[color]Coral Maloney[/color] and [color]Ian Mozdzen[/color] live in Winnipeg. They tackle the fetishization of cowboy culture in their Rhubarb show [color]WEproteSTern[/color]. Sitting all the way over here in Toronto, we wanted to ask them; Winnipeg, what’s that like?
1. Outside our front doors in downtown Winnipeg, for a matter-of-fact we’re running late walk:
“Fuckkk yyyyoouuuuuu you fuhhhcking Ffffffuuuckkk!…”’
students in Uggs
girls in hijab laughing with schoolbags
police car, police car, police paddy wagon
cigarette smoke clouds
laundromat laundry air blowing
a thrift store for “family & pregnancy support”
blood spots on the sidewalk
police lines
new cars and old cars
woman with long hair dangling near swinging hips and stumbling ankle
same SUVs circling around and around
children toddling along, no hat-no mitt kids
young men pushing strollers
“Hola, Como estas?”
Quickie Mart
Buses
one high heel
brown-gray piles of snow
cats
I’m Elvis. Nope, I’m Roy Rogers. Hehehe.
There’s one guy who waves to me every time I go by
Safeway
Ethiopian Restaurant
Ethiopian Restaurant
Ethiopian Restaurant
Ethiopian Restaurant
Ethiopian Restaurant
man weeping openly while
laying on the street …
blood spots on the ground …
Vietnamese restaurant …
convenience store …
bus shack …
police car … police
car …
garbage on the ground …
plastic bags
sofas in the Assiniboine River
2. A Photo For A Whimsical Evening On A Conservative Lawn with Ian
(with Doug Melnyk @ Dalnavert House, Winnipeg, 2012, photo by Larry Glawson)
3. a recipe for winnipeg, for a sentimental afternoon with coral
4 cups vinegar (use old pickle vinegar if you can)
4 cups oil (flax or canola)
10 coriander seeds
a bit of spring gravel
one blue flower (flax will do)
a neon tree paint spot
4 tablespoons clover honey
pink summer at 5:37 am
one whole cayenne pepper
a fair amount of salt
a photograph of the river
afternoon light on brick wall
one onion, sliced
one earring steeped in old blood, then strained
a parcel note that arrived last week
8 cloves of garlic
4 bent nails
mix well with grated or sliced winnipeg. let sit for 24 hours or until you sing without thinking. hum quietly as you drain the liquid off and squeeze it all dry; wrap in cheesecloth. it is okay if some things fall out. cover and hang to dry next to a copy of your favourite book and a letter from an old friend. so it remembers who it is, recite to it one street name per day for three days. store in a glass jar in a dark, cool corner where no mice run.
winnipeg cannot be frozen (freezer burn, back and forth) or smoked (flat, sprawling, it would never fit in a smokehouse). it cannot be canned – boiling would turn our beloved grit to mush. indeed, winnipeg must be hung out to dry and then stored outside of ourselves for us to look at, admire, have ready. like this it is small enough to take camping or on a trip to halifax, where they will like it a lot too.
when we open the jar and pull out a sliver of our dried city it is fragile and papery, quiet and nearly gone. but if we are really ready for it, the floods of lake agassiz will hear our call and rush in through the groundstreams, uncovering, making whole, re-gritting.
4. Video – Ian and Coral in rehearsal for WEproteSTern
Coral and Ians show, WEproteSTern takes place February 20-24. Click here for more info
