{"id":17727,"date":"2024-03-20T22:40:30","date_gmt":"2024-03-20T17:40:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/editorials\/unmappable-candida-moreira-copy\/"},"modified":"2024-03-21T01:15:32","modified_gmt":"2024-03-20T20:15:32","slug":"sunshine-cinema-ben-charland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/editorials\/sunshine-cinema-ben-charland\/","title":{"rendered":"Sunshine Cinema"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
I went there once, nose first,\non a date with a high school teacher\nI\u2019d met at a communist bookstore\u2014\n\trevolutionary communist, to be clear\u2014\nto see 12 Years a Slave<\/em>.\n\nI don\u2019t remember the neon yellow Sunshine\nabove the black marquee or the mostly-black\ngraffiti splayed out on the urban\nbeige brick or the New York-famous\nJewish bakery next door\u2014\n\tYonah Schimmel Knish\u2014\nthat grew up with the cinema when\nit hosted Yiddish vaudeville circa 1909.\n\nShe was my self-appointed\nLower East Side guide\nso maybe she pointed\nall of this out but I just\nwanted to get to her apartment\u2014\n\tsubsidized, three-quarters up a 60s tower block\u2014\nand take off her black blouse\nwhile watching Trailer Park Boys<\/em>\non the little box TV set she\nwheeled around on an Ikea cart.\n\nBut rewind: before that we clasped hands\nbehind a paper cup half-full with iced tea\nwhile sweet dark strings rattled my thirsty heart\nand voices pummelled with sound around\u2014\n\t\u201cRoll, Jordan, Roll\u201d\u2014\nand tears came down my face\nand I knew them on hers too.\n\nOur walk to the subway weighed\nmore than the butter machine,\nshe smiled at me but behind\nwas a splintered sadness\u2014\n\tWeltschmerz<\/em> is the German word:\n\tto know it\u2019ll all let you down\u2014\n\tas I would, as I knew I would\u2014\nshe turned for the escalator\nI strolled back out into\nJanuary Manhattan my bones still\nquaking from a voyage in the dark\nof a light factory later to\ncollapse in my mind.\n\nFour years later they\ndemolished the Sunshine,\nin its place are nine storeys\nof glass and a cryptocurrency office and\nnowhere on site is the story\nof how I was cockblocked\nby Chiwetel Ejiofor playing the violin,\nme unable or unwilling or unmanned to see\nthe famous Tupac mural\u2014\n\t\u201cLive by the gun\n\tDie by the gun\u201d\u2014\non the same urban beige brick, just\nmy research now into\neverything I missed\nwhile I wandered by\ndreaming of tomorrow.<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
\n
Bio<\/h2>\n\n\n            
 \r\n                
\r\n                    \"\"\r\n                <\/figure>\r\n                
\r\n                    
Ben Charland<\/a><\/h3>\r\n                    
Ben Charland<\/strong> is a writer and communications consultant. From 2018-20 he hosted the weekly podcast, What On Earth is Going On?<\/em>, which featured guests such as poet and biographer Rosemary Sullivan, fantasy author Guy Gavriel Kay, broadcaster Terry O’Reilly and many more. Ben lives in Whitehorse, Yukon, with his wife and two kids. Learn more about Ben and his writing at bencharland.com.<\/p>\r\n                <\/div>\r\n            <\/div>\r\n          <\/div>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I went there once, nose first, on a date with a high school teacher I\u2019d met at a communist bookstore\u2014 revolutionary communist, to be clear\u2014 to see 12 Years a Slave. I don\u2019t remember the neon yellow Sunshine above the black marquee or the mostly-black graffiti splayed out on the urban beige brick or the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"3307","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"16394,17284,16691,17822","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3307],"tags":[],"genre":[150],"publisher":[],"issue":[],"poet-in-residence":[],"series":[3262],"topic":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17727"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17727"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17727\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17739,"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17727\/revisions\/17739"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17727"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17727"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17727"},{"taxonomy":"genre","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/genre?post=17727"},{"taxonomy":"publisher","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/publisher?post=17727"},{"taxonomy":"issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/issue?post=17727"},{"taxonomy":"poet-in-residence","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/poet-in-residence?post=17727"},{"taxonomy":"series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/series?post=17727"},{"taxonomy":"topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/topic?post=17727"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}