A hot sweltering night didn’t keep Noir fans from packing the house. I kept hoping the ice-cream truck would show up during the breaks in the show. There must be an app for that 🙂
First up was Trasharella who give an reading of Philip Cairns’ ‘Why I’m Not A Star’ to be featured at Gay Play Day this fall. An affectionate reflection on Philip’s acting experiences starting with being told, at age 11, he was too effeminate by a casting director, to getting cast as a gay duck in last years Fringe ‘quack quack, darlings.’ Comic, ironic, sometime bitter, biting & always honest he left us wanting more.
Music feature Marcus Walker was up next. Accompanied by Nelson Sobral & a fine sax player (whose name I didn’t get) he did a set of songs whose sensual rhythms rode the pulse of a hot summer night. The soaring sax slithered sweetly over the Marcus’s well-crafted songs of romance and taxi rides. This what adult contemporary should be.
Final feature was Greg “Ritallin” Frankson – whom I have heard a few times. He opened with ‘My Home Is Here’ his response to being asked, frequently, ‘where are you from?’ As if being black means you are from somewhere else even when one’s family is tenth generation Canadian.
In my coal mine research I found traces of a ‘lost’ history of the black community in Cape Breton – men brought up from the Caribbean in the mid-1800’s to work in the mines, families that have never moved, yet who, I’m sure, still get asked ‘where are you from?’
I ducked out in time to catch the 10 p.m. street car to Bathurst so didn’t stick it out to the hot & sticky end for a great night.
City of Valleys now removed for prepublication work.
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TOpoet 
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