Lilac Festival 2007

ryanbourne1, originally uploaded by CJSW ♪.

CJSW was there. The rest of the city was crowded on 4th Street too.

An Evening with Stephen Lewis

On Thursday, May 24th, Nico attended "An Evening with Stephen Lewis" at Knox United Church, sponsored in part by CJSW. Here are her thoughts:

Stephen Lewis is a humanitarian who has worked to improve the human condition both at home and abroad. His current book on the HIV/AIDS Pandemic in Africa, "Race Against Time" was sold at the event.

The Stephen Lewis Foundation was established in March of 2003 to ease the pain of individuals, families and communities struggling with HIV/AIDS in Africa. Stephen had been travelling as the UN Secretary-General's Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa for over two years and was devastated by the extent of human vulnerability and carnage across the continent.

Frustrated by the glacial pace of world response and heartened by the resourcefulness of groups mobilizing across Africa, Stephen launched the Foundation to provide solace and hope amidst the tragedy. The Foundation raised more than 10 million dollars in its first three yers and now funds well over 100 grassroots projects in 14 sub-Saharan African countries.

Mr. Lewis brought a message of dire circumstances about the AIDS pandemic in Africa, and I got a real education on what it really looks like. I think we have been so inundated with the message about AIDS (and every other disease out there, too) that we tend to forget the humanity behind the virus.

850 tickets sold in redneck Alberta is an amazing thing - $35,000 raised last night for the Stephen Lewis Foundation.

He speaks with a lot of passion about how the virus has ravaged young women in particular and have left millions of orphans. He talks about the glimmer of hope he feels from the Grandmothers, who step into a parental role all over again at the ages of 65-80 and start with their children's children, after watching their daughters die. He talks about the kids who watch their mothers in agony and are then ultimately left behind, and alone. He talks about the high incidences of sexual assault and rape; of family violence. Of women tied to beds for months at a time, used by groups of men, and when interviewed who say, "I cannot get the smell of semen out of my head. It will be there until I die."

He spoke about everything that Africa has faced over centuries: Slavery, Apartheid, the AIDS Pandemic. It seems never ending, what the people of that entire continent go through. It made me think of my friends, and my students, and all they have come through to get here.. and what it must be like to leave the country you love so much and feel such a kinship to, because you CANNOT SURVIVE otherwise.

While there is some evidence of progress, especially with the rollout of treatment, it's clear that the consequences of HIV and AIDS will devastate Africa for decades to come. We cannot abandon the continent.
- Stephen Lewis

The Stephen Lewis Foundation provides funds in four critical areas:

- ease the plight of women who are ill and struggling to survive so that their lives can be free from pain and indignity

- assist orphans and other AIDS-affected children in every possible way, from the payment of school fees to the provision of food

- support grandmothers, the unsung heroes of Africa, who bury their own children and then care for their orphan grandchildren

- assist the remarkable efforts of groups of People Living with HIV and AIDS, courageous men and women who have openly declared their status.

If you haven't seen Stephen Lewis speak before, I wholeheartedly encourage it. He's a beautiful and eloquent speaker, stringing words together that sound like prose. He's engaging, and very funny, and has a way to take you on a rollercoaster as well. I'm certainly glad he is in this world.

You can find more information on the Stephen Lewis Foundation at http://www.stephenlewisfoundation.org/

Nico Hofferd
"Yeah, What She Said..."
Calgary's only women's program

Propaganda! Propaganda!

Friday, May 25th featured a spectacle of art, spoken word, storytelling and music at the Haymarket Cafe: Propaganda! Propaganda!





Erin and Bridgette, our hosts for the evening, have put on a great little up-and-coming event showcasing some of the most diverse art forms in Calgary, so be sure to watch out for the next one! And definitely visit the Haymarket Cafe at 1101 Macleod Trail SE - they are a worker-owned co-operative book store and coffee shop built on the anarchist principles of collectivized labour, self-management and consensus decision making. Rock on!





For more photos, click here.

Feist + Chad Vangaalen

Feist at Jubilee Auditorium, originally uploaded by ydhsu.

Did anyone else make it to the Feist + Chad Vangaalen show at the Jube on Saturday night? It felt like a hometown revival with Feist bantering profusely about her involvement in the 1988 Winter Olympics and CVG playing a brave set of mostly new or unreleased material. Despite sitting in the second balcony, I thought it sounded good!

Sled Island is coming to town

Tim from Les Savvy Fav takes a souveneir from the crowd, originally uploaded by mecredis.

Here's a photo of Tim Harrington (Les Savy Fav) saluting the audience at a show in Brooklyn last summer. In case you haven't heard, LSF are going to be one of the headliners at the huge Sled Island festival which was announced a couple weeks ago. It'll be their first appearance in Calgary. They will be sharing the spotlight with lots of other bands including:

- Spoon
- Cat Power
- Boredoms
- Mates of State
- Destroyer
- Chad Vangaalen

There are tons of independent Calgarian artists on the bill too! Huzzah!

Coachella Nuggets #4 - !!!

Kat, of Turing Radio, writes:

My first Coachella experience by no means can be summed up in a few words and pictures but I'm going to try goshdarnit. It was three days of intense heat and non-stop extraordinary music. There was not a band I saw that I did not enjoy. It is kind of sad that I missed a lot of great acts. So instead of indulging myself and ranting about every single moment of ecstasy I'll try to keep this short touching only on some of the highlights.

Top Three Acts:

!!!

For me !!! was the best act of the festival. The energy in the crowd was extraordinary as the sun's intense heat fell away and was replaced by the heat of thousands of bodies (not that unusual for most of the acts). The New York eight piece outfit held nothing back and the excitement was reflected in the crowd right from the first riff. At one point I could see every hand and fist pounding the air and every body jumping to the beat. Lead vocalist Nic also taught me some of the best dance moves I have ever seen like the criss-cross hand jive and fist/hip shake. It was definitely a sad moment when they had to end their performance and let the next act take the stage.

LCD Soundsystem

The magnitude of this shows greatness can be summed up by the state in which I left. I felt bruised from head to toe, had a layer of sweat a centimeter thick all over my face (1% of which was probably mine)and my feet were black from the dirt. I could barely move my legs to walk back to the tent. All this thanks to LCD Soundsystem. James Murphy put on a great performance from energetically banging a cowbell to crooning "New York, I love you..." They definitely know how to play the tunes to make the people dance because I was positively crushed in the crowd of pumped LCD fans.

VNV Nation

On the last night I decided to leave the crowds flocking to Rage Against the Machine and head towards a side stage to see the electronic musical group known as VNV Nation. The crowd was small and I got right up front but despite the quarter-full tent and waning energy of spent festival goers frontman Ronan Harris was able to inspire all of us to move our feet, clap our hands and jump to ridiculously fast rythms. The devotion of the crowd was different from every other act I'd been to, probably because everyone really wanted to be there.

They ended the night and Coachella 2007 with "Beloved" leaving a good portion of the crowd in tears including the woman standing next to me who told me and others around us about the first time she'd heard the song. It was on a mixtape given to her by a good friend who'd left specific instructions to mind the lyrics. She did and it brought tears to her eyes. Ever since then she's been a devoted VNV Nation fan. Pretty sappy, but it's cute especially since my introduction to VNV Nation was almost exactly the same. Aw.
After that I met the electronic music director from WUPX in Marquette, Michigan. She's really cool and has her radio show on Sunday nights!

Best Night

Even though riot police had to come break up rowdy parties on Saturday I have to say the best, well, craziest night for me was Sunday.
When I returned to my tent after VNV I found everyone else had already returned and started to pack up. We decided to join the riotous party that had broken out before leaving Indio, California the next morning. It was pure craziness that we found. People were destroying pinatas with acoustic guitars, lighting camping signs on fire, moving tents with people in them and chucking cell phones into bon-fires. In our adventures we met a fellow Albertan from Red Deer named "Dr. Fun." She almost stole my tambourine, which was cool because she was able to rap and play at the same time, but I still got it back. She still rapped. We returned from the Coachella night madness with grins on our faces and songs in our heads. In fact, Charles, Pat and I made up a little ditty about the events of the night.

Extraordinary Art

Coachella wasn't all music and partying. The art was amazing. Come nightfall dozens of works lit up the festival with pulsating displays of thousands of LEDs to fire-canons to Nintendo's Mario sound-generating poles to shocking electricity generated by twin Tesla Coils(photo by Peter Hemminger). It was hard to walk between stages without being stopped by a rad light display or some eccentric circus performers. Night really was when all the magic happened.



There were great parts to the day as well, particularly the bike rodeo. Given my love for bikes I was drawn to CYCLECIDE, The Heavy Pedal Bike Rodeo. Chris and I went on the bike swing in which we had to pedal in unison to make ourselves spin around a few meters into the air. There were dozens of modified bikes that people struggled to ride having improvements like being completely inverted or being raised double the height. It was great fun to watch one really short guy try to mount a bike twice his size.



Some of my favourite art had to be the Megamite Army. Girls and guys dressed up in giant prehistoric creature outfits created entirely from balloons and pranced around Coachella. I caught a sight of them before the Jesus and Mary Chain and was able to grab a couple pictures. Really neat stuff.

So much to see and do in only three days and this brief description of some of the highlights doesn't even begin to sum it up. It was a top shelf weekend.

More of my pictures can be found here.

Maple Salsa

From Jeanne:

Discover the pleasure of Maple Salsa Theatre.

The combination has proven to be a bold and intriguing mix. The last production they did was Neruada Nude in 2005. Adapted from the sensuous poetry of Nobel Prize laureate, Pablo Neruda, the performance was a raw celebration of sex, body, and movement.

http://www.maplesalsa.com/Neruda%20Nude.htm

After a two-year hiatus, they returned this spring with Macula. The story pulls from the rituals and mythology of the Pre-Hispanic world to tell the tale of an earth goddess who gives birth to a winged creature.

"Separated shortly after his birth, he is given the task to look for elements to create a majestic cloak made of petals. In his path, he discovers a fantastical world that represents the deep connection between mother and son, portraying through mystical symbols the timeless veneration of the mother figure."

- Maple Salsa, 2007

The shows ran from May 2-6 and continues this week from May 9 to 12 at the Epcor Centre for Performing Arts. I'll be attending the performance on Saturday, so with luck I'll be able to set up an interview with them in the near future. http://www.epcorcentre.org/

Here are some links to check out:

Pablo Neruda Biography:
http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1971/neruda-bio.html
Poetry:
http://www.poemhunter.com/pablo-neruda/
Brief Commentary:
http://www-sul.stanford.edu/depts/hasrg/german/exhibit/GDRposters/neruda.html
Pre-hispanic Aztec mythology:
http://www.carnaval.com/dead/aztec_gods.htm

Coachella Nuggets #3 - FFWD style

Peter, who is photographed in the breakast and bloody marys shot below, wrote a perfectly succinct summary of the Coachella festival for the latest issue of FFWD Weekly. Take a gander! It's really good.

Coachella Nuggets #2 - Top 5 Reasons...

Instead of merely gushing about the rad musicians that played Coachella this year, I thought I'd put together a list of the Top 5 reasons why I'd consider going back.

1. There might be the opportunity see another crazy japanese band pull off an amazing stage show. This is how Cornelius did it:


2. Bloody marys and breakfast burritos are the best way to start your day:


3. Androids and humans can commune together in harmony:


4. Next year, the adjacent festival campsite may not require intervention from the Indio, CA riot police:


5. There is enough coolness around to keep discerning hipsters happy:


For more pictures, click here

What the heck, here's a sweet photo of Blonde Redhead. OMG! They were so amazing!

Coachella Nuggets #1

The CJSW gang is back from an epic weekend in Indio, CA. Many of us went down, soaked up the sun, listened to great music, and took a few snapshots. Over the next week or so, we hope to have some coherent Calgarian analyses of the Coachella Festival for your reading pleasure.

Let's get started by going over Nico's thoughts. She was there on Saturday and prepared a full report:

We arrive to a plethora of intense parking attendants - a theme that repeats. (I think that perhaps all of the people working the festival are army trained. They sure like barking out orders, but it works, so who am I to complain?) We begin the walk in - it's about a mile - past the other parking lots and camps. The camps are tightly packed, securely monitored and the entire festival is run smoothly and efficiently.

After the walk in, we are already quite sun shocked. We stand in front of some misting fans before grabbing the first of MANY bottles of water and hit a sun shade where various people are sitting and lying around enjoying a reprieve from the heat. It's 40C today!

The crowd starts trickling in...
The Dance Dome! Later on, this place will be hopping while a DJ spins.

What I didn't expect about Coachella was the entire festival aspect. Some of the art installations I hear are from previous Burning Man events, and are really cool. (The Tesla Coil installation is particularly awesome, though annoying to hear when a band is playing.) There are two big 'food courts' that we can see, American and European, water and icy lemonade stands every 20 feet or so. Plenty of merchandise stands. I'm also happy to see quite a large exhibit of anti-war displays, including one headed by Iraqi vets. Alot of people throughout the festival are wearing orange bandanas, emblazoned with "Stop the Bush Regime!"

The best Tshirt I see all day: Alarm Clocks Kill Dreams.

But.. the reason we're there: The Music!

[...]

We headed to what was my biggest disappointment, the New Pornographers. Not only was it high desert sun time, but the Pornos really fell flat. First of all, I was deeply disappointed (AGAIN) at the absence of Ms Neko Case, but overall, they were just not at their best. It was a short set, maybe 8 songs, and for their audience out in the sun, they just didn't deliver enough of a high energy set. Additionally, the banter between Carl and Cathryn was banal and annoying. ALOT of people left part way through, and people increasingly yelled "MUSIC!" everytime they started talking. It was embarassing to watch.

This is the cover for the new Pornos album. It makes me think of (cough) Crisco (cough).
Attempting to beat the heat, a damp pashmina over my head -- that fan was the best $5 I've EVER spent!

I adore the Pornos and honestly it was very hard to see them at such a big event not giving their best. And since I had seen them in concert before, I was kicking myself for making the choice to see them again and not someone else (like Peter, Bjorn and John, for instance). The good thing, however, is that they were on the same stage as The Decemberists, who were up next. Everytime people left, we moved a bit closer, securing an awesome spot for when the Decemberists took the stage.



And that little group from Portland NAILED it. Honestly, I was expecting something much more mellow, but they totally rocked that crowd and hard. I had heard talk through the crowds about how some bands really were so grateful to be part of Coachella, and the Decemberists were a shining example of that. Their joyful exuberance, their gratitude to their fans for braving the heat for them, their advice, "You know, seersucker is great to wear in this kind of heat!" - not to mention their amazing musical talent - all added up to one fantastic show. Colin Meloy's voice has to be heard live to truly appreciate the sweet qualities and subtle nuances of every note he hits. I completely expected the polka song as an end to the set, but what I didn't expect was the DANCE OFF in the crowd, started by Colin himself. He really kept the crowd hopping, so much you didn't even notice the heat until afterwards, if anything, it added to the delirium! It was a super joyful, entertaining experience!

Nothing prepared us, however, for what came next: Arcade Fire was a religious experience. And I'm putting it under it's own post with the Finale, because I have alot to say about it.

Links to Nico's personal blog: [here] and [here]
Hear Nico on Yeah, What She Said Mondays at 8:30 PM.

CJSW Bonspiel

2CAF2UKI6, originally uploaded by CJSW ♪.

There was a crazy CJSW bonspiel two weeks ago.