Tag Archives: Australia

Jilly Charlwood – Well-Mannered Winner

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Who are you?

I am Jilly Charlwood. Jilly Jane Charlwood in fact, a name that seems to provide John Horn with an endless source of amusement. As if Horn is any better as a name than Jilly-Jane. I was born and raised in Melbourne, Australia, and I have just returned to Melbourne after an 18 month working holiday in Vancouver.

What do you do for fun?

I surround myself with people who are more intelligent than me. There’s nothing in life more fun than learning from friends.

What is your favourite community and why?

Eltham in Victoria, Australia, where I was lucky enough to grow up. Eltham is about 30 kilometres North-East of Melbourne, and is a ‘green wedge’ community that provides under-developed, environmentally sound living space within the Melbourne suburban region.

Eltham started its life as an artists’ colony and has managed to retain its hippy sensibilities by developing a reputation for art, culture, environmental activism and strong community spirit. The house I grew up in had no fences separating neighbouring properties, we lived next door to one of Australia’s most renowned landscape artists and in 1986 a rare breed of butterfly long thought to be extinct was discovered in a nature reserve at the end of our street.

It’s just that kind of place.

What is your superpower?

Kick-arse manners.

How do you use it to build community?

A little bit of etiquette goes a long way in developing relationships with people. Much more than knowing which bread plate is yours at a group dinner, good manners are a quiet reminder to one another that we are all human, and that humans respond to being treated with respect. And from left to right it’s BMW – bread, meal, wine. Easy!

My Three Favourite Things About Jilly Are…

1. Cubicle Connectiveness. For seven glorious months I was lucky enough to sit next to Jilly Jane in our open-concept UBC office. She was and is an absolute delight in every single way. Jilly knows how to work hard, fast and smart, so she motivates the people around her by walking the talk. Speaking of talk, if you’re bugging her – which I may or may not have done once or twice or seven-hundred-thousand times – she is happy to assertively apply her kick-arse manners in a way  that makes “shut the hell up” sound like a really, really happy Feist song. Jilly also gets what she wants by striking an important balance between politeness and assertiveness (again with the manners). She is wicked-smart. And, finally, at least once a week I asked her for updates on her three favourite things about [INSERT RIDICULOUS THING HERE] or “who would win in a fight: a beaver or a kangaroo?” and, well, she always provided exceptionally thoughtful answers and/or ones that were just as stupid as the questions themselves.

2. Australian Vegetarianism. Have you heard of the term “throw another [insert giant piece of meat here] on the barbie!”? Well, it kinda sorta reflects Australia’s carnivore culture. And our friend Jilly exists as an ardent vegetarian within such a cultural landscape. Also, she happily shares recipes, ideas and impact-of-meat-on-the-planet stories in very, very intelligent ways. Speaking of Australia, the Daily Gumboot now has an Australian Correspondent!!! We can all look forward to Jilly’s first post as this blog’s community truly reaches epic global status!

3. Competitiveness. Jilly. This was the best GTKYC that we’ve ever done. Because you’re the best. YOU WIN!!!

SPECIAL BONUS REASON: We’re still great friends after the following goodbye scenario at the UBC Bus Loop:

Jilly: “Well, John Horn, it’s been great working with you. Thanks again for the drinks.”

John: “No problem, Jilly. Thanks for the memories. I’ll never see you again.”

[INSERT AWKWARD SILENCE HERE]

Big hugs exchanged.

Jilly: “Bye…”

John: “Stay classy. Have a great trip. Like I said, I’ll never see you again.”

Exeunt. [Editor's note: this exchange is still referred to by Ms. Charlwood as "the worst goodbye from all of my friends in Canada and, possibly, in the history of the world."

…as told by John Horn

Artists, politicians, and the lost art of letter writing

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Last month, our book club* did something a bit different. Instead of the usual book club agenda, comprised of the reading and then discussing of a book (in addition to the not-so-usual quizzes, plays, and trophy bestowals), we wrote and shared letters. The inspiration for this letter writing was none other than Canadian author Yann Martel (of Life of Pi fame), and his book What is Stephen Harper Reading?

For those of you who are unaware of this ambitious endeavor – here’s a brief summary: In March 2007, Yann Martel and 40 other Canadian artists were invited to the House of Commons to celebrate 50 years of the Canada Council for the Arts, our national arts funding agency. Gathered in the visitor’s gallery, the artists waited patiently to be acknowledged for their collective contribution, representing all Canadian artists, to Canadian culture. And brief it was -  an address less than 5 minutes in length followed by a lackluster dusting of applause; a Prime Minister who did not even raise his head from the stack of papers sitting before him. And so begins Mr. Martel’s relentless pursuit: to find out what drives Stephen Harper. What makes him tick? What informs his soul, what type of art does he appreciate, what makes up his cultural self?

Barack Obama's letter to Yann Martel about his Book, Life of Pi. C'mon, Harper!

Biweekly since March 2007, Yann Martel has been writing Stephen Harper letters, with suggestions for books to read. And biweekly since March 2007, there has been no response from Mr. Harper – unless you count a few generic responses from his Communications Officers thanking him for his letter.

Tackling this in book club was a treat. We, of course, discussed Yann Martel at length – what continues to motivate him to write letters? Is this becoming a personal vendetta, or is it a clever, politically-driven, advocacy attempt to increase arts funding? Is it pretentious? We discussed the ideas in the letters – what role does art play in defining our identity as Canadians? Do business schools have a place in Canadian Universities? Should there be a required reading list for our prime ministers?

As interesting as the discussion was, the most  intriguing aspect of the club was the writing of our own letters: the homework assigned to each member was to write a letter to whomever they would like, with a book suggestion, and then share it with the group. Recipients ranged from, well, me, to Stephen Harper to Lindsay Lohan to Yann Martel to Australia. Each member confessed that it was pretty darn hard to write their letter – in this age of text messages and emails, where responses are fairly immediate and the process fairly interactive, having to convey all of your thoughts in one correspondence where responses are not immediate was a tough endeavor.

Our letters will be sent along to Mr. Martel. We’ll wait to see when – or if! – he responds, and how he will react to our activity, our thoughts, our book suggestions. Hopefully, he’ll see how his activities have prompted our small group to become engaged advocating art through the means of a lost art, with the people, ideas, and nations that surround us.

*Do you like books? clubs? Well, you’re in luck! Stay tuned for an up-and-coming section of the Daily Gumboot, where you will be able to read all about the shenanigans of Vancouver’s coolest and least pretentious** bookclub, The Circle of Literary Judgement
**As reported on by The Globe and Mail

DANGER: The Sun will Melt Your Community!

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Undeniably – at least here on the West Coast – summer has arrived. And, for 99% of the population, the sunny days of May, June, July, August, and some of September make for an “enjoyable” and/or “the best” part of peoples’ year. Today, though, I’d like to talk about the 1% – or less – of people who truly dislike summer. In this group you’ve got your goths, vampires, body-self-conscious-folks, ice-fisher-people, and senior citizens (but, really, they don’t like any season because of how young people today have ruined it). Also included in the 1% are people like me, who are both terrified of and angry with Mr. Sun because we are allergic to him.

The condition is called porphyria. It is very rare and was made famous by vampires and King George III, who allegedly “went mad” on account of his Sun disorder (as it turns out, monarchs have to be outside a lot). Fun fact: King George III was the guy who “lost” the American colonies to a group of tempestuous oligarchs, and the United Kingdom has been pretty much anti-Sun ever since.

There are different kinds of prophyria out there, and the one I was lucky to win in the crappy-disease-lottery is called eurythropoietic protoporphyria, which means that, because of extremely heightened photo-sensitivity, the porphyrins in my blood react very, very badly to ultraviolet rays – I describe this way: “it’s like being sun-burned from the inside-out – basically my blood boils, my energy is sapped, and, if it gets bad enough, a chain reaction of swelling, sores, scabbing, and scarring will put me out of commission for a few days.” For me, summer is a time of war against an unbeatable nemesis. His name is Apollo and, cloudy or not, he meets me for battle every single day.

For the record and with full disclosure, I have a very, very mild case of porphyria – there are folks out there who can’t go outside during a full moon, even with SPF 60 sunscreen.

So why am I telling you this? Well, the world being too hot and sunny is one of the biggest problems facing our global community these days. In the middle of our planet – and for a myriad of human and natural reasons – desertification is slowly eroding lush greenery and the water sources and two/four-legged food that make it a habitable place. With the greenery gone so goes most, if not all, of the natural shade. Such an inhospitable environment creates climate refugees – people who have to travel North or South in search of, well, let’s just call it “shade from the Sun” and let that be a metaphor we can all understand. More or less.

So, such is the case today in places like Sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America and Australia. But what about here, in Cascadia, twenty years from now? How will we cope with hotter, sunnier summers?

From me (a guy who has the superhuman ability to find shade and protect himself from the Sun) to you (a person who probably knows what suntanning feels like), here are some tips on how you can prepare for the future:

  1. Invest in a wide-brimmed hat. Cowboy, Tilly, Pirate, or Sombrero – they’re all good and they will all be in high demand in the future; start your stockpile today!
  2. Make friends with tall people. Tall people are automatic shade-makers. Enough said.
  3. Buy or make a UV-proof umbrella and/or tarp. Cool, shady brands like No Zone aside, such inventions are, sadly, few and far between; using umbrellas to ward off harmful UV rays is already popular in Asia and Africa, so you can start the trend here on the West Coast with one of these fine designs.
  4. Long sleeves, long pants and gloves. Let’s face it, gloves are cool and historically sexy – since Pharaohs sought to protect themselves from dust, Sun and slaves, gloves have been a part of out cultural fabric. Wearing them here and now might feel weird at first, but you’ll get used to it.
  5. “The Full Ninja” (pictured). Pictures say a thousand words, and this happy little outfit has gotten me through hikes, camping and road trips, as well as a jaunt through East Africa.

John and his friend, Sun-worshiper Natalie, on a summer hike across Nootka Island on the West Coast

So there it is. With this knowledge in your toolkit, I think and hope, you will be well-prepared to cope with the Sun. Now, if you’ll excuse me, it takes a bit of time to layer-myself-up for the walk from my office to the bus stop.

And, believe me when I say this, friends, whether it’s tomorrow or a billion years from now, the Sun has a pretty clear and transparent plan to engulf us all in giant balls of fiery death. I recommend you start planning for tomorrow today.

Good luck. And have fun with it.

–

Masthead photo courtesy of White93 on Flickr

Fashion Hangover a la Vancouver 2010

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For better or for worse the Olympics have come and gone. For some of us their departure has left us with the sense of, “Hey, the party was just getting started!” for others, it’s a case of “Good riddance, no more frenzied crowds, no more line ups,  no more searchlight thingies and no more incessant  helicopter chatter overhead.” Still, lingering nostalgia remains,  and it’s not for the spectacle of Koreans kicking butt at  short track, Heineken at the Holland House  or Robson Square Zipliners. These were great things, but nothing compares to the void that has been left by the departure of thousands of athletes. And their outfits. Their really nifty, nifty outfits. For two weeks the world’s athletes accomplished both amazing sporting feats and  pushed athletic fashion to a whole new level. These Olympics can and should be remembered as a  pageant of funky spandex designs, nifty parkas and everything in between. So, while i’m not sorry to see our speed skaters’ saran-wrapped thighs go, there were plenty of designs which i’ll remember fondly.

Some of my personal faves.

I like to call this number (above) the “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Intimidation Suit”. The Austrailians did everything right here. Their opponents were probably left wondering, “Are these guys really ‘turtles in a half shell’? And if so, ‘do they have turtle power too?!’Pretty neat stuff. All part of the Australian amazing game plan to compensate for their lack of snow at home.

Personally, I don’t find curling very interesting. Probably because I never watch it for long enough to get into a ‘match’ due to my inability to comprehend anything that’s happening. With so many know-nothings like me apt to reach for the channel changer, Team Norway clearly knew what they were up against and came out with these funky attention grabbing harlequin curling clown pants. Hurry Hard Norway, way to build your curling community.

I’m at a loss for words with this one. But “brilliant” is the first one that comes to mind. This body-hugging spectacle of luminous spandex could do nothing but dazzle spectators and judges alike. Sure, the Ukranians made themselves easy targets with this creation, but let’s face it, it was a ballsy, all-or-nothing move which made them stand out from the pack. They flew in the face of figure skating couture convention. And I applaud them for it.

Ah, the Russians. Off the ice they set the bar pretty high with their street couture, which was flamboyant, stylish and boldly told the world that “watch out we’ll be seeing you in Sochi!” You just couldn’t miss them in any crowd, particularly since they often moved in coordinated packs.  They also took Olympic Swag to a whole new level, with caps and fannie packs for added punch.

Lastly, there was us and our mittens. Something like 3.5  million of these things were bought before and during the Olympics. Well done HBC. Well done Vanoc. I have to say, these hand warmers were a master stroke of fashion and functionality, who wouldn’t want to keep their hand warm and wave the maple leaf at the same time?

Goodbye Olympics. You were fash-tastic and you will be remembered fondly.