Lucky Friday the 13th?

Hi Gus reader,

When I woke up this morning, the sun was shining. Most years, this wouldn’t be unusual for May in Vancouver. But in May 2022, sunny mornings here have been few and far between. It’s been unusually cold and wet, and I could not have been more delighted by this morning’s blue sky. Even if it is still pretty cool out.

Somehow, 2022 has managed to keep piling distressing news — the invasion of Ukraine, the US Supreme Court’s looming abortion ruling — on top of the already significant mound of climate and pandemic doom we’ve been living with the last two years. So when I saw the sun this morning, I had a thought: In this beyond unlucky timeline, there’s nothing special about an unlucky Friday the 13th. Today can only stand out by being lucky. And maybe the sunshine means it will be?

Last week was certainly lucky for two of our new newsletter subscribers. They won our recent giveaway, which included tickets for each of them to see one of the two programs we’re presenting at Vancouver’s DOXA Documentary Film Festival. There’s one weekend left in the festival, including screenings of both our programs. Tomorrow night at 8 pm, we’ll be at The Cinematheque for the Changing Landscapes shorts program. And Sunday we’ll be back there for a 12:45 pm screening of The Territory. It would be wonderful to see you!

If seeing movies in person is still outside your comfort zone — I completely get it, these will be my first two movie theatre visits in over two years — DOXA has you covered. Much of the festival is also available to screen online, not only in Vancouver, but across Canada! In the last couple of weeks, the Asparagus team has published a bunch of articles about docs we think Gus readers might want to check out, whether in the theatre or at home:

• The Territory’s director Alex Pritz told Sun Woo Baik about how the pandemic caused his subjects to take ownership of the storytelling process.
• Daina Lawrence spoke with one of the three filmmakers behind Belle River about climate change denial in the Louisiana community the short depicts. (Belle River is part of the Changing Landscapes program.)
• Indigenous nations have been resisting colonial attempts to erase them since settlers first arrived on these shores. Zeahaa Rehman wrote about two films documenting such fights: by the Sinixt Nation who were declared “extinct,” and the Tsay Keh Dene who were displaced by the construction of the WAC Bennett Dam on the Peace River.
• The harms caused by the Bennett Dam seem set to be repeated with the construction of the hydroelectric project at Site C, also on the Peace. Haida filmmaker Heather Hatch’s first feature, Wochiigii lo: End of the Peace, tells the story of ongoing resistance to the project.

Movie theatres aren’t the only venues welcoming audiences back in person. Like DOXA, our good friends at The Cultch programmed a spring season that includes both in-person and online theatre, music, and dance. And they’re also planning ahead for the 2022–23 season. To support it, they’re running their second-ever online silent auction, and we’ve once again contributed a Mag and Swag Bag to the proceedings. If you’re looking for a sweet deal on Gus subscriptions and merchandise, hop on over and place a bid! (There are 30 other great items to bid on, too.)

And if you’re sticking to outdoor gatherings these days, there’s another opportunity to connect coming up. On Wednesday, June 1, we’ll be hanging out with cyclists at the Seaforth Peace Park Celebration Station as part of Go by Bike Week. Swing by on your two-wheeled steed for some Oddity kombucha, snacks from Jarr, and a chance to win a giveaway package chock full of goodies from us and our friends at Modo, the car-sharing co-op.

Phew, that was a lot about partnerships and events. It’s certainly a busy time in Gus land. We actually have some more events coming up, but I’m going to save them for the next newsletter. So you’d better read it! For now, I’ll wrap things up with the list of everything else we’ve published online since the last newsletter. We’ve been busy on that front too:

• In honour of World Migratory Bird Day (tomorrow), we’ve just published Brett Tryon’s article about Nature Canada’s Bird Friendly City program. Is your city certified bird-friendly?
• We have a new Decider! Helen Lee returns to get a read on the most eco-friendly way to, well, read.
• Kevin Jiang explores the story of soy, and finds that the little bean’s big impact has a somewhat surprising source.
• In her first story for Asparagus, Jadine Ngan introduces us to artist Sharon Kallis, who has created a coat from an unlikely seeming fibre: stinging nettle!

I realize that declaring it so can’t make a day lucky, but I know what’s making me feel lucky today. The sunshine that keeps peeking through, for sure. But also knowing you’re out there, reading our work, and doing what you can to make the world a better place. Maybe that’s today’s takeaway: Friday the 13th has as good a shot at being lucky as any other day. So long as we do everything we can to make it that way for each other.

Keep taking care of each other,

Jessie Johnston
Editrix in Chief, Asparagus Magazine