rescuing the clothes someone else threw away. But vintage is a two-way street; for all the hard work and fruitless searching, the thrill of finding a forgotten treasure more than makes up for it. It’s the best job I’ve ever had.

Illustration by Cynthia Tranvo

But that is not to say there was not a honeymoon phase, and that this period eventually ended. I came to realize that, as much as I loved it, vintage clothing was a tough gig. This new life meant spending hours upon hours at work, luckily with people I came to see as family: co-workers, bosses, and stylists who loved the fortuitous world of vintage. This felt like more than just an occupational requirement, we were exploring new identities through old clothing. It takes dedication, but the right people can breathe life into forgotten clothing.

We were those people. Before I knew it, this dynamic was working backwards too; surrounding myself with old clothes revived my life.

late '80s and early '90s duds. Vintage is considered to be anything 20 years old or older. Hence, the bewilderment of folks my parents age, who expect vintage shops to carry clothing from the '50s or '60s. Trends in the vintage world reflect mainstream fashion trends. Right now, the '90s are huge, and the most coveted vintage finds are mostly things my dad wore when I was growing up, like Tommy Hilfiger and Ralph Lauren.

IT TAKES A VALUE VILLAGE

A JOURNEY THROUGH VANCOUVER’S THRIFTING LANDSCAPE Words by Keagan Perlette There’s nothing more satisfying than telling someone “I found it at Value Village!” Shopping the VV Boutique is like being an alchemist: turning one person’s trash into your very own treasure. In the last few years, Value Village—the Canadian extension of the US company Savers—has become a point of class intersection and contention, something we can’t ignore as we journey through four of the Lower Mainland’s thrifting meccas. There’s a difference between choosing to shop at VV and needing to shop there. Regardless of which end you’re on, let this be your guide to finding the things you need, stuff you want, and items you didn’t even think anyone would ever actually own.

EAST HASTINGS 1820 EAST HASTINGS

This is the Value Village where it all goes down. It looks like Boxing Day, every day. If you were to put a timelapse camera on this location, you’d get some kind of beautiful, multicoloured used-item tide washing in and out of the store. Good shit I’ve found here includes a really swanky black slip, handmade in Canada, and a pair of Aldo loafers in mostly good shape that don’t even pinch my feet. This is the convenience store of thrifting: it’s got everything you need but not necessarily exactly what you want. If something good rolls in, it might fall into your lucky hands, but it’s more likely to get snapped up by the many regular shoppers. Come here for the fleecy embroidered sweaters and stay for the plethora of large Rubbermaid containers and the robust selection of handbags. It’s important to remember this location serves a vulnerable low-income community, so while you’re hunting through the racks, take some time to think about your privilege.

VICTORIA DRIVE 6415 VICTORIA DRIVE

One of my deepest regrets is turning to IKEA to furnish my own household when I first moved out. If I’d only known of the fabulous homewares section at this Value Village; for Don Draper-esque crystal liquor decanters, a great set of plates, perfectly tarnished silverware, or a zodiac sign mug, this is the place to go. I myself have scored a three-piece set of Pyrex mixing bowls here and considered purchasing a fantastic set of handmade stoneware mugs. Among the oddities in stock at this location are a Pope John Paul II chalice and a pair of dolphin earrings that make it look like the flippered friends are jumping through your earlobes. There’s also a primo selection of men’s outerwear, suit jackets, and blazers. The clothing selection is eclectic and rife with hidden gems, from party dresses to '90s windbreakers. The accessories section is the most organized and comprehensive of any of the locations I visited. The book section has a great collection of sci-fi and fantasy, as well as books that can be a little hard to find in more selective used bookstores (attn: fans of Oprah’s Book Club).

GRANVILLE 8240 GRANVILLE AVE

This VV Boutique is a great neighborhood joint, fun for the whole family. Tucked into a cove of apartment buildings, the shelves are stocked with modern wares, the flotsam of waves of people moving in and out of the nearby rental units. The impressive display of used manga is what really got me excited about entering this location. Past the bookshelves, an array of foot baths tucked in with wine glasses and champagne flutes— enough to stock a cruise ship—comprises the housewares section. The majority of the shoes at this location ran smaller than at the other spots (even many of the size nines and up ran a little narrow) so if you have trouble thrifting small shoes, this is a great place to score pretty '80s era pumps and other adorable styles in really good condition. This is also a great place to find pieces from across the Pacific. I found a truly adorable navalstyle jacket in red, too bad it was for a seven-year-old. I did score a black braided belt—one of my longtime “holy grail” items—and a friend picked up a truly beautiful and outrageous red velvet handbag with acrylic tortoiseshell rings for handles.

NEW WEST 1135 TANAKA COURT

Upon arriving at this location, you will be greeted by the uncanny, sightless gaze of several oddly posed, peachfleshed mannequins, but don’t let that deter you. This location has all the suburban charm of a regular Winners or TJ Maxx. The racks of clothing are extremely tidy and easy to peruse. Expect to find basics here, maybe some good old Patagonia sweaters or a solid pair of American Eagle jeans. Like the Richmond location, this Value Village has a lot of newer items, so if you’re looking to score clothes from the high street at lower prices, take a look here. Standout stock includes an almost full maple dining set complete with swivel bar chairs and a hidden cache of saris stocked incorrectly in the Bed & Bath section. I found a lot of joy going through the incredible selection of outerwear vests while mouthing the words to “Oops I Did It Again,” playing overhead and swiftly followed by more outdated pop hits. This store is where holiday decor comes to die, so if you need a pumpkinshaped cookie jar in July, or need a tree topper STAT, this is the place to get it.

DEAR JOHN

A LOVE LETTER TO JOHN WATERS, CINEMA’S POPE OF TRASH Words by Sarah Bakke

Ah, John. Sweet, egregious John. Bless you for entering my life at a time when all seemed strange and uninspired. As I spent my final high school days in a haze of melancholic confusion and hereditary depression—why was everything so hard? Who could I turn to? Where had my spunk, my verve, gone? You spoke through the fog, straight into my heart. You, the Prince of Puke, knocking at my door in spite of all my shortcomings.

You, smiling your pencil-moustache smile. Warm was the glow of trailer park trash fire on my midnight TV screen, and for this I am thankful.

A friend of mine tells me that John Waters saved him. Or, saved his soul from the black pit of suburban decay, you might say. After reading about Waters’ films in a book of cult cinema—a biblical text, so professes my friend—he sought out early titles with fervency, eventually finding VHS copies of Pink Flamingos and Desperate Living. “I think I watched them both that night, twice each,” he says. So began an infatuation.

Another close pal reveals to me the early days of John Waters’ influence.

Hairspray screened frequently on television in the years after it came out, and my friend could not get enough. He drank it in; the updos, the fuzz of both blues guitar and crappy '80s cable connection, the cakey make-up.

A wonderfully sleazy spark had been lit. A few years later, Serial Mom entered theatres, and it replaced Hairspray as top tier Waters on my friend’s list. He’s watched it at least 50 times. To him, John Waters is a fellow outsider and a role model. “His cinema has always been a reactionary cinema,” he says. “He was punk before punk.” I ask my friend to describe the importance of Waters as a filmmaker, and he gives an inspired answer: “He’s found value in things that other people wouldn’t. He’s looking in the gutter and finding treasure—he makes the gutter glamorous.”

“HE’S FOUND VALUE IN THINGS THAT OTHER PEOPLE WOULDN’T. HE’S LOOKING IN THE GUTTER AND FINDING TREASURE —HE MAKES THE GUTTER GLAMOROUS.”

26

She believes that John is much, much more than just a handful of wild and disgusting shticks committed to film. “When people consider him to be the pope of trash, I just think it’s really interesting, because he doesn’t represent that to me. In the last half of his life he’s been a cultural critic, a writer, and a cultural figure—he’s sardonic. Honest to god, I think that I separate his films from all the other stuff that he’s associated with, because he’s such a high-brow elite. He’s like, Oscar Wilde-ian, for God’s sake!”

John Waters names one of his creative inspirations from childhood as the Wicked Witch of the West from The Wizard of Oz. I can certainly see shades of the Wicked Witch in Divine’s Dawn Davenport; Dawn cackles possessively over cha-cha heels, the Witch over Dorothy’s ruby slippers.

And is Desperate Living not simply a tale of following the Yellow Brick Road, but into fantastic filth rather than prosperity? John also tells of earlier days when his mother would take him to survey junkyard remnants of car crashes, the wreckage and proof of death an alluring sight for his young eyes. Whether or not these quips are true (he tells them frequently, with a well-rehearsed tone of amusement), I still believe they speak clearly of his life-long devotion to debauchery and subversion. John was always destined for high heights of savvy social commentary—those mangled cars were the delusions of modern propriety come undone, and he could see it clearly. What the respectable public might regard as corrupt, putrid, and indecent, John sees as worthy of prestige. He’ll laugh at your discomfort, he’ll grin at your unease, and he’ll guide you through a dark passage of filth so as to bask in the light of all that is forbidden, if you let him.

We’re all mere subjects in the Prince of Puke’s court.

Just the other day, as I was walking in the sunlight, I saw a dead skunk spread out on the sidewalk. It was in one piece and looked to be freshly departed—I could only just see blood mixed in with the curb’s mud. At first, I recoiled, and turned away from the mess and the stink. But then I thought of you, dear John.

Illustration by Nada Hayek

Surely you are aware of how charming you are? How sly your sense of humour? That clip of you on Letterman in the spring of 1982, the one in which you describe beauty as “looks that you can never forget,” sticks in my brain. Your monologue on the difference between “good” bad taste and “bad” bad taste was enlightening. You argued that “good” bad taste must induce creative nausea. I agree, John—I really do. Your insistent charisma tells me it must be the truth. I re-watched Pink Flamingos just the other evening and waited for the sick wave to hit. When it did —quickly, and ferociously—I tried my best to remember you, sitting in Letterman’s chair, talking about grotesque beauty as if it were the light of your genius life. It must burn brightly, because as I slouched between my bedsheets, my pajama shorts riding unceremoniously up my butt crack, covered in sugar from a packet of sour gummy worms, I felt wonderful.

Yet another friend of mine (I have such excellent friends) boasts of a strong love of John Waters and his many oddities. She recently spent some time in Portland, and on Valentine’s Day attended “A Date with John Waters”; his touring “spoken word” show, during which he tells jokes and funny anecdotes for adoring crowds, while also ruminating intelligently about “the muses that persist through all of his career.” My friend described Waters’ appeal as stemming from a closeness to his audience and a willingness to speak candidly, but also astutely. (During the show he apparently made a joke about Marcel Duchamp’s Nude Descending Staircase—talk about high-brow smut.) She re-tells one of his anecdotes, about how he had been sued by people after they misguidedly watched Pink Flamingos with their kids, thinking it would be a family affair similar to 1988’s Hairspray. These folks had no case, obviously. I wonder if they managed to watch the entire film, to its end. Who’s to say when their righteous anger bubbled up to a boiling point? I’d like to think it was Divine’s nasty grin as she gobbled up fresh canine poop. The incident stuck with John, because it once again proved how representative a single image can be. He’ll never fade into obscurity thanks to that dog’s droppings, but he’ll never outlive it, either. “No one had ever eaten dog shit on camera before. And he knows that it’s what he’s known for, even still today—the shit-eating movie,” my friend says, somewhat sadly.

Photos by Christoph Prevost

Kodak Portra 160

Kodak Portra 160

IT HAS NOT YET BEEN A YEAR SINCE #METOO BECAME A WORLDWIDE MOVEMENT, SET OFF BY HARVEY WEINSTEIN’S CHAIN OF CRIMES AGAINST WOMEN. WATCHING EVENTS UNFOLD HAS BEEN INTENSE—HEARTS BREAK WORLDWIDE AS EMERGING VOICES SHARE THEIR EXPERIENCES OF SEXUAL VIOLATION. THE MOVEMENT HAS STIRRED UP ANGER, CONTROVERSY, DISBELIEF, AND EVEN DOUBT. THE BACKLASH OF TRAUMA AND HURT, THE DESIRE FOR VENGEANCE, AND THE DEBATE OVER HOW TO HEAL HAS COMBUSTED INTO AN INTERSECTIONAL BATTLE: US VERSUS THEM. It’s a time of reckoning in our society. It can seem as if the cultural conversation is a repetitive one—everything comes back to patriarchy and the subtle ways women are wronged by the status quo.

Even popular movies and television are ruminations on patriarchy: to wit, The Handmaid ’s Tale, a television series adapted from Canadian literary badass Margaret Atwood’s novel. The Handmaid ’s Tale follows the story of June, a woman trapped in a militarized, patriarchal society.

In this new regime, being a woman carries unbearable consequences and

32

telling the truth is unfathomable. Atwood’s story is a work of speculative fiction depicting a dystopian future. The term “fiction” is misleading, however, since Atwood doesn’t invent any scenarios. She takes historical phenomena, experiences, and practices from different corners of the world, rearranges them, and builds a world around them. The result is an image of frightening familiarity for many viewers; June’s is a world that does not seem so far from our own.

However, there is one glaring difference between the '80s novel-turnedTV show and today’s world: social media.

Women have been waiting for so long to be heard. The empowerment in telling one’s story and receiving immediate support on social media could alleviate the loneliness of one’s situation, turning pain to activated anger, a galvanizing emotion for activism. However, navigating through the dangers and consequences of the #MeToo era without a template can have unwelcome consequences for women who want to be heard.

Defamation, once an esoteric term, is popping up in conversations everywhere, virtual and IRL. Defamation is an action that damages the reputation of someone, in the forms of slander (verbal statements) and libel (written, print)—and it’s perilous water one can unknowingly wade into, especially in the age of social media. Oftentimes folks are simply looking to share their stories in a safe and supportive place, but the desire for solace can put them further at risk, at times for legal action.

It’s a catch-22. If you call out someone in media, they, too, gain the right to accuse you of defaming them. By speaking out against an abuser to the media and on social media platforms before having legal protection,

many women find themselves in a vulnerable position. It’s important to think about your platform and audience: who’s listening to, writing on, or broadcasting your incident? If you wish to report an abuser, remember that the current media system isn’t necessarily interested in helping you; they are here because of your story.

It’s easy to see the appeal of calling out an abuser on social media or to media outlets; it channels anger and provides immediate empowerment, and sometimes, relief. The danger is in forgetting that, as your story gets published, shared, and debated, it is also being documented. Your story can take on a life of its own and become fodder for others to discuss and scrutinize.

As unpredictable as it may be, social media is always available; while to many, legal help seems intimidating and unaffordable. People turn to social media because it’s immediate, free, and support is crowdsourced; however, there are also dedicated individuals working to make legal advice more accessible. Provincial law societies often have a lawyer referral service where the first hour or half hour is free or of a minimal charge.

Many law schools also have free legal clinics and many arts alliances have relationships with lawyers or law firms who will consult for a minimal fee or even free of charge.

I spoke to Daniyah Angel Sh, a racialized and non-binary professional in the music and nightlife scene in Vancouver. Angel Sh has been vocal with her observations of abuse for the past two years, pointing out such “low level” offences as lineups composed of only cis male performers. Over this period of time, she admits, it’s become harder for her to get gigs and she finds herself more susceptible to victim-blaming. Angel Sh is a survivor of trauma. When asked to elaborate on how her experiences have shaped her, she positively responds: “I do what I can to empower myself to resolve

issues, take initiatives, and support myself in getting the justice I need.

I use my experience to support other folks.”

As a queer person of colour working intimately with the queer community in addition to her personal experience as a survivor, Angel Sh understands the benefits of social media as a refuge for isolated victims and a place to expose patterns of misconduct. Beyond the realm of social media, she believes there are ways to resolve issues on a community level. Referencing certain event organizers, such as Eirinn Morgian and Samantha Marie Nock of Poetry Is Bad For You, she lauds the ways hosts can demonstrate care to their audience and tend to the possibility of their events being a space where attendees’ abusers could be present.

Angel Sh stresses the importance of event organizers being mindful of the safety of their event and space. Having a transparent process of how a sensitive situation would be handled is a good start, for instance agreeing to acknowledge and taking seriously all complaints. Well-executed management gives strength to attendants and collective faith in the possibility of creating safe, accountable spaces to enjoy as a community.

In 2018, conflicts, confrontations, and wars are made online. The door has opened for dialogue and free speech, and all kinds of stories are charging through. Social media is that door. Wide open for all.

Although the public space of the internet may not always feel supportive, it remains a cord that connects us. Rest in knowing there are people out there who leverage their positions of power to help others. Rest in available free legal consultations. Rest in knowing there are folks out there being loud and proud of what they have ceased to tolerate. Echoing Angel Sh: “normalize solidarity, normalize accountability.” Speak up for the greater good. Cause a row. Take care of each other by taking care of yourself.

Illustration by Erick M Ramos

TRASH FACTOR WHY WE LOVE TO HATE WWE Words by Jackson Weaver

In dance, you call an unpointed foot a dead fish, an ankle turned out during a pirouette is sickled.

If you watch a ballerina’s arm go out during second position, over her head in fourth, it moves like a wave.

Dancers interpret the music, and tell a story with their bodies; they are self-possessed and beautiful. That’s art. Not only art, it’s high art.

And now I’m going to talk to you about wrestling.

Professional wrestling of the kind advocated by World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc. (WWE) is a world unto itself. Like the world of dance, where I spent 12 years sampling genres and challenging the limits of endurance, professional wrestling gathers fervent, devoted fans and is largely incomprehensible to outsiders. Most of us are tangentially aware of professional wrestling; on occasion, the spectacle bubbles over into the mainstream, as a punchline or an unfortunate addition to a “real” story — like the tragic one of Chris Benoit.

Beginning as an offshoot of amateur wrestling, professional wrestling became increasingly focused on theatrics during the early days of television.

Still, the advent of professional wrestling in the early 1950s was a more streamlined affair, focused mostly on fixing the outcomes of matches, rather than elaborate storylines associated with them.

WWE as we know it began as a consolidation of many smaller leagues and changed its name about as often as it changed its roster, finally

34

settling on WWE after the World Wildlife Foundation fought them on it (in court). The name change ushered in a new era of professional wrestling, right around the time it stopped being entirely about wrestling.

Fierce competition between wrestling leagues in the '90s pushed the WWE into more theatrics, and from it wrestling celebrities were born: Andre the Giant, a 7 ft. 4 French actor who went on to star in The Princess Bride; The Mystery Man, who never fought a match of his own, but instead crashed matches in progress and beat up, at random, one of the two combatants; “The Mountie”, a Quebecois antagonist dressed as a Canadian Mountie, whose ridiculous theme song boasted the uninspired title, I’m the Mountie; and—of course—Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, whose cross-over success has far eclipsed anything anyone could accept from a WWE wrestler.

As a former dancer contemplating WWE, I share the perplexed curiosity of most non-fans. I’m driven to compare it to dance, my point of reference in the world of athletic pursuits. But, mapping the points where dance and wrestling diverge becomes confusing. Expecting deviation, one finds parallels. Increasingly, the difference between dancing and wrestling comes to look like a matter more of reputation than reality.

Wrestling rivals The Undertaker and Mankind duking it out on top of a giant, chain-link cage has become an eternal meme, while I was expected to celebrate postmodern choreographer Trisha Brown’s “dance,” wherein she donned a harness and walked down the side of a building. Most people scoff when Hulk Hogan enters a stadium to Real American by Rick Derringer, then nod deep in thought to John Cage breaking wine bottles and hitting the interior of a piano with a hammer in modern dance icon Merce Cunningham’s choreography.

I can’t argue the fact that wrestling goes over the top, but every day I walked into a dance class and learned we would be ripping up newspapers, it made me wonder what made dance high art and wrestling something else.

So why isn’t wrestling taken seriously? The sport has been subjected to height of derision few other art forms have, primarily the highschoolish offence known as “being fake.”

There’s a term in wrestling that defines all the fakery, all the fictional aspects, called kayfabe. This means every insult, every chair throw, every glowering look put on to get the audience excited, interested, and involved. Kayfabe means everything fake, essentially, everything

that makes wrestling trash. The commitment to kayfabe is mocked by outsiders who watch wrestling but revered by insiders.

The moments when wrestlers lose kayfabe and, for an instant, break character, are few and far between. Wrestlers are as committed to their performance as any great actor, or dancer.

Many of us view professional wrestling as the easily derided arena of boobs and idiots who, for whatever reason, can’t tell that it’s fake.

The truth is, no one believes in the fable, but people want stories.

They want excitement and distraction, and wrestling—like music, TV, movies, and books—gives it. But wrestling fans are disdained for enjoying the fiction, while other forms of performance are celebrated for it.

Fakery and fiction is the cornerstone of every art form. I can say, from every dance class I’ve ever taken, from every performance I’ve ever done, there’s really no difference between a choreographed fight and a ballet solo.

Dance is an art because we call it that. Professional wrestling is a trashy world all its own. I have a suspicion, though, that “high art” might be the ultimate kayfabe.

IS RECYCL A GARBAG SYSTEM? A BAN ON EXPORTING RECYCLABLES FORCES CANADIANS TO CONFRONT OVERCONSUMPTION

Words by Claire Atkin

36

LING GE

I kind of hate recycling. It’s so important but seems to miss the point.

You probably know what I mean. Our level of consumption is messed up.

We use fossil fuels—a finite resource to anyone outside of Alberta—to make plastic that we use for a finite length of time. Then, we bury it in an otherwise pristine part of the world. We are told the only thing we can do to “help” is to buy less stuff and recycle better.

It never seems like enough.

Last year I worked with ReCollect, a Vancouver tech company that sells recycling communications software to municipalities. Over 50 million people have access to ReCollect’s recycling software. Cities really want residents to recycle correctly.

According to ReCollect’s waste communications specialist Ryan Buhay, there are three big reasons people recycle: “If you ask people who are adamant about it, they’ll often tell you “it’s the right thing to do,” he says.

“They don’t really know why, but they know it says something morally about them. Then, there are those who are environmentally minded,” he says “and they usually want to save natural resources, and use recycled instead of raw resources.”

Lastly, he says, “there are those who understand one fundamental economic truth of the solid waste industry: landfills are really expensive.” Our waste has to go somewhere, and it costs a lot more than you might think to put it in the ground.

The recycling system in Canada is complicated. Sorting centres—called “Material Recovery Facilities”—require people to sit at conveyor belts sorting through the things we throw into the blue bin. It’s a difficult, physically taxing—and stinky—job.

Unfortunately, in January of this year, things got even more complicated.

In the past, we’ve bundled up our recyclables and sent them to China, where they are sorted and turned into other things, or thrown into landfills.

The allowable contamination rate in these bundles used to be 5%. That means that if you had a bale of plastic, and 4.9% of it was something that wasn’t plastic (like metal, paper, random garbage), they’d take it.

That allowable contamination rate, as of January, has dropped to 0.5%.

This is a big problem; the sorting systems we rely on in Canada use a combination of machines and people. They cannot work to that precision without severely slowing down the system.

Ultimately, this so-called “China Ban” is probably a good thing. We shouldn’t be so reliant on foreign markets for getting rid of our materials.

For one thing, it’s our garbage; carting it across the ocean and forgetting about it isn’t a great strategy. This uses tanker fuel to fill up foreign landfills — it’s unsustainable, and a jerk move.

Overconsumption is the obvious culprit of our trash woes, which makes me cynical about recycling. So I asked Ryan, straight out: “is recycling bullshit?”

He laughed. “Yeah, I’ve dealt with that question a lot. Recycling, despite not being enough, is integral to relieving our landfill systems. It’s not bullshit.”

What else can we do? There’s no surprise here: stop making so much trash in the first place.

Artwork by Lesley Anderson

He believes we should all do our best to better understand the system; we must clean out our containers, because people have to deal with them down the line, and not throw non-recyclables into the recycling bin.

“People have to touch them,” he told me, “and if you do that, it’s like you’re throwing that piece of garbage directly at them.”

38

LIF E’ S LEMON

by Lesli Brownlee

On Sunday mornings my wilted ambitions get sorted. Oil in compost begets rats.

Sort plastic waste from fuzzy spaghetti Lax with the vegetables been I. And fruit not yet rotten? Drained of life force.

Tsk-tsking in the head as lemon, lone in a last-minute escape, hits the floor to be, scintillatingly citrusy clean.

Puffs of lemon flavored dreams scent the air actualized, sprung from the crisper at last.

Step on me, squish me, what juice have I left life’s lemon rolls underfoot and oozes into pulp, to disinfect the grime’s muse.

Artwork by Pamella Pinard

Food in the trash illegal 2015.

G A R B A G E

D U T Y

Illustration by Jenny Ritter

THE ENDURING MYSTERY OF RESTAURANT GARBAGE Words by Jenni Capps

When I started working in food service almost ten years ago, I knew taking out the trash was part of the job. No big deal. Stack the cardboard out back, everything else goes in its designated receptacle. Styrofoam, paper, plastic, pour some syrup on the coffee grinds and top it off with the abandoned mittens from the lost-and-found. Sometimes a cook would throw an entire broom or mop, apparently expired, into the bin.

I felt guilty at first, about all the mingling. What would my electric bike-riding, Ziploc-washing mom think of this concoction?

What I had no way of knowing was how many unexpected objects I would discover while handling the trash. Kitchen, front end, bathroom, dumpster—each receptacle is unique and yields different surprises. So does each genre of restaurant. Currently, I work the breakfast shift at a diner where the cracked brown-and-green vinyl seats are repaired with packing tape, and the bills are carbon copies of your order, handwritten in kitchen code. We’re almost always packed, and I understand how the anonymous white noise of a busy diner can make it feel like the perfect place to ditch something. It’s also easy to leave things behind accidentally or leave them garbage-adjacent for me to come across.

To be clear, it’s not that I’m actively digging through crumpled Sysco paper products. Some things just jump out at you. Like a deflated pool ring, a potted palm (rescued and currently thriving), or a massive screenplay for a Vancouver Island shark thriller. Other things are subtle, requiring a second look. A tiny shimmer could be a gold charm, a foreign coin, or a minuscule Calico cat figurine, treasure that makes me feel like a pirate when I pocket it.

I once found an unassuming envelope that held family photos from the 1960s—dark-haired parents and their children posing at the northernmost tip of Scotland (a customer recognized the landscape). My manager laughed when I kept them, but I felt obligated to save the nameless family

from the landfill. Nobody came looking for the pictures. Perhaps these family members were let go for a reason.

The unpleasant items are less surprising: syringes, bodily fluids, diapers for kids and adults, conspicuously stained clothing. A certain amount of desensitization occurs over time, though there are things I wish I could un-see. These two repulsive sightings occurred on the same Thursday: a pair of women’s underwear, innocuous floral blue, quite literally full of shit and a coupon with a proposition, given earlier that day to my 15-year-old co-worker, “Valid For 1 Free Moustache Ride.” The moustache in question looked like a wilted tarantula, embarrassed to be involved.

Shock value depends somewhat on the context of the establishment.

If I had been working in a bar the day I found an empty 40oz of Bacardi in the bathroom, it wouldn’t have been worth mentioning. At 9 am on a Wednesday in a quietly pretentious café, however, the empty bottle left me with a number of questions, none of which were ever answered.

Each place I’ve worked had their own garbage procedures. It isn’t unheard of for a particularly thrifty boss to ask that employees dump the contents of one garbage can into another. This saves one bag for another use, or another week, however long they feel they need to get their money’s worth.

It also greatly facilitates the finding of garbage treasures. Jewelry, drugs, and undelivered (or unappreciated) love notes have all been found this way.

Many of these things may have simple explanations, but I like to reflect on the profound amount of chance involved in these objects ending up in front of me. I’m no dumpster-diving freegan, but I will suggest this: If you’re responsible for the trash at your neighbourhood greasy spoon or coffee shop, try taking a closer look the next time you tie up the day’s bags of miscellany. It might be your lucky garbage day.

WHEN YOU THINK ROMANCE, YOU THINK THE HEAVYWEIGHTS—YOUR DANIELLE STEELS, YOUR NORA ROBERTSES, YOUR LADY HUMAN WHO WROTE ALL THOSE INCREDIBLE 50 SHADES. WHEN THOSE ARE THE BEST… WHAT COULD POSSIBLY BE THE WORST? WHAT DIDN’T MAKE THE CUT? WE PRESENT TO YOU:

REJECTED

ROMANCE NOVELS

FOR LITERATURE’S TRASHIEST GENRE, IS ANYTHING TOO TRASHY? Words by Rachel Burns

LANEWAY LOVER

50 SHADES OF BEIGE

Sarah Dippity had it all—a large character home on the West side, a rolling 20 foot lawn, a cyan 2017 Honda CRV. Or so it seemed.

Her workaholic husband was never home to taste the fruits of his tireless labour—or her Lagree West© toned abs. Sarah knew better than to lease their shiny new laneway home to strapping young Zeke, for well below market value, especially when new rent control measures were looming in the not-so-distant future. Would she risk giving up everything— her grossly inflated rental income, her robotic marriage, her sporty, yet practical crossover SUV, her unlimited Lagree West© membership —for what was sure to be nothing more than a f ixed-term romance?

Lydia was a high-powered HR Director. She had it all: the corner office, the unlimited Nespresso pods, and access to the highest levels of power— in every sense of the word—at BC Hydro. Yet somehow, she yearned for more. When Steve, a linesman, popped into her office one day to discuss his impending layoff, she suddenly saw more to him than just hot, burly “human capital.” Could she lose everything—the yearly potlucks, comfortable indexed pension, and fully adjustable office chair she had to steal from Brenda’s office—all for a man she just met? Keeping him in her life meant keeping him on payroll: she was one record of employment away from making all her visions and values (ie: dreams) come true.

He was so beautiful, so desperate—he would do anything to get the key —not only to Sarah’s heart—but also to her tastefully renovated 300 square foot suite of sin. He had no qualms about what he was doing—the rental market was tight, and about to get tighter. This was his last chance to squeeze his way into—and repeatedly out of—what promised to be an extremely sticky situation...

Steve loved being a linesman. He enjoyed the open air, great paycheque, and friendly camaraderie from his colleagues. When faced with impending layoffs looming from outsourcing and automation, he knew he had to do something—or someone—fast. Begging for his job wasn’t something he thought he could muster, but when he saw Lydia’s soft, yet confident, shoulder pads, he knew it was something he might just get used to…

42

on a short leash

Bones Pedigree was the hottest celebrity dog trainer in town. Fluffy, snarly, or downright rabid—if he couldn’t tame them, no one could.

That was until Miranda Honeybee made an entrance on the scene… with plenty of treats—and tricks—up her sleeve. Sure, Bones could get her pampered Puggles to sit and her classy Cockadoodles to heel.

But could he get Miranda to… stay? mansplain my heart

Illustrations by Alex Joukov

ALSO, LOOK FOR THESE UPCOMING TITLES: swipe alt - right

A modern Tinder tale of politicized intrigue. temporary foreign lover

He could work a double night shift, but could he work it all night? another land assembly

( in

my pants )

As the newest unpaid intern at a shady, South-end startup, Gillian Codesalot was ready to tackle the world. But how to get ahead… when every piece of unsolicited advice her male colleagues gave her just keep pushing her hot buttons (and the binary) forward.

What goes up… must come down.

NAMASTE THE NIGHT

FOOD DORA

Evan was a rockstar yoga teacher, attracting thousands of Instagram followers with his seductive shoulders, well-appointed Rumi quotes and intricate knowledge of the mula bandha (energy lock located in the perineum). Also, you could sometimes see the outline of his penis through his 30% spandex 70% cotton, intentionally too-small, slightly chafing yoga pants. Sleeping with nubile students on the daily had become an enjoyable, yet predictable chore for him… that was, until he met Cindy.

Dora could navigate her way through anything—winding streets, honking traffic—but could she navigate the human heart? Delivering food to rich businessmen at lunch time had become a little thrill; the way they barely acknowledged her before grabbing overpriced bento boxes out of her plastic folding box made her rain-soaked MEC jacket heavy, with both perspiration, and a burning appetite for more. When she met Greg, Vancouver’s’ #1 personal injury lawyer with rock hard abs, it wasn’t exactly love at first sight. She knew he had gotten at least three drivers off for hitting bike couriers, most of whom were still in hospital.

But still, the way the light hit his eyes as he looked almost through her… she felt something start to shift…

Cindy knew she shouldn’t sleep with Evan—he was known not to be practicing brahmacharya (yogic celibacy), and whispers in all of the yoga Facebook groups claimed that he had a form of chlamydia even turmeric couldn’t cure. As the asana adjustments came harder, faster, and more frequently, she knew she could no longer deny the attraction—or his burning desire. In her heart chakra, she felt torn: she knew she could change Evan for the better… if only she hadn’t been yurt before…

Greg noticed Dora when she walked by—a total hot mess, coming straight in from the rain. At first, he thought he could use her to get intel on the bourgeoning hit-and-run market, but something inside of him wanted more.

As they shared popular bike routes—and eye contact—over stolen takeout, Greg felt that something real was wheely happening…

CONTAINER RECLAIMER Words by Gory Little

Unused, unfunctional, unaware. A slick patch of decomposing detritus.

The Reclaimer, a humanoid puppet of chrome, steps into this filth and observes with its single, unblinking, glass lens. Stretched across the lumpfester hills are pale abscesses that fill the air with rancid fumes.

The Reclaimer prepares to scavenge what can be salvaged as the Salvage Moon rises over the mire. It must find whatever Things can be of use to it during its long, lonesome mission; and send away what might benefit those far away in the struggling deep space colonies. The Machine and its neighbours are carried by hand to the laboratory. When they are safely contained from further damage, the Reclaimer returns with a great, chugging suction tool. With this, the masses of rot are sucked through a filter and separated into two parts, roughrot and softrot. Pale, jelly-like softrot drops with wet slaps into a translucent receptacle. A rare, uplifting frond of green is suddenly visible floating within. The receptacle seals with a gentle hiss and the Reclaimer tucks it away. Roughrot is in a pile nearby, stinking and shining with moisture. Porcelain shards gleam in the grey light and fibres weave inclines and divots through the roughrot bundle.

These are homogenized rapidly.. The porcelain is washed of rot and hung to dry like pale ornaments. Next, the cords are taken and looped into frayed coils. The Reclaimer finds another source of terrible decay wrapped within. An Unfathomable Fruit sits in a bilious puddle and writhes as it excretes offensive fumes, accelerating all nearby decay. This is taken warily and stored in a dark recess of the laboratory. The Reclaimer hikes across the nearly bare earth, scanning one last time for anything dropped or

44

The time has come to imbue the salvage with use, to strip it of nonfunction and repair it anew. The first is the jellyrot which is introduced to rich soil and placed in a plot in the laboratory’s greenchamber. Its pale brown looks barren alongside the blooming crops, but this mixture is full of the potential for growth. The Galvanoil, too small an amount to be of use, is then sent to the resource-synthesizing station many lightyears away. In time, it will be copied and more will be fabricated, then returned.

An expensive process, the Reclaimer pays by sacrificing its time and extending its sentence. More time in the filth means more salvage for the colonies. The frayed cords are put through an unweaver which takes it apart fibre by fibre. The porcelain is reduced to dust. In this time, the Reclaimer turns to the Machine. It clatters unceasingly on its shelf.

With careful tools and steady hands some gears are unbent and wires unfrayed. It quiets minutely, as if in relief in response to the repairs.

When the porcelain and cords have been rendered to their most basic parts it is time for the synthestrengthening process. Consolidating, they will be more than they were when the process is complete. There is little else to do but puzzle over the Machine and the Mechanism. The Fruit is ignored until the Galvanoil arrives.

*

Time is rusty and slow as it passes. The Reclaimer tends to the greenchamber and waits anxiously for progress. There is nothing for a very long time. At last, fragile shoots of pale green peek out from the soil. Their growth is slow but steady. The synthestrengthening finishes its course. The results are uplifting as the porcelain is now more than strong enough to carry the densely woven fibres. The puzzle of the Mechanism is built piece by piece until the Reclaimer finds a hopeful solution. The metallic pipes temper red-hot and gently reshape. When they cool they click inside the Mechanism with satisfaction. This new and whole Thing takes in the wind and produces a lovely sound like a deep purr. Finally, the additional Galvanoil arrives. The Reclaimer plans.

It works tirelessly on a way to salvage the Unfathomable Fruit. A way to reverse the decay is an ethereal dream. The Reclaimer builds upon this dream until a theory emerges. Days are consumed by weeks, and those in turn by months. At last, all that can be done is test this theory in a risky gamble. There is just enough Galvanoil for the test. There is nothing left to be traded. But if successful, there will be no need. The Reclaimer prepares. The Fruit is below, the Galvanoil above. A precise measurement.

Breath would be held if the Reclaimer had need of it. The Galvanoil drops. It spirals towards the Fruit. They meet. In an instant, the Fruit wrinkles as if in distaste. Then it splits. Its decay tears inwards upon itself, then drops. What is revealed is a shining, pleasant shape. With a prod, the New Fruit is deemed safe to touch. The Reclaimer carries it lovingly to a small scrap of leftover rot. As it nears, the Fruit causes it to whither into dust. The New Fruit is placed alongside the other salvage in the laboratory: a miraculous source of Galvanoil and destroyer of decay.

The Reclaimer celebrates what is made new. It grieves what could not.

The plot of greenery flourishes. The Mechanism continues its relaxing song. The Machine, however, is a work in progress and will continue to be so for the foreseeable future. Its damage is deep, but not hopeless.

Illustration by Charmaine Cheng

Buried under the squelching mass is frayed cordage softened by decay.

Deeper still are shards of porcelain that tear at their neighbours with ragged edges. These shards crackle and scrape under the Reclaimer’s feet as it travels inward. Far beyond the perimeter an abattoir of apparati splatters the heart of the mess. There is a Machine, a heavy dome of brass covered in hundreds of tiny cogs like metallic flowers. It ticks and sparks incessantly to itself with its gears and wires looping and repeating in baffling patterns, an unending disaster of nonfunction and selfharm.

Nearby, some cracked metal pipes resonate unpleasantly in the heady breeze. The last gleam to catch the eye is a puzzling, hollow Mechanism, with its gaping spout facing forward. Its shape recedes backwards into a neck composed of chrome coils. A single light sits atop its peak, darkened in its inactivity. The Reclaimer hums in its metal throat, unsure of these Things and how they might fight together, if at all.

forgotten. It freezes in its tracks and stares. Sitting on the ragged ground is a tiny spring of a shining liquid: Galvanoil. This precious catalyst for purity, lifebringing, and rotkilling is reverently ensconced in a crystal vial and carried close to the Reclaimer’s chest. There is nothing left.

TRASH DOVES MAKING PEACE WITH PIGEONS Words by Sarah Thompson

I arrived at the cafe flustered and washed my hands twice before settling in, just in case the dirty bird rumours were true. The physiological consequence of rushing a bird to emergency right before a first date was a potent hit of adrenaline, fueling the rapid and awkward unfolding of disjointed thoughts (“Was I over my ex-partner enough to be emotionally present with this other boy? How does euthanasia work? Is vulnerability a valued quality in the Vancouver dating scene?”) Fortunately, the state I was in read as “endearing” and “passionate” to my date who, after two ghostings and a year-long hiatus, became my long-term partner.

Unfortunately, I received the awful nickname “Bird Ambulance” as a result of my quest to leave no bird behind.

It’s not inherent moral superiority nor misplaced empathy; I actually care about pigeons. But, even I admit, it makes sense to hate pigeons in this city. It’s transgressive to express care for something that everyone else has agreed is gross. I am predisposed to seeing them differently.

As a child, I would exhaust myself wailing about abandoned pets at the SPCA. As an adult, I couldn’t hack it as a volunteer with the Wildlife

Certainly, apathy has its function. Life is easier if you don’t get choked up at the sight of a pigeon with a mangled foot, hurriedly hobbling out of some passerby’s heavy-booted way. Most cities with a considerable number of non-human (and human) outcasts maintain unsympathetic ways of thinking about these populations, and these ways of thinking manifest in our urban geography. Benches are designed for sitting, not sleeping. Ledges are adorned with shining bird spikes. Subtle violence. At the Wildlife Rescue Association, the rehabilitators adored pigeons because of their resilience. It could be that very fact that evokes displeasure: they persist and thrive despite our attempts to make this city inhospitable.

I rarely heed “Do Not Feed The Birds” signs. Years ago, my friend and I did a photoshoot with the pigeons on Granville Island. We bought bags of seed from a vendor inside the market and set up near the pond. Word travelled fast through the bird-community, and soon we were surrounded. I acknowledge that, for many people, this would be a waking nightmare —but, oddball that I am, I was in my element.

The mutual acknowledgement between the birds and myself was refreshing, considering most days we ignored each other.

I acknowledged them by offering them food. They acknowledged me by sitting on my head.

Of course, we drew a crowd. Mostly perplexed, some disgusted. But a few of the children were curious enough to come ask me questions. “Does it hurt?” They asked, seeing the light hammering of beaks into my palm. “Why are you doing this?” A candid question I appreciated but didn’t quite know how to answer. Some even asked for seed, and it was nice to see children seeking connection with the natural world. To these kids, the swarm of pigeons was not yet an unwanted host of “shithawks” or “ratbirds,” but simply pigeons: charming little clowns, earnest and enduring despite the odds.

Ilford delta 400

Cabbing was, as I saw it, my only option for quickly getting the bird from Granville & Georgia to the Animal Emergency Hospital on West 4th. I’d found it dazed and bleeding, wandering the sidewalk, and I’ve never been able to ignore a pigeon in distress. Taking public transit with injured wildlife in tow is generally inadvisable, and I didn’t want to prolong the bird’s panic, evidenced by its nervous scuffling and weak vocalizations. Had I some way to communicate with it, I would have said I was taking it somewhere to be healed, where it could rest. I also probably would have asked if it wanted help before kidnapping it off the street. Maybe it would have declined, and I wouldn’t have been late for my date.

Rescue Association—it was too much to bear, the time I saw an injured swan stumbling down the hall like a beautiful drunk.

Photo by Tudor Dinica

It’s a singular experience, admitting to a cab driver that you have entered their vehicle with a concealed bird. I felt I owed him an explanation; if a wild-eyed woman got into the back of my car with an unseen creature scratching loudly in a Vans box, I would ask her to kindly exit the vehicle.

em th

S

t h e a i re t o an at liz e aliz gi s o d t t h e d i e d ve a n t h a k e y d wo i h t h e i w d t at t so idn uld ad bir ish hen hey me ’t k ha not ds e d t h n t h i n o ve h i n s om it ey eed ng w t to g t et we w e d a w h e m a h e h i re o u w a y y w k e y w n g . n’t ld ha f a s s o f l o t i ro m n t e o m a n t e ck m . d et d hi . to ade them ng m : fo e. r

D

an

te

d

IR B

ir

bu

t,

iw

TNT Bowed lowly under a yolk-yellow sun-up, another stucco-slathered structure keeps the elements off.

Who knew, after so many triumphals of rococo filigree, we could stoop to this colossus?

I stand under the deluge of sad, sagging timber.

What a disappointment, to be a tree today.

These once placid and self respecting giants, spliced and bullied into a lean-to coffin for selling things.

Each truss is chemical-drowned, vainly holding its own until the slender hue of a final, fifty-year pact

for obsolescence with the city

inspector plays itself out.

It seems to me we face life on this earth as a needy pile of maggot-worms, muttering in the dust of our forebears and gulping up mileage willy nilly in

the shadow of Our Colossus,

Jesus Christ, Our God: the Shopping Complex.

I’ve gone for groceries.

Now over the drone of the fish freezers in TNT at rush time, Chopin is playing thru the loudspeakers.

Someone has a sense of humour, one that’s all about colliding the super mundane and the divine, and I’m digging it.

Flagrant, in the characteristic pacing of the underemployed, I stalk up aisles.

Everything is lit up like a slaughterhouse.

I’d watch, pliable in my hunger, as all of my dependencies lifted from one plane to the other and the drugs took hold.

46

Poems by Erin den Hartigh

Were I to twist around, I could see the dregs of my humanity slithering into a gust of aether.

DUSt BlOWN DOWN

by Kaja Jean

mama placed me on her knee in front of her vanity with dollar store mirrors and second hand lipsticks strewn on the table next to cracked blush and mascara-stained q-tips. she buried a kiss in my red hair and a whisper in my ear you came from the stars, dust blown down from heaven i love you, doll. be good for mama pullin on her cowboy boots and jean jacket both a greeny blue just like my eyes she said and flashed me a smile her cheekbones glowin, screen door to our trailer smashin and bouncin, wavin her goodbye

in the bottom cupboard was bourbon, mini fridge white wine, i grabbed a glass pourin a bit from each mama let me get my ears pierced last june i sipped a little fire racin down my throat and nestled into the vanity chair tossin a bra aside it wouldn’t fit for a while yet. i traded my studs for some hoops of gold and turned the curlin iron on

she turned my face to hers and traced my freshly dressed red lips with her hot pink nails you are the apple of my eye, little guy. i wish all men were like you. fresh tears fell, and the sadness in her eyes spread to love in the corners of her crow’s feet.

if you have to see your mama cry,

i think that’s the best way it could be.

people tell me to get a haircut but mama says i can grow it as long as i want i knew all the words to the radio not just the songs but the adverts too. hours later i turned it down and stepped outside slippin a smoke in my mouth sometimes you just need to blow out the day, baby. my fingers wrapped around it like hers did, poppin the unlit cigarette from my lips with a sigh it worked better in the winter when you could see your breath honey, babydoll. i turned around. black tears had fallen from mama’s face onto her breasts. dirt covered the rhinestones on her boots.

Ilford delta 400

i looked at the clock on the microwave 10:02 one hour and seven minutes off. i was the first kid in class who could tell time miss. denver says you’re real great with numbers, hon! i couldn’t wait for fall.

flickin on the radio i drowned out the screams two trailers down. friday night they played mama’s dance songs

she sank into the lawn chair with me on top twisted gently so our bodies could rest together i looked up. an uneven breath and quiet whimper into the dark sky remember mama, you came from the stars. dust blown down from heaven.

Photos by Tudor Dinica

the smell of cigarettes and hairspray was soaked into our five furry pink pillows and scratchy toilet paper mama was always there. she was always with me. most nights i wore her nightgown cold silk on my sticky skin wonderin how long i had the place all to myself

til the sun had slipped

so far beneath the earth,

that cold would touch the air?

or til

i had used up all the ice cubes

the next afternoon,

and be greeted with pancakes

from the diner

down the road. she would hug me tight smellin like his deodorant havin a good day, baby?

i held the hand she placed on my cheek and put the cigarette from my mouth into hers.

Illustration by Michael Mateyko

REAcH FOR THE STARS THE GARBAGE PROBLEM IN SPACE Words by Liam Siemens

It started with a glove. A black, rigid, silicone-tipped glove. Later it was joined by a toothbrush. Then a $2000 spatula. Then a $100,000 tool bag.

Eventually it was joined by a cream-coloured tank chalk-full of ammonia.

But it started with the glove. In 1965, an extremely giddy astronaut named Edward White was ordered back onto his spacecraft, and, in his ginger steps back to the hull, he tripped and kicked up the glove that would become the first piece of trash left floating in space. Now, 50 years later, space is full of it. Cameras, blankets, glittering flecks of paint. Our skies are full of junk blithely spinning around the world. You may have heard of this conundrum in the fictional movie Gravity. It is real.

Space has a serious trash problem. Right now, more than 170 million objects are orbiting the earth. Some of these objects are operational satellites, like Galaxy-14, which transmits the History Channel and ESPN, but most of them aren’t. They range from the size of a grain of salt to the size of a large school bus, and they’ve mostly been caused by inter-satellite collisions. If you look at the pictures online, of which there are many, you will see that the earth is starting to look less like a blue marble and more like a doomed beehive, encased in its own trash.

I’d like to see us clean our way back to the marble. Or reinvent ourselves into something better. The problem is, space trash is quite complex.

What at first might have seemed like a simple case of leave-it-be or sweep-it-away becomes, once the speed and setting are taken into

48

account, a problem serious enough to merit the attention of astrophysicist super-stars like Neil deGrasse Tyson. How do we clean up junk moving faster than the speed of a bullet? What to do when the trash—especially the invisibly small flecks—could impale space walkers, damage existing satellites, and, in the doomsday scenario, create a train of debris so large it makes space-travel impossible?

If you are a pessimist, space trash might seem like one more example of humanity’s winning ability to ruin nearly everything. You might point to the trash falling out of space and back onto our heads (yes—this has actually happened) with a bitter irony. If you are an optimist, though, or sci-fi fan, space trash is a chance to invent seemingly impossible gadgets.

One popular solution is a laser broom which, like a potent laser pointer, slows trash to manageable speeds. Another, the “Pac-Man model”, is a nano-satellite that “swallows” trash and de-orbits along with it. These are only two examples of a burgeoning list of possible remedies. Our grand problem is encouraging grander solutions.

There’s an unpopular opinion going around, though. Maybe—the argument goes—it’s best we don’t solve the galactic trash crisis. Maybe a tomb of capitalism’s trash is exactly what we deserve. Maybe, our eyes off the sky, we will be forced to deal with our problems down here. Here’s my take: space travel is sexy. Cleaning Q-tips from the ocean isn’t. But maybe—maybe—it’s best to start small.

When the Sky Dropped

by Amy Higgins

When the sky dropped it left prickles on my arms and legs.

Everything was sticky and pretty back then air always humming with strip mall perfume citronella and charred meat.

My mouth so soft so fizzy sugar stained and my flesh in my jean shorts all bitten — I counted the welts till I lost track.

My sisters laughed and laughed at nothing much.

Later, their skin became tree bark all those hands like veiny leaves.

Alone on the lawn all dew and empty cups I thought that I might float apart into a thousand pieces disintegrate like a dried up flower.

My legs and all the days were so much longer then.

GARBAGE IS COZY RYAN QUAST’S METICULOUS TRASH SCULPTURES Words by Genevieve Michaels

Ryan Quast is working on a hot knife rig made of a Mr. Noodle cup.

For those unfamiliar, hot knifing is a resourceful way to smoke weed beloved by teenagers everywhere. First, jam two butter knives in the rings of a stove-top element until they’re red-hot, then burn up crumbs of hash or cannabis between them and inhale, maybe using the hacked-off top of a bottle to catch the smoke.

Quast’s device looks like it was born out of especially dire need, the burner pulled off the stove and attached to a plastic ramen bowl, sitting on top of a stack of National Geographics in a fire safety nightmare. He’s been working on it for months—maybe years.

“ I ’ L L T H R OW G A R B AG E I N A C O R N E R A N D AT S O M E P O I N T B E L I K E , ‘ T H AT L O O KS S O G O O D . . .T H AT ’ S T H E S C U L P T U R E ! ’.”

The object is both a sculpture and a painting, but more a sculpture— Quast has spent the past 12 years developing his unique, labour-intensive process that builds up convincing everyday objects from thousands and thousands of layers of paint. It’s painstaking and laborious, necessitating piecemeal work on dozens of objects at a time, punctuated by lengthy periods of drying and sanding and building up paint again, striving for a certain sweet spot where the objects could pass as the real thing, but still retain a painterly quality. It’s a method that seems both meditative and masochistic in its longevity. “It’s definitely something that I wish I never started doing,” Quast laughs, “it’s ruined everything.”

This repetitive arduousness seems to be characteristic of Quast’s practice.

He tends to work in long series, building up a simple motion countless times until something monumental is created. In a previous project, and the only series he has ever completed, he covered 1,000 post-it notes in meticulous doodles of daisies, the kind you might see in the margins of an eighth grader’s notebook. Incredibly, the doodles grow denser and more obsessive as the project moves along. Another ongoing series involves collecting his belongings into a box, leaving it in a public place, and photographing it, then saving the photo of the box and an itemized list of its contents in a binder. This project, according to Quast, is almost over, because his possessions are almost gone. “When I was younger, I had a lot of these really shitty kind of labour jobs,” he tells me, theorizing on the origin of this pattern. “Once, I worked on an assembly line for two

50

years making fireplaces. I have a really hard time sitting down for hours and hours working on something. Everything has to be pieced out.”

The paint sculptures are his most compelling works, and will seem familiar to anyone who’s attended a punk show in somebody’s house or rented a moldy East Vancouver basement suite: a lighter dissected and put back together; a smushed coffee cup reincarnated as a makeshift ashtray. The objects are shockingly realistic—a fact that was attested to when a gallerygoer put out a cigarette on one of the works in Quast’s 2016 show at Wil Aballe Art Projects. Quast focuses on the materiality of paint with such intensity that it creates illusion independent of canvas. It’s a strange, overly literal progression, from the perspective-focused verisimilitude of realistic painting to something that could be called, with equal accuracy, a threedimensional painting or a sculpture.

Quast doesn’t have any grand, conceptual answers about his choice of subject matter. “I’m just… a really messy person,” he says. “I’ll throw garbage in a corner and at some point be like, ‘that looks so good...that’s the sculpture!’.” Quast has worked on the Downtown Eastside for many years, currently in home support, where he deals with garbage every day rehabilitating the rooms of SRO residents with hoarding issues. “I’m a trashy person,” he continues. “You know, garbage is interesting. It’s used, so it gets a history. It’s not meant to be precious. It’s comfy.”

The central and fascinating crux of Quast’s practice, of course, is that the finished objects are very precious. Delicate and expensive, he once lost five pieces en route to a Toronto art fair, an experience he describes as “fucking rough.” The time-consuming nature of their creation means that his sculptures are usually picked up by more established collectors with not only the means to purchase, but the space and knowledge to preserve and display—the works often end up in glass cases. To get a faux mousetrap to a recent buyer in Sweden, shipping costs were two thousand dollars.

It’s a dichotomy that was highlighted when he sold a small-scale paint sculpture—an amalgamation of a strip of duct tape, blob of oil paint, and a pen—to a collector on Bowen Island and travelled there to install it in her private collection among works by Jeff Wall, Rodney Graham, and many others.

He chose a tall, empty expanse of white beside two huge works by Canadian artists Neil Campbell and Rebecca Belmore, then simply added a dab of paint to the back of the work and stuck it on the wall to dry. In a photo on the artist’s phone, the work is barely visible, looking for all the world like some bit of detritus left behind while moving, or installing another work.

“I just stood there, had some wine,” Quast laughs, remembering. “It was fucking weird.”

Photos by Christoph Prevost Kodak Portra 400

WASTE NOT, WANT NOT VANCOUVER’S FIRST ZERO-WASTE GROCERY STORE Words by Madeline Barber

mammal observer in northern Quebec, Brianne Miller had a lot of time to herself. It was while sitting on a dock for about ten hours a day that she made health of our oceans and our food systems. From pesticides in agricultural runoff into oceans and rivers, to marine plastic pollution, it all had a major impact.

In essence, a zero-waste grocery store is one where you can buy nearly anything, like honey or cereal, in bulk, so packaging waste is eliminated. Reusable containers are provided, and you’re more than welcome to bring your old Tupperware and mason jars. If you’ve ever crammed into Main Street’s bustling lavender-scented Soap Dispensary on a Saturday, it’s not surprising there’s another zero-waste business emerging. Miller says the city’s progressive demographic means Vancouver and sustainable businesses go handin-hand: “People that have grown up here, they have the mountains in their backyard and the ocean in their front yard and they spend so much time outdoors that the people on the West Coast just generally have an appreciation for how special this place is.”

NADA has also come at a good time for the city, with Vancouver’s ambitious goal of “greenest city” by 2020, and to become a zerowaste community by 2040. Other local businesses are catching on to the urgency of reducing landfill waste; Miller notes Tap and Barrel and Cascade Room among them.

The city happens to own the LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certified building where NADA secured a store front near Kingsway and Fraser. Mindful of reducing waste whenever possible, Miller and business partner Alison Carr teamed up with contractors Naturally Crafted to salvage materials from the deconstruction process, reusing studs, insulation and drywall.

Finding an affordable space that suited their needs was one of the biggest hurdles to overcome, but the community support and desire to make a positive impact are why it’s taken root. As Miller says, “It’s not a very profit-driven market, but we’re doing it because we know it needs to be done.”

52

Kodak Portra 400

the connection between the

It was this realization—and the desire to do something about it — that led to NADA: Vancouver’s first zero-waste grocery store.

“It started out with wanting to have a more just food system, one that’s really focused on local growing practices, and smaller-scale infrastructure, and then it worked into this zero-waste concept over time,” says Miller.

Photos by Robyn Humphreys

While working as a marine

MIAMI

MANCHESTER

Words by Thomas Rackowe-Cork

Words by Vivian Pencz

It’s a week unlike any other in the art world calendar: one where routine tasks such as meetings and networking mixers are relocated to the edges of luxury hotel pools, and where what is known as “Art Fair Fatigue” is considered a genuine illness. Miami Art Week, the art world’s hedonistic winter break, where the dreamy pastels of pink and green buildings silhouetted against purple and orange sunsets, makes for a fictitious reality.

For those escaping northern winters, the art of great weather is the main attraction. Recurring annually during the month of December, the week offers anyone remotely connected to the world of art a final chance to soak up some sun before the year comes to an end.

Art Basel Miami Beach, the sister fair to the original Art Basel in Switzerland, is the must-see event—though, a spot on an after-party guest list is as covetable and rarefied as much of the art. Finding my own name absent from such a list, I strategized various manoeuvres to finagle my way into the parties. Better to be blacklisted than not be on the list at all, I was advised. The confidence of a straight-up bluff, to my surprise, proved successful—granting me entry into a tropical-themed tiki bar party. Soon, I was brushing shoulders with the likes of Princess Nokia and Miuccia Prada.

And what about the art?

Art fair fatigue means a memorable piece must shine especially bright, like a diamond ring in a storm drain. Such was American artist Gordon Matta-Clark’s beautiful Garbage Wall – a six-foot-high wall composed of marine debris that had been washed up on shore in the aftermath of Hurricane Irma. This great assemblage of waste contrasted beautifully with the crisp white walls of the fair. This, I felt, more than candycoloured sunsets or star-studded parties, was the real Miami.

54

“Oh, you’ll have fun, Mancunians just want to drink and fuck.” My friend’s remark flickers in my memory as I lay trashed on the 200-year-old library floor in a velvet romper at 6 AM, The Fall blaring in the background.

Haunted libraries, gay discos, Gothic churches, post-punk pubs, underground lavatories, abandoned warehouses, Victorian swimming pools, and old miners’ clubs—there’s nowhere Mancunians won’t drink and, possibly, fuck. Even the dragon-green canals snaking through the city bring lushes and lovers (and muggers) into their litter-laden arms.

This perpetually reflecting and reinventing city is home now. With it comes red-brick grit, foggy gloom, and rough-edged, gold-hearted characters. It turns out Mancunians do a lot more than drink and fuck.

They make space and music, spit poetry and politics, and conjure art and comedy out of the most unlikely places. They flex their power to transform trash into treasure at every turn.

In December, I went for a pint with my friend Nicole at The Angel Pub. Opposite our table sat a group of lads in homemade Nativity Scene costumes: the Virgin Mary, Joseph, a donkey, the Star of Bethlehem, and a large Baby Jesus. After the brass last-orders bell rang, a familiar sound in England, the group crowded around the old piano. They slurred through Christmas carols until The Angel closed her pearly gates. Outside, Nicole and I met the Nativity Scene on the sidewalk. Baby Jesus had fallen over.

He was wasted. “Oh, Jesus,” the donkey brayed. “Come on, mate. Get up!”

The weird, whimsical night embraced my cold bones. Traversing the hivelike Northern Quarter towards home, I thought of how often this past year has delighted and surprised me. On every trash can along my walk glowed the symbol of Manchester: a honey bee, golden, wings outstretched.

Illustrated by Maia Boakye

CALIFORNIA Words by Jonathan Bell-Etkin

Interstate 405 If you want to buy a vintage car, you go to California. Some are pristine, once owned by Hollywood stars or hedge fund managers. They move from collector to collector and sell at auction for millions. Often, they are rocking colours that have faded after years parked outside bungalows.

Then there’s the junk: Mustangs that daddy’s golden boy binned and forgot, BMWs that lived in a barn, convertibles offered at grandma’s estate sale, Broncos that never left the beach. But even the junk is better than what you’d find in Vancouver. They are dented but rust-free.

They drip with history.

Because of the quantity of cars down here, there are endless events, brokers, specialists, and swap meets. At the Phoenix Club’s annual Porsche show, I speak to an old man named Glen about a 911 Targa peeking out from a trailer. The bumper is missing and the hood is crumpled. The paint used to be red. A sign taped to the windscreen says “BEATER FOR SALE.” He tells me about tearing down the Pacific Coast Highway with a babe as topless as his car. He tells me about sitting on the roll bar, steering with his feet and laughing up at the wide-open sky, says his screenwriter buddy even put that in a movie. He shares his memories, etching them into the steel and the rubber and the glass.

It’s all like that. Every car, every scrap of documentation, every spare part for sale, carries every owner’s experience. When I thank Glen for his time, he asks if I want to put an offer on the Targa. I shake my head.

Even in disrepair, it is still way out of my budget. But I’m not here to find a car. I’m here to find their stories.