Sunday, September 16, 2007

Fog on the Fraser

A bit foggy and groggy on a grey mizzly day here on the banks of the mighty Fraser, after a festive evening celebrating my 31st birthday and our move into new digs. The discovery of the evening: "The Flame," an aperitif wine from the Silver Sage Winery in Oliver, BC. Beautifully complex bouquet of peach and apricot, the sweetness of the fruit perfectly matched with the spicy zing imparted by a chili pepper infusion. Tingles on the tongue and tastes better and better the more sips you take. The blurb on the bottle says "The taste that leaves you wanting more" and 'tis no lie. I wish we were eating lobster, because that would have been just the right pairing. Scallops would be amazing too.

Not a big crowd, but an interesting mix of people. Besides writers (myself, Rachel, Lynda Philippsen and the newly Vancouverised Sonnet L'Abbé), there was a songwriter/musician (Eden Fineday--lead singer of the band Vancougar--who lives across the street from us) and a comic actor (Trevor Campbell of Obscene but not Heard--whose show "Jihad Me at Hello" is playing at the Vancouver Fringefest--who came to the party as the guest of Rachel's friend Val), as well as two people not directly involved in the arts (the aforementioned Val and Eden's partner Devin). At one point the topic of reviews came up in general conversation. Sonnet, Lynda and I all do quite a bit of reviewing and we all favour a policy of honesty over niceness. Which often feels like a minority position in the writing world. What was interesting to me was what Trevor and Eden had to say. Trevor's received a full spectrum of reviews over his career, from "brilliant" to "you shouldn't be on stage," and said that the only ones he really doesn't like are the lukewarm reviews. Similarly, Eden said she loved reading really negative music reviews. Granted, these are only two people, but still I think it says something about the review culture in writing compared with other art forms; it didn't even seem like it was a controversial issue. Maybe it has something to do with non-practitioners doing more theatre and music reviews. Or maybe it just has to do with most writers being cry-babies...

No comments: