Congratulations to Lydia Perović on the publication of Incidental Music! A chapter of Incidental Music appeared in Steel Bananas Quarterly last year in our translation issue, prior to being picked up by feminist press Inanna Publications. The launch will be hosted by TINARS at the Gladstone Hotel in Toronto on November 27th, 2012.

The evening will feature performances by seasoned concert and opera soprano Erin Bardua, whose singing highlights include Vancouver Opera (Macbeth) and Pamina (Die Zauberflöte) with Arcady Baroque Ensemble and Handel’s Alcina with Essential Opera, and mezzo Margaret Bardos, whose contemporary and classical repertoire includes R. Murray Schafer’s The Children’s Crusade, Karl Jenkins’ Stabat Mater, Rossini’s Petite Messe and Vivaldi’s Gloria. She will perform an idiosyncratic history of the mezzo-with-soprano involving different composers and eras. They will be accompanied by accomplished Toronto pianist, Christina M. Faye.

Enjoy the opera, and a special reading by Lydia in the second act of this special event!

About a month ago, our good friend Josh Christenson from the band The Western Fifth was in a really horrendous bicycle accident, hospitalized for a few days, and released with lots of road rash, a broken finger, concussion, jaw damage and losing four teeth. He's American and completely uninsured for the dental work and could really use our help.

To that end, I collected ten covers and put them on Bandcamp. We can't charge for these songs, but I figured anyone could take the songs and then leave a donation for Josh's medical bills. All money raised will go to him.

Please share. Even if they've never heard of us, everyone seems to appreciate the Sexy Back cover (remastered with more volume). And if they are fans, there are some really fun covers of Dylan, Van Halen, the traditional Ain't No Grave, Jane Siberry, the Rheostatics and our own Excellent Steel Horse. There are also two other unreleased originals.

Thanks. Every little bit counts. Fer his health.

-Chris Eaton

To donate, visit the Bandcamp page here.

By that measure, one is never sure whether the figures gaze with the indifference of haphazardly arranged furniture, or with the suspicion of a clique appraising the entrance of a stranger. Perhaps the only certainty is that the introduction of the viewer as a foreign body into the space casts them as a player in the interactions between the objects and the space. As in a science experiment, the introduction of a foreign element to a controlled environment is done with the purpose of creating a reaction or change. In other words, the viewer has either disturbed the party, or the feng shui. In either case, Baghramian has forced the viewer into the role of the outsider, obligating them to navigate the space as such.

Baghramian has provided the sculptures titles such as “Tomcat,” “Slacker I,” “Dandy,” “Jump on Bandwagons,” “Mr. Hunger,” and “Stiff,” which serves to imbue her avant-garde coat racks and lampshades personalities that heighten the notion that each object is indeed a character in a scene, rather than parts in an artfully decorated room. This in turn hints at the remarkable parallels between the emotions and moods produced by the placement and choice of objects within a space, and the emotions and moods produced when one views another’s body language – or simply the presence or absence of a particular individual. It is the connection that exists between a rug that really ties the room together, and the one person who is always the life of the party.

We can determine certain things about the scene we are entering from the specific placement of the sculptures – most are clustered near the centre, either mingling or conspiring; others off in the corners, brooding; and “Slacker I,” lays flat on the floor, either dead, passed out, or broken. We can only speculate on other details, as their biological and/or practical nature is ambiguous. If we are looking for signs of humanity, only a few have what might be described as heads, and even then, none of these "heads" have faces. Conceivably, then, they could be looking in any number of directions.

Here is where Baghramian really tests the viewer: since the information provided about this tableau is largely unclear, what are we to conclude? Why are we suddenly so uncomfortable? Because the body language of the figures is only vaguely readable, it seems inevitable to suspect that we have stumbled into something sinister – a murder mystery with “Slacker I” as the victim, perhaps. All connection to a given humanity is implied entirely through posture and innuendo: we can only surmise, thus we feel uneasy.

In giving us only ambiguous form in an arranged pattern, Baghramian points to the fear inherent in being an outsider as a result of a language, cultural, or social barrier. The viewer walks into a room where they are clearly the odd one out and can feel the gaze of strangers sizing them up. Likewise, the viewer must contend with his or her own misgivings about the strangers. They speak in a tongue we do not understand – are they talking about us?

All we know is that we are the intruder, with both viewer and object sizing each other up with wariness mainly in mind, just as the participants in a reunion size each other up, testing for signs of success, failure, and scandal. Indeed, the setting for this tableau might also be the gallery itself, and the outsider that is the viewer might be the outsider to an enclosed and ensconced cultural community that fears fresh faces. The scenarios where one might be an outsider are, of course, innumerable, which is part of what makes the ambiguity of Class Reunion so effective: one might just as easily imagine a hypothetical scenario in which they might be an outsider, or a personal situation where one indeed was the odd one out.

Weaving through the cliquish figures, one is intimidated by the shapes. Though slender and elegant they are, given their height, extremely imposing, which only contributes to the sense that the meddlesome viewer is unwelcome. Whenever the viewer searches for a friendly face, the figures seem to turn the other way, to whisper amongst themselves. Nairy Baghramian’s Class Reunion is ominous and remarkable; successful in its political aims, and imbued with an earnestness that leaves the viewer haunted long after returning to the world of humans, where one might still be an outsider anyway.

Nairy Baghramian's 'Class Reunion' runs at the Vancouver Contemporary Art Gallery (555 Nelson Street) until November 11, along with Xu Zhen's installation, 'The Last Few Mosquitoes.'

We're very pleased to announce N. Alexander Armstrong as the latest addition to the SB Art Collective. Alex is an artist working with words, pictures, moving pictures, and music. He lives in Toronto, and likes to stir up trouble.

He wrote for SB Quarterly periodically over the years, and is featured in SB's 2009 Gulch Anthology.

Alex is taking on an Assistant Editor role, and coordinating special projects in Toronto this summer. We're very excited to have Alex on the team.