Summer sighed to a close as I spent the long weekend with dear friends at a rural property in the Eastern Townships of Quebec. There was a red leaf on the table of my cabin, like a memo. A caboose cottage nestled in the grass. One evening it rained, so we crowded into the…
According to cultural theorist Mikhael Bakhtin, a carnival allows the rules and norms of a culture to be suspended, temporarily. What’s ugly is beautiful, what’s down is up. Bakhtin created the term carnivalesque to describe art that does just that. Stories that glorify and give dignity to the non-normal, or what Bakhtin called (in…
This time of year, the colours at a farmers’ market are over-the-top vibrant, like the slutty girl in highschool with her blue eyeshadow and tight red top. The Edmonton Farmers’ Market is a rich melange of organic farmers, Mennonite and Ukrainian or Polish farmers, and craftspeople. These plaid-shirted organic farmer girls had an especially…