Library Thing

Some of you may have noticed the new widget on the left side -- Library Thing. I highly encourage you to check it out or add it to your blog -- it's a neat way to see what your friends are reading or who else likes the same books as you do.

At the Sens game the other night...

...enjoying our ice cream!

Sadly, the Sens did lose....

Lessons learned at IKEA

Salma and Tracey have gotten an apartment together and so I went with them yesterday to go furniture shopping. Other than the madness of driving around the city only to find the store we were looking for to be closed or moved to another location (*ahem, the importance of updating your Web site or phone messages) we had a fun time testing out various couches.

Salma and I continued on to IKEA after grabbing dinner (and finding another store which had closed) and Salma chose a bed, bedside table and dresser. (I bought two glass jars for pasta.) After the sales woman assured us it would fit in the car as long as we folded down the seats, we set off, paid, and drove to the warehouse down the street to get the boxes. Weren't we overjoyed after 20 minutes of the two of us lifting and jamming various sized boxes into the trunk of her Acura TSX to find that one box was too wide to fit through the trunk and into the back seat area.

It ended up I called my parents to borrow their van. We drove to their place, got the van (and took out one of the boxes from Salma's car because she had already changed her mind about the bedside table) and back to the warehouse to get the last box, then back to IKEA to exchange the table and get the other one.

The funniest part is last time Daniel and Salma were at IKEA to get Daniel a desk it wouldn't fit into her car (I think it was a Honda Accord then) and so I went and got them and the stuff with the van too.

Lesson learned? Either get your IKEA stuff delivered, or bring a friend with a van. :)

I can't wait to help her put it all together!

We Will Rock You ROCKS!

I'm sorry this review is so late- - but it's been a hectic week! (Thanks for the push Suze!)

Ok, so this show is soooo good. It's so worth the drive to Toronto to see it -- you should all go! The music is awesome, the story is hilarious and the acting very well done. There are some great little pieces of Canadiana thrown in and it just worked so well!

Suzie McNeil did a great job -- I already knew she could sing, but she acted very well also!

I loved Yvan Pedneault who played the lead character -- he was so loveable. He played in the French production of RENT in Montreal -- ohh that would have been awesome to see!

Erica Peck played the other lead role, Scaramouche, and she was amazing! Plus, she's like 20 years old and halfway through school. She's amazing...I can't wait to see her again!

Everyone was great really...the songs, the music...everything! I loved the Killer Queen, and of course The Seven Seas of Rhye! :)

This show is awesome... I can't express it. It pokes fun at the state of music today (basically, after Bohemian Rhapsody, music went downhill) and it's just so much fun!

We bought the soundtrack from the London production and it's a lot of fun...I have to be careful listening to it on my ipod or at work -- I always want to sing along!

Former child soldier to speak in Ottawa April 17th

Octopus Books Presents

Ishmael Beah - former child soldier, human rights activist and author of
A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier

Hosted by CBC Ottawa's Adrian Harewood

Tuesday, April 17, 2007, 7:00pm Bronson Centre Theatre 211 Bronson Avenue

Tickets are $10 or $5 for students/unwaged(tickets available in advance at Octopus Books, Books on Beechwood, Collected Works, Leishman Books, Mother Tongue Books and Perfect Books)

A gripping story of a child’s journey through hell and back.
There may be as many as 300,000 child soldiers, hopped-up on drugs and wielding AK-47s, in more than fifty conflicts around the world. Ishmael Beah used to be one of them. He is one of the first to tell his story in his own words.

In A LONG WAY GONE, Beah, now twenty-six years old, tells a riveting story. At the age of twelve, he fled attacking rebels and wandered a land rendered unrecognizable by violence. By thirteen, he’d been picked up by the government army, and Beah, at heart a gentle boy, found that he was capable of truly terrible acts. Eventually released by the army and sent to a UNICEF rehabilitation center, he struggled to regain his humanity and to reenter the world of civilians, who viewed him with fear and suspicion. This is, at last, a story of redemption and hope.

the new octopus bookstore
613-233-2589
critical thinking for over 35 years
http://www.octopusbooks.ca/

The first day of spring!

Ok, so that was technically a few days ago -- but this is the first official Friday of spring, and oh what a day! I didn't wear a coat this morning, just threw on a new cord blazer my mom got me yesterday and a scarf, and off I went. I got off work around 3:30 p.m. and it was so nice and sunny out, so I walked home.

I happen to be wearing a pedometre today -- at I was at about 3100 steps when I got off work. It took me about an hour to walk home, and I'm now at 8365 steps! :) Sweet.

I guess that makes up for missing yoga class today.

I'm super psyched as Theo and I are leaving for Toronto tomorrow morning and going to see We Will Rock You - the musical based on the music of Queen! I listened to Queen the whole way home today and it occured to me that Queen's music is made for the stage -- it's very grandios and dramatic.

One of my favorite songs: Killer Queen (sorry, I can't get it to embed)

I just found out that Suzie McNeil will be in the production - yes! That Suzie McNeil!

Full report on Sunday night! :)

Mondays notoriously suck

Ok, I'm being a little harsh there... today wasn't that bad. Mat went back to Kapuskasing yesterday, so back to the normal grind today.


Ah, Mat visiting...

Theo and I have season tickets for the Great Canadian Theatre Company, and last Tuesday we went to see the show "The Four Horsemen Project". We got an extra ticket for Mat and off we went.

This was a first, for all of us, as The Four Horsemen Project isn't so much a play, but interpretive dance done to Canadian icons The Four Horsemen's sound poetry. While some parts were funny, and entertaining, the majority of it wasn't exactly our cup of tea. While I can appreciate the talent that goes into dance, and went into the script and lines (a lot of tongue twisting phrases!), I wasn't expecting so little acting/plot and wasn't prepared for watching interpretive dance.

To see what I mean please visit the Volcano Web site and watch a streaming clip, or download it to your Mac or PC.

From the Volcano site:

Five years in the making, The Four Horsemen Project is a multi-disciplinary extravaganza conceived and co-directed by Toronto's dance-theatre dynamic duo, Ross Manson and Kate Alton, in collaboration with
Vancouver animation studio Global Mechanic. Live, on-stage, swirling animation and sonic hi-jinx make the poetry of Canada's 1970s avant-garde scene leap off the page and onto the stage.
The show is based on the work of Toronto's original Four Horsemen: Rafael Barreto-Rivera, Paul Dutton, Steve McCaffery and bpNichol. Their outrageously fun sonic poetry is brought to life by a stellar cast of performers, who surprise with their combination of physical and vocal
virtuosity: Jennifer Dahl, Graham McKelvie, Naoko Murakoshi and Andrea
Nann. Animation Director Bruce Alcock (TIFF, Venice Bienale) sets the
visual poetry of bpNichol and the Horsemen to motion. Archival footage from the 1970s is similarly woven into the show. Work-in-progress showings of the material have received tremendous acclaim.
The Four Horsemen Project uses the philosophical goal of the early sound poets themselves as its structural spine: the idea that poetry is far more than words on a page; poetry encompasses sound, breath and the human body. With this remarkable collaboration, a new generation of artists breathes life into some nearly-forgotten work - iconoclastic, brilliant, delightfully irreverent – work that set the whole world on its ear. "The Four Horsemen Project, a reworking of a 1970's piece by Canadian sound poetry ensemble the Four Horsemen, is hilarious and brilliantly
performed"

I'm not sorry I saw it – it was a very interesting experience and I learned quite a bit. But, it hasn't turned me onto going to see other shows. I found it interesting to learn that the authors learned of The Four Horsemen from one of my favorite CBC Radio Shows – The Vinyl Café with Stuart McLean. I appreciate the fact that The Four Horsemen thought poetry was too confined and unnatural by having to rhyme or write it out – the sound aspect is an interesting one that they play with extensively. Great review from when it ran in Toronto before coming to Ottawa The lighting, animation and use of the stage was very well done – I'll definitely give them that!

If you have an open-mind, and $30, it's worth it to check it out and experience some real Canadian talent, and history.

From Rabble

Goodbye Studio 60 :(
Here's how things work (really)

And the always great, Heather Mallick:
Magazines: where are the women writers?

This week in the media...

Interesting stories this week...

From the Globe and Mail:

Draft international climate report warns of droughts, starvation, disease

Europe turns to greener energy by 2020
Sleep is all downhill past age 12

Fish are up to their gills in mercury

Committee reviews CBC mandate

From AlterNet:

Hey, Under-30s Crowd, Have You Overdosed on Narcissism?

UPDATED: Women soldiers have died of dehydration to avoid late night trips to toilet [VIDEO]

How to Save the Middle Class from Extinction

Drinking and Rape: The Rest of the Story

Happy Birthday Steveo!

My lil bro is 22 today! Happy birthday to the best bro a girl could ask for! :)