Vancouver literature and film

⚔️🌹 Romeo and Juliet Play discussion

Read beforehand. We aren't here for a table read; we’re here for the autopsy.

### Short Summary

Romeo and Juliet isn’t a "sweet romance" for Valentine’s Day cards.
It’s a high-speed car crash in silk tights.
It’s about two teenagers who are lonely, hormonal, and desperate for an exit strategy from their toxic families. It’s about a city where the adults are so obsessed with "honor" that they’ve forgotten how to be human.

• This play is about youth as a radical act.
• Parents who treat their daughters like property and their sons like soldiers.
• A public peace that’s a total lie because the private grudges are still simmering.
• And let’s be real: the "thee" and "thou" can be a wall. We’ll provide a modern English version so we can focus on the psychology instead of the footnotes. Bring the original for the vibes; bring the modern for the argument.

***

### Why this one feels modern

• The "Hype" Culture: Falling in love with the one person you’re forbidden to talk to.
• Generational Trauma: Dying for a war your grandfather started and neither side remembers why.
• Performative Masculinity: Men killing each other over "airy words" and bruised egos.
• The Adult Fail: "Trusted" mentors (the Nurse, the Friar) giving catastrophically bad advice.
• The 72-Hour Timeline: The realization that the entire play happens in under a week. It’s a manic episode, not a courtship.

***

### The arguments worth having

• Is it love or a suicide pact? Are they "star-crossed" by fate, or just two impulsive kids with zero coping skills?
• The Villain Check: Who is the real villain? Tybalt’s rage, Lord Capulet’s patriarchy, or Friar Lawrence’s ego?
• The Mercutio Factor: Is he the only sane person in the play, or is his cynicism just as toxic as the feud?
• The Gender Trap: Is Juliet actually the smartest, toughest person in the room while Romeo is just "enamored with being enamored"?
• The Ending: Does the "peace" at the end actually matter if it cost a generation of children?

***

### What the room will feel like

We’ll start with one blunt question:
Is this a tragedy about "True Love," or is it a cautionary tale about what happens when adults fail their children?
No academic jargon. No "iambic pentameter" lectures.
Just a real discussion about obsession, family baggage, and why we’re still obsessed with two kids who died because of a bad mail delivery system.

***

### Reading

William Shakespeare — Romeo and Juliet

• Any edition is fine.
• Modern English version : https://drive.google.com/file/d/10C6CDBWCXrNGNtW1hpzCLZVM5dl94NcV/view?usp=share_link

### When and where

📅 Sunday, May 31st
🕦 11:30 AM – 1:00 PM
📍 Central Library, Level 6 North, Room 690
Cap 12–15 + waitlist.
We keep it small because high-stakes drama is better in close quarters.

🪐👁️ 2001: A Space Odyssey - is this a movie… or a religious experience with spaceships?
Movie discussion - watch beforehand. No screening.

Short summary
2001 is one of those films people either revere, endure, or secretly resent.
It barely explains itself.
It moves slowly on purpose.
It gives you apes, space stations, classical music, a polite computer, a floating fetus, and somehow expects you to walk out changed.
And honestly? That’s why it’s still worth discussing.
This is not a normal sci-fi movie. It’s a film about evolution, intelligence, technology, loneliness, violence, cosmic mystery, and the awful possibility that humanity is not the center of the story. The BFI describes it as both a revolutionary depiction of the cosmos and a warning about technological advance through HAL-9000 - which is still one of the reasons the film feels alive now.
The funny thing is: a lot of modern sci-fi explains too much.
2001 explains almost nothing.
So the question becomes: is that depth… or is Kubrick messing with us?

Why this one is worth a room
Because people don’t disagree about this movie politely.
Some people think it’s one of the greatest films ever made.
Some think it’s cold, slow, and overrated.
Some people only wake up when HAL starts acting weird.
Some people see the ending and feel like they touched the universe.
Perfect.

The arguments worth having
- Is 2001 emotionally cold, or are we just used to movies telling us what to feel?
- HAL: villain, victim, tool, child, or the most human character in the movie?
- Does the film think technology elevates us… or exposes how primitive we still are?
- Why does the movie use music like it’s making space feel sacred?
- Is the ending profound, ridiculous, terrifying, beautiful, or all of that at once?
- If aliens, gods, or higher intelligence are involved here, does the film make humanity look chosen… or tiny?

What the room will feel like
We’ll start with:
**At what point did you stop trying to “understand” the movie and start just experiencing it?**
Then we’ll talk through the big movements:
the apes, the Moon, HAL, the journey, the final room, and the ending that still refuses to behave like a normal ending.
No film-snob posturing.
If you were bored, say that.
If you were hypnotized, say that too.
Both are useful.

When and where
📅 Sunday, May 31
🕐 1:00 PM - 3:00 PM
📍 Central Library, Room will be announced on day of.

Cap 12–15 + waitlist
Small room on purpose. This movie gets worse when people are trying to sound smart and better when they’re honest.

## 📚🤫 Silent Reading Party - bring whatever book is currently judging you

Bring-your-own-book. Mostly silent. Last stretch = optional book chat.
Short summary
Your phone has had enough of your attention.
For two hours, we’re doing the opposite of the internet: sitting in a room with other people and actually reading.
No assigned book.
No performance.
No one asking you to summarize your thoughts every five minutes.
Bring the novel, essay, poetry collection, biography, sci-fi monster, or half-finished “I swear I’m going to finish this” book that’s been following you around. We’ll read quietly together, then leave a little room at the end for people who want to say what they’re reading and whether it’s worth stealing.
This is social, but not loud.
Structured, but not school.
A room full of people quietly getting their brains back.
How the morning will feel
We’ll settle in, say quick hellos, then read.
If people want, we’ll do a short book-share near the end: one sentence on what you’re reading, one sentence on whether you’d recommend it.
If you’re staying for the next event, you’re welcome to quietly slip out around 12:55 so you don’t miss the start.
Bring

• any book / ebook / printed article
• water or tea if you like
• a notebook if you’re the type who underlines and mutters quietly to yourself

When and where
📅 Sunday, June 7, 2026
🕦 11:00 AM - 1:00 PM
📍 Central library, L6 North, room 690
Cap 12–15 + waitlist
Quiet room, real reading. Not a crowd sport.
Small note
Audiobooks are fine if you use headphones and don’t accidentally become the soundtrack.

### 🎬💍 The Fellowship of the Ring movie - did Peter Jackson capture Tolkien… or make a different beast?

Movie discussion only - watch beforehand. No screening.
Companion event to our Lord of the Rings book club.

Short summary
Now that our slightly overstaffed Vancouver Fellowship has finished The Fellowship of the Ring, it feels wrong not to talk about the movie.
Because Peter Jackson’s Fellowship is not just “the book, but visual.”
It’s an argument about the book.
It speeds some things up. Cuts some things completely. Makes certain characters sharper, softer, cooler, funnier, more tragic. It turns Tolkien’s slower, stranger, more inward story into something cinematic - and the question is whether that was a betrayal, a rescue, or the only way the thing could work on screen.
If you love the movie, come ready to defend it.
If you think the book is stranger and better, come ready too.
If you mostly want to talk about why Boromir still destroys everyone emotionally, you’re among friends.
The question sitting over the whole night
When a film adapts a beloved book, should it be faithful to the plot… or faithful to the feeling?

The arguments I want alive in the room

• Did the movie understand Frodo? Or does film-Frodo become more passive than book-Frodo?
• Aragorn: is the reluctant-king angle an improvement, or did the movie make him more modern and less Tolkien?
• Boromir: did the film make him more tragic, more human, and maybe even better than the book version?
• Moria: why does it hit so hard on screen? Is it the darkness, the music, the scale, the grief, or the fact that everyone suddenly feels small?
• The cuts: Tom Bombadil, the Old Forest, the Barrow-downs - did the movie lose something essential, or was Jackson right to leave them out?
• The Ring: does the movie make the Ring feel more dangerous, or more like a horror-movie object?
• The ending: does the film earn that final emotional break - Frodo leaving, Sam following, the Fellowship broken but not dead?

What the night will feel like
We’ll start with a simple one:
What scene did the movie absolutely nail?
Then the meaner follow-up:
What did the movie get wrong - even if you still love it?
We’ll compare book and film without turning it into a nerd purity test. No one gets points for knowing obscure lore. The goal is to talk about adaptation: what changes when a slow, old, morally serious book becomes a blockbuster movie people quote for twenty years.

What to watch
Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring.
Theatrical version is fine.
Extended edition is welcome.
If you watch the extended cut, just don’t be smug about it. Actually, be a little smug. That’s allowed.

When and where
📅 Date: June 13th
🕒 Time: 12 PM
📍 Location: Central Library, room will be announced on day of

Cap 13 + waitlist
Keeping the “slightly overstaffed Fellowship” energy if I can.
Small note
This is meant as a companion event to the book club, but you can still come if you only watched the movie. Just know we’ll be comparing it to the book openly.