SHOULD WE BRING BACK THE DEATH PENALTY? JOHN CAGE’S SECRET LIFE AS A CANADIAN HOW THE STUDENT STRIKE CHANGED !UEBEC FOREVER Plus: ART GALLERIES OPEN THEIR VAULTS GAYSFOR THEGOD !UEER EVANGELICAL MOVEMENT IS COMING OUT OF THE CLOSET. CAN IT TAKE ON THE RELIGIOUS RIGHT? ISSUE 45 • FALL 2012 • WWW.MAI SONNEUVE.ORG DISPLAY UNTIL DECEMBER 13, 2012•CANADA: $6.95 USA: $6.95 OCT. 10 > 21, 2012 CONTE NTS 45 Front Comic 4 Letters & News 26 HEADCASE by MARC BELL. 5 Contributing Artists & Masthead Cover Story Comment 28 GAYS FOR GOD The religious right is the most power- 6 LET’S TALK ABOUT DEATH Fifty years ago, Canada exe- ful obstacle to LGBT equality in America. But, CLANCY cuted a criminal for the last time, REGAN BURLES writes. MARTIN reports, a growing movement of gay evangelicals Should we have a national conversation about capital is challenging homophobia from within the faith. Their punishment? message: We’re here. We’re queer. We’re Christian. Get used to it. Open House 9 NOTES FROM THE END OF THE WAR On the battlefield, Features success is fleeting and memory is short. JONATHAN MONT- 34 THE PLACE WHERE ART SLEEPS The vast majority of the PETIT reports on the last days of the Canadian mission in Art Gallery of Ontario’s priceless collection isn’t on dis- Afghanistan. play—it’s tucked away in high-security, top-secret vaults. As he explores the hidden world of art storage, CHRIS 12 A PEOPLE’S HISTORY OF THE PUNCH Plays have fights in HAMPTON discovers that some museums are starting to them, KAITLIN FONTANA writes, because lives have fights in open up. them. 40 WHAT’S EATING LITTLE PORTUGAL? Forget Africentric 14 THE MAPLE SPRING Quebec’s uprising started as a student schools: Toronto’s Portuguese community has the highest strike, JESSE ROSENFELD reports, but it became something dropout rate in the city, ERIC ANDREW-GEE reports. How much larger: a revolt against power itself. did a flourishing immigrant population wind up so poorly educated—and what can it teach us about how to succeed 18 THE BOOK ROOM by MAISONNEUVE STAFF. in Canada? 19 THE MUSIC ROOM by CHANDLER LEVACK. Fiction 50 HUSBAND by SARA FREEMAN. Photo Essay 20 TAKE ME TO THE FAIR The county fairs of rural Ontario. Poetry Photographs and text by FINN O’HARA. 56 TWO POEMS by RICARDO STERNBERG. Writing From Quebec WAS JESUS GAY? That’s the implicit 58 PIPE DREAMS At the start of Quebec’s student strike, question posed by our cover, which de- VALÉRIE DARVEAU didn’t support disruptive protests. But picts the Son of God wrapped in a rain- after weeks of seeing the movement’s ideas dismissed, she bow shroud. The image, photographed by changed her mind. Kourosh Keshiri and designed by Anna Minzhulina, is arresting and provocative. Profile But that raises another key question: why 60 JOHN CAGE’S CANADA The twentieth century’s most should it be controversial to portray Jesus important avant-garde composer may have been Ameri- as a gay man? Christ is love, after all— can, CRYSTAL CHAN writes, but he found his greatest in- and, as Clancy Martin reports in “Gays spiration north of the border. for God” (page 28), a growing movement of queer evangelicals seeks to permanently banish homophobia Letter From Montreal from the American religious right. Although many liberal church- 64 THE STRIKING LIFE by MICHAEL NARDONE. es promote gay rights, this movement is uniquely ambitious: it challenges conservative evangelism from within the faith, putting itself on a collision course with the country’s most right-wing reli- gious leaders. As the US presidential election approaches, cultural issues like same-sex marriage have galvanized voters on both sides, but gay evangelists offer a third way: it’s possible, they say, to be both queer and Christian. After all, God made us who we are. 2 LETTERS & N EWS CONTRIBUTI NG A R T I STS 45 WWW. MAIS ONNEUVE. ORG DANIEL EHRENWORTH nearly became a filmmaker, but — “quickly learned that being a film buff doesn’t make • FALL 2012• the process of making a film any less horrible.” He PUBLISHER decided to pursue photography instead, but wasn’t Jennifer Varkonyi EDITOR!IN!CHIEF fully prepared for the medium’s unique challenges. Drew Nelles Once, while shooting an ad campaign, Ehrenworth ART DIRECTOR was “approached by a blond Australian man who Anna Minzhulina was drunk on Red Bull and vodka, and wanted to be ASSOCIATE EDITOR in the photo. When we told him he couldn’t be part Amelia Schonbek of the campaign, he got all up in my assistant’s face, PUBLISHING ASSISTANT Jaela Bernstien started clenching his fists, and then proceeded to lec- INTERNS ture us about how ‘all we cared about was fucking Erica Ruth Kelly, Taylor Tower money!’” Ehrenworth’s photos accompany “What’s WRITING FROM QUEBEC Eating Little Portugal?” on page 40. Melissa Bull EDITORS AT LARGE Madeline Coleman, Matthew Fox, Paloma Friedman, Carmine Starnino HERYL OISINE Graphic designer and illustrator C V has CIRCULATION MANAGER had “the natural impulse to make and draw” since Eithne McCredie she was a child. “It’s always made me happiest and WEB DESIGN most fulfilled,” she says. The work that results draws Cody Django, Antonio Starnino heavily from Voisine’s personal history. She wants MAISONNEUVE IS A NOT-FOR-PROFIT MAGAZINE PUBLISHED her drawings to spur emotional responses in her QUARTERLY BY MAISONNEUVE MAGAZINE ASSOCIATION. — viewers; most often, she says, she’s aiming for “per- M AISONNEUVE MAGAZINE plexed intrigue,” as in her illustration on page 58. 1051 BOUL. DECARIE These days, in addition to designing a line of wallpa- PO BOX 53527 SAINT L AURENT, QC, H4L 5J9 CANADA per and textiles, she works with Montreal collabora- TEL & FAX: (514) 482-5089 tive drawing group En Masse, and its sister project, Subscription care: TO SUBSCRIBE, MAKE A SUBSCRIPTION INQUIRY En Masse pour les Masses, which aims to make art OR CHANGE YOUR ADDRESS, PLEASE CONTACT MAISONNEUVE: CALL 1-514-482-5089 OR more accessible. EMAIL [email protected]. A ONE-YEAR CANADIAN SUBSCRIPTION IS $24.95, PLUS APPLICABLE TAXES. FOR MORE INFORMATION PLEASE VISIT MAISONNEUVE.ORG. OCCASIONALLY MAISONNEUVE MAKES ITS SUBSCRIBER NAMES AVAILABLE SWITCH (ISSUE 44) TO COMPANIES WHOSE PRODUCTS OR SERVICES WE FEEL MAY BE OF MICHEL HELLMAN says that, “contrary to what most INTEREST TO YOU. TO BE EXCLUDED FROM THESE MAILINGS, PLEASE SEND people believe,” being a cartoonist is a pretty un- YOUR REQUEST, ALONG WITH YOUR SUBSCRIPTION NUMBER, TO 1051 BOUL. DECARIE, PO BOX 53527, SAINT L AURENT, QC, H4L 5J9 eventful job. Hellman rarely leaves Mile End, his OR EMAIL [email protected] OR CALL 514-482-5089. Montreal neighbourhood, except to take trips to the Submissions: FOR GUIDELINES, SEE OUR WEBSITE. UNCHALLENGED Canadian North. He’s currently working on a book Advertising: EMAIL [email protected] I might have enjoyed J.J. Levine’s series of photographs a queer thought? And is this “nuanced understanding” an objec- about Plan Nord, a government proposal to open vast TO REQUEST OUR ADVERTISING KIT. Postmaster: SEND ADDRESS CHANGES (“Switch,” Issue 44) were it not for the intro. Levine’s cli- tive characteristic of the art, or Levine’s own pat on the back? parts of northern Quebec to natural-resource extrac- AND UNDELIVERABLE COPIES TO: chéd, self-congratulatory artist statement rhetorically beats This criticism does not speak to Levine’s art in form or sub- tion. “The North fascinates me,” Hellman says, “and MAISONNEUVE C/O CDS GLOBAL, PO BOX 819, the reader into looking at the work with an equally narrow ject; the portraits are interesting. I’m criticizing a sorry example I’m worried about the social and environmental costs STN MAIN, MARKHAM, ON L3P 8L3. and uninteresting point of view. Come on: “photographs that of tired art writing. If every artist’s work challenges hegemony, of this massive project.” Check out his illustration de- CANADA POST PUBLICATIONS MAIL AGREEMENT #40674001. question the stability of gender, identity and aesthetics”—how then the art world is undertaking the most pathetic revolution picting the Quebec student strike on page 64. ISSN 1703-0056 many times has this very phrase been used to describe a di- ever staged. Levine is by no means alone in providing boring art WE ACKNOWLEDGE THE SUPPORT OF THE CANADA COUNCIL FOR THE ARTS WHICH LAST YEAR INVESTED $20.1 MILLION IN WRITING AND verse mountain of artworks? It seems, depressingly, that all explications, but as the editors of a cool, smart magazine, you PUBLISHING THROUGHOUT CANADA. you have to do to be an artist today is choose a topic and then should be demanding more dynamic writing from contributors. “question” its “stability.” Levine implies over and over: I’m —Harry Cepka trying to look beyond rigid gender roles and express a queer RAINA KIM point of view. That’s fine. I’d like to hear that once—and then MAGAZINE OF THE YEAR, RIGHT HERE • Born in London, England, photographer FINN O’HARA WE ACKNOWLEDGE THE FINANCIAL SUPPORT OF THE GOVERNMENT OF CANADA THROUGH THE CANADA PERIODICAL FUND (CPF) FOR OUR some new ideas. The rhetoric Levine uses makes it sound as We are thrilled to say that, on June 7, Maisonneuve won Maga- moved to Canada when he was young. But it wasn’t PUBLISHING ACTIVITIES . OISINE OISINE though “Switch” is the very first photography series to “chal- zine of the Year at the National Magazine Awards. This marks V until after an English-literature degree and some lenge” a dominant idea.