The Arts Club Theatre in Vancouver puts out a number of mainstream acts like Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap some years back and Beauty and the Beast this holiday season, but they also showcase a fair amount of lesser known talent as well. Although born abroad, Nick Bantock has been living in BC for some years now, most recently finding his way as a fiction writer. He has produced at least two trilogies of verse, the first of which — Griffin and Sabine — has been adapted for the stage. I had the esteemed opportunity to attend the opening night to this lyrical play at the Granville Island Stage and here are my thoughts.

The premise is fairly straight forward. Griffin is a one-man postcard company living in London, creating some rather fantastic art and paintings. Sabine is an island girl, living in a not-so populated area of the world (I didn’t catch the name, but it’s probably something like the US Virgin Islands or the like, the actual location doesn’t matter all that much). The twist is that Sabine, since she was a young girl, could see every piece of art that Griffin produced as he produced it, despite the fact that he is on the other side of the earth. The image of his painting would unravel right before her in her mind’s eye, and she made it her life mission to find this person and to understand him. Though a few turn of events, they manage to link up and exchange some correspondence in the form of letters and postcards. Through their words, sight unseen, they fall in love.

If you suspend you disbelief for the first act (dubbed The minor, or earthly by Bantock), and buy into the whole one way telepathy thing, you might enjoy a few moments. There are moments of drama, instances of levity, and a little something in between. Some of the exchanges are quite amusing (mostly from Griffin, played by Colin Legge, and not as much from Sabine, played by Lois Anderson, though she does a fairly good job as well).

For example, Griffin describes an experience wherein he walks into an art gallery and is immediately drawn to a particular painting. Upon further inspection, he sees that it depicts your typical knight in shining armor, riding atop a glorious white stallion, except the armor he is wearing “could not withstand a cigarette lighter.” He is shown slaying “toy dragons” to save what appear to be damsels in distress. He appears triumphant and quite proud of himself, though the ladies look indifferent: they didn’t want nor need to be saved. In a moment, the knight realizes that his life’s purpose is absolutely meaningless… then it dawns on Griffin that he is that knight.

It’s not the best play in the world, but it’s not the worst either. But whereas the first act is a little odd, a touch eccentric perhaps, the second act is completely bonkers. It becomes so terribly outrageous, so incredibly outlandish that you are left sitting in your seat, trying to understand what went wrong. It certainly doesn’t help that Nick Bantock dubs this second half The major, or celestial. One moment I saw what seems like an unfolding romance as I delicately straddled the great divide between fantasy and reality. The next, I was thrown into complete and utter disbelief at the sheer absurdity of it all, witnessing a mystical gateway to an alternative realm where a pair of fearful souls attempt to ensnare a dark angel. There’s even mention of something called shadow sight. The smoke machines are, well, running overtime.

The dramatists perhaps said it best when they describe it as “wondrous, yet totally unnerving.” There is something terribly unsettling about this play, and it’s the fact that they are charging people money to watch this. I have not read Bantock’s original books (which are quite highly esteemed), so clearly something was lost in the translation to the stage.

In the end, I found Griffin and Sabine, as a play, to be either: a) so self-absorbed in itself that it could not recognize its utter outrageousness or b) suffering an identity crisis, unsure whether it wants to be focal point of the next Sci-Fi convention with orcs, psychics, and mages out in full force. I cannot with good conscience recommend this play (unless you choose to leave during the 15 minute intermission).

Grade: C

I recently wrote an article for LoveToKnow Party about Evite invitations and it got me thinking. Are paper-based…well, anything… obsolete? We turn to email to correspond with people, rather than the old post office method. We use Acrobat (PDF) files, instead of shooting over a fax. Heck, even for taking notes in class, more students are turning to laptops rather than an actual notebook (side note: it’s kind of funny, really, that a “notebook” could refer to a pad of paper or a portable computer).

Are we lacking the personal touch? People don’t meet in person as much anymore, yakking it up over instant messengers instead. But what about when it comes to wedding invitations? Or how about the pre-planning events, like when you want to send out bridal shower invitations? Now, I can perfectly understand when you’re organizing casual get togethers, like a poker game, birthday party, or a night of go-karting, but for something as personal (and important as a wedding, can you really opt for a cold message in someone’s email box? Does it not make you look cheap?

Maybe I just have weddings on the mind, because I went to so many this past summer. Maybe I overuse that wonderous evite site, relying on it a little too much for keeping track of RSVPs. Bleh. Maybe I’m just rambling.

I’m sure you’ve noticed. Poker is no longer “just a game.” It’s no longer restricted to smoke-filled casinos. It’s about as mainstream as it comes, and a big part of this phenomenon is the internet. Sure, the World Series of Poker has been around for a long time, but with the World Poker Tour catered for television, more and more people have jumped on the checking, raising, and betting fiasco known as Texas Hold ‘em. I admit. I’ve been bit by the poker bug too.

There are plenty of online poker sites out there — Poker Room, Party Poker, Full Tilt Poker, and so on — and there have even been some millionaires made as a result, the best known of which is Chris Moneymaker (his name is a little too appropriate). One site that I’ve come across during my journeys is Blogger Poker Tour. It’s not new; this is their “second season”, whatever that means, but who would have thought combining the somewhat geeky practice of blogging with the “cool” game of cards.

Check it out if you want, stick to the home game tourneys (like me), or dare to be different and play Euchre instead. No matter what you do, it seems like poker is here to stay and it’s only going to get bigger. After all, who could have guessed that Daniel Negreanu, Doyle Brunson, and Phil Laak would become household names.

A growing number of people — myself included — are starting to make their primary income online. Some have tried selling random trinkets, others may sign up for those sketchy pyramid schemes. I haven’t tried either of those, but since I enjoy writing so much, being a blogger for a living has been a natural fit. But can you make money blogging?

Yes and no. Prominent bloggers, like Darren Barefoot and Ross the Intern, don’t have too much trouble getting enough exposure these days, but what around the rest of us? With the proliferation of sites like MySpace, Blogger, and so on, more and more folks are having a significant online presence, even if a relative small number of people visit their blogs.

Here at Beyond the Rhetoric, traffic has been modest, but this is far from being my primary source of income. The Google ads provide a touch, but I want to dabble in a couple of other streams. One such stream is Blogsvertise. How legitimate they are… well, I don’t know that yet. No harm in trying, though, I guess.

It’s no get rich quick scheme — those never work out — but it’s worth a shot. Are there any services you have tried? Did they work? Were they scams? Leave a comment and let us all in on the action.

It’s no secret that it’s been a seller’s market in Vancouver when it comes to real estate. These past couple of years, we’ve seen prices skyrocket on even the most modest of developments, spurring on more and more condos. The building boom has been huge, shifting entry-level suites from the mid 100ks to the low 300ks. In fact, even when you look into the surrounding areas like Port Coquitlam, Port Moody, New Westminster, Surrey, and so on, prices there for a simple 600ish square foot condo start in the $250,000 range. That’s no small sum. But it seems that things are finally starting to shift.

As we gear up for the 2010 Winter Olympics, I fully expect the condos to keep going up (along with the prices), but a recent report has indicated that, compared to last year, we have started seeing a change. Last year, there were far more potential buyers than there were available units, but the reverse appears to be true, if only by a small margin. It won’t become a buyer’s market any time soon, but this latest report predicts a more “even” playing field wherein neither buyers nor sellers have an outright advantage.

Outside investors are still happily picking up apartments and condominiums with the plan to flip them for a profit, as interest rates appear to be staying steady (or possibly even dropping), buyers will continue to flock the market. Somehow, I don’t see prices coming down in the near future.

This can’t be good for people like me. It is impossible for someone on a single income to be able to purchase a house in Vancouver (the average price is something like $700k), and even an intermediary like a modest one bedroom apartment seems to be a stretch. I don’t want to rent.

I read some place that the average household income in the Vancouver area these days is about $60,000 (most likely with both partners working), with nearly 40% of that going straight toward a mortgage. That’s pretty hefty. How can you afford to live in Vancouver? Factor in the costs of our daily lattes, trendy cell phones, and high fashion clothing, and you’ve left yourself without dinner on the table. And of course, we all need our huge plasma TVs too, right?

They say that we are now the second most expensive city in Canada to live in (I think you guess who’s number one), but we are one of, if not the most “livable”… whatever that means.

Sigh. You’ve got to pay to play, I suppose. Or wait until post 2010 when the prices will surely plummet.

There are far too many of these movies these days. Open Season is the latest in a long string of computer animated films that feature talking animals. While the animation is cute and the voice actors somewhat entertaining, the plot is far too formulaic and predictable. That said, if you’re willing to suspend your disbelief and your discerning critical eye (or perhaps if you’re just accompanying some young children to a cheap Sunday matinee), you can still find some enjoyment in Open Season.

Featuring the voice talents of Martin Lawrence (as Boog the Bear), Ashton Kutcher (of Punk’d and That 70s Show) Debra Messing (of Will and Grace fame), Patrick Warburton (perhaps best known as “Putty” from Seinfeld), Gary Sinise (CSI: NY), Jon Favreau (multi-millionaire and Monica’s boyfriend Pete Becker from Friends) and so on, Open Season — like so many talking-animal animated films before it — brings out the big well-known “real” actors to do the voices of bears, deer, beavers, and a porcupine who won’t stop creeping me out with “buuuuuuddddyyyy”.

The premise of the movie is simple: we have a bear (Boog) that was rescued as a young cub by a park ranger (the town reminds me a little of Ketchikan, Alaska for some reason). He grows up to perform for tourists in an outdoor theatre (which looks a lot like some of the stages atop Grouse Mountain), riding on a unicycle and the like. Some less than favorable things happen and the ranger (voiced by Debra Messing) is forced to return Boog to the wild. Problem is, it’s “open season” in a couple of days. Boog befriends Elliot (voiced by Ashton Kutcher), a small, somewhat insecure deer, they try to find their way back to town, and some other random events occur along the way.

I found the animation a little strange. Certain parts — like Boog’s fur — are eerily realistic, while others — like the human characters’ faces — are incredibly cartoony and artificial. This was a strange blend that I never really digested.

Some voices fit the characters; others did not. I think Gary Sinise did a wonderful job as the crazed Shaw, a hunter with a mission to prevent the forthcoming animal revolution, which would see the reversal of roles between animals and humans. Ashton Kutcher was entertaining, Debra Messing acceptable, but the “star” of the show — Martin Lawrence as Boog — just didn’t work for me. Maybe it’s because every time Boog spoke, I “saw” the less than huge (and inherently non-threatening) Martin Lawrence. Don’t get me wrong, I like him fine as a comedic actor, but maybe he should stick to live action.

The take-home message here, of course, is that animals are good (and belong
in the wild, not in captivity), friendship should always come first,
and hunting (and hunters) are bad, very bad. In the end, if you’re not looking for a “thinking” or “action” movie and are willing to put up with lots of predictability and somewhat flat characters, you could very well enjoy Open Season with its quirky lines and colorful animation.

Grade: B-