Dreampepper

Some friends of ours are starring in Spectral Theater's new play, The Velvet Edge. (Read: Duncan Shields and Erin Puckey).

Held at The Chapel, 304 Dunlevy, the same funeral-home-now-arts-venue that the Carnival of the Arts was just at, it's got a cast of nearly twenty, the guarantee of at least one flawlessly hot girl, Naomi's costumes are without-fail incredible, and there's both nudity and blood. How awesome is that?

"An English novelist comes to an asylum to hear the story of one inmate who, after a journey into the decadent heart of 18th century France, was charged with the murder of his wife, but committed due to his presumed insanity. As the inmate recounts his bizarre and terrifying descent into debauchery and madness, the audience is drawn into the scenes of his past. Could his delusions be in fact, a terrifying reality?"

Tickets are $20, which is steep, I know, but Duncan, who is in it and should know, claims, "This is going to be an adult theater show at adult theater prices. This isn’t schlocky horror. It cost a lot to put on and it’s a visual spectacle. It’s worth every penny of the $20. People are going to be talking about this one for a while."

November 5th - 6th & 8th - 15th

Tickets $20 (minimum donation)

Doors at 7:30 PM Show at 8:00 PM

Written by Blake Drezet and Directed by Des Hussey & Blake Drezet

Warning: Coarse language, scenes of violence, suggestive scenes and nudity.


Reserve your tickets by calling 604.569.2013, e-mailing info@spectraltheatre.com or RSVP through Facebook: Nov. 5th Opening Night, Nov 6th, Nov 8th, Nov 9th, Nov 10th, Nov 11th, Nov 12th, Nov 13th, Nov 14th, Nov 15th.

A clean uniform of friendship, tattered in places, worn in the elbows and the shoulders, but strong all the same. I think of stone, how it erodes too slow to see, though it shapes itself to the wind almost perfectly. Holes in the middle of mountains, sunsets in the middle of deserts, countless grains flying through the air. Sometimes we go on holiday, go weeks without talking, stretching ourselves between the days, our names ignored like advertising, repeated until it's meaningless. It used to be calling every day, voices in bloom, eroding our negative spaces until they adapted, filling like smoke, glued to each other like words to paper, content a hundred days, ships on water, floating side by side. Then something happened, there was a split, a rift like fire shouting down a forest with silence. It took a very long time for him to talk to me, though it happened, and almost, somehow, over the horizon, everything seems fine. Now we are a story mostly written, soaking in solitude, aware of the other, solid friends, but purposefully apart. Civilization risen up, cities yawning into view, the rocks have been cut into walls, the foundations cemented down.

It occurs to me that this is the formation of family, laying in the darkness of a winter night, tearing stories out of history and presenting them like they were wine, showing where the scars are like a road-map of decisions never made, sharing what has happened in an effort to make something new, to frame a future of reaction and place that will make sense outside the room. Failing is part of it, crashing the bicycle to get up again, scrawling on the walls in crayon, dusting off our knees, calling bluffs, and saying alright anyway, holding hands, commiserating. It was awhile ago, but cities, once put to task, continue building, even in the absence of an architect. Once populated, they evolve, reach for the sky, develop eccentricities, and form personalities clothed in architecture or maybe memories. Along the avenue, all the presents we've presented, all the fact, fiction, and morning details no one else will ever see, they form a garden, they form a line, they spring, blades of grass, flowers, chaotic, ordered, a personal deduction against any further damage. A metaphor we can take with us into sleep, a certainty as easily satisfying as cake.

Long nights spit out like toothpaste into an unfamiliar sink. She looks up, enamel, black tile, an older building. Wooden floors. Tall doorways. Stained glass. A dragon in the next room, sitting on the couch, warming his hands on a sweetened cup of bitter tea. White walls. Cold windows.

Her hands float up to her hair, straighten some curls, frame her eye in the mirror. She peers through her hands, brought together in a symbol she found in a photograph on the internet - fingers curled, first knuckles together in a twin arc, thumbs stretched, touching underneath - the childish shape of a heart. Her certainty shakes. She lets it.

He's wrought of mixed signals, sliding shades of affection and neglect which don't add up. The smell of his soap. Her heartbeat. An iron-work of conflicting opinions, kissing like he carries a new bastard disease of self-reference, wit, and deflection. Short brown hair. No eye contact. A thousand words in a picture that breaks her framed ideals. Attraction built instead of found. Panic filled breath, though her panties are balled up in her purse already. Feet cold on the tiles. (Uncomfortable echoes of explosive scenarios from younger relationships, feeling exploited). The scalpel of self-examination. Her motivations are an underground factory of facts conveyor-belt punching out hurt confusion. Very little he says matches up with what he does. She doesn't know why these steps are being taken, but what she lacks in reason, she makes up in loyalty. There is very little new under this son.

--
They stood at the bus stop, both consciously skipping their friend's gathering for opposite reasons. One feeling too welcome, another feeling not welcome at all. "I would have thought you were imagining it, but I noticed it too." "I cornered him at the party, asked him what was wrong. He said there was nothing. In eight years, I think it's the first time he's ever lied to me." Her thoughts embraced her absent friend, (his fingers so deeply entwined in her ribcage she would love him forever), even as she felt like her words were a disappointed betrayal.

As they stood close, defensively, against the suffering neighbourhood, she kept up a monologue, quiet like a gentle run of dirty water. Memories, sad and unpleasant in retrospect. "How did you grow up?" A hungry childhood, social friction, hotel rooms. He nodded, implacable, in a way she found welcome. "I read the bible fourteen times, no one ever steals the things. They just sit there in the otherwise empty drawers, collecting dust and lonely people." Anecdotes, wry short stories, a battered flow of narrative ornamented with sober, dry laughter, breakdown asides, and serious expressions. Later, sitting, her legs swung unselfconsciously under the seat.

--
I cycled past my father's apartment last week. He has a giant poster in the window, an image he's sent to me. I almost went and knocked on the door. I stopped, looked, put one foot on the ground. I don't know why I stopped the same way I don't know why I kept going. Instinct, impulse. Either or. He lives much closer to me than I thought. Near enough that no matter what, we're on the same bus-routes, we share the same corner store.

--
"There was a woman named Ha there who showed me Samurai movies and fed me Korean fried chicken as I sat on a stool in the hotel kitchen. I ate all they had, the hotel had to buy more the next day, and I ate all of that too. I was a starving little thing, so bright and blonde and tiny you'd barely think I could walk, but I was always hungry. I remember my parents would go without sometimes so that I could have food. I lay in bed next to my mother and heard her belly grumble, five years old, listening and knowing that I had a sandwich and she had not. It's made me a little neurotic about food. (Hell, I'm an adult now and I'm still so poor I'm starving to death.) I don't like eating alone or cooking only for myself. And I can't eat in front of someone without offering them any. In fact, I'll put it off, go hungry for hours, rather than eat in front of someone who won't have anything themselves, because it was greedy to eat alone, it meant you were depriving someone else."

Burrow is staying with me this weekend. (She just got a new XKCD t-shirt and it being super squealy happy about it). 2 o'clock tomorrow we're going down to Suspended, Boca Del Lupo's WinterRuption show at Granville island with Nicole and Duncan.

At four, she'll be playing bike-polo at Grandview Park, and then we're going to SinCity in the evening with Wayne.

You are invited to any and all of these things. (Bike polo, obviously, requires a bicycle.)

Fondue was a success thanks to Ryan, Eva, Silva, her two friends, Ian, Ethan, Lung, Michael, Imogyne, Mike, Nick, Duncan, David, Beth, Mike, Alice, and Adam. At one point, the teahouse ran out of seats and I stood, leaning over people to get at the tasty treats.

The origin of HIV has been found in wild chimpanzees living in southern Cameroon.

It doesn't seem real that my birthday is so close again. Just Monday, Monday and the number clicks over another digit. Three to four. My mother got it wrong, thought I was older. It was her graduation from the University of British Columbia yesterday. I got the day off work to watch her walk across the stage to receive paper proof of her achievement. The pride that thrilled through me was burnished bright by the satisfied smile on her face. I took pictures after of her in her cap and gown, holding the blue folder that contains her degree. Then we took pictures of me in the gown on the basis that it's very likely the only chance I'll ever have to wear one. Driving home with her through the sharp rain on the motorcycle, I had to lean forward and hug her, the love and respect simply swelled to more than I could contain. She's survived a ridiculous amount of harm to get where she is, and though it's not ideal, she's still scraping to get by, it's a testament to her tenacity that she persevered and put herself through university as a single mother with three kids. It's more than most have done.

Tonight I have dinner with friends, tomorrow I have dinner with Silva, Saturday Ray is rescuing me possibly from my masque-panic hell and sweeping me about town to try and find something to wear, (suggestions bloody appreciated), and there's (as yet unverified) rumour of a second SinCity to be held at Richards on Richards. (If there is no Sin, who wants to have a party?) Sunday I'm still planning on being down in Seattle with Eliza, though it's looking less and less likely as the day approaches and no rides have been forthcoming. Monday my mother is bringing me to a soiree at the Mansion, and Tuesday is the last May Mandarin Movie Tuesday.