Having trouble drowning out the New Years ASE Theatre Sports may be the quick-fix you’re looking for. by Jason Kurylo hree times in my life, I’ve laughed myself to tears whilst attending live theatre. All three times, it was at the improvisationally untieable hands of the Vancouver Theatre- Sports League. The third and latest was last month, at the X-Mas Files opening night. " A rotating cast took the ultra- sombre Agent Smolder and his pouty sidekick Agent Sulky through a maze of paranormal ex- periences inspired by, and at times starring, audience members. Along the way, they encountered dark, creepy, backwards towns (This night, it was Ladner. Spooky, huh?), and got officially uninvited from the F.I.B. Xmas party, all whilst investigating a bizarre series of wrapping paper murders. As with most improv shows, the Bizarre dreams topic for new creation X-Mas Files had a few weak spots, but more than made up for them by the final curtain. In fact; the third-quarter slow spots mirrored very closely the portion of the X- Files that usually slugs down for a few minutes. The culprit? Plot. Even the mother show has to stop the wagon for a minute to ensure the damn plot comes together by the end, so it was inevitable this quirk-conceived offspring would inherit this trait. The gang on-stage did a marvelous job sending up the ultraserious TV crew. Pierce Visser, for example, nailed every twitch with his Candy Man. Lighting a candy cane, then ominously guid- ing the crowd through a surprising recreation of the moody theme song, he was a lanky Rod Serling minus the funhouse mirror. Just like on the tube, there were more trenchcoats, flashlights, bare- ly lit scenes, and great one-liners than you could shake an alien at. One show saw David C. Jones’ Smolder ask a crowd member, “How’s my hair?” The quickwitted customer deadpanned, “Better than last week.” When asked if his ninth Christmas was a good one, Smolder droned, “It was the hap- piest time of my life. I almost smiled.” The X-Mas Files ran until De- cember 29 at the Arts Club Revue Theatre on Granville Island. According to the VTSL folks, the run was extremely successful. “We only wish Christmas lasted long- er,” said Jones, who doubles as a promotions fella. (Let’s see Duc- hovny do *that*.) TheatreSports will call the Revue home for the foreseeable future, with the perpetually expected move to the Stan-ley still planned for “hope- fully later this year.” Regular Theatre-Sports runs Wednesday to Saturday, at 8:15 My Education is the new ‘disjointed’ effort from William S. Burroughs, published by Penguin Books by Kevin Sallows y Education, subtitled A Book of Dreams, is just that. One would think that an entire book of Burroughs’ dreams would be fascinating and revealing, yet My Education is frus- tratingly unrevealing, unless of course you're a psychoanalyst or a dream expert. Promo blurbs on the back cover trumpet inevitable praises: By the end of the book I felt as if the only thing I had learned is that it’s extremely difficult to get break- fast in Burroughs’ Land of the Dead, the strange grey unreality that is the setting for many of his nocturnal adventures. If that sounds a bit like a bizarre Woody Allen dream scenario, it’s because Burroughs’ dreams are as strange and sometimes even as funny as Allen's parodies of dream diary entries in Without Feathers. But Dreams are a very personal thing. I sometimes have difficulty figuring out the meaning of my own dreams, let alone those of another. On page two, Burroughs sur- mises as to why dreams so often fall flat when related to others: “No context... like a stuffed animal set on the floor of a bank.” He then goes on to set stuffed animals of varying shapes, sizes and colours on bank floors for 190 pages. Dream after dream, a jumble of pm, with 2 for 1 admission on Wednesdays and an extra 10:15 pm show on Fridays and Sat- urdays. Sundays at 8:15, see The Next Generation: Radical Experiment, which features up and coming improv actors for the low low price of just six bucks. Watch for the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, beginning January 29. For those in the don’t know, the Massacre is a three week competition, featuring your favourite locals going brain to brain, five nights a week, vying for top spot among Sportsters in the Lower Mainland. Burroughs’ riffs are a pleasure to read. He often goes places many writers would be fearful or unable to visit. At one point he uses an ingen- ious technique. Taking phrases from various places earlier in the book, he combines them into a ran- dom, nonsensical paragraph of curious word/phrase combinations. The passage has a surreal, dreamy quality. Vancouver Theatre Sports provides a great laugh and puts all your worries aside for a while. Vancouver TheatreSports file photo VTSL tickets are always a bargain, and dammit, these are fabulous shows. Do yourself a favour. Go. my education “Many Burroughs fans may find _ then, how hard is it to dredge up fragmented, unfamiliar images. There’s a strange sense of this book a sheer miracle....” absurdity from one’s dream life? Disorienting. familiarity—the reader has i WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS “A whirlwind valedictory tour of _ It’s not as if Burroughs has cor- In the last half of the book seen each of the phrases before, Burroughs recreates the dream Burroughs’s own unconscious... nered that market. Burroughs pulls it together a bit more _ even if he or she can’t remember world in all its fragmented glory, An intensely personal book.” Why does he get his dreams often. Only he does it... cryptically. He exactly where. It’s unclear whether SOmetimes vivid, often vague. The frustrating thing is that it is his world, a fact that may leave many readers floundeing around search- Personal, yes, perhaps even in- tensely so. But as tours go, it’s a bit like a trip on an alien world with- published, then? This seems to me an extravagant luxury, one no doubt afforded by Burroughs’ doesn’t make it easy on the reader— observations come seemingly out of nowhere. Burroughs is elliptical in his the phrases are arranged by Burroughs or simply chosen and arranged using his random cut- out a comprehensible travelogue or impressive track record and near- _writ-ing, preferring to leave the and-paste style, but this is where ing for meaning. On the other guide—just the sights, no explana- _ iconic stature as a writer and reader with the work of connecting _the text really comes alive. hand, Burroughs fans will prob- tions. Taken as a whole, the book personality. Whatever his stature, _ the dots. I suspect that the disjointed feel ably find this a rewarding read. I reads like a dream—disjointed, just found it work. disparate elements juxtaposed, a lot of seeming nonsense dotted with sparks of intriguing insight. Fascinating, yes, but also confusing. though, Burroughs is still human and he has human dreams. Unfortunately, the commonality of the human experience doesn’t translate well to dream reality. Smashing Pumpkins January 8, at GM place by Robert Moffat Meaning aside, some of of the book is intentional. the acidic colours of Warhol paintings cascade across huge projection screens, interspersed with scenes from Planet of the Apes and the Hindenburg explosion. Absolutely punishing volume, relentless in its intensity, an inescapable vortex of sound. ‘Bullet With Butterfly Wings’ shoves the capacity crowd beyond excitement, fifteen-year-old girls in black eyeliner and new ZERO shirts shriek inaudibly. ‘Thirty- Three, Disarm, An Ode To No One’...multiple encores, final crescendos culminating in a draining catharsis. It’s raining outside, of course. M1 TOEFL, LPI, GMAT, GRE, Adults ESL M College,High School &Provincial Exam Tutoring M International student (ESL) & Homestay Service M1] CGA/CA/CMA and other career programs MI B.A., B.Comm, B.Admin., MBA, MEd., MBA and M.S. (Intemational Trade, Banking and Logistics) ... ...And Much More !!! Come check us out! 035 Anson Ave., C Od. (next to Coquitlam Centre) Tel: 552-2789 t’s time. Darkness collapses, then is smoothly pierced by white laser light. ‘Tonight, To- night’ begins the set. The Pump- kins look appropriately happy and gay in black-on-black outfits; lead singer/guitarist Billy Corgan clad in his trademark ZERO- emblazoned T-shirt and shiny silver pants. Looming over the stage, grinning, grimacing, howl- ing cold, glossy, bleakly wind- swept irony. A giant skeletal steel spaceship dominates the stage, pulsing red and blue halogen eyes. Abstract kaleidoscopic amoebae The Other Press January 211997 7