There was a certain feistiness to the 23rd annual Festival of the Written Arts. It kicked off on Aug. 11 with a performance from playwright, director and actor Morris Panych who is, by all accounts, a performer noted for pushing boundaries and who makes for an intelligent and energetic evening.
Then, on Saturday night, the full house was rocked by the stunning grand entrance of former Reform Party Member of Parliament, Deborah Grey, who drove through the winding trails of Rockwood gardens and right into the pavilion on her giant red Kawasaki motorcycle, dressed in her helmet and a Captain Canada outfit bedecked with maple leafs. The front row of the audience pulled in their toes while she dismounted to great applause, encouraged everyone to "Ride on, Canada," then proceeded to deliver one of the more entertaining Bruce Hutchison lectures heard for many a year.
Born on the first of July, Grey spoke of Canada with respect and related stories from her 15 years in politics when she jousted verbally with many a colleague, including then Finance Minister Paul Martin. Her story Ñ and much of her style Ñ is described in the title of her book, Never Retreat, Never Explain, Never Apologize: My Life, My Politics. In a previous career, Grey was a high school teacher; this persona emerged many times during the evening's session. At times, she reminded me of a Grade 8 teacher hell bent on educating me in life's lessons.
"Here's my challenge to you," she said. "Listen, learn, laugh, let go."
She spent some of the lecture time discussing the motorcycle hobby that she has enjoyed for 38 years. She and her husband, who have recently celebrated their 12th wedding anniversary, have ridden across Canada together. "He thinks I look beauty on it," she said. She is not above using the mighty machine in her photo ops. One year, she was pictured taking Preston Manning for a ride, thus giving the party lots of publicity. "I've still got Preston's finger marks on my back," she quipped.
Responding to questions from the audience, Grey described her legacy as the work she had completed on behalf of her enduring passion for senate reform and a desire to see Quebec within Canada but without any special status. It was clear she would not return to politics. Grey says she's not sure of her future. She showed the audience a clip from This Hour Has 22 Minutes, the CBC comedy show, in which she goes on a tele-vised date in West Edmonton Mall with host Rick Mercer. Judging by her sense of humour, she could have a future in entertainment.
The Saturday afternoon session with DJ Red Robinson and Greg Potter, co-authors of Backstage Vancouver: A Century of Entertainment Legends, also revealed an edge. Face it, stories about the stars, especially their back room activities, are the stuff tabloids are made of, and Potter and Robinson told stories to make one's hair curl about the many celebrities who have visited Vancouver. Apparently, some of their juiciest tales were gleaned from the memories of impresario Hugh Pickett and bandleader Dal Richards.
Frankly, I could have done without the verbatim account of Buddy Rich's foul language or the inside scoop on Errol Flynn's embarrassing medical problem. But it was kind of nice to follow the lengthy career of Robinson, who has been in the music business since the age of 15. He reminisced about the Kerrisdale Arena in 1956 with Bill Haley and the Comets and the somewhat bizarre pranks that a youthful Elvis played on a youthful Red. Robinson's younger co-author, pop culture commentator Potter, has managed to distill many of these memories into a very readable history of Vancouver's entertainment scene.
First Nations writer Drew Hayden Taylor also cut close to the bone when he regaled his Friday evening full house with funny stories of native life, poking much fun at non-natives and obviously loving his stand-up comic role. Sample joke: "I never date a white person after Labour Day." Most of the whites in the audience took it with good humour.
Journalist Hadani Dit-mars was the hastily assembled replacement for crusty broadcaster Rafe Mair, who cancelled his visit.Ditmars' new book Dancing in the No Fly Zone is a personal account of the everyday lives of Iraqi people, based on her many trips to that country.
Only Giller Prize winner M.G. Vassanji's sold-out session was a quiet one. It seemed to draw serious, thoughtful questions from the audience, many of whom had read the prize winning book, The In-Between World of Vikram Lall, and wanted to be closer to the gentle physicist turned author. Born in Africa, Vassanji was called on to comment on multiculturalism, African storytelling techniques and many other aspects of his writing discipline.
The compressed John Gould: The only author at last weekend's Festival of the Written Arts with a Sunshine Coast connection, short story writer John Gould, presented his Kilter: 55 Fictions, a book of compact, thought-provoking, short stories that has earned him a place on the short list for the prestigious Giller Prize. Gould currently teaches in the writing department of the University of Victoria. He once wrote video reviews for the former local paper, Coast News, back in the days when Roberts Creek first declared itself a nation. He confesses to a continuing interest in film.
When Gould lived on the Coast, he wrote haiku, a Japanese style of formally structured poetry of images consisting of 17 syllables. He enjoyed its delicacy of form, its long preparation and swift execution; eventually, it led him to his unique style of fiction. "I'm fascinated with compression, precision," he said. At that time, he published a chapbook of haiku with illustration and cover designed by the Arts Centre's current curator, Alanna Wood, who was in the audience on Saturday.
"The joy of writing very short stories," Gould said, "is that you're always starting new, always fresh."
Of all the speakers, Gould was the most writerly and the talk soared to lofty literary heights until the subtle Gould humour brought it back to earth. He read an example of haiku to the audience to illustrate his words, but it was not written by an ancient Japanese master. In fact, it was a quote from the movie Wayne's World uttered by a character with no academic pretensions.
