Bahar Orang
Senior ANDY Editor

Pacific 1967, Alex Colville

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The following account is told from the perspective of a fictional character and was directly inspired by a painting from Alex Colville, a highly influential Canadian artist who died this past summer.

A girl I used to love once advised me to imagine my eventual demise at least once a day. She explained that it might make my mortality feel tangible, and I could then more fully appreciate this living, breathing life. That evening I imagined myself being hit by a car as I crossed that same quiet street I cross everyday. Then I thought about a disease, an incurable, relentless disease that would consume me – slowly, painfully – organ by organ. After that I began seeing myself murdered in a hostage situation at a supermarket. I would be trapped with four other unlucky individuals (a single mother, a pimply cashier, an elderly man who had wandered in by mistake, and a small child who had run back in because his father was tired and had scolded him particularly harshly a few moments earlier). And when I carefully reached for a large soup can to throw at the murderer’s head, she turned around and pulled the trigger without regret.

It was strange that eventually, the perpetrator in each case became the girl who offered me this innocent advice. I saw her sharp green eyes widen and her slender arms flail frantically as her car came at me – the last blow. I smelled her sweet, earthy sweat as she visited me day after day in the hospital, but soon less and less, until she was gone and I was gone. I heard her quick inhale that might actually have been an exhale as she whipped around and shot me dead somewhere in the “beans and rice” aisle.

She would use the gun in this painting. She said she loved this painting, but I sometimes wonder now if she was lying. I visit it regularly and I have never seen her in or near the building. But I feel inclined to stand guard, to watch and wait and check that she has not yet taken the gun. Our brief encounter was entirely pointless. She came and went with the frivolity of a little bird taking flight. I was an accidental landing. She mistook me for a bird feeder. But I had no seeds, no nourishment to offer. And so she flew, and as the leaves turn from green to yellow, she must be flying south now. Surely she would stop for the gun on her way.

I’ve considered taking the gun myself. If I reach out far enough, I could probably steal it soundlessly from the table. The crashing of the waves would mask any noise I do make in the process. The shirtless man would never know. Where is his shirt anyway? I can see the bones in his back and I feel unnerved. I always need to reach behind and feel my own bones. I need to be sure that they are there. The longer and harder I look at this man and his sharply sculpted back, I feel myself fading away. The painting is the reality, and my world, my silly little world, is a poorly done artwork that has aged, tarnished, and will soon be disposed.

If I took the gun, I could hold it and have it and soon enough she would come find me in my home. And in the moments before my eventual demise I would look at her, look at this terrifying girl who had been the silent storyteller in the visions of my own death. In that moment, everything would be motionless and she too would turn into a temporary painting. And I would drop the gun so that I could put my finger on her face, and trace it down from her forehead, to her nose, to her cheek, and then touch the beauty mark under her right eye. I would see a tear forming, falling, and finally trickling down my finger with more poetry than all the greatest paintings every painted. But she would be swift, and she would swipe the gun, and with her tear on my finger, I would meet my eventual demise.

She would return the gun to the shirtless man. They would walk along the sandy shores of the grey-blue waters together. And perhaps once, before her own inevitable death, she might come visit the painting that was my death. Maybe then too, a tear would fall down her wrinkled face and she would marvel at the wound she had inflicted. I hope that there will be fear and sadness in her heart as she looks upon the violent scene that had unfolded in the loneliness of my quiet apartment. She might realize that her advice had gone astray.

 

I remember watching Before Sunrise for the first time when I was eleven years old. I went to the public library with my parents and picked up the DVD from the film section and watched it that same evening. I think my fundamental faith in true love may have originated from that experience.

The film is about Jesse, a romantic American boy who meets Celine, a fiery French girl during a train ride to Vienna. Jesse invites her to wander the streets of Vienna with him until he catches his plane back home the next morning. The film is little more than a twelve-hour long conversation between them. They talk about love, sex, feminism, family, their hopes, their dreams, and their fears. They resolve themselves to the fact that they will never see one another again, but when they part ways in the morning, they ultimately decide to meet again. They say that in six months they will both return to that exact train station, in that exact spot. They pull apart from a passionate, despaired embrace, as Celine steps on her train and the film ends.

In the second installment, Before Sunset, we learn that Jesse and Celine could never reconnect. Jesse returns to their meeting spot six months later as planned, but Celine is unable to because of her grandmother’s death. Nine years have passed and Jesse has written a very successful novel, largely inspired by his encounter with Celine. He has a book reading in Paris, in Shakespeare & Co., and Celine attends. Again, they only have a few hours before Jesse’s flight home, at sunset. We learn that Jesse is married and has a son and Celine is also in a committed relationship. Their conversations continue, and the film ends with a contemplative Jesse in Celine’s apartment, twirling his wedding ring.

Another nine years have passed; they’ve married, and have two twin girls. They are on a family vacation in Greece, and again the film is mostly their spirited, animated, but now nostalgic and sometimes regretful conversations. I feel certain that I will be able to understand these characters in new and wonderful ways when I turn forty, and I sincerely look forward to that moment. But for now, I can still find their dialogue refreshing, stimulating, sometimes poetic, and often hilarious. Their relationship is not as rosy as I had wished, but it continues to be charming and honest. And the film’s scenery has me lusting after the banks of the Greek islands. Celine, though more resentful and with a latent rage towards her husband, is as clever and graceful as ever. And Jesse, though more infuriating and confusing, is still the same bright-eyed romantic.

In a cinematic realm where 3D films, special effects, dramatic storylines and gimmicky ideas are the norm, Before Midnight is a difficult endeavor. The story of Celine and Jesse is more or less a six-hour long unbroken take of an ordinary conversation between two ordinary people. Their words are intelligent, but accessible. Their love story is romantic, but their relationship is relatable. The characters are beautiful and talented, but their longings are universal. I have been invested in Celine and Jesse for ten years, and the first two films were so flawless that I wasn’t sure if they should even be touched by a third film. But I can only hope that in nine years there will be another.

Hamilton’s The Rest played their second last performance in Toronto at The Drake Hotel on Tuesday June 5.

They began the show with a meaningful rendition of “The Last Day” and I felt certain that they were singing about these final moments of a 10-year long career of three albums and 328 shows.  There was a surreal, romantic quality in the crowd’s energy – not unlike their music, which somehow sounded even larger, more layered and lyrical on this last day.

The whole experience was incredibly intimate, and when they played “Always on my Mind,” I felt a curious impulse to grab hold of a nearby stranger’s hand. I didn’t, but I truly wouldn’t have found it too peculiar if the whole audience quietly and casually started holding hands and swaying from side to side, and missing the beat all the while. Lead vocalist Adam Bentley even told us, “Endings are hard, but you guys make it easier.”

The band seemed to play with a heavy heart. After just one song Bentley confessed, “you know if I cry, it’s not a PR stunt.”  And their music seemed the perfect soundtrack for memories, goodbyes, and all things bittersweet. They played songs from their earlier albums, but most of the show came from Seesaw, their third and final album.

This last album seemed cursed. Their friend and producer passed away just before they began recording, and once they had finished, they lost everything because of a technical glitch. The album was eventually recovered, but the grueling journey only added to the music’s poetry and significance, which became more intense as they sang those songs for a last time.

They have been a lovely, uplifting indie-rock gem for the past decade. They will return home for their final show at Dundas Valley Montessori School on Saturday June 8. And the rest, as they say, is history.

This past summer my friends and I piled into a car and drove up to Hamilton’s escarpment in the middle of the night. We brought blankets and wine and found a spot where we could enjoy a wide view of the city. I climbed a tree and looked down with my legs dangling over the edge. We stared at the world beneath us and felt both large and small at the same time. It was the kind of large you feel in your twenties when you’re laughing with your friends and the night is warm and you have few worries and many dreams. But we were small too, because we felt suddenly invisible in this immeasurable landscape.

We went exploring and discovered a plaque that offered a poem that began: “Th­ere used to be giants, and they loved it here. Th­ey’d sit their giant hinds in a row along the top edge of the escarpment, and pick at the loose rock.” I later learned that it was written by John Terpstra, a poet based in Hamilton. The permanent installation displays the entire text of Terpstra’s poem from his collection, Two or Three Guitars. The installation marked the ninth “bookmark” in Project Bookmark Canada, an initiative that aims to permanently place text from Canadian works of poetry and fiction in the exact location described in the passage.

I often find Hamilton decidedly unglamorous, but in the few years that I’ve lived here, this has become one of the city’s winning assets. Here I was, between the shrubbery, looking down at “steel city,” suddenly engaged in a conversation with myself, the poet and Hamilton. It was a kind of sincere and subtle beauty that few places can offer. In that moment, the city had reclaimed this poem and allowed me to experience it for myself in a way that could not have been possible by page.

I look forward to hearing the poem on Monday, March 25 at 7:00 p.m. from the man himself at Brian Prince’s Booksellers. John Terpstra will be reading from Naked Trees and a selection of other poems along with British Columbia-based writer Kate Braid. Admission is free and all are welcome.

By: Bahar Orang

Hipsters have somehow become the butt of every joke. And these jokes are not just the product of generational warfare. “Hipster” is used as an insult by professors, writers, peers and hipsters themselves. Why has hipsterdom become so caricaturized, so laughable, so insufferable? Subcultures are about honesty, about authenticity - but it seems that hipsters are perceived as anything but authentic.  Subcultures are cool. Hipsters have been accused of killing cool.

The history of the contemporary hipster began in the ‘90s, with a movement that rejected consumerism, capitalism, and superficiality. Then came the “white-trash-hipster” (a term eloquently coined by Gawker), when aspiring artists who worked day jobs near city financial centres in New York City provided a “neo-bohemian” milieu for young, wealthy businessmen. The friction between those social groups produced a white, male, post-1999, trucker-hat-wearing hipster who shopped at American Apparel and read Vice magazine. This brand of hipsterdom faded in 2003 and was revived by the environmental movement in 2004 and came to include women, skinny pants, and nostalgia for the fifties and sixties.

Today, hipsters are recognized by their beards, their flannel shirts, their oversized spectacles and their too-small jeans. We identify hipster neighborhoods by farm-to-table restaurants, Dutch-style bike stores, vegan bakeries and independent art galleries. Hipsters are criticized for their “hipper than thou” personalities, for being snarky, for being posers, for using irony as self-defense. They are rarely art school drop-outs or quasi-communists, but instead middle to upper-class individuals who think that by buying the right mass products they will become progressive. They think that by wearing certain clothing items and owning certain things, they are defying authority, when in fact they are only buying from that authority. They wear thrifted denim shirts to match $100 haircuts. Hipsters are written off as common consumers disguised by an identity constructed by a collage of stolen ideas and purchased products.

I can’t confirm whether or not these criticisms are unfounded. But I can say that this description is grossly incomplete.

The “hipsters” that I know are individuals who are passionate about art, who care for animal rights, who have an interest in health and fitness, who are sympathetic, open-minded, curious and intelligent. They do wear skinny pants, shop locally and are often vegetarians. But they are undeniably stylish, they are interesting, they are knowledgeable, and they are non-judgmental. They do not reject popular culture. Instead, they observe it. They consider new perspectives, new ideas. They do not think they are better than popular culture. But they challenge themselves to constantly explore misunderstood ideas and discover hidden gems just around the corner. They believe in irony and silliness and humour. They believe that creating art is the noblest profession of all. They believe that there is something valuable to be found everywhere, in everyone and in everything.

Capitalism has perhaps claimed some parts of hipsterdom, but there are places where it remains untainted and inspirational. Maybe I’ve been lucky and haven’t had the displeasure of encountering these so-called “fake” hipsters. But I know for sure that real ones still exist. And if their values are the ones that may someday, somehow become “mainstream,” well, we could do a lot worse.

bahar orang


As I watched the best picture nominees from the Oscars this year, the films all felt strangely familiar. And I realized that truly powerful movies – like Amour and Life of Pi – have the unique ability to become a part of my own personal visual narrative. Watching a movie is remarkably similar to looking through my own memories. Most of our lives are like a series of images. They pass us by like towns on a highway. But sometimes, for some reason, a moment stuns us as it happens and we know that this moment is more than a fleeting image. We know that this moment, and every part of it, will always be imprinted in our minds – like the most moving scene in a film that you’ll always remember. My earliest memories can only be described in this way – as a collection of snapshots. Like a messy, nonlinear scrapbook with colourful pictures and missing dates. And instead of stamps or stickers or receipts to adorn the pages, there are scents and sounds and certain kinds of weather – like gently falling snowflakes, or the first spring breeze – that can suddenly overwhelm me with a memory that I never knew I had.

I can remember moments, but I cannot remember days.

I remember that there was a bright red balloon. I do not remember how I got it, or why, but I remember thinking it was absolutely perfect. I wrapped it around my wrist, asked my dad to double knot it twice, and I gripped it tightly for several hours. It is a still a mystery to me how it became undone. But somehow, one second it was attached to my arm like a fifth limb, and the next it was drifting away at an unstoppable pace. It looked like an airborne cherry – floating off into the distance with an inexplicable kind of purpose.

I remember the smell of a summer beside the lake, the smell of a moonlit beach, the smell of a family dinner of chicken souvlaki and sweet potatoes.

I remember my grandmother’s hands. I remember that she wore two rings on her right hand, and one on her left. The one ring on her left was a gold band with a round, auburn coloured stone. One ring on her right hand was turquoise, and the other was a silver flower with a black centre. I am told that the most striking thing about her was her hazel eyes, but for some reason I remember her hands. The only pictures I have of her are those that are black and white, so it seems that I may never be able to appreciate her eyes. But my memories do add some shades of colour to those pictures, and the ones in my mind are as vivid as ever.

I remember the soundtrack of quiet Sunday mornings. My brother – reading Calvin and Hobbes while munching on cheerios. My mom – coming home from her early morning run and turning the key in the front door.  And my dad – whistling to himself as he marked his enormous pile of papers.

I remember falling in love with Conner Rumen because of his fluffy golden retriever, daydreaming whole novellas in the half a second it took me to fall.

I remember where I used to hide my first journal – in the left corner of my bed, underneath my mattress. And I remember the wonderful relief of running to my room, lifting the mattress, and knowing that my friendly little notebook was still there. Would it be cliché to say in a writing paper that I always loved to write? Probably. But I liked connecting words with people, and I felt like a momentary genius when I would find the perfect words to explain something. And I always thought that to live in an undescribed world was too lonely.

Memories are a strange thing. They are close enough to touch, but not quite close enough to hold. There are memories that are buried deep, but they all have triggers, and suddenly – a complex vision can leap out from under the dusty mass of years. There are memories that are with us all the time, like a tiny newspaper cutout slipped into our wallets – where you can always feel its warmth in your pocket. My mind feels like a camera sometimes. I can never hear the click of a photograph being taken but I’ll eventually remember the picture in perfect detail, though it may be a little blurred around the edges.

Bahar Orang, Assistant ANDY Editor

I recently wrote an essay that was about “great” literature. But the essay itself – and the mark I received – were not as great.

And it got me thinking about greatness – what makes for great writing, great art? Can an academic essay ever be great art? What would the standards even be? Who would set those standards and then decide if the essay met them? The writer? The reader? The grader? And how can I know so instinctively, so unquestionably that my essay is not great? Even if my grade had been stellar, somehow – somehow – I could never call it “great art”. Why is that? What constitutes great art?

What medium? What response? Is there a minimum grade it should be assigned? What spot should it fill on ANDY’s top 10 list? How should the artist feel before, during and after? Proud, disgusted, afraid? Who should judge its greatness? Professors, strangers, friends? What if it touches just one person? What if hundreds of people enjoy it, but none of them are truly moved?

Should it make a political statement? Should it make any statement? What if it’s simply beautiful and little else: a string of lovely words that sound like a meaningless poem; or a short film that includes gorgeous scenery with no intended symbolism; or a song that says nothing, but the artist’s voice is goose bump-inducing – are none of these “great” art? Or are they all? Should it be funny? Popular? Unpopular? Should it break rules? Should it follow rules, but with more flare than ever before? Should it shock, inspire, motivate? What if it does none of those things; what if it’s only an artist’s entirely selfish pursuit of self-expression? It seems that art in general inspires more questions than answers.

As ANDY compiled its top ten lists, we constantly asked ourselves similar questions: what makes for a great album, a great film? How can every album and every film that’s been released in 2012 be judged with one set of standards on one list? Surely the list would be incomplete, contradictory, controversial, and horribly, terribly, undeniably subjective. What’s the point then?

In my first year, I wrote a paper titled “why I write.” The essay was a very strange piece that my equally strange (but inspiring and wonderful) TA found moving somehow. But other readers dismissed the paper as bizarre and confusing. I wrote about a feathery blue pen that looked like an ostrich ready to take flight; I wrote about the empty spaces between your fingers; I wrote about the experience of watching someone walk away – watching the distance between your bodies expand until there’s nothing left. I wrote about a sun that looks like an egg yolk stretched across the sky; I wrote about a paper plane floating somewhere in the distance, with a love letter scrawled all over it.

It made very little sense. It resembled an academic essay in so far that it was typed words on a white page.

The experience of writing this essay was so consuming and yet so effortless that I had forgotten it was a piece that anyone would read other than myself. Producing those words, putting them together, taking them apart, was a cathartic, therapeutic, intense but peaceful process of liberation. It’s a feeling that also comes with certain movies, certain songs, certain novels, certain poetry, cer tain performances – and in those moments I don’t judge, rate, rank or grade the moment or the art. I just feel moved – and that is more than enough. To me, that feeling is what constitutes “great” art.

So take ANDY’s final five with a grain of salt. It certainly is a wonderful and meaningful selection of music and film – but that’s just our opinion.

By: Bahar Orang

MacNab Transit Terminal

 

I was ten years old when I sat down with my father and a blank piece of paper and tried to calculate exactly how many hours I spend walking to school in a year – I’m twenty now and the memory crosses my mind as I step onto the first bus and ask myself, “how many hours do I spend on this bus?” – hours spent waiting, wondering, wishing – that the ride will end – that the ride won’t end

The first bus is overcrowded with students – like a wallet, fat with money to pay the bills and receipts to remember the first movie you saw together and an extra bus ticket in case you’re out of change and a three-year-old photo strip from the photo booth in the mall you always went to in the town you grew up and a driver’s license to flash at people who want to know if you’re old enough

There are backpacks stuffed with The Iliad – textbooks that explain nuclear magnetic resonance – rolled up paintings that stop the zipper from zipping all the way – slightly crumpled copies of the school paper – a polka-dot printed scarf from my mother in case it gets chilly – and a camera around the neck for those who wonder if everything around them is actually beautiful or if they just have bad taste

I hold onto the rail tightly, shifting my feet so I don’t fall over

I stare out the window and I feel dizzy

I find a seat on the second bus.

Beside a man who mutters to himself and smells like burnt paper.

I can’t make out the words. But he has a red hat that looks remarkably similar to the one I knit for my father in the fourth grade.

Where will this bus take him?

There’s a girl waiting at the next stop. She’s beautiful with autumn-gray eyes and blonde hair and looks like the girl who sat next to me in Canadian Drama the other day. She smells like baby powder.

I help her lift her carriage onto the bus. A baby with the same striking gray eyes looks into my own eyes and smiles. My insides clench somehow.

I have the kind of unsettled feeling you might get when a baby smiles or laughs during a funeral procession. Still laughing when the casket is carried. Then some more when it’s dropped.

Where will this bus take them – mother and child?

It’s ten in the morning and I see boys with tattoo-covered arms fiddling with a lighter and they smell faintly of alcohol.

Where will this bus take them?

I inhale sharply. The gray-eyed-girl leans against a rail and sighs in relief.

I get off at a stop. Any stop.

My body feels as though it’s been flipped on its backside in midair – and my arms, my legs, my fingers – they are all floating away. One by one, knots unraveling and strings snapping.

My heart beats so fast that I’m certain it will grow wings and beat faster and faster and louder and louder until I’m flying. I don’t fly. I remain exactly where I am.

I feel a stillness in my chest and the world goes quiet and the leaves fall as though in slow motion.

I long for snow.

I long for an unmarked, white sheet of snow to blanket this city.

Where am I?

I catch the next bus.

 

Bahar Orang, Assistant ANDY Editor

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