Homecoming Queen
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OFF THE TOP PUT A NAZI ON IT Graffiti artist Banksy’s New York City residency is nearly finished, but the artist is showing no sign of slowing down. His latest piece involved buying a painting of a pastoral scene for $50 from a thrift shop, then donating it back to the same thrift shop — but only after reworking it, adding a Nazi soldier to the scene, pictured right. As he does with all his works, Banksy posted the image on his website, titling it The banality of the banality of evil. He also included a photograph that shows the painting in the thrift shop’s front window. The 23rd Street Housing Works store in New York City is now auctioning the painting, with bidding reaching $220,000 by Wednesday afternoon. The auction will benefit Housing Works’ homelessness and AIDS initiatives. The Associated Press Matthew Sherwood FOR National POST BOOKS LIFE Writing on the margins & Thomson content to be a cult figure BY MIKE DOHERTY Rupert Thomson’s books are page-turners whose plots often zag when you’d expect them to zig. Their dark, macabre im- agery deflects attention from their psychological depth. They don’t tend to win literary prizes, but they’re celebrated in other ways: in September, his 1996 novel The Insult, about a man blinded by a gunshot wound, appeared on David Bowie’s list of his 100 favourite books — along with the likes of Homer and Gustave Flau- bert. “That was a real thrill,” says Thomson, his long fingers ARTS ARTS wrapped around a cup of tea in the lounge of his downtown To- ronto hotel. “David Bowie’s list is going to be there forever, and NP the prizes come and go.” In town to promote his new nationalpost.com novel, Secrecy, the 57-year-old, London, England-based writer We’ve got a decent is aware of being permanently perched on the cusp of greater cantata about success: “If I had a dollar for Flin Flon at every time I’d heard someone say, ‘Why aren’t you more well nationalpost.com/ known?’ …” And yet, ever since arts giving up a career in adver- tising in the mid-’80s (“I was making too much money,” he tells an astounded uncle in his 2010 memoir, This Party’s Got to Stop), Thomson has been SCENE driven by telling stories: “I feel pointless if I don’t write.” Stories flow out of Thomson LORDE & SHADY almost unbidden: he has barely sat down for our interview be- This satire has a fore spinning a yarn about a No.1 song. recent visit to the north coast of Homecoming queen Norway, where he was research- nationalpost.com/ ing an upcoming novel (“a very arts loose sequel to Frankenstein”), Renowned classical guitarist Liona Boyd returns to Canada with a tribute aboard “a magical boat that looks like it has a soul.” The conversation veers into recorded with the likes of Eric Clap- The anthemic album closer features his next novel after that, which BY JONATHAN FORANI ton and Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour. Jann Arden, Serena Ryder, Divine will be about surrealist artists Though she spent much of the Brown and Randy Bachman of The opposing the Nazis in Jersey, be- SCENE n Liona Boyd’s Toronto apart- last 20 years married in the U.S., Guess Who. Even space crooner fore it finally settles on Secrecy, ment, five Juno Awards span- Boyd is back in Toronto (for good, Chris Hadfield and Hockey Night which embeds stories within ning three decades sit atop a she says), and single again. She’s fo- in Canada host Ron MacLean make stories within stories. Osten- GOT TO GIVE IT UP table of stickered guitar cases. cusing the music on her homeland appearances. sibly, it’s the heavily fictional- IThe stickers — flags or crests of cit- now. The Return is part tribute, part A lesser known name on the track ized tale of Gaetano Zumbo, a Marvin Gaye’s ies and countries — read like push- autobiography of her homecom- is Toronto classical guitarist Michael real-life sculptor who worked estate is suing pins on a map: Morocco, Belgium, ing. It’s a record that epitomizes the Savona, a key player on much of The in late-17th-century Florence Venezuela, Denmark and New ideal of Canadian content. Return. A long-time fan, Savona under the patronage of Cosimo Robin Thicke — Zealand. “Why don’t we in music celebrate now tours with Boyd and says he’s III de’ Medici, as told to Mar- just as he suspected. “Every one of those stickers is a Canada?” asks Boyd, who called on learned much from collaborating guerite Louise d’Orléans, the story,” says the 64-year-old Canadian many Canuck artists for the album. with the Canadian guitar legend. Grand Duke’s estranged wife. nationalpost.com/ icon of the classical guitar, whose “I was kind of shocked, amongst “It’s like a window into the past But within Zumbo’s narrative, scene new album, The Return... to Canada even the great classical composers, of all the great guitarists that she’s his lover, Faustina, relates a with Love, finds her sticking a pin there’s hardly anything. Nobody’s worked with,” he says. story told her by her father, who on Toronto again. done a symphony for the Rockies, or Boyd’s Toronto apartment is a once knew Marguerite — so her Boyd enjoys telling the stories a concerto for Lake Superior. Oscar window into her past, too. Walls and older self hears her own words of her life so far. And so she does, Peterson did the Canadiana Suite, countertops are adorned with mem- reflected back to her decades dropping names of Canadiana and ories, the least of which are her many later. Thomson sees Secrecy as musical legends with ease. gold and platinum albums. Instead, “a trap-door narrative — it keeps FOOD She was an eight-year companion it’s a photograph of her parents, a dropping” from level to level. to prime minister Pierre Trudeau: portrait of Prince Philip, a candid At the same time, it surges for- “He wanted me to live with him in ‘I guess I must shot with Antonio Banderas, and ward, as Zumbo and Faustina Montreal and have his daughter,” have gypsy blood a framed coil of guitar strings from are menaced by malevolent D&RINK she recalls. A Beverly Hills neigh- classical legend Andres Segovia, forces within Cosimo’s court. bour to Ozzy Osbourne: “We had or something’ that excite Boyd the most. Thomson is often accused some good times; lots of parties.” But though she’s had an amazing of bewildering readers because RICH MEAL, She was also a long-time pen pal to life, she admits something is missing. each book is so different from Prince Philip: “In fact, I just got a Gordon Lightfoot did the Railroad In a new track on The Return, the last. But Secrecy shares POOR MEAL letter from him two days ago.” Trilogy, and Stompin’ Tom did his Boyd sings, “Who would have some preoccupations with his Jamie Oliver knows She has “lived through hurri- Hockey Song, but other than that, thought that by this time, I’d be living earlier work: for one, like his canes and storms and gone all over there’s nothing.” my life alone?” She continues, “I was first novel, 1987’s Dreams of you don’t need the world,” she says. “I guess I must Boyd’s album, then, certainly fills that girl who was loved and adored, Leaving (about a town in the money to eat well. have gypsy blood or something.” a void. Over its 15 tracks, The Return so is this now my karmic reward?” south of England where a to- But Boyd is back. The Canadian features tributes to Canadian artists It’s a heartbreaking, revelatory talitarian police force prevents nationalpost.com/ legend is living in Toronto again (a and landscapes. Emily Carr is an ode moment in the middle of a patriotic anyone from escaping) and food “funny time warp,” she calls it) as to the Vancouver Island artist who love letter. 2005’s Divided Kingdom (about she releases her new album, an apt “wanted to paint it all,” as Boyd sings. “I would love to find a soul mate, a parallel-world U.K. where ode to the True North. Olivia Newton-John lends her a companion,” she says. “Some- everyone is sorted according Born to British parents in London, voice to Canadian Summer Dreams, body who loves classical music. to their supposed personality England, Boyd came to Canada at a love song to the “cottages and lakes Who would put up with my career. types), it has a dystopian feel. age 8, and spent most of her early life and streams” of cottage country. Because my career is my gift to the “We all think we know Flor- in Toronto. Renown in the classical “There’s a negative connotation world. I don’t want to give that up.” ence, but it’s quite a postcard guitar world took her around the to a lot of that stuff,” says producer For now, playing music in Canada vision,” Thomson says. He globe. She debuted at Carnegie Hall Peter Bond of Canadian-themed again is Boyd’s comfort. spent many hours at the British in 1975 and has since been known as music. “But this album is not cutesy.” “I have roots here, and I think Library, combing through old “the First Lady of the Guitar.” He notes the complex sounds of Sil- that’s important.