Premier John Horgan wants B.C. to “Live long and prosper”
Anna Smith, this blog’s occasional Canadian correspondent who, in a former incarnation, used to dress up as a nurse on stage, then disrobe, sent me an email last Friday about the fact that, when John Horgan, British Columbia’s 36th Premier was sworn into office the previous day, he had raised his hand to recite the oaths of allegiance, office and confidentiality, then his fingers separated to give the Vulcan salute used by Mr Spock on Star Trek.
Now Anna has updated me:
While the Premier of B.C. was flashing his Vulcan hand signal, I was in a police station on Main Street, Vancouver, wearing my hand-sewn Cthulhu mask for another fashion show to benefit the Downtown Eastside Women’s Centre.
…It’s all happening at the Downtown Eastside Womens’ Centre in Vancouver…
This is the same women’s center that Meghan Markle visited earlier this year. I believe I was in the shower there at the time… but they didn’t tour her through the shower area.
I tend to shower in various places. I once had a shower at Vancouver City Hall.
I never showered on stage though… at least, I don’t think so.
At the Downtown Eastside Women’s Centre show (L-R) Erna, Sarah and Nurse Annie
That was a fad in the seventies. I might have done it once, but if I did, I have blocked it from my memory. More likely, I danced on a stage where I was told to shower and refused to do so. That is one good thing about dressing as a nurse. People are less likely to tell you what to do. There’s always a suspicion in the back of their minds that you might be a real nurse.
I am always in awe of what I call ‘real nurses’.
Last time I was at St. Paul’s, I told a male nurse that I had been a pretend nurse, and been stripping as Nurse Annie, he said that I WAS a real nurse too, adding kindly: “There’s more than one way to be a nurse!”
We had to sew our own masks for the fashion show. We were placed in a large room in the police station, with distanced trestle tables which had a sewing machine at each one. A feeling of dread came over me. I hate sewing machines and have difficulty following patterns. A volunteer fashion student tried to explain how to follow the pattern exactly.
But I didn’t WANT a normal mask and it turned out that I had been given the WORST sewing machine. The thread kept breaking over and over. All the other ladies had nice new machines and soon they had dainty masks, which they decorated with sequins and buttons.
I had the idea of making a more costume-y mask, with long, long ribbons that tied in a bow at the back. But, by the end of the workshop, all I had were mixed-up strips of fabric and meters of green thread tangling into massive knots, bobbins flying, cloth pieces on the floor. I looked like Lucille Ball at the end of an episode.
Anna, post-shower, in Emma Goldman T-shirt …Anarchist Emma hated sewing machines…
I felt like I was back in high school, like my head was going to explode and I walked out after the class fuming… I had wanted to model, not use a stupid sewing machine!
On the street, I ran into a Quebecoise stripper friend of mine and told her my woes. Surely, as a dancer, she would understand how awful sewing was? She listened a bit, before interrupting: “You do know I’m a seamstress, don’t you?”
Her entire family had been tailors for generations!
She said she could easily sew the mask for me.
I actually hand-sewed the face part. I can sew by hand, no problem. But the long ribbons would have taken forever…
In a couple of days she had them done: meters of cloth sewn into long neat ribbons, with nice diagonal tips, like laces.
The show went OK. It was live-streamed and raised money with the tickets and an auction. But I missed having a live audience. And we were confused because we could barely hear our music… though it was heard by the viewers.
I danced to JJ Cale’s song Call Me The Breeze, because his music is so relaxing…
Of course, people asked if I was really a nurse…
Afterwards, I met two more real nurses. One was at a clinic, where I had a COVID-19 test.
COVID is now spreading rapidly through the Downtown East Side, after a slow start there.
The second nurse was a surprise… I walked into what I thought was a storefront cannabis shop (it used to be), looking for some rolling papers for a neighbour.
I was very surprised to learn that I was in Vancouver’s first psychedelic mushroom shop. Now people don’t have to go down to ‘Mad Mike’s Mushroom Tent’ in front of Pacific Central Station all the time.
Well, in fact, I don’t think Mad Mike’s is open in the winter time.
The new mushroom shop on Granville Street is called Zoomers, and there is a registered nurse named Rachelle on staff there. Clients have to have a brief consultation in Rachelle’s office, fill out a form and promise not to drive whilst on mushrooms.
Micro-dosing is recommended…
That was yesterday. This morning, at the very busy intersection of Granville and Georgia, I saw some odd sights:
A middle aged man with a flushed face wearing a Santa hat and also wearing two signs. One sign said:
“I (heart) J.K. Rowling.”
…In eccentric Vancouver, close to the giant statue of Satan…
I take it he was the same man who paid for a billboard saying the same thing in East Vancouver (close to where the giant statue of Satan was erected). The City of Vancouver had the billboard message removed for being an expression of transphobia.
The other sign the man was wearing said something ridiculous like “Children have the right to experience PUBERTY”.
Another unhinged-seeming man nearby had an ominous sign on his bicycle warning those who do not love Jesus that they are DOOMED for eternity. He was staggering about and holding a stretched-out white coat hanger, for no apparent reason.
SO IT GOES - John Fleming's blog 