int.

Just to impress you

The Zolas hall themselves out to St. James Haul
By Eric Wilkins, Staff Writer

* ast Monday night, St. James Hall
was home to an epic concert: The
Zolas with The Liptonians.

Although I paid money to see The
Zolas, I must admit that the pleasant
surprise of the evening was the
performance by The Liptonians. As one
of the openers, The Liptonians possessed
such raw energy on stage that one could
not help but get into it. I had never before
heard this group and really had no idea
what to expect; I was blown away. In
concert, it was wonderful: a gorgeous wall
of hammering, nonstop sound. If ever
there were a time for a guitarist to go nuts
on the floor, that was it—and go nuts he
did. Upon getting home, I immediately
YouTube’d them, and, unfortunately, was
disappointed at hearing their recordings in
contrast to how amazed I was at hearing
them live. There was nothing notable; the
recordings were dull, boring even. Don’t
bother looking them up, just make sure
you head out to this Winnipeg group’s next
gig—satisfaction guaranteed.

Moving onto the main event, The Zolas
were a bit of a downer. It wasn’t truly The
Zolas; rather, it was Zach Gray, backed by
The Liptonians. Without Tom Dobrzanski
on the keyboards—he was away due to
an unexplained absence —it just didn’t
sound the same. No major differences were
made, but it certainly was not what has
become the norm for them. On the bright
side, Zach was his usual, open self, often

conversing with the inebriated teenage
fan-girls (all ages shows...) at the front
about how yelling comments was quite
unnecessary in such a small venue. He
even went so far as to stopping the concert
to have a discussion with the sound techie
about his amplification settings. Call it
unprofessional, but the guy’s got character.

In keeping with Zolas’ custom, Zach
ignored convention and played their most
well known song, “You’re Too Cool,”
almost right off the bat—much to the
delight of those few assembled. I say few
because, I’m sad to say, this was a very
poorly attended concert. For those who
don’t know, St. James Hall is a very small
setting, and on that night, this very small
setting was nearly empty. In fact, were
someone to have shown up 30 minutes
into The Zolas’ set, they would have had
no difficulty in getting to spitting distance
from the stage. This disappointment aside,
those who did show up more than made up
for the lack of bodies. Even with the amps
cranked up, it was obvious that there was a
significant amount of crowd participation,
especially during “Marlaina Kamikaze,”
and their new song “Cultured Man.” There
was no doubting the devotion of their
audience.

For the encore, the lone Zola dispensed
with his backups, and finished with “These
Days.” It was just Zach and his guitar, and
was about as close as The Zolas will ever
get to being tender. All in all, a very solid
night; looking forward to the next one.

Photo by: Andrea Salamanca

 

 

Away from her

Sarah Leavitt stops by Douglas College for Literature Alive
By Dylan Hackett, Staff Writer

= ancouver-based graphic novelist
and writer Sarah Leavitt shared
her work and answered student

and staff questions at New Westminster
campus last Wednesday afternoon for

the lecture hall, “I’m not connected
to the Maritimes. [My mom] and my
dad were more at peace living in the
Maritimes. My attitude to Fredericton
was really negative.”

Throughout her mother’s
Alzheimer’s, Leavitt would record

was called, My Mom Got Sick and Died,
but publishers said, ‘It’s bleak’. I like
the title Tangles because the tangles in
the brain get tied up during Alzheimer’s,
and how my family has curly hair, and
how we’re all tangled up in stories
together.”

 

Literature Alive. Her graphic memoir,
Tangles: A Story About Alzheimer’s, My
Mother and Me, finalist for the 2010
Writers’ Trust of Canada Non-fiction
prize and 2011 BC Book Prize, was the
subject of discussion. Leavitt guided
the crowd through poignancy, loss, and
even humour in six chapters of Tangles,
and shared some of her draft-work for
the story.

She started off the spotlight
and discussion with pictures of her
mother—mostly to give the audience
a perspective as to the physical
transformation her mother went through,
and how that was manifested through
Alzheimer’s. The first time Leavitt
acknowledged her mother’s dementia
was when her mother visited her from
Fredericton, New Brunswick—the
setting of most of the memoir.

“My parents were American—from
New York and New Jersey. We moved
to Canada when I was twelve,” she told

 

conversations she had with her mother,
no matter how absurd they would get.
““Oh there’s another person! I have one
too,’” she read from her notes.

At one point in time, Leavitt had
planned to write a prose book instead
of the illustrative, lauded format she
eventually settled on. When asked if she
had any future plans for the story, she
mentioned an interactive, online version
was in the works. She even told us, “I
thought about making this into an opera.
My dad listened to opera, and I grew up
listening to it.”

The story was many years in the
making (her mother had been ill since
the late ‘90s and passed away in 2004),
and took on many incarnations. At
one point, Leavitt had three parallel
stories going on: her mother’s illness,

a love story with her partner Donimo,
and the Old Testament tale of Merriam
(whom her mother is also named), but
publishers declined this setup. “Before it

The audience—half of whom read
Tangles for a literature class— was
noticeably touched by the chapters of
the story shared, and the notes and tales
behind them. I too, personally could
relate to the story as my grandfather
is very ill and suffers from dementia.
One student presented Sarah with a
gift on behalf of Douglas College and
expressed how he related to the story,
as he had lost his best friend to cancer,
and his father currently suffers from
dementia as well.

“T never thought my book would
be successful. Graphic works, unless
you’re really successful, don’t tend
to sell well, but Tangles has been
successful.”

Sarah Leavitt will be teaching
Creative Writing at UBC next semester
and is currently up for the non-fiction
prize at Canada Reads 2012.