Egg Nog Season

When I was a kid, I knew Christmas was approaching when I’d see Lucerne Egg Nog on the shelf at Safeway. The bold colour combination and design of its packaging stood out amongst the regular milk cartons and signalled the start of the holiday season.

During the eighties, grocery shelves didn’t have as much variety as they do today. Food was obviously in abundance but the full impact of capitalism and globalization weren’t as visible. There was only ever one flavour of Oreo, for starters, and winter was the only season Canada would import mandarin oranges. If this sounds like I’m about to say I walked to and from school in -40 degree Celsius weather … well, yes, I did that too. Never uphill though. I was raised on the plains. Fact is, times have changed a lot over the decades and the wide-eyed wonder and delight at the debut of Lucerne egg nog each November has now been replaced by fatigue at choosing amongst dozens of types of egg nog all with their own festive branding and social media presence.

Alas, as an adult I don’t even really like eggnog but continue to buy one 1L carton each holiday season for tradition and nostalgia. If Lucerne brought back their glorious terracotta retro packaging, I would feel like a kid again.

Vintage Lucerne eggnog packaging illustration (©2021, Deborah Clague).

Your occasional Monty

Just bought an iPad to learn Procreate … and, of course, the first thing I had to draw was my Monty:

Gold

Honoured to receive another gold Graphis award for my work “Portrait of Vladimir Putin”. The award was part of an international juried design competition that showcased the best of global protest art from the past decade. Oblada Creative was one of three Canadian design studios to win gold.

The work will also be featured in the upcoming publication Protest Posters 2.

Portrait of Vladimir Putin (©Deborah Clague)

Eighties Vintage

After moving out of province over a decade ago to build a life of my own, it can feel strange returning to my childhood home. While some things have changed, others seem stuck in time; a nostalgic connection to my younger self (and all the hopes and dreams she harboured). From random tchotchkes that caught my mother’s eye over the years to a rotary phone I remember cradling in my tiny hands while talking to my father as he worked on the road for Canadian Pacific Rail, these relics of a bygone era feel like they represent a museum of my life.

A ghost of me lingers in that home.

A rotary phone, issued by Manitoba Telecom Services in the early eighties, remains the main method of inbound and outbound communication at my childhood home. As my elderly mother ages, she appreciates simplicity and familiarity, refusing to use a smartphone.

A set of Funk & Wagnalls New Encyclopedia rests on the shelf in my childhood bedroom. In an era before computers and the internet, these were a fountain of knowledge. My father purchased them for me while grocery shopping at Safeway in the eighties. As part of a promotion, a new volume in the series was available each week for a discounted price with purchase.

Book Recommendations

Piranesi
Written by Susanna Clarke

This book was recommended to me with the warning that it was different. It is, indeed, different … and very compelling. Once I picked it up, it was hard to put down. This work of fiction was a finalist for the World Fantasy Awards but is it that genre? I can’t say too much. The worlds within Piranesi are for you to figure out.

Favourite line: “They were all enamoured with the idea of progress and believed that whatever was new must be superior to what was old.”

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Pure Invention: How Japan’s Pop Culture Conquered the World
Written by Matt Alt

Japanese pop culture resonates with a lot of people around the world but I didn’t fully realize how deeply its influence reached. Pure Invention is a fascinating study on everything from Nintendo to Hello Kitty, Karaoke to Sony’s Walkman (Steve Jobs was so enamoured with the Japanese technology giant, he visited their headquarters when launching Apple with the hopes of mimicking their style). The connections the book makes to our world today and innovations we now take for granted is thought-provoking. This book is on my shortlist of favourites for 2021.

Favourite line: “A great many things we global citizens take for granted in our constantly connected digital lives were pioneered by schoolgirls on the streets of Tokyo.”

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On All Fronts: The Education of a Journalist
Written by Clarissa Ward

I became fascinated with Clarissa Ward after seeing her CNN footage during the fall of Kabul. Here was a woman, in the middle of an uprising in a country with new government that hates women, fearlessly putting herself out there to share what was happening and connect citizen’s stories to an international audience. I purchased her autobiography right away. This book is just the right mix of current world history, insight into the process of reporting it, and getting to know the author as a person.

Favourite line: We talked about my concern that the Syrian uprising was losing its original spirit, one I had seen so vividly in Damascus, because it had become so bloody.
”Nothing in the world is pure,” he said. “If you yearn for that, you’ll always be disappointed. I’m satisfied to catch glimpses of brilliance in the rubble.”
”Rubble’s not the only place to find those glimpses,” I replied.
”Nah, you’re right. But the contrast makes it brighter.”

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Bourdain: The Definitive Oral Biography
Written by Laurie Woolever

Anthony Bourdain was one of my favourite celebrities and I was saddened by his untimely death in 2018. He lived a life I—and many others—coveted, traveling the world while experiencing great conversation and great food. But sometimes things are not always what they seem and this book, through interviews with friends, family and colleagues, uncovers the many facets of a man we thought we knew. While reading, I was surprised at Tony’s lack of interpersonal interaction with those working behind-the-scenes on his shows (“it took about two years for Tony to remember my name”). Ultimately, this book is a cautionary tale about addiction in many different forms.

Favourite line: “It was like he pulled the curtain back—the sort of work it takes, the focus, style, intelligence, a big mental museum of experiences and drive to write a book.”

Gabbers

I’ve long since decided that I want to travel to the Arctic. The pandemic definitely threw a wrench into those plans but has also given me more time to plan (and dream). Churchill, a town 1,000km north of my hometown, is where I have my sights set. Known as the “gateway to the Arctic”, Churchill is internationally renowned for its wildlife including polar bears that wander through the town as part of their seasonal migration to Hudson Bay and beyond.

Last winter I binged Arctic Vets, a CBC program detailing rescue and conservation efforts at Assiniboine Park Conservancy. The Conservancy provides homes to rescued and rehabilitated animals that will not survive if released, while also granting the public an opportunity to learn about and be inspired to preserve the majestic creatures we share the planet with. While visiting recently, I had the opportunity to interact with harbour seals—and even became an honorary trainer of one!

Gabbers is a harbour seal born with a developmental disability that was rescued in British Columbia in 2015. Along with six other harbour seals that share the compound, he now acts as an ambassador for his species helping visitors understand firsthand the impacts of climate change on their natural environment.

The Journey to Churchill exhibit at Assiniboine Park Conservancy mimics actual sights in the northern Manitoba town, including signage warning of polar bears in the area (©Deborah Clague, 2021).

Learning how to train a seal at Assiniboine Park Conservancy (2021).

Lunch time, feeding Gabbers some fish. Gabbers was rescued in 2015 by the Marine Mammal Rescue Centre in British Columbia (2021).

Gabbers and I (2021).

Your Occasional Monty

The best days are spent just hanging out with my dog:

Book Recommendations

Not Dead and Not for Sale
Written by Scott Weiland

Every few months, I have the urge to read a salacious rock memoir. For this round, I decided to read the memoir of Scott Weiland, former frontman of Stone Temple Pilots and Velvet Revolver. Despite his well-documented hellion existence, this autobiography is actually quite light. It barely taps into his motivations and inspiration, which is unfortunate as I feel he was one of the most magnetic frontmen of the 90s and 00s, and glosses over most of his non-musical narrative. The saddest chapters are of introducing his second wife and brother to heavy narcotics (who also passed from an overdose) but never fully taking accountability for it; the bitterness towards people in his life, including former bandmates, is quite evident in his writings. Scott died in 2015 from a drug overdose.

Favourite line: “I believe that love only happens once or twice, but why, I wonder, does love always equal a broken heart?”

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Fall to Pieces
Written by Mary Forsberg Weiland

In concert with Scott’s memoir, I also read one by his ex-wife, former model Mary Forsberg. Framed as a “memoir of drugs, rock and roll, and mental illness”, the book explores the impacts of bipolar disorder diagnosis framed within the whirlwind lifestyle of the music industry. It definitely provided a more robust telling of her and Scott’s life together and the highs and lows they faced. Of particular interest to me was Mary’s bittersweet recounting of the early days of her career and meeting Scott, a hired driver employed by her modelling agency, prior to their fame. Mary has become a vocal advocate of the negative impacts of drug use.

Favourite line: “The only camera that matters is the one that is in my mind, and there is nothing about that night (or what was left of it) that I will ever forget.”

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Call Me Indian
Written by Fred Sasakamoose

Fred Sasakamoose was one of the first Indigenous hockey players, playing for the Chicago Blackhawks. This intriguing memoir details more than his ascent into the NHL though; Fred was a residential school survivor. He talks openly of his time at Duck Lake Residential School, including being sexually assaulted and of the bodies of other students rumoured to be buried onsite (‘Call Me Indian’ was published prior to the discovery of hundreds of remains at residential schools across the country), as well as the rampant racism he faced throughout his life. The book is an excellent, unfiltered reflection on Canadiana that we are just starting to acknowledge. Sadly, Fred died from COVID-19 in 2020.

Favourite line: “For years and years, I had been wondering how I actually did with the Hawks. Was I really good enough to be on that ice? To play with those players? And now, six decades later, I could finally answer that question. Yes. I was good enough.”

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My Love Story
Written by Tina Turner

Tina Turner’s turbulent life is well documented in both print and film, but her later years are not as well known. This memoir briefly retells, one more time, what we know but mainly focuses on her eighties career resurgence and the happier days of meeting and marrying record executive Erwin Bach. Tina is one of my all-time favourite icons and I will never tire of receiving her wisdom. Her acknowledgement of never really feeling love from her mother and other prominent relationships is heartbreakingly raw, but her resilience and tenacity show nothing can hold her down. Tina has mentioned that she is effectively retired from entertainment; upon reading about her very detailed and candid health issues, there is understanding why.

Favourite line: “My biography is life, the life of a woman who started as a little girl from Nutbush, who, as I’ve said many times, had strong winds against her, yet she stepped out into the big world with nothing but her voice, her optimism, and her will to survive.”

My favourite Stone Temple Pilots song.

Cleaning Out the Closet

When I visit home, my childhood home, I sleep in a room with wood-panelled walls and a window facing East. The floors are cool as it’s in the basement. The bed frame is old with new mismatched sheets. A dresser and closet contain artifacts from another time. A time when my father was alive.

It’s been seven years since my father received news that he needed to get his affairs in order as he had mere months to live. And then he was gone. Throughout that short period, my life felt like living in the eye of a hurricane. There was a million things to do. A million things to say. A million tears to cry. It is only recently that I’ve been truly reflecting on his life, impact and legacy. I’m sure the pandemic played a role in this pause.

In those seven years, his possessions remained untouched. Pairs of eyeglasses rest in cases placed on the dresser. Socks and belts are rolled up in the drawers. The closet is filled with XL-sized sweatshirts and the garish Hawaiian shirts he loved to wear. There are even old pairs of shoes. It never crossed my mind to get rid of these items because preserving them meant a part of him was still present. I didn’t want to lose that, nor lose the memories these inanimate objects held. But seven years is a long time. I struggled with the decision to clean and donate what could be salvaged but finally decided it was time.

Filling several bags with his clothes, I sorted between clear refuse and something that someone might need. There was a leather jacket that appeared good as new. A retro bowling shirt from one of his favourite television shows, Corner Gas, that a collector might have interest in. And, of course, all those Hawaiian shirts (Halloween is just around the corner)! I searched pockets for hidden treasure while taking in the moment. I was officially letting go. I felt sadness but also a sense of calm. There’s more to our being than the material possessions we leave behind. Love is the true legacy of a life well lived.

My bedroom at my childhood home is now filled with different signs of life, such as Monty’s squeaky toys and books that I dip into before slumber.

I kept one item after cleaning out the closet. Something that I rarely saw my father without. A hat always covered his head and while I sorted through his collection containing the emblems of a variety of random companies and sports teams, I decided to keep the one most well-worn of all — a Saskatchewan Roughriders cap that he bought, and proudly wore, after I moved to the province.

Wearing the one item I kept, my dad’s well-worn Saskatchewan Roughriders cap (©2021, Deborah Clague).