Vancouver town fool front and centre in new book
In 1968, a 35-year-old, highly educated, Vancouver-based man secured a $3,500 federal government grant to help him reinvent the position of official Town Fool.
Vancouver writer Jesse Donaldson dives into the story of Joachim (Kim) Foikis and his unusual tale of rebellion in the new book, Fool's Gold: The Life and Legacy of Vancouver's Official Town Fool.
Fool's Gold is the second title in Vancouver publishers Anvil Press's new series 49-2: Tales from the Off Beat.
Q Why did you want to write about this character?
A I guess I sensed a kindred spirit. I'm sure a lot of artists can relate — he cared more about joy, contemplation, authenticity and the truth of the human experience than he did about money or success. I'd read about him years ago, while I was researching my first book, and he'd always stuck with me — as much for his antics as for the fact that he basically vanished from the media landscape in the early 1970s, and nobody ever heard from him again.
He was entertaining, but he was also this enigma. Here's a husband and father of two, with three degrees, who just up and walks out of his life to go on this fool's errand. He wanted freedom from the rat race, from the drudgery and dehumanizing day-to-day realities we all deal with. He wanted to point out the folly of our institutions and in the halls of power. He had a set of values that he held onto for his entire life — even after the Fool years — and he ultimately suffered a lot for his commitment to those values. It's hard not to admire that. He was this heroic, mythic character — but those same values also made him a really lousy father and husband who couldn't hold down a job. It was a fascinating dichotomy.
Plus, for obvious reasons, 2020 seemed like the perfect time to write about folly in the halls of power.
Q How does a guy whose classmates at the University of B.C. thought of him as a quiet intellectual go from that to “town fool?”
A That's one of the big questions I wanted to answer: What happened? The transformation definitely made people uncomfortable — his friends, his classmates and even Foikis himself.
I don't want to give too much away, but a few possibilities came up while I interviewed people; one involves a personal tragedy, another involves a literal “acid test” (for a Buddhism 400 exam, no less), and yet another involves a visitation from the heavens.
But whatever happened, he was still approaching it as an intellectual. He was more philosopher than clown; he debated the nature of reality, he quoted the classics, he stayed up deconstructing Socrates and Mother Goose. It sounds weird to say it, but he took folly very seriously.
Q Foikis was a constant thorn in mayor Tom Campbell's conservative side. What was it about Foikis that he disliked?
A I assume he didn't like the competition.
Q What was his top-fool move? A That's a tough one. He was committed to shaking people out of their complacency, so he would spring these surprise “happenings” on the public — ludicrous stuff like bringing a troupe of mimes to an architecture conference or riding around town on a cart pulled by donkeys.
But I'd say his final act as Town Fool might have been his best. He used the last $500 of his grant to buy musical instruments, which he took to Pigeon Park. He handed them out, started beating his drum, and sparked a Downtown Eastside dance party that lasted all afternoon. It was the ultimate expression of his mandate; it broke down the barriers of status and money and power for a few hours, and showed that the streets could be a place of joy and connection for people — no matter what neighbourhood they called home.
Q How does he fit into the history of this city?
A I don't know if he does. I think he sticks out like a sore thumb, and that's probably my favourite part about him. He was committed to making everybody's world a little bit weirder, which I respect. Reality is a nice place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live here.
Q He became well-known in the late '60s. Would he have managed that same kind of notoriety in any other time?
A I don't think so. I think today, he'd have been swallowed up after a single news cycle. He came on the scene during a violent shift in societal values — a time when young people were finding their voice, when protests against the status quo were escalating, when psychedelic drugs were giving people the opportunity to find a kind of transcendence. And he also applied for his grant at a time when the Canada Council was feeling radical enough to fund something that bizarre. It was their support that allowed him to travel, to lecture across the country, to make his way down to California. They took a big risk, and got a lot of flak for it, but in the end, helped create this legendary thing that the whole world heard about.