When Adam Gopnik was growing up in 1970s Montreal, he chose to steer clear of CEGEP. Instead—like Will Hunting—he simply went to the library and read. The choice appears to have paid off. Since completing his BA in Art History, the McGill alumnus (’80) has become an esteemed author, with three National Magazine Awards and a George Polk Award for Magazine Reporting to his name. His essays in the New Yorker magazine, where Gopnik is a staff writer, deal with a wide range of topics. From art, to science, to anthropology, they remain edifying without verging on the pedagogic, imbued with a light, measured humour. After his recent Macnamara lecture on learning and mastery at McGill, the Tribune spoke to Gopnik about the process which led to his literary success.

MT: You came to writing through art criticism. How did you develop the interest to write on other topics?

AG: I don’t know that I ever did, really. It’s like the matrix—more of a three dimensional illusion of erudition than the real thing. The truth is I never really wanted to be an art critic in particular, it just was an accident of my own personal history that I found myself in New York City with a scholarship to do graduate work in art history. It was a way of getting from Montreal to New York. Once I’d done that, I had a certain expertise in art … that was a very natural thing for me to be writing about. But the art history was much more instrumental to my ambitions as a writer, than writing was instrumental for my desire to be an art historian, or an art critic.

MT: Did it provide a base of historical context and a cultural awareness, or is it just the fact that you read so much?

AG: Yes, it did—I got my basic training in … research [when] doing academic work in art history, but the simple truth is I think I would’ve done exactly the same things that I picked up in art history. The real foundational moments in the making of my own mind came from going into a library when I was 16 or 15. I think those were really the crucial years, and the experience of digging deep in a library and taking pleasure in it, finding that it’s a reliable source of pleasure for me—that shaped my mind. My mind worked better at that age than it has since, and to the degree that I’m able to do good work now, I really feed off the capital that I’d accumulated in those years.

MT: What is a key piece of advice for someone who wants to write?

AG: There’s a piece of practical advice I always give. The key to actually writing things is taking the mental task of writing, and transforming it into the physical task that your mind and intuitions are invariably smarter and truer than you are. It always happens to be that the things that people like best or enjoy the most in my own writing are things I was scarcely aware of when I was writing them. It just seems to be the seamless, the obvious, the self-evident way. So the trick with writing is to trust your own mind, and to simply put the words down on paper, or in pixel form, and the only way to do that, that I’ve found in 30 years of doing it, is to simply centre it not in your head, but in the pit of your stomach, and make it a task like riding a stationary bicycle at a health club. And when you succeed in making it a physical task, you can astonish yourself in spite of the relentless and never-ending exasperations and aggravations of the task of writing. Just as if you go to the gym every day and ride the bike for 40 minutes, your lungs expand; if you sit and simply try and write as though you were riding a bike, your work expands. It’s the same advice that every writer always gives, that you just have to apply yourself to it; but I mean it in a more encouraging sense: you don’t have to apply yourself to it intelligently, you just have to apply yourself. If you have anything to say, if you have any reservoir of wit or feeling in your mind, it will be expressed.

MT: What is the most important thing for students to get out of their university experience?

AG: Nobody knows what will prepare you for the work you’re going to do, and the work you’re going to have. I did art history, and that turned out to occupy a very small part of my life. It’s part of my pleasures, because I love going to museums and galleries, but it’s not what I ended up writing about. All of that effort—memorizing lists of post-impressionists, or the iconography of the Pergamon Altar—was wasted. But of course, in another way, it wasn’t, because what’s at the core of education is accomplishment—that is, mastering something, whether it’s a system of guitar chords, or magic tricks, or the name of post-impressionists, or the iconography of the Pergamon Altar. Once you’ve demonstrated to yourself that you’re capable of mastery, then any kind of mastery you tend to approach in life tends to yield much more easily to you. The thing I would tell any student is master something; really learn it, whether it’s the piano, or the history of science.

Adam Gopnik’s latest book, The Table Comes First: France, Family, and the Meaning of Food, is available in stores now.

Highly character driven, Based on a True Story follows the lives of ‘troubled’ youths and the biases attached to their lifestyle. Director Isaac Robinson and his talented ensemble examine human problems in this piece of devised theatre, as the cast animate semi-fictional characters that they each helped to write.

The audience is first thrust into Danny’s (Justin Lazarus) mind, who begins the play by breaking down the fourth wall and staring down the audience members. Indeed, the entire script boasts an awareness of the audience with its use of confessional monologues. Lazarus dynamically reveals the world through Danny’s drug-influenced eyes, and his perception of how others view ‘people like him.’ He captures the audience’s attention with his frantic energy, interspersed with glimpses of his softer side, as he talks about the love of his life, Camille (Kim Drapack). After overcoming some early nerves, Lazarus’ ability to shock the audience with Danny’s highs and lows is stunning. He is crazed, calm, vulnerable, and desperate, sometimes all in one breath—and leaves the audience wondering, “Who would Danny be if he wasn’t high?”

Opposite the erratic Danny is the hilariously loveable Stevie (Cara Krisman), his faithful second in command. Together, the two feed off  of each other on the stage. Krisman’s physical performance is scene stealing, whether she is fumbling around with her much loved wine bottle, searching for “the thing that tastes like what she wants,” or espousing her desire to stay sober so that she can be an artist. She presents Stevie’s struggle with care, uncovering the layers of her character.

Caught in between Lazarus and Krisman, Drapack is sometimes lost. Her character Camille acts as a calming influence on Danny, but points out that he only ever listens to Stevie anyway. As a result, it is difficult to find a purpose for Camille, other than that her world revolves around Danny. The writing for this character is weaker than the others, as her development is left until the end of the play, and reveals more about Danny than her.

The performances of Emily Doyle, playing Judge Parks, and Michael Ruderman, as Officer Davis, are notable. They bring depth to characters who could have easily been conveyed as two-dimensional villains trying to maintain an unjust order. Like Danny, an imperfect hero, Parks and Davis are both sympathetic, staying true to Robinson’s determination to show no clear right or wrong. Ruderman is striking. His honesty is evocative, and it is hard to condemn his character’s excessively violent arrests.

Set designer David Costello captures the stark contrast between the two battling worlds, simply by breaking the stage in two. He uses the intimate space wisely. Judge Parks’ courtroom and Officer Davis’ police station claim one side of the stage, neatly decorated with poster boards, while the other is cluttered with beaten up chairs and graffiti, the latter painted by art director Vanessa Chazelle.

Although the writing is weak in some areas, causing the play to drag, the well-directed acting provides a strong backbone for this ambitious collaborative project. Based on a True Story takes a hard look at its characters, and reinforces the fact that everyone has their own demons to confront.

TNC Theatre’s Based on a True Story runs from Mar. 20 to 23 at 8 p.m., Morrice Hall (3485 McTavish). Student tickets $6.

Last week, the one question that inevitably dominated casual conversations among McGill students was where everyone spent their reading weeks. A lucky few had the opportunity to travel south and enjoy warmer weather, staying in the West Indies or even Florida, a traditional destination for March break. While we’re all back at school now, the sun-soaked retirees for which Florida is perhaps even more known remain on extended vacation, and they’re the subject of Concordia photography graduate Mika Goodfriend’s exhibit Snowbirds.

Goodfriend’s photographs are on display in the exterior of Concordia’s FOFA Gallery, behind glass that adds to the voyeuristic nature of the shots of the elderly and their vacation homes. Ninety-eight per cent of the residents are from Quebec, and together they form the community of Breezy Hill RV Resort in Pompano Beach. Their heritage is an integral part of Goodfriend’s project, and he claims his Anglophone identity prevented him from becoming fully immersed in this community, despite his own upbringing in Quebec. Consequently, the series appears to be taken from an outsider’s perspective; an anthropological study of a lost culture. The photographs focus on the imported knick-knacks and tanned faces that create the Breezy Hill residents’ home away from home, a fabrication of which they certainly seem proud in their portraits.

The series and its motivations appear, however, to be at odds with each other—why travel to Florida to study Quebec culture? At first glance, Goodfriend’s stated goal of an introspective identity search seems suspicious. Florida has always been the subject of jokes about its elderly residents, and it is easy to interpret the humour in these photographs as condescending.

When I asked Goodfriend about what made his photos funny, he brought up this possibility himself, saying, “I’m not trying to make fun of them in any way. People, I suppose, could read into it as they like, but clearly through my artist statement and my whole raison d’être … I have a deep respect for snowbirds, and for these people who I became friends with.”

While his images are carefully arranged, Goodfriend’s explanation of his project is candid, and lends credence to its sincerity, even if the images themselves don’t communicate it transparently. In preparation for his portraits, he spent a little over a month building relationships with the community in order to gain their trust, and despite the kitsch that surrounds them, the expressions of Breezy Hill’s snowbirds are both natural and acute. Their portraits reveal a certain kind of wisdom, the result of a simple happiness that has found its way into a community that leaves its worries behind by migrating to the Sunshine State.

Success seems to have taken Goodfriend by surprise. His exhibit won the national prize of the Bank of Montreal student contest “1st Art!” last August, a competition he entered on the suggestion of one of his photography professors. During my interview, friends approached him to congratulate him on his gallery opening, and he sheepishly excused himself to speak to “the media.” Snowbirds is certainly an indication of promise for Goodfriend’s career now that he’s graduated with a second bachelor’s degree, and hopefully the $10,000 BMO award will encourage him to keep traveling.

Snowbirds is on display at Concordia’s FOFA gallery until Apr. 4. Free admission.

‘Winnipeg’ and ‘vampiric slouchy dance-pop’ might not normally be used in the same sentence, but they describe Robert Alfons, the man behind Trust, one of Canada’s recent breakthrough indie acts.

Alfons has been on the road almost continuously since the release of 2012’s TRST, his band’s debut full-length album.

Working on the album was a “very stressful” experience, “because you’re living out of a suitcase,” says Alfons. “Even though you’re surrounded by people all the time, it’s still very isolating.”

Trust has also recently gone through a noticeable lineup change—perhaps adding to the tour’s loneliness—since Maya Postepski, who also plays in the band Austra, has been conspicuously absent from the tour. In response to this, and very keenly avoiding any clear confirmation of the split, Alfons says that Trust is “just [his] project” and “definitely very separate from Austra.”

“I have no connection to that band,” he reiterates.

TRST is a dark record, but that doesn’t mean that all of its creator’s influences are dark. Alfons cites himself as a big fan of Ace of Base’s first album The Sign, having been introduced to the band as a child by his sister.

“It’s still to this day a very solid record,” says Alfons. “It was one of the first albums that I remember loving from start to finish, and it’s … really good dance music.”

In fact, his fondness for ’80s and ’90s music has been monumental in shaping his sound.

“There is a nostalgia to the music I make, which is not a bad thing,” says Alfons. “Sometimes it just feels like you’ve known these sounds for a long time.”

Interestingly, Alfons also admits to preferring the experience of recording to performing for a live audience.

“The creating of music and the studio stuff is where most of my love lies,” he says. “But the touring thing has … been really enjoyable. It’s a nice companion to making music.”

Recently, he’s been combining the two by working on his follow up to TRST while touring, and cites “the energy at shows” as an inspiration for influencing his writing and creating.

“There’s new people around all the time, and there’s a party every night, essentially, and that’s very different from a solemn, solitude [way of working] where you can make music every day,” says Alfons.

When the ‘sophomore slump’ comes up, he replies, “I just feel lucky to be able to put out a record…. I think there’s pressure there if I want to dig into it but I don’t generally feel like there is…. I’m fine if people hate it.”

Although hesitant to disclose too much about the new album’s sound, Alfons reveals that “It’s going to be different because it has to be, but I’m sure similar in a lot of ways…. After this tour I’m going to have more time to sit down and work on it.”

In the meantime, TRST has been nominated for Electronic Album of the Year at the 2013 Junos, alongside breakthrough acts Crystal Castles, Grimes, and Purity Ring.

The recognition is something Alfons appreciates: “It’s definitely an honour; it’s really exciting to be in a group with those artists. That’s a really amazing group to be looking at that’s just from Canada.”

Trust performs Mar. 22 at S.A.T. (1201 St. Laurent). Advanced tickets $17.50; $20 door.