Reviews

BOOKS
Wowed and Clear - A family discovers Canada
Copyright Dave Preston

Wow Canada! By ex-Victorian writer, Vivien Bowers, is fictional non-fiction at its juvenile best. "Guy" is a twelve-year-old boy who tags along with his young sister and parents on a trans-Canadian journey of discovery. They drive and camp their merry way from Long Beach, BC to Cape Spear in Newfoundland, with a photographic stop at Canada's exact longitudinal mid-point, (96Deg. 48' 35" in case you'd forgotten) and then they head back northwards across the territories.

This is Guy's journal cum scrapbook, and it's brimming with colourful souvenirs and frank observations. There are "According to Mom" and "According to Dad" sidebars with easily understood explanations of the natural history and cultural aspects of each region.

"Rachel," his sister, writes postcards back home to her friend Brittany with tales of the things she's seen and done, while Guy opts to email his buddy similar accounts, when he gets chance. We're even privy to the odd campfire conversation, through Guy's ears, as the family eats French donuts, or les beignes, and discusses ancestry, culture and a Native Indian recipe for popcorn.

There's the occasional napkin that's been scribbled on, to recall "Food I Was Introduced to for My Own Good." In Yellowknife, for example: "We went to a Dogrib Dene community for a traditional Dene lunch. We listened to drumming on a caribou-skin drum, then we cooked bannock (a kind of bread dough) on a stick over the fire. Excellent!"

Where else could you and your kids have fun learning where the windiest corner in Canada is, or how you pronounce Kouchibouguac National park, how many stomachs a moose has, or where bakeapples grow. Did you know that only the female mosquito bites, and it would take her 1,120,000 bites to drain all the blood from an average person? It must be worth the cover price alone to be able to say to your friends the longest word in the Invialuktun dialect of the Inuktitut, which happens to mean: "You'll never go caribou hunting with me again."

Wow Canada! won a BC Book Prize this year, (the Sheila Egoff Children's Prize) and with good reason. Stuffed with more trivia, backyard science and solid geographic fact than a dogsled of backpacks could hold, this book is as rich, funny and delightful as the country it tries so hard to capture. Too bad it probably won't be adopted as a grade school text book - as if teachers would let homework be this much fun.

Wow Canada! Exploring The Land From Coast To Coast to Coast by Vivien Bowers, Owl Books (a division of Greey de Pencier Books, Inc.), 1999

Jonathan Raban - Author
Whose world passages make for a colourful story-time
Copyright Dave Preston

"You simply must interview Jonathan Raban," said an enthusiastic writers' festival organizer last week, and seeing Raban's weighty presence on local bookshelves, I agreed and made the appointment. In less than a decade he has become, without strenuous effort or the promotional clout of a huge publishing budget, one of the most respected writers in the English language. His fans are legion, and they're loyal.
The tall, erudite Raban is serious about writing, especially his own. Born in Norfolk in 1942 he was taken by nomadic parents to Merseyside at the age of five, and any sense of a UK home for him comes from the 20 years he eventually spent in London. With his clipped, private boarding school English accent, he answers interview questions only after careful consideration.

Raban is billed as an English writer, though he's lived in Seattle for several years now. Seizing upon the ethnic theme, tenuous as its connection to the festival may be, I asked if he writes from the "divided heritage" that platform colleague Albert Wendt (born in Samoa and transplanted to New Zealand) claims.

His reply is definite. "No. That can only be truly experienced through a change of language. If I had moved from London to an island off the west coast of Scotland I would have made an infinitely greater cultural move than I have by moving to Seattle." A move he made in 1990, partly because it's a "bookish city with a major university library," but the nearby ocean helped, and there are many other reasons he could cite, given time.

As for the British Commonwealth's claim to a piece of his soul, Raban paused again, before launching an eloquent assault on Margaret Thatcher's "hideous" government and its doubtful foreign policies. "As an Englishman I had some feeling for it, more in the past than in the present." And like so many men of letters, he loudly proclaims absolutely no interest in organized sport whatsoever, "full stop."

A veteran of the reading circuit, this will be Raban's "two hundred and oddth" appearance, and his talent for peeling words off a page and sailing them accurately between the ears of a listener has been long-won. He worked for years in the theatre, as both playwright and professional actor; (his 6 foot stature, apparently, prevented him from achieving his goal of character actor, most of whom, he complains, are around 5' 7"). A valuable legacy of this work, however, is an undeniable enthusiasm for performing, and an appreciation of the relationship between the written and spoken word. Something every writer should be aware of, he says.

A public reading can also attest to the completion, or otherwise, of an author's writing process. "If a line works in the air," Raban says, "then it probably works on the page."

His reading selections become obvious to him, almost as soon as a work is published. "There's always one or two passages in every book that become apparent," and in public he sticks to those. He likes to read something from his 1986 book, Coasting, although his North American reputation gained ground with Old Glory, a work which prompted Salmon Rushdie to say: "When he describes America and Americans he is unfailingly witty and entertaining." In the area of travel writing, Raban seems to be hot on the heels of Paul Theroux, and he garnered the Thomas Cook award for writing which the British paper, Daily Mail, termed "emigration by armchair."

When I told him a large contingent of boaters was expected at this reading, he seemed genuinely surprised. Although a keen sailor, he downplays the maritime connection to most of his work, using the boat, he says, merely as a narrative vehicle. It's a vehicle that's sailed his reputation into the spyglass of many old seadogs, however, and he did edit The Oxford Book of the Sea, a job they don't hand out to just any young salt with a pencil. The following passage, taken from his 1990 book, Hunting Mr Heartbreak, more than hints at Raban's sense of things maritime, and his respect for the water:

With half the genoa left on its drum and the mainsail close-reefed, the boat shot past Duck Key, the sails moulded rigid by the gale-force wind. All the interest today lay in the water. The land was just a greasy stain to starboard, as diffuse in substance as the clouds from which it was inseparable. The curdling sea, green as soapstone, welled up under the bows of the boat and boiled away under the stern. Streaks of sand blew from the wavetops in long straight lines. It was Hurricane Helene in pretty miniature, with every wave showing off its own particular geometry of sweeping curves and crystalline, colliding planes.

It's plain to see how the volume found its way into a few teak-panelled cabins, and why a national boating publication is rumoured to be sending its editorial staff to the festival.

"Having arrived in Liverpool, I took the ship for the New World," is a sentence that Raban read many times, appreciating its promise of transfiguration, or some fantastic reversal of fortune, and feeling envy for its many attributed authors. And it's a phrase he finally used himself, to open Hunting Mr Heartbreak, and the welcoming crowds he meets on his annual tour of writers'festivals can all see that his ship has, undoubtedly, come in.

MUSIC
Uprooted and Still Growing
The Rankins Tap Victoria's Feet
Copyright Dave Preston

It was a mixed crowd that filled the Royal Theatre for The Rankins' concert last Thursday night. A few cowboy boots, the odd hippie tie-dye, Nike T-shirts, polyester suits and teeny tube-tops... Rankin fans are as varied in age and background, and as difficult to categorize, as the music they came to hear.

Deep Gaelic roots on Cape Breton give the five Rankin siblings a firm base, but one on which they build a variety of sounds and rhythms. They're one of the few "folk" acts to get regular airplay on country radio, a fact that often surprises them, even though they now record in Nashville.

Swinging through Victoria on the second night of a 15 date tour that takes them from the west coast to Manitoba in a less than three weeks, the group was fresh and eager to please. An easy task, given the enthusiasm of the crowd and coming just days after the release of Uprooted, their new 14-track album.

The show opened with a short but impressive "guest" set by Gordie Sampson, the Rankins' guitarist. He sat quietly and modestly on a stool with an electrified acoustic guitar, next to his friend, Ed Woodsworth, who supplied occasional tom-tom, five-string bass and harmony vocals. Sampson shyly introduced his stuff as "Cape Breton rock and roll," then displayed a virtuoso finger-picking technique and deep, moving vocals. His talent shone through in a couple of original songs, I Go Deep, and the title track of his forthcoming album, Stones, which he says "is due to be released sometime between now and the second coming of Our Lord." He left us wanting more, wrapping up his four-tune segment with an extremely soulful rendition of the traditional highland song, Will Ye Go Lassie, Go.

The Rankins (the name was officially changed from The Rankin Family last year) took the stage half an hour later, opening to loud applause with Roving Gypsy Boy, followed closely with a track from the new Uprooted album, Long Way To Go. Backed by guitar, drums, keyboards, bass and fiddle, the five siblings gave a lively performance, punctuated by sincere, low-key introductions.

This purely Canadian band is blissfully free of American show-biz glam and glitter, Jimmy showing remarkable economy with spoken words and Cookie (Carol) being downright embarrassed during one song introduction during which younger sister Heather ribbed her about remembering 45 RPM records.

During a lively instrumental piece, the three womenfolk came downstage for a tightly-choreographed piece of step dancing. Raylene was as sprightly as any, in spite of her being the new mother of a three-month old baby boy who's along for the tour.

The haunting Farewell to Lochaber, we heard, is an old song, found in a Maritime secondhand store by a rummaging Cookie. The band truly uprooted from acoustic folk to blast out Movin' On, delivering a much gutsier version than appears on the new album, but they soon returned to the lilting Celtic sound for An Innis Aigh (The Happy Isle).

Volume and punch were cranked back up again, though, for a number Jimmy introduced as "Bo Diddley meets Cape Breton" and Weddings, Wakes and Funerals showed the songwriting brother's "morbid side" in a song that began life as a poem he wrote on a ferry.

The women passed their high, clear vocals back and forth with an ease that's taken them a generation to learn, in farmhouse kitchens and small village halls, but the lead singer always had the attention of her sisters, with no upstaging. It's almost as if parents had told them to politely wait their turn at the microphone, but each sibling, apart from the intense John Morris on piano and fiddle, showed an obvious delight at hearing a sister or brother sing.

Cookie gave a spirited rendition of Bruce Cockburn's old song, One Day and the band ended with a one-two hit song punch of Forty Days and Forty Nights then You Feel The Same Way too.

The first song of the encore, Mull River Shuffle, introduced in true storyteller fashion by Jimmy, had the audience dancing in the aisles and the second, Bells, from the new album, treated us to a complex and imaginative arrangement of voices.

After leaving the stage a second time, applause brought the Rankins back for a lively instrumental with duelling fiddles after which the crowd was polled for the final request. Quite appropriately, after almost two hours of solid, down-home-style entertainment, the final tune turned out to be Fare Thee Well, Love, the Rankins' first-ever number one hit from their 1992 album of the same name. But it obviously isn't going to be their last, in that respect.

FARMER'S DAUGHTER
It's the three voices
Copyright Dave Preston

Barn door's off the hinges and the split-rail fencing's gone for good - Canadian Country music is galloping loose, and it aint confined to the prairies. It's the three voices.

Farmer's Daughter is a prime example of this new Country breed, where sassy jazz meets rocky R&B at the dude ranch. Vancouver-based since their inception in the fall of 1992, this award-winning female trio launch their second album this week after two sold-out shows at Kaleidoscope Theatre.

Those lucky enough to see last weekend's performances enjoyed an intimate setting that will be envied by music fans across the nation. Farmer's Daughter has corralled the big time, and small concert halls (where the front row sit four feet away from the singers) will soon be a thing of the past.

Backed by a tight, young five-piece band and drawing on material from Makin' Hay and their 1993 independent album, Girls Will Be Girls, Jake Leiske, ShaunaRae Samograd and Angela Kelman quickly showed us what landed them a major record deal: it's the three voices.

Individually, they can sing, long and loud, sweet and pure. Together, they're tight as a pack of country angels, and there's a real taste of gospel thrown in for good measure. There's no ego in the way or showbiz smoke n' mirrors. Just good music, honest as a day's hard work and as fun as a hayride.

However, fame today means slick packaging, and kinfolk back in the prairies might not recognize three young women who recently slugged through day jobs before practising harmonies at night. A cosmetic firm sponsored part of last year's tour, hairdressers are obviously kept busy, and the trio's retro-fashion is officially in the hands of Le Chateau. (Check out their website - http://www.wcmr.com/farmersdaughter/ - for a blue-jean glimpse of their roots).

Cornfields or Cadillacs is the current hit off the new album and the way things are going, Farmer's Daughter won't have to choose. Fashions will fade but the sound will cover the country for years. It's the three voices.

THEATRE
Hardley a Great
But A Reasonably Good Evening
Copyright Dave Preston

Live comedy is risky business. So when Stephen Andrew and Tim Crofton take to the stage with Good Evening, material that's as old as the average audience member, (anywhere from 25 to 40 years) and try to fill the sizable clown shoes of the legendary Peter Cook and Dudley Moore... it's a big risk.

It's often difficult to prise art away from the artist, to enjoy substance without style. Few would turn out to see Monty Python sketches if John Cleese, Michael Palin et al were not there to see that delivery was up to snuff.

But these guys, thank goodness, don't try to imitate Cook and Moore - they run with the scripts, lean on the solid gags, occasionally stumble, and occasionally shine. Crofton does a good job and adds the histrionic this well-worn material often needs. Andrew, on the whole, is perhaps too understated, though I'm sure the pair will tighten up as the run progresses, wringing laughs where any are possible.

There's a baker's dozen of sketches, some a tad longer than today's audience's are used to (blame Sesame St. or Saturday Night Live) and many lack a punchy ending, and just trail off. Python skits, too, did this, but they had "Too silly!" segues or TV editing to mask the problem. Good Evening does have quick costume changes and these, and scene changes, are done smoothly and well.

Though chuckles were generously sprinkled through the evening, the second act brought more belly laughs. The shepherd's account of the holy birth was an all-round hit, followed by Crofton's crack delivery of a mock sermon which did the author and original performer, Alan Bennett (Beyond the Fringe, 1959 - 1964) proud. The odd attempt to update the show, with local or topical references, generally falls flat.

Those who never saw or heard the original duo perform this material will appreciate the performance at face value, enjoy a few good laughs, and be refreshed by some of the political incorrectness, which has taken the edge off much contemporary comedy - a would-be one-legged Tarzan is still, unfortunately for some, very funny. Those of us who have the dry delivery of the late Peter Cook's E.L.Wisty character or Dudley Moore's blue collar naiveté firmly imprinted in our brains will see this Good Evening as fond amusement, but incomplete. And that's the risk being taken, so huge kudos to them for doing so.

Apart from being risky, live comedy is very subjective - go see for yourself.