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| Return to Wreck Beach |
Week 3 was relatively uneventful – we were all recuperating
from Banff and deadlines/midterms have started to flow in unfortunately.
Friday night we went to Richmond night market again.
Deep-fried cheesecake is lush for about 3.5 bites but do not overestimate the
power of your stomach on this Everest of confectionery items.
On Saturday morning we went to the Etsy Canada market, which
I was expecting to be HUGE, like in a warehouse somewhere, but it was fairly
small - maybe about 40 stalls in a square where a little ice-skating rink is
usually set up. There were some amusing cards with lots of puns and cute
pictures which I spent a bit too long standing around laughing at. Who can
resist a pun, really?
After this we went to a shopping centre because we’re all a
bit short of clothes having packed light, and then thrift store shopping. We
went to Lady Madonna’s, which is a tiny dark little thrift store with tonnes of
amazing clothes crowded onto the racks. I impulsively bought a couple of ‘60s
skirts.
That evening we had ‘Gage Goes Classy’, which was a
semi-formal dinner put on by our RAs (the building we live in is called Walter
Gage). There was a curious mixture of butter chicken (they ran out of chicken
mid-way through), spicy mac’n’cheese and some kind of thick focaccia-like
cheeseless pizza – the vegan option, I guess. We may have snuck in a couple of
drinks because we are not nor will we ever be ‘classy.’ The entertainment was a
pretty great jazz band – the saxophonist was awesome – and a couple of
magicians from the UBC Magic Club. The part of this which sticks in my head is
one of them appearing to swallow a needle on a string which really grossed me
out. I couldn’t see much because a couple came and plonked themselves down in
front of me and I hate attention so much that I won’t even stand up at the back
of a seated crowd. After that we had a wee little party at our flat which was
fun but then someone got really sick and thus did the fun end.
On Sunday night the Astronomy Club hosted an observation of
the blood moon eclipse on a hill near the Museum of Anthropology which was
really cool. The moon rose up between two huge fir trees and it was really
beautiful – huge and a sort of muddy red, though the constant blinding flashes
from people’s iPhone cameras were somewhat diverting. We didn’t watch the full
thing because we were getting cold (although my Australian friend would have me
point out it was the English folks who were complaining of cold first), and
wanted hot chocolate.
On Monday we went to the ‘Best Sex Ever’ talk by Laci Green who
is brilliant. She’s a public sex educator who runs really great, accessible and
hilarious videos on YouTube informing people – particularly young people –
about sex. There was more sex education in that evening than in 7 years of
Catholic high school, none too surprisingly. I have never seen a picture of a
vagina projected onto such a large screen before.
The highlights were a hilarious animation of a penis becoming
erect, Laci describing US anti-vaccination sentiment as ‘the dumbest shit of my
[her] life,’ and explicitly and extensively detailing consent and the fact that
NO ONE EVER EVER ASKS TO BE SEXUALLY ASSAULTED. BECAUSE THEY DON’T SO NEVER
EVER VICTIM/SLUT-SHAME/BODY-POLICE ANYONE EVER. It felt a bit like she was
preaching to the converted – most people in the audience were feminist-y seeming
folks who overwhelmingly clapped and/or cheered every time she said something
feminist-y which was an awesome space to be in. I’d love to catch me some
misogynists though, if only they were visually detectable, and sit them down in
a room with Laci Green videos on loop.
Apart from sunset at Wreck Beach one evening, the rest of the week was a bit of a blur of lessons and
cram-reading and last-minute essay writing.
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| 90s Ellens |
On Friday we went to an Irish pub for a 90s night. There was
a funny guy called Cody who suddenly appeared and asked if we were ready to
‘twirl’ him and kept reappearing throughout the night throwing some amusing
shapes. The DJ was a nice Glaswegian guy who was really good about taking
requests (though he turned down Parklife because he said no one there would
know it). My highlight was Lady Marmalade. There were also some sleazy guys who
kept coming up to each of us saying ‘you’re really pretty, would you like to
dance?’ and persisting despite being turned down many a time.
The same lads followed us down the street for an
irritatingly long time trying to get us to go somewhere with them. We shook
them off and forged ahead to Mean Poutine, which serves amazing poutine and is
open 24 hours.
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| Downtown at about 2am |
Someone cut in front of me in the queue so I got all
indignant. His mate, who I had never met in my life, grabbed me by the
shoulders and shook me saying ‘What’re you gonna do?!”, which initially pissed
me off but then I got free poutine from the one who cut in front. When asking
the free-poutine-guy to clarify if he’d said he was from Seattle, his mate
nudged me all cheeky-like and said ‘Does he LOOK like he’s from around here?’,
referring to the guy being Asian. I replied ‘You know white people aren’t from
around here right?’ After which we got into a debate about Indigenous rights.
Despite me telling him current statistics and stories I’d been learning in
class and online, his argument was pretty much that the struggle for Indigenous
rights ought to be left in the past. Just as he asked me ‘What happened to the
Indigenous people of Britain, eh?!’ we had to go catch our bus, and thank fuck
for that. I get too tripped up by awkwardness and anger to be any good at
coherently demonstrating to people their own ignorance.
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| Gig toilet graffiti |
On Saturday Ellen and I went to the Biltmore Cabaret to see
a band I really like, Titus Andronicus. We got extremely lost on the way there and back. The support was Baked and Spider
Bags, both of whom are pretty sick. Patrick, the frontman of Titus, started the
gig by telling people to show some respect and not be enforcing their physical
presence on others. I thought this was really cool, although he was of course
jeered at by loads of dudes. As expected, it was pretty rough. Halfway through
Patrick reiterated what he’d initially said, telling us he used to be that way
and that he hates his younger self. He also pointed out that this behaviour was
kind of weird anyway since he was singing a lot about his experiences with
manic depression. It’s really annoying that if you want to go anywhere near the
band you like, you have to be prepared to get violent or be crushed. I used to
love moshing back when I was actively self-destructive.
And then I just got majorly pissed. I was really getting
into it but kept feeling the hand of the guy next to me brushing my hips and
arse…I figured it was accidental as there was a lot of jostling going on. He
then wound his arm round my hips so I moved away and tried to stand behind him.
Apparently not getting the message, he then went to stand close behind me
again. So Ellen and I went to the other side of the crowd and I felt grossed
out and pissed off for the rest of the gig. I really am disgusted by the scene
and its offensively overt masculine physicality. Girls to the fucking front, to
reference Kathleen Hanna. It brought up a lot of turbulent feelings about
things that have happened in the past, to me and to friends, so I spiralled
into a bit of a hole.
We actually met Patrick Stickles at the end of the night and
I told him a lot of his fans seem to be fuckboys. He apologised, which wasn’t
necessary because it isn’t his fault and he’d even tried to talk people down.
He then said it’s difficult for weak folks - he’s really small and thin (but
with a GREAT BIG bushy beard) – but added drily that we shall inherit the
earth. Maybe so, but in the mean time I'm sick and tired of having to guard the borders of my own body.
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| Getting lost has its benefits |
On Sunday evening we went to a Disney Marathon but only
stayed for the Lion King because really we were there for the free pizza and
had lots of work to do.
Copious amounts of work may well be my new blog theme.
In the meantime, the Conservatives have gotten into 1st position in the polls after cracking down on niqab-wearing and pledging to set up some kind of hotline for reporting 'barbaric cultural practices.' So, that's shit. I suppose I was getting a bit homesick, some Islamaphobia should make me feel like I'm back home. Here's a good article by Sheema Khan about how it feels to be a Muslim woman living in Canada right now.
Peace.
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