Under a … Big Top

(I owe the double entendre title to Bob at Positive Lite and Rural Ramblings of the Third Kind.)

Never before have I been such a participant in a festival in this city of — what are they saying…106? — eclectic festivals, but Montréal Complètement Cirque drew me in and kept me most entertained indeed. At this moment, I have been to four shows, with the possible addition of some free outdoor fare on Saturday, so let me comment on each of them.

We can thank being Facebook friends with the festival for this one: a last-minute half-price offer for that day's show! Woo-hoo! The trek to the Tohu (quite far up there) was well worth it. Now I like the Tohu at the best of times, quite a nice space, but this show by Australian circus Circa was truly excellent.

Elements of humour and burlesque, almost fetish with the costumes and their removal as well as the bright red pumps, got us in the right mood. Some excellent circus acts kept us that way. I think the best thing for me was that the three men and three women who made up the troupe blurred the gender role lines a bit: there was plenty of lifting by both genders and plenty of being lifted by each as well.

Here's a little taste of the show:

Wunderkammer / Circa | Australie from MONTRÉAL COMPLÈTEMENT CiRQUE on Vimeo.

No more opportunities to see this during the festival, but I have heard they will be back in town in the coming months. DO see it if you get the chance.

I probably had the highest expectations for this show, held in an actual big top (take that, Bob!) in the parking lot of the CBC building, right in my neighbourhood. What's not to provoke expectations: pretty, bendy boys, the promise of percussion…. In the end, this might have been the show I liked the least of my four, although I did like it. Aussies again, and they were handing out free red clown noses in the entry tent!

If I see another show in a big top (just can't get enough of that), I will probably spring for the more expensive seats, as they were actual seats, not slightly padded narrow benches. That didn't help with my appreciation of the show. Then there was the start, very scratch-DJ-esque, which is fine, not really my scene, but it went on a bit long. I almost looked at my watch! (I managed to restrain myself). Eventually, we moved on to some acrobatics, and I felt good about it all again.

All boys, all quite good, with a few little missteps that they recovered from most professionally. We were speculating that the missteps kind of remind us how difficult some of these things are, which can't be a bad thing. Some very entertaining acrobatics, and another feature I enjoyed was seeing some of the performers playing the role of apparatus counterweight, climbing the tent supports to lower the suspended device and rappelling down to raise it back up.

There was a totally amazing beatboxer/graffiti artist who did his thing a bit too long in my opinion, but the multimedia experience of his duelling with the DJ while doing some graffiti on a canvas that subsequently fit into the film of him drawing on a section of the Berlin Wall was impressive. And the drummer was very good with the multi-drums, especially when it became a 360-degree physical workout for him. And can I forget the contortionist? Impressive.

A taste?

Tom Tom Crew | Australie from MONTRÉAL COMPLÈTEMENT CiRQUE on Vimeo.

They still have three shows left as I write this: Thursday, Friday and Saturday the 21, 22 and 23 July. If you go on Saturday, you get a second festival experience at the end, as the fireworks starts at 10 pm and is very visible from that parking lot.

This was probably my overall favourite, but I'm a bit of a fan of the traditionally québécois so that might have coloured my view. Oh yeah, and all the boys had beards and looked like lumberjacks…bendy, bendy lumberjacks. That didn't hurt a bit. The funny hook: handing out free fake beards at the door!

So good traditional sounding Québec music, use of adaptations of circus apparati made with logs and sticks and such, even an outhouse as a prop for the grandpa character and then the three other guys. My favourite pretty much did most of the acrobatics, certainly with the support (and I do mean support) of the others, and there was some excellent dance from one of the two women in the group.

Really edgy was the juggling — with axes! — and the adaptation of jumping through hoops, as the hoops were formed by bending a long cross-cut saw into a hoop with the teeth facing the arrival of the jumper! [Potential] ouch!

I do have to add that we were pretty well entertained by the family sitting in front of us, as one of the daughters (in her 20's) was completely out of control in her enthusiasm.

Here's a little taste, and because I can't resist it's a little clip of them after the show:

Première du Timber! par Cirque Alfonse from MONTRÉAL COMPLÈTEMENT CiRQUE on Vimeo.

No more representations of this show during the festival, but I'm hopeful that we will be able to see more of Cirque Alphonse sometime soon. Love them!

This evening was our last paid show, the Cabaret of Les Sept Doigts de la Main (The Seven Fingers of the Hand). The first half was heavily interrupted by the emcee, who my companion detested most vehemently! I found him mildly to semi-severely irritating, and we were united in our great pleasure that he was absent for most of the second half, after the intermission. I believe he was the creator of the piece, but playing a 'comedic' role of dissatisfied emcee who keeps being distracted and missing the amazing feats of the performers. There was also a mock 'get a piano player from the audience' thing that was really all about introducing the ringer who was supposed to accompany the acts (and did an excellent job, to the point that some of the people behind us thought it was actually a recording).

So highlights of the first half. Really good choreography of the ensemble in the setting of a speakeasy (where is the line between modern dance and circus? Is there one?). Really good trapeze guy who did some excellent asymmetrical stuff that I loved, and the woman on the Russian bar (okay, since it isn't called the Russian pole we can all stop snickering like adolescents) was really breathtakingly graceful and strong.

The second half, which we enjoyed much more. Montréal in 2011. The music was upbeat and varied, the comedy stronger and the acrobatics no less impressive. There's a special place in my heart for the cigar box juggler, who plied his trade to a remix of an old hip-hop song that sounded like the best of soundtracks from an old Mickey Mouse movie. We all laughed when the trapeze guy came over to hand him a stack of boxes and then steal a quick kiss on the cheek while his hands were full, feigning swooning afterwards. We also enjoyed the teeterboard action, the boys in tutus talking about what made them feel like men (funny) and then the two guys with the Chinese hoops (tumble through, many levels of hoops).

And let me just compliment the music again. There is a fabulous singer who could belt out a moving ballad, but also do experimental stuff with sampling her own beat-boxy sounds and layering them to make something truly original and beautiful.

A taste of the show:

Première du Cabaret 2011 from MONTRÉAL COMPLÈTEMENT CiRQUE on Vimeo.

This one is still showing every night until 23 July and is totally worth seeing. We kind of wanted to be on the floor, although we had chosen tickets on the balcony, so think about that if you go. And the emcee in the first half? Having thoroughly dissed the character, I have to give credit to the individual. He is the artistic director of this troupe and the show as a whole was brilliant.

I will be back next year, a true fan of a festival at last!

Living With Henry

Well, I had a lovely evening tonight. After a very productive committee meeting day in the Queen City (despite my well-known anti-monarchist views), I joined my colleagues from PositiveLite for a lovely casual dinner and a play at the Toronto Fringe. Then three of us went off for dessert…er, desserts…in the Village. Shall we focus on the play, then? May contain spoilers!

Living With Henry bills itself as a musical drama that explores the fear, complications and realities of living with HIV/AIDS. It does those things, and does them from the perspective of a protagonist who is still living at the end with his life and its challenges stretched out before him. In that sense, it is very contemporary and not at all the tragic portrayal of HIV that we are used to seeing (or we were, before HIV faded into obscurity for those in the developed world not intimately connected to it).

Several things struck me as being a bit unrealistic, given my own experiences. Having ignored his doctor's advice to start treatment and giving up on his medical follow-up, he finds himself at the hospital with PCP pneumonia (an AIDS-defining illness) and a low CD4 count. Readers of this blog might find that story familiar, as that was actually the situation of my diagnosis, except that I had 4 CD4s and this guy had 7 (twice as healthy?). Oh yeah, and I wasn't threatened with a tracheotomy and a month flat on my back in the hospital, but a simple oral antibiotic and a single overnight to help me get my oxygen levels up after the bronchoscopy. I also didn't emerge after my recovery to announce that I no longer had AIDS (HIV positive again), but now rather pronounce the irrelevance of the AIDS label in a world where one's health can come and go and come back again. These, however, are minor elements in a play that I enjoyed immensely and I can entirely understand the dramatic importance of exaggerating this small moment in the play to communicate the seriousness of the disease.

Overall, I would have to agree with one of my companions: the message was a bit simple for people who are involved in the HIV movement. But it really is a useful message for those whose familiarity with things HIV is at a lower level.

I really did enjoy the play. I don't always like musicals, and I can't say I liked all of the music in this one, but there were a number of beautiful songs, clever duets and snappy tunes that still told the story as it need to be. And the dancing! There was some really good choreography, and I was howling with laughter during the bathhouse tango number. The other double-entendre dance moment was his doctor dancing with the Sustiva and the Truvada, and dancing like she was a part of the number.

But the best thing for me was the dramatic device of personifying HIV and the very excellent job that Dale Miller did playing the part. The whole cast was very strong, but this stood out for me as the combination of the device and the performance. He was there, interfering and touching, sometimes just watching or staring down the main character. I'm not doing it justice with my description, but I can't stop repeating how good that was. Of course, the downside of that from a prevention viewpoint was that he looked so cuddly, one would want to have him around, which is not exactly the idea that the movement is fighting for.

I also appreciated that at the end the main character has a very interesting coming to terms with his status. Here the play portrays something about the relationship between HIV and the people who carry it that I have heard described in many a testimonial.

If you're in Toronto between now and 17 July, you should definitely go see this play. Check out the times and other information on the play at their website. Additional photos stolen from PositiveLite.com: thanks Bob!

A little extra comment worth adding, at least as an aside. Attached to each program was the AIDS Committee of Toronto's Pig Pac – a pack of two lubes and two condoms – that bears a message that has proven to be somewhat controversial here:

"It's your choice!

We believe that sex is a spectrum
of possibilities. From pig sex to
vanilla. Bareback to wrapped.

We've got information and
sex positive tips to make your
choices safer and more rewarding.

actoronto.org/gaymen"

For those who decry the effort to reach out and include those who define themselves as barebackers, I can only shake my head in disappointment. No one ever succeeded in communicating a message and winning someone over by starting with judgement and condemnation. Bravo to ACT for being inclusive!

Stability (or Inertia)

Yesterday was National Moving Day in Québec. It's that strange phenomenon of hundreds of thousands of people moving from one apartment to another on the same day that has its roots in various events in history here (read the Wikipedia entry for more detail).

While at least one of my neighbours in this building of six apartments participated in the National Moving Day Parade (it's a parade on every street!) — and looking very B-boy supervising the movers, I must say — I did not have a float for this year's event.

My shaded stairway, pruned free of foliage

This made me reflect on the fact that I moved into this apartment in 1995, fully sixteen years ago! Next year, I will have lived a third of my life in this apartment (roughly), about the same amount of time I lived with my parents growing up (I turned 18 at the beginning of my first year of university).

When I moved here, the "tree" that I hack at mercilessly with the pruners in order to keep it from interfering with my progress climbing my stairs did not exist. In fact, it sprang as a weedling (unintended seedling of a tree) between the concrete of the sidewalk and the asphalt under the stairs, and is now fully two storeys high.

The tree from my second floor front porch

When I moved here, I had no idea that I was living with HIV. I was diagnosed two and a half years later with my infamous low CD4+ count. A year and a half after that, I changed jobs and began working in the HIV/AIDS field in the community.

This is where I was for my first rejection based on my HIV status (well, I can't really blame the guy who didn't want to pursue a relationship with someone he had met just weeks earlier, then radio silence until the guy told him he had been diagnosed with HIV and 4 CD4+s).

It's also the place where I slipped smoothly from slut to social worker to calm down the guy who asked my status after we were done with our series of non-risky manoeuvres (I had to walk him back through everything we had done to explain how there was no risk). Then there was the satisfying moment where I got up on my own high horse to tell him that if it was that important to him, he should ask first.

The — alas! — caged doorway

When I moved in, there were all the elements of casual sex around me: parking lot out back used in the night by people having quickies in their cars; recessed doorway across the street in which many a street performer strutted his stuff for my receptive gaze; and just the positioning between the gay bar area and a once-frequented cruising park. The parking lot is now condos, the recessed doorway has a cage keeping people out and the bar to park traffic seems to be rather sparse, likely a combination of the decline of the bars and the renovations that made the park more open to the view of passers-by and neighbours.

I've been through a few computers and toasters and two TVs and other things too countless to relate. Some other things I have not so much been through, but accumulated. There's where the inertia needs to end: not to move, but to purge and reduce. The mammoth task that's long overdue that I ought to find the energy for sometime this summer.

Not In My Name

There are despicable acts being carried out against a group of workers in our country, and it is being done in all of our names.

Let's first take the employer, Canada Post. A Crown corporation, supposedly at arm's length from the government, but there are two ministers with responsibility for it, among other things, so it would be difficult to say there is no influence. This is an employer that has shown itself to be draconian in many ways in the past, even timing bathroom breaks. They fired the first shot in the current dispute by suspending the benefits of their employees before there was any strike action on the part of the employees. Who does this? Private employers don't do this. There is historical practice of respecting the expired collective agreement until a new one is reached that has been ignored here. In all of our names.

The union started a series of rotating one-day strikes in selected cities. Yes, that's disruptive to the business, but I have to say that as an end user, I still got mail, just not on the two days that my city was touched by those strikes. Since midnight on Tuesday, 14 June, the corporation decided to lock out its employees across the country. I have not received a single piece of mail since then. So who is depriving me of my mail delivery? To me, it looks like it's the company. In all of our names.

Faced with this 'intolerable' situation, the government decided to legislate an end to this dispute rather than working to ensure that the two sides would negotiate their own settlement. Worse still, they decided to further undermine the collective bargaining process by reversing elements that had already been offered by the company, namely wage rates. Now this is not the central issue of the dispute for the union — this is much more about the effects of new technology and work safety, as well as pensions — but where does the government get the idea that it is appropriate to reduce the employer's offer of wage increases? Not much encouragement for the employer to take the subsequent negotiations seriously, in fact an assurance to the employer that the government is ready to give them everything they want and more. In all of our names.

Today is the Fête nationale in Québec and some are decrying the fact that the debate is being prolonged through this important national holiday, especially when the outcome is assured by the majority conservative government. Well, I have two things to say about that. First, I can't think of a better way to defend the values of Québec than by standing up against attacks on workers and the collective bargaining process. Bravo to our new NDP MPs for doing this. Second, does the fact that about 25% of the population (roughly 40% of the roughly 60% who voted) voted for a particular party, with our flawed system giving them a majority of seats as a consequence, mean that the rest of us should shut up and take it for the next four years? Would the Tories' supporters agree to do the same after losing a next election? I don't think so. The opposition is standing up to show their opposition to something that is wrong.

And I am glad they are doing this in my name.

Lanterns and Sleepers and Bears, Oh My!

Okay, not a movie review here, but the review of a movie experience anyway.

We went to see Green Lantern tonight, an extra Thursday movie outing in a week with a Friday statutory holiday. Yes, it was an action movie and there was plenty of that on the screen, but — much to our amusement — there was more in the cinema itself!

Well into the movie, in the midst of some of the corny dialogue, people around me started laughing. My first thought, of course, was for the poor director, whose movie was being laughed at. I was wrong and discovered that moments later when my own ears tuned into the sound of one moviegoer snoring. Rather loudly.

Now, I have been known to nod off in a film, even in the trailers beforehand. In fact, I have hardly been known to be awake for the whole of the cinema experience on any given night. I am [self] assured, however, that the first hint of a sleep sound from me is enough to wake me up, if only temporarily. I chalk all of this up to bad sleeping habits, not advancing age, of course.

Back to tonight's experience. This guy was loudly snoring in the front section of the cinema while a good two-thirds of the audience was laughing at him and our action film was unfolding on the screen. It was too much for one movie-goer: we'll call him the Bear, for reasons which are obvious for anyone with any degree of familiarity with gay archetypes.

The Bear got up, walked up to our snorer and gave him a smack, ending the snoring and starting an embarrassed awareness that eventually drove the snorer from the room in disgrace.

When one of my companions and I went to use the men's room after the film ended, there was the Bear and his companion! I felt the yellow force of fear rising up in me, hoping my breathing wouldn't set either of them off! I quickly locked myself in the handicapped stall (no reason to lack elbow room!) and the wildlife had moved on by the time I was done and came out.

I'm safe for another day, but I'm on the lookout for plaid and keeping my flight instincts tuned.

You Can Do It That Way If You Want

A classic story from my family.

My sister, visiting from Australia, decided to go into the card store to buy some postcards of the local scenery to send to her friends and family back home. The postcard display announced that they were 25 cents or 5 for a dollar, tax included. She selected 15 postcards she liked and presented them at the cash.

The cashier counted them carefully and announced that it would be $3.75. My sister said "But they're five for a dollar" and got the reply "But you have 15."

Frustrated, my sister pursued her line of argument. "You mean I could buy 5 for a dollar, go outside, come back in and buy the next 5 for a dollar, repeat once more and get the 15 for $3?"

"You can do it that way if you want" was the clever clerk's reply.

You can believe that this has become a catch phrase in my family: since each of us is always right in whatever we do, the sibling doing it differently is inevitably greeted by a chorus of "You can do it that way if you want" followed by peals of laughter.

Torn, and Not Torn

This last week has been a fascinating one in the federal election campaign. It will be very interesting to see if the results tomorrow evening bear out the trends in the polls.

Suddenly, Québec seems to have fallen in love with the NDP, and people elsewhere in Canada are noticing and, to a lesser extent, following. I don't think anyone could have predicted this, least of all the NDP itself. They have been caught out with a few candidates who were placeholders, but all of the other parties have these for ridings where they don't expect to have a chance. The media, focused as they have been on the leaders (I blame the publicity machines of all the parties), have not shared with us the various qualifications and accomplishments of some of the candidates, and this applies to all the parties.

Many years ago, after the death of MP Jean-Claude Malépart, there was a by-election in what was then and is still my riding. As was my wont, I volunteered for the NDP candidate and voted for her, too. But I couldn't help noticing the candidate who won and who has been my MP ever since: Gilles Duceppe.

This was a turbulent period in politics in Canada. The Meech Lake Accord, an attempt to bring Québec into the constitution, had just failed. Even the Liberal government of Robert Bourassa was sounding like it was ready to hold a sovereignty referendum. Mr. Duceppe, then a union advisor, ran as an independent candidate under the slogan of the newly formed (but not yet officially recognized) Bloc québécois. He could have stood up, at this point in history, and wrapped himself in the Québec flag and been elected in a landslide. He did more than that, speaking out on issues of poverty and housing and other issues of importance to the people of the riding. I will always respect him for that.

He was briefly leader of the Official Opposition in Ottawa, before the Reform Party rose to displace the Bloc from this role, and I have to say that here, too, he was impressive. While English Canadians might think of the Bloc as being uniquely focused on Québec issues, Duceppe took this role seriously, and travelled across the country to better understand the perspectives of Canadians from every region. I have always thought we were better off having a Liberal government being criticized from the left than the same being criticized from the right (as we got when the Reform Party took over) or a Conservative government criticized from the centre.

As an MP, he has always been very effective in his job. Most Canadians don't realize the importance and usefulness of turning to their local representatives at the federal and provincial levels to navigate the sometimes murky waters of items in their respective jurisdictions. Duceppe and his staff have always been very good at helping constituents. We had occasion recently to assess this on a more macro level, as a dispute between the federal Ministry of Citizenship and Immigration and the Association des pharmacien-ne-s proprietaries du Québec (APPQ) led to a cutting off of coverage for medication for immigrants and refugees covered by the Interim Federal Health Program. Our letters went unanswered by the minister and his colleague the minister of health, also by the critics and regional representatives of the other parties, but Gilles Duceppe and his staff intervened to negotiate with the APPQ to end their pressure tactic, as it was hurting the most vulnerable among us.

If the rise of the NDP turns out to be real, I might very well go back to them. Not this time, though. There are some inconsistencies with my own values (Free vote on the gun registry? Really?!! Mixed messages on the status of Québec?) that I know I'm going to have to work through if I ever do go back there.

The lefty in me can't begrudge the NDP its success, but it also has a problem abandoning the party with good left wing credentials and policies that we already have. I have an even bigger problem even thinking of abandoning the person of my MP, Gilles Duceppe, for whom I have such great respect.