On this particular day in November, she is reading from Simple Abundance: A Daybook of Comfort and Joy. “I decided to get up before the rest of the family this beautiful November morning,” she writes. “I wanted a little meditation time to drink my coffee and read the daily passage from my book.” Simple Abundance is a heavy thing with hard covers and an attached pink ribbon. It offers inspiration for every calendar day. On November 7, the headline is “Rising to the Occasion” and my mother lovingly transcribes the passage for me in her email. Apparently, at the time, I was struggling with insecurities that were preventing me from mobilizing myself. I cannot recall what about. College has inevitably been a series of crises spotted with good friends and a good bike. I haven’t read a self-help book since Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul. I was twelve then, I also used a glitter stick on my eyelids every morning.

To me, the self-help genre whistles to the tribe of Oprah Winfrey’s Book Club followers. It is the glossy cover; it is the oversized picture of the author in the forest; it is the complementary disc for the car; and it is usually read before or after yoga. The two books I was given to review for this article did nothing to challenge this stereotype. Dream Bigger by Julie Wise begins with the question, “Did you daydream as a child?” followed by, “Do you remember the magic of imagining you could fly like an eagle?” The book, which is about learning how to rekindle “the magic of dreaming” is full of questions and exercises that will reinvigorate your sleeping spirit and motivate you to pursue your dreams no matter how BIG or small. Her advice was nothing my elementary school guidance counselor hadn’t told me before and I stopped reading about twenty pages in.

Boost: Powerful Tools to Re-energize and Re-engage You and Your Team in Crazy Times by Linda Edgecombe (author of Shift or Get Off the Pot) promises its readers improved health, wealth, and happiness. It too addresses the reader with a series of questions: “Do you need to give you and your organization an energy boost? Do you want to feel revitalized and positive? Have an emotional connection to your work and family? Be driven to be outstanding in your field?” If so, “Then read on!” I do everything I can not to think of infomercials – magic bullets and UN-BE-LIEV-ABLE carpet cleaner – continuing on despite my revulsion. Five pages in, Edgecombe tries to hook us by suggesting that there is a steamy love story in her book to help the readers get “though [sic] it.” I read this paragraph to my roommate, complete with typo. “What a waste of time,” she declares, “writers, editors, publishers, readers…” I close Boost before she can finish.

I do not claim to be exempt from needing “help” or “guidance” and I do not resent the existence of the genre that caters to these needs. The goal of self-help books is happiness, and if they work for you, I think that is a positive thing. Ted Baker, director of McGill Counselling Services, discussed the success of self-help books that use the cognitive behavioural approach to guide readers back to a positive mental state. These books, such as David Burns’s Feeling Good, lay out interactive exercises that the reader is intended to follow in order to feel results. “These methods work best when they are done in conjunction with a professional who can do check-ups,” said Baker, “it’s difficult to do it alone.”

For me, this is the salient point. I can search “self-help” on the internet and Google will deliver me 21,800,000 results. The self-improvement section in Paragraphe bookstore contains enough volumes to fill the rest of my days. Despite the excessive availability of support out there, do we feel any less alone? How do we find advice that works for us in the ever-expanding market of self-help? I find the ubiquity of the self-help genre suffocating and insincere. I reject the neat, packaged solution that self-help books like Edgecombe’s claim to provide. Our generation champions efficiency, stability, and the high-functioning individual. We are quick to diagnose ourselves when we feel that we are not operating to our full capacity or not exhibiting a positive mental attitude. These books become a panacea. But what is wrong with a good ol’ sulk? Does the sun always need to shine?
And then there are people like my mother. A person for whom books like Norman Vincent Peale’s The Power of Positive Thinking have become cornerstones in her optimism, and dear friends in her library. To these people, I say: keep reading! As Baker asserted, “People need to do what works for them.” For me, that means continuing to turn to the Kitchen Sermons: those distilled, personalized labours of love.

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Walking into France Geoffroy’s Oiseaux de Malheur (rough translation:  “Birds of Discomfort”) last Thursday night, I didn’t know what to expect from a show described as integrated dance. Informants had told me that the term refers to the integration of able-bodied dancers and dancers with disabilities.  The morning before the show, in an interview with France Geoffroy – artistic director, dancer, and founder of the Corpuscule Danse company – I expressed a keen interest in understanding more about the experience of a disabled dancer (Geoffroy is a quadriplegic woman). How is the performance transformed with the integration of a disabled person? And fundamentally, how do disabled people dance? Looking back, the direction of my questions seemed naive. Geoffroy was more interested in talking about the performance itself – a theatrical interpretation of themes of animals and obsession – and about the choreographer commissioned for the piece, the esteemed Estelle Clareton.  Geoffroy insisted:  “Just wait ’til you see it.  You will understand.  Just wait.”

I didn’t have to wait long. On that blue-lit, black-box stage, the four performers were all just characters telling a dramatic story through the visceral movements of their human bodies. The show opened with an energetic and dynamic routine by dancer Luca “Lazylegz” Patuell – who has athrogryposis, a disease that limits joint motion – and continued to showcase the variety of uses for the human body in the main piece, Oiseaux de Malheur. Geoffroy was more of an actress in this piece, allowing Marie-Hélène Bellavance – a double amputee – and Annie De Pauw, and Tom Casey – both able-bodied – to move the audience with their corporeal poetry. Throughout the piece, the movements of each of the performers was driven by their anxious fixation on something they could not take control of: one of the dancers was unable to touch her foot to her head, another kept obsessively moving an industrial-sized fan around the floor, and another incessantly repeated a verse from a song until she was smothered into silence by a pillow.  “Through simple images, you understand many things,” Geoffroy explains.  Using very few props, an empty set, and dramatic lighting, the focus of this piece is bodies and the immaculate poses the human body – disabled or not – is capable of. 
Clareton’s choreography challenges any preconceived notions of the advantaged versus the disadvantaged. In one of the show’s more dramatic moments, Bellavance lifts Casey, turning around on her wooden legs with the large man in her small arms.  When Casey returns to two feet, he lifts Bellavance, whose prosthetic legs are held and removed by De Pauw. It is only in this moment that we see that Bellavance’s body ends somewhere beneath her beautiful floral skirt. De Pauw takes Bellavance’s prosthetic leg and attaches it to the tip of her own foot, and with her newly-extended limb is finally able to complete her pose and touch her head.

The equipment, including wheelchairs, crutches, and prosthetic legs, transcends its utilitarian purpose to become a series of ornamental accessories in the piece.  Casey, an able-bodied dancer, actually entered the stage in a wheelchair – subverting the distinction between able-bodied and disabled dancers that the viewer is discouraged from making in the first place.  Casey used the wheelchair as a metallic dance partner, enhancing the visual harmony of his performance. “The subject of the piece is not the disability,” asserts Geoffroy. “The poetry arrives once you can look past that.”

Geoffroy, who is now 36, has been a quadriplegic person since she was 17.  At that time, she had dreams of being a dancer. “Sure,” says Geoffroy, “the disability has an emotive charge.  People think, ‘If that happened to me, I would die!’ But you really have no choice. You just carry on with your life. I wanted to be a dancer, so that’s what I did.” The reality is that her work is not so much inspirational as it is inspired. The emotiveness of the performance is less a result of the disability of certain performers, than it is of the quality of the art presented. Like any good dance performance, it showcases the power and potential of the human body. 
Contemporary dance fans won’t want to miss this innovative collaboration of Danse Cité and Corpuscule Danse. And if you’ve never experienced contemporary dance before, this is a moving introduction. What is a genre-twisting statement of movement for the dancers is, for the viewer, a visual spectacle that redefines the limits of contemporary dance.

Oiseaux de Malheur runs from March 24-27 at Studio Hydro-Québec du Monument-National (1182 St. Laurent). Visit corpusculedanse.com for more information.

In the original version of this article, France Geoffroy and Luca “Lazylegz” Patuell were both described as amputees. In actuality, Geoffroy is a quadriplegic and Patuell has athrogryposis, a disease that limits joint motion. The Daily apologizes for the errors.

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The second instance of mistrust occurred when Wickramasinghe was told that, in fact, the world has always been (quite literally) a colorful place. Although old movies appear in black and white, that does not mean that the world used to be monochromatic. Again, Wickramasinghe experienced confused wonder on this occasion.

As she tells it, these experiences did not offend Wickramasinghe, they intrigued her. She began to see herself in a complicated relationship with the moving image. Innocent, uninformed wonder was replaced by hardened, discerning wonder. It is s sense of child-like interest, coupled with a more mature, epistemological relationship to the screen that informs her work. Her latest installation, Refusing to Make a Scene, explores the unreliable relationship a viewer has with the projected image.

Wickramasinghe’s interactive exhibition, which is housed in Galerie B-312 and is a collaboration with Espace Vidéographe, is situated in a darkened room that smells of wet paint. Behind a heavy curtain, the viewer enters what initially feels very much like a cinema. But instead of seeing a flat projection screen, the spectator encounters a three-dimensional “projection volume” constructed from layers of clear-nylon and stainless steel fibers and suspended from the ceiling. Around the room, three shadow boxes are attached to the wall. Designed to look like miniature puppet stages, one box has a stage-light that constantly changes colors, one box has “floorboards” that move up and down, and one box has hand-drawn waves inside that oscillate on a motor. No real action takes place inside the miniature sets. Rather, they illustrate inaction – the quiet moments before the scene begins. This is where the exhibit’s title, Refusing to Make a Scene, comes from. Although it’s difficult to notice at first glance, the visual motifs in the boxes are projected onto the 3-D screen. Wickramasinghe intends for the viewer to walk back and forth, peek into the shadow boxes and explore all around the suspended screen in order to make this discovery.

Her intention is to endow the screen with “objectness,” as she calls it. Normally, the screen is a dispensable filter for the rays of light and dust that carry moving images. It doesn’t matter what acts as the screen, as long as an image can be projected onto it. This is why films are able to be projected onto walls, bedsheets, or sides of buildings. Wickramasinghe’s installation aims to make the projection screen an important part of the visual experience by creating something that demands to be noticed.

In her artist’s statement, Wickramasinghe claims that her work “attempts to draw the viewer in through curiosity, intrigue, and a sense of wonder while hovering between experiment and play.” The installation certainly has a magical quality, and evokes wonder beyond “I wonder what the hell that is,” but it’s not the most intelligible piece of artwork. It’s hard to “get it” if you haven’t read the artist’s statement closely beforehand, and the statement itself is rather abstract and theoretical. I spent quite a bit of time walking around to the shadow boxes and standing back with furrowed brow to observe the scene from a distance. I finally surrendered to asking the artist to explain the work in pedestrian language.

Cultural studies and film students would probably get the most out of this thematic exhibition. For those who aren’t seriously interested in the concepts, it might be a harder sell. Refusing To Make A Scene inspires interesting questions on how our experience of the world is influenced by recorded media. Yet, for a generation that grew up with the television as a central fixture in our households, the exhibit and the questions it provokes may not be so mesmerizing. The moving image is not a novelty concept for students of our age and upbringing. Wickramasinghe’s installation was thoughtful and aesthetically pleasing. But though the work presents itself as on the cutting edge of experimentation, it lacks a little bite for the 21st century viewer.

Refusing to Make a Scene is up at Galerie B-312 (372 St. Catherine O., room 403) through December 19.

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Cinema Politica will screen Roadsworth: Crossing the Line on September 29 at 8pm in Leacock 26.

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But while we’re devotedly picking through chunky sweaters, do we ever take a moment to look up and wonder about the lives of those mysterious yet well-dressed characters behind the counter? They’re the people stapling price tags to our purchases, an open novel face down on the glass of the jewellery display case. I’m talking about friperie owners. Most customers don’t get past a “bonjour” or “can I help you with anything?” but behind their saccharine reception, is there a demon dancing? As university students with thin pockets, we’ve got to wonder: are these people our friends or our foes?

After doing some investigative work, including visiting and interviewing friperie owners in the Plateau and Mile End neighbourhoods, and despite my best efforts to vilify the stylish shop-keepers, my results proved my skepticism unfounded. I found the owners to be, overall, benign characters who share a genuine concern for the environment, a passion for fashion, and an obligation to put bread on the table.

Although their histories vary, many friperie owners started out as aspiring fashion designers. It was on this path that they developed the experience and expertise necessary to manage a used clothing store. Since, at every friperie I visited, each item is lovingly selected by the hands of the owner, an acute understanding of fabrics and craftsmanship is necessary in order to determine the quality of the garment and eventually the price it should be sold for. Friperie St-Laurent, for instance, has on- hand stacks of books on leather jackets used to determine the time period during which specific pieces were made, while Lorraine, the owner of Friperie Bohème, explained that she could tell whether a button-hole was sewed by hand or by a machine due to her design background.

Still, I did not speak to one friperie owner who had anticipated ending up in the vintage clothing business. The job became an option when design lost its charm, families were formulating, money had to be made, and closets were getting too damn big. “It got to the point where I had so many clothes that I had to open a store!” jokes Lorraine.

With this in mind, the shopper can see each store as an expression of its owner. Although they anticipate the trends, the owners would never put anything on their shelves that they find unattractive – everything is something that, in theory, they would wear themselves. So, when they say “I love that dress!” you can bet they don’t have shrewd intentions.

In addition, friperie owners share a belief in recycling. With the overabundance of garments already out there, why buy new? Mone from Friperie Swing explains that his environmentalism is part and parcel of his business. People can create a truly unique style using only recycled clothes.

All the owners were reluctant to disseminate any information about where they find their pieces. “Just everywhere,” they would say, or “that’s the secret!” Secret shmeecret. I have no reason to believe they’re not leafing through items at the local Value Village and then tripling the price. But I can’t help but like these people. If they’re doing it, that means you don’t have to. Instead of walking into a giant box of eighty per cent junk, you can walk into a smaller space of eighty per cent gems. That means you’re one step closer to finding your hidden treasure. And oh, the smell of discovery is sweet. Thank the fashion gods for friperies.

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I was immediately reminded of the scene in Little Women, the movie, when the four March sisters generously but reluctantly package up their own delicious Christmas breakfast to bring to the impoverished woodland family. Uh, was I expected to offer these mohawked men some of my food? I had ordered a three-stack. I was in The Friendly Toast. Gluttonous? Maybe. But then again, Beth March contracted scarlet fever from the woodland family and died from it – not everyone is rewarded for their good deeds.

But these scavengers had other priorities. “Yo, are there any bakeries around here?” asked the drummer, who had put on a shirt since the last time I saw him. As my friend directed them to one that was just around the corner, I naïvely wondered why, seeing as it was so late at night and the shop was sure to be closed.

When the band exited in ravenous haste, my more-informed friend let me know what was up. They were dumpster divers. They scavenged for trash in dumpsters – trash that often included, but was not limited to, discarded food. My first reaction was surprise. “Ew?” was my second.

I’m aware that we live in a “waste generation.” We waste time on Facebook, we waste natural resources, and we get wastey-faced every weekend. But do we consume waste…gastronomically? Apparently, we do. Dumpster diving has become a popular hobby for the frugal, adventurous, and environmentally-conscious in urban areas. “Dive” communities have formulated where there is food to be scavenged. In Solin Hall, a small group of brave students gather weekly, with a mission to find edible waste that they can later cook up in a lip-smacking, celebratory meal.

Solin floor fellow Caytee Lush, a casual dumpster diver herself, is proud of her students. “It’s free food that will otherwise go to waste,” she explains. “And it’s a way to circumvent shitty, capitalist systems that…suck.”

Every week, fruiteries, bakeries, and groceries trash food that isn’t trash. Fruit that has gone soft and day-old bread are provisions that can be consumed, rather than added to the heaps of waste we generate in such massive quantities. Our parents always tell us not to waste the food on our plate. Perhaps dumpster divers are merely the most obedient children.

There are guidelines that should be followed by any interested party. I would suggest referring to the wikiHow web site, keyword: dumpster dive. This little guide suggests checking the local laws, wearing the appropriate clothing, cleaning up after yourself, and finding “hot spots.” Jean Talon is apparently a “gold mine,” says a regular diver. Bakeries are also worth creeping, especially if you’re interested in making friends. (Translation: bread is usually trashed in bulk and can make a great college party-gift. Teenagers will enjoy eating and making funny hats with the loafs while drunk.)

Unfortunately, many businesses have started locking their dumpsters, or simply not putting their trash outside. The pickings are getting slim. Divers are getting restless. Oscar is getting grouchier. Although I’m not an authority on the subject and am probably too prissy to ever attempt it myself, I champion those garbage grubbers, and encourage them to keep the faith. I will continue eating my banana pancakes.

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Now in its fourth incarnation, McGill’s Fridge Door Gallery will display works by 25 student artists at their fall vernissage. The gallery is the project of a group of spirited Art History students, who organize and curate an exhibit every semester. Executive club members Marina La Verghetta, Andie Reid, and François Macdonald want to make clear that although McGill doesn’t have a fine arts program, students are still creating their own artwork. Fridge Door’s mission is to give these students a chance to show what they produce. Besides, for these future curators, “It’s a good chance to play avatar,” says Macdonald.

Since their first vernissage in March 2007, the gallery has blossomed. This year, Fridge Door received 140 submissions, as opposed to last year’s 40, with submissions extending beyond the faculty of Arts. Last year, the gallery was granted a permanent space in Leacock 111 – a small room that provides an intimate setting for art viewing.

This semester, Fridge Door aimed to be more inclusive. “We were afraid that people were getting the impression that we were elitists in some way,” says La Verghetta, “but I think that’s just because we started out so small.” To prevent exclusivity, the Fridge Door Gallery set their street team on the loose; a group of volunteers who help with visibility and art handling, and who have a say in the final selection process. Together, the execs and the street team go through slides of all the submissions, choosing the final 25 by an autonomous vote of “yes, no, or maybe.”

Because of the reoccurring motif of portraits and body-related art in this year’s submissions, the board decided to theme the upcoming vernissage “Some of Their Parts,” a clever play on words that the three execs seemed very pleased with. By choosing a theme after receiving submissions, the gallery does not limit any student-artist’s chance of being selected – this is important to Fridge Door’s goal of all-inclusiveness. The process is described by La Verghetta as being more organic and more interesting than assigning a theme.

Next year will witness Fridge Door’s first test of endurance, as Macdonald, La Verghetta, and Reid graduate, passing the reins to their street team trainees. Reid isn’t worried, as she says her successors seem up for the challenge. Aside from hoping to solve the ongoing issue of inadequate funding, Fridge Door’s aspirations are modest. “We just want to survive,” says Macdonald as the other two execs nod in agreement. The Fridge Door Gallery would like to become a permanent fixture at McGill rather than simply a “cool thing that’s happening.”

Tomorrow night, be sure to stop by the Fridge Door Gallery, and do your part to encourage student art. Like all classy McGill events, there will be wine and there will be cheese. But the Fridge Door also has live music! Bodies, a band whose name is gloriously and coincidentally in line with the exhibit’s theme, will be playing to enhance your viewing experience. And hey, don’t be cheap. Help the Fridge Door Gallery in their dream to stay afloat, by donating a twoonie to the cause. You – Daily reader, art appreciator, wine-and-cheese-event drifter – I will see you there.

Fridge Door’s vernissage takes place tomorrow (November 11) in Leacock 111. Suggested donation $2.

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Riding on the tail end of Academic Careers Week – five days filled with information on how to negotiate one’s first academic job contract, how to defend a thesis, and how to give a professional interview – the exhibit functioned as a fundraiser for cancer research and as a secondary source of income for the artists who sold their work there. It was a reminder for all those who attended, that even in McGill’s bleak, number-crunching, fine-arts-starved world, there are indeed artists among us.”

The exhibit was the vision of an enthusiastic and enterprising graduate student career advisor, Susan Molnar. An artist, appreciator, and self-described “event planner,” Molnar first organized the exhibition last year, after hearing about a similar program at M.I.T. called “Artists Behind the Desk.” Limiting entries to professors, faculty, and staff, Molnar hoped to cast new and colourful light onto those individuals whom students tend to see one-dimensionally.

“Artists Among Us” was comprised of 25 artists – 11 grad students and nine faculty and staff, with the overwhelming 4majority of the contributors from the science department. The art ranged all the way from change purses to paintings of Notorious B.I.G. Although, for many, art is a cathartic way of releasing stress caused by their day jobs, for many others, it is intrinsically linked to their studies.

I talked with Varina Campbell, a grad student in mineralogy and crystallography, who carefully showed me her “hand jewel” – a mix between a ring and a scepter – which was created using plates of mica to take the shape of a diamond’s atomic structure. Frieda Beauregard, a Botany grad student, illustrated her love of plants along a table full of flower photography. “Your art is the final product of your personality and of everything you do,” explained Barbara Tolloczko, a research associate in the department of medicine. Tolloczko’s art incorporates cross copies of cells in her oil paintings, proving that your “other life cannot be separate from your art.”

The artists describe their ability to keep producing art as a testament to their passion and their initiative. A few have organized their own art shows around the city, or simply sold at Tam-Tams. Of course, it would be ideal to have a fine arts school at McGill, they all agree, but until then, it’s important to make the most of the situation. They suggest finding a community of artists among you to encourage and inspire. Molnar hopes to organize the exhibition again next year in order to keep that community alive – because art is important, because artists need outlets, and because she finds it “eternally fun.”

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Instead, Sherwin Tjia, founder of Perpetual Emotion Machine Productions and creator of the sock-puppet event, asked his guests to embrace the bizarre nature of the event and use their sock puppets as mouthpieces for their subconscious voices, allowing them to “say things that people don’t normally say.” If you thought sock-puppeteering was a game of role-play…Ha! You were wrong.

I entered the room with paper in one hand and my rudimentary, red sock puppet clutching a pen in the other. I was immediately scolded for a) not giving my puppet open eyes (I had used a Sharpie to create two messy X’s) and b) for cramping the puppet’s face by forcing it to hold the pen in its mouth. Once I redistributed my items and explained that my sock puppet was just…drunk?…I made friends with a puppet named Homer, who was struggling with a masculinity crisis after losing his pipe cleaner horns due to ruddy Scotch Tape. Homer introduced me to his friend, Rosie O’Donnell. Rosie, a puppet made from fishnets and neon Fun Fur, was affectionately named for her ability to be both burlesque and K-Mart chic at the same time. I caught the two amidst a shrill conversation regarding the possibilities of sock puppet speed-dating.

Inspiration for the endearingly bizarre event came to Sherwin from the Batman comics – specifically from the villainous character Scarface, the evil dummy who defies the odds usually facing inanimate objects and controls the actions of his owner, a meek, quiet ventriloquist.

Fascinated with this idea and curious to experiment with it, Sherwin planned the event in the hopes that these sock puppets would also take on unique personalities – hopefully not treacherous ones.

Sherwin’s events tend to have a childlike twist. Having heard of his Slow Dance Nights, Hipster Spelling Bees, and Love Letter Readings, I wondered if this was intentional. Sherwin, beer in one hand and oversized oven-mitt sock puppet on the other, seemed to be performing a balancing act between childhood and adulthood.

Sherwin believes that these two realms really aren’t so divorced from each other after all. Through his events, he hopes to loosen those oppressive bonds of adulthood, to help people “re-experience a panoply of past [and] childhood experiences as adults. Having felt pain, having developed wit and the power of innuendo….It’s that kind of shit I’m into!” Sherwin exclaimed, wide-eyed.

His experiment certainly provided interesting results. While most children use their sock puppets to punch each other in the stomach, as an adult, to let one’s sock puppet articulate was a new kind of freedom. The “socks” discussed politics, porn and…Walt Whitman. No matter how outlandish the conversation, there was always a glimmer of the person behind the sock. The sock has not changed, but our own fabric has, and through exercises like Sherwin’s, we are able to discover – or rediscover – aspects of ourselves.

Are you a perpetually emotional person interested in reexperiencing old childhood traumas in a safe environment? Come to the Halloween edition of Sherwin’s Slow Dance Night this Friday, at La Sala Rossa. Check it out on Facebook!

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