80 Things We Love About Arta: 13 - 17

More wonderful things about ARTA!!!!

13. Email

While I was at University of Alberta in the early 1990's my aunt introduced me to this new communication tool: email. I began using it to keep in touch family in Calgary and Ottawa. I began telling my friends to 'send me an email' if they wanted to share information with me or invite me to an event. Long time friends of mine have told me that I was the first one to introduce them to email. Turns out Arta had increased my social capital and I didn't even know it until years later. Perhaps the title of this Arta thing should be, "Increasing My Nieces Social Capital". Thank you Arta! (I have 500 emails between Arta, I and family members stretching back to 2009. I think the first ones from the 1990's have long been deleted.)

Remember this?

 

14. Treasure a Higher Education

Over the course of her 16 years as an employee at the University of Calgary, Library Services, Arta helped at least 27 of her children, nieces and nephews obtain degrees. By help I mean:

a. Taught us to shop for classes. At the beginning of the semester attend 10 - 15 classes, look at the syllabus, watch the professor/instructor, and choose the classes that fit you as a learner.

b. Registered and took classes with us to help us succeed.

c. Provided us with rooms in her home to live close to U of C.

d. Help us research and edit research projects and papers. Keep in mind most of us attended from the 1990's to the early 2000's. We had to physically go to the library to obtain articles and books for research as the digital research was not as prolific.

e. Feed us while we lived in her home.

f. Shared her lunch with us when we would visit her office.

g. Write difficult emails with us to make space for ourselves in difficult academic environments.

h. Tell us repeatedly how proud she was of each of us, working so hard to learn about the world around us through formal education.

i. Teach us to attend free lectures about topics we were not interested in until the end of the lecture. Then we could not stop talking about the topic. Sometimes there was even free food. Mmmmm.....

j. Encourage us to sit in the first eight rows of large lecture halls (research showed these students performed better) and ask ALL your questions during class. ALL OF THEM!

k. Gather all the current cousins and siblings for a photoshoot each year.

Picture at U of Calgary of the cousins and siblings circa 2001:
Laynie, Tonia, Kindel, Cohl, Jeremy, Marcia, Lurene and Trent
(left to right)

15. Bird By Bird

Many years ago I remember Arta saying she took a writing course. It went so well that she and several others from the group had organized a friendly writing group that would meet monthly. This group ran so well that she organized a writing group for at least two summers at Shuswap Lake. Family members interested would spend time capturing a moment or story, we would gather in a circle on the lawn outside the quiet cabin, each person choosing to share or not share their more recent written work. She is always writing and documenting, hence the success of this blog. Here is a book she encouraged me to read so that I could become a better writer too:

Bird By Bird, by Anne Lamott

(More information about Anne Lamott here.)

16. CBC's Top 100 Classical Pieces of Music on CD

While attending university in the early 2000's and living in Arta's home, we began a goal that we never finished. She had found a list on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's (CBC) website that listed the top 100 pieces of classical music. We agreed that if I bought the blank CD's she could spend the time at work recording all 100 songs for both of us. Over the course of several months our plan took shape as we added to our matching collection. I am not sure how far we got down the list. Somehow life distracted us. I am going to go look for those CD's. 

P.S. CD's are compact discs for all you young people out there. :) 

17. Be Yourself

...whoever that may be. One of Arta's most interesting physical characteristics is her beautiful grey and white hair. Many of us have been recruited to trim it for her over the years. I had the pleasure of spending time with her in London at my parent's flat. As we travelled around the city one day we found an advertisement in a store that highlighted grey and white hair, a sight not often seen in 2009. She posed for some pictures and I enjoyed taking them. Be yourself, whoever you are. 

Arta in London, UK

Both women wore it best!

More great characteristics about Arta forthcoming!

RIP - Clyde Foresberg [Take 5]

It's been almost three week since you passed away, Clyde.

I'm still working on my eulogy for you, which is (I know) really for me. Still, I ask your permission to indulge me.

Did you ever get the name of a song or a line in some lyrics wrong? Who could ever say no to that question?  It's part of being human, yes? Making mistakes.

The night I learned of your passing my son and I listened to a piece of jazz you recorded with others. I told David it was called "Take 5" but it was actually called "So what."

I don't know where I am going with this. I just needed to sit down and process the evening, and a train of seemingly unconnected thoughts began to move through my mind, and you seemed to be on that journey with me.

No sign of the flood inside from the outside.

There was a flood in my home tonight. No, not another metaphorical one - an actual one. The drain hose for my washing machine became dislodged. I'm not sure how long it was pumping soapy water outside of its designated zone, but long enough to eventually require all household residents to be called in to help with clean up.

I haven't figured out the extent of the damage yet, and it may require a call to my home insurance company, but for now the major puddles have been mopped up and it's time for a little rest.

I was thinking of a song while we cleaned. I didn't convince my cleaning crew that it would be more fun to work if we turned on some music, so I just ran the lyrics in my mind.

They went, "Anyone can build an ark, organize the wood and stone, fill it with a hundred things, rule it all and be the king. Da dum, dee dum, dee dum, de dum ... Well that's where you belong."

In break now, I try to the the song to learn more of the lyrics, and discover I got quite a few of the words wrong. Here's a link to the song writer, Ben Abraham, playing the song on the piano and singing along. Here's a link the the lyrics.

So, apparently the song initially speaks to building a home not an ark. I wonder how I heard ark?!! And I remember thinking, interesting, a bold statement, lets see where he's going with this. I remember thinking I couldn't build an ark (the same holds true for a house), but maybe Clyde could. So, there you go.

The next part about filling it with a hundred things. Okay, I got that part covered. As I was cleaning up water tonight, I feel I moved around at least a 100 things that got a splash or more of water.

"Rule it all? Be the king?" I do give that a go every now and then, but it's not my forte, and philosophically I do prefer the notion of a collective. I liked thinking about that pull, though, to be the ruler, the one who gets to make all the decisions, the king of the dock as it were.

The next line, the real line, says, "We all need a place to lay our head when days are long." That beautiful line makes me feel a little sleepy, giving me permission to rest, accept the need.

And in that note, I have that second story to tell you, and it fits here, but I am just not quite ready yet.

I'm gonna stop here for now. If there is an after life, I hope you do give the song a listen. In case there isn't, I will enjoy a listen for both of us. There are some beautiful images about defining home. I think you had many. You have one in my heart for when you come to visit me, in memory or a day dream train ride, or even when I sit down just to "take five."

Music as a way of giving information

... hard to spend the weekend
waiting for Covid results ...

Bonnie took the Covid test and was so relieved to phone and tell me it was negative.


You are the first person in the family who has gone for a test.


In Alberta now there is testing for anyone who reports the symptoms.



I was thinking about this when I ran into these two lovely songs.


Lovely to me.

... bonnie checking out the cherry blossoms
in her back yard ...

Ta dum, ta dee.


Click at your peril.

A message from the government of Canada

A covid song by the Vancouver, B.C., Phoenix Chamber Choir, --great singing, notice the Lysol wipes container being used for rhythm, the hand puppets and the ‘haircut’.

(Thanks for the text and the link, Ria.)

Arta

Eighty Memories for Eighty Years: #61 Singing with My Children

Our family used the piano from the home where I grew up.
It did not look like this.  By the time it was at my house,
many of the ivories were chipped and there were scratches
on the top of the piano and its sides.  The stool had finally given
way, many years before it came to rest in our small living room.
My dad told me I didn't have room for the piano.
He was right.
Still, I told him I didn't not have room.
And thus it came to my house..

Some of my best memories fall into the category of singing with my children.

For me, essential book buying would involve books with pages of musical notation -- lullabies, finger-play songs, folk tunes, The Reader’s Digest Book of Family Songs, Sally Go Round the Sun, Free to be You and Me, My Turn on Earth, Hello Dolly – all of these books laid on the piano book rack or in my tall music case, a tongue and grove piece of furniture that used to be my Grandmother Scoville’s. 

No piano rack or piano side tables can hold all of the music that can be collected by a mother who loves singing with her children.

One paragraph here should just go to describing well loved Christmas music at my house. 

There are the regular carols, and then the carols from other centuries.  I loved all of them.  And then the secular Christmas music: "All I Want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth" and Gayla Peevey's "Are My Ears on Straight".  If there is a Christmas song, I am sure I sang it with my children.  I would begin half-way through November so that I made it through all of the music.

The children and I sang in groups (that would be me and one other) and sometimes some others and at other times, most all of the family would gather at the piano and sing.

I could always catch a group if I would play “Mack the Knife” from the Threepenny Opera.   People would gather from everywhere.  Kelvin had a beautiful bass voice so that was an easy buy-in from him.  He liked to sing and he was good at it.

My favourite story about singing with my children goes this way. Our family was asked to sing in church. Everyone agreed to sing, but Richard. I told him he didn’t have to sing with us, but he had to practise the song with us. So he did. He even came to the early morning practise that Sunday morning before church, figuring out where everyone would stand, how we would walk up there from the pew, testing out our sound in the chapel, etc. When it was announced that the Johnson Family would sing a number all of us went to the front and Richard just walked the other way, down the isle and out the chapel door. The whole congregation had to have seen that.

I can remember announcing, “Richard won’t be singing with us today.” The audience laughed. Then we sang our song. I was left with an indelible memory which I probably haven’t quite processed yet. I think it is deep admiration for a child who says they won’t be singing and then doesn’t.

As for me, I could never resist a melody and I would have joined my family of origin, singing no matter what the tune.

Arta

A New Used Piano

... just learning the tune ... no accompaniment for now ...

Richard and Miranda bought a piano. 

The movers tried to put it in my basement, but the piano just wouldn't turn the corner and go down the stairs.

So over to their house it went.

So far we only have one book to play from, one with folk tunes, 90% of which I don't know.

Alice and Michael were doing something else but Betty wanted to sing.

And she wanted to know what the song was about.

This one had phrases like eating sop, which required explanation. 

I sing the melody for her, give her an explanation of the song and she both sings and plays some of the keys on the top range of the piano as I do play my keys in the middle range.

Fun.

Arta

Playing Spoons

I had been away from home all day. As I was walking into my backyard at 5 pm at saw the kids playing on their new playground structure, from Marcia Bates. I yelled over, “I am just going inside to take a long drink of water and I will be out to watch you play.”

“That’s a shame for we are going inside. We just heard thunder,” said Michael.

I hadn’t heard anything but now paying attention I could feel the first of a light rain falling. By the time I had my drink of water and was outside they were indeed headed back into their house. I followed them for a little bit of inside play.

... Betty, the drummer ...

Betty had decided to play, playing drums.

She had on a pair of pink plastic high heels, complete with a fuchsia rosette adoring the instep of her foot, and that foot was now tapping as though she were playing the cymbals.

That plastic heel clicking on the floor might have been irritating, if I had't known we were playing drums.

She had tin containers set up on the paint table and was tapping the containers with sticks, calling out, “Grandmother, you be the singer of the band.”

I took on the job using any songs I could think of.  I find myself carrying a diminishing number of titles lately and after about 10 minutes I couldn't think of another song they might like.

Alice joined us with her own make-believe set of instruments and soon Michael had some noise makers as well, one of which was a set of spoons which his mother told him he could tap but not bang on the table.

It was hard for him to know the difference.

Spoons.

That is when the idea came to my head.

Playing spoons.

All four of us came back over to my house to watch a you tube video on how to “play spoons”, musically, not the game of spoons.

Michael got really good, really fast.  He could hold the two spoons in his right hand and slide them washboard-like down the fingers of his left hand.

When the children tired of practising playing spoons with the video, we went back to their house and as I left my house again, I picked up a copy of an old folk tune book. The front and back pages are missing and there is no sign of a title or an index anywhere. Just pages 3 to 80 are left.  At the bottom of all of the pages is the copyright sign with the words Copyright 1965 Yorktown Music Press, Inc. 

The pages are only held together by a few threads. But I know most of the songs in this book, so I grabbed it to cue me into the next number I would sing.

Betty would adjust her rhythm to my voice, whatever song I choose. 

Occasionally I would give the kids a small introduction to the next song I would sing, just as though I were in a night club. I tried to keep the intro’s age appropriate, for many of the songs have come out of the the times of the underground railroad or the slave trade, times they know little of, and understand even less of.

At one point Michael stopped me and said he had to go to the bathroom for a minute, so could I just stop singing until he got back.

Oh boy.

Singing with a band.

Every grandmother’s dream job.

Arta

Lurene and friends ...

I check out the newest (to me) song that the Sonnabelles have on youtube.

Breathtaking.

I was caught in the first few measure and calmed to listen, even in the midst of a storm comin'.

Thanks, Lurene

Check it out.

The colour and design of their costumes is great as well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16jWKYVajCQ

Arta

Thinking of Music

My friend, Margaret Maxwell sometimes plays for funerals. She was  playing for one a while back. She says:

I will never forget finding in the bench a copy of “Selected Funeral Hymns,” which I began to read since I was not otherwise interested in the deceased. One of the hymns was so ludicrous that I had to throttle my laughter. Title is “Life’s railway to heaven” which ends that you will finally behold the Union Depot and meet the Superintendent, God the Father, God the Son. “Keep your hand upon the throttle, and your eye upon the rail. “ is the refrain. At the end of that funeral I decided I had to have that hymnal so I stole it. I still have it on my shelf and I laugh every time I see that incredible hymn (which is sung to the tune of “Truth reflects upon our senses,” 

Tucked into that book was a story which I cannot resist sharing with you. There was once a handyman who had a dog named Mace. Mace was a great dog, except he had one weird habit. He liked to eat grass, not just a little bit, but in quantities that would make a lawnmower blush. And nothing, it seemed, could cure him of it. 

One day the handyman lost his wrench in the tall grass while he was working outside. He looked and looked but it was nowhere to be found. It was getting dark, and he gave up for the night and decided to look the next morning. When he awoke, he went outside and saw that his dog had eaten all the grass in the area around where he had been working. His wrench now lay in plain sight, glinting in the sun.

Going out to get his wrench, he called the dog over to him and said, “A grazing Mace, how sweet the hound, that saved a wrench for me.”

Now if that doesn’t make you chortle every time you sing that hymn 

Margaret

The first story seemed too hard to believe. So I went and googled the words. And here they are if you choose to click here.  I tried it with "Truth Reflects Upon our Senses" and it works.  Now there is a song for Family Home Evening.

Food: the Concert

This is the month where there are so many concerts, plays, theatre events. light shows, Christmas acrobatic shows.  I am going to run out of time before I run out of money, getting to all of these events.

Below is the long blurb for one concert I will be attending.  Even reading what they promised will be fun, even if I don't get there.  I am going to try.  Tonia says of the event;

If you are in town and free to come to my concert, feel free to attend.  I have my first solo this year as Mme Brie Cheese in a delightful song about cheese being the peacemakers of the earth.  It is more of a comedic solo than anything else, which is why is suits me so well.
The BarberEllas are also singing two songs during the show, which should be entertaining.
The concert is more on the light and fun side so if you can, come and enjoy an evening of song with us.  We are giving part of our ticket money to four organizations in Calgary who help people obtain food if they can't afford it.  Song and service in the same evening.

Thanks,

Tonia

FOOD: THE CONCERT

Saturday, December 10, 2016 at 7:30 p.m.

St. Stephen’s Anglican Church

1121 – 14 Ave SW, Calgary

One Voice Chorus (OVC), Calgary’s mixed-voice choir for LGBTQ+ singers and their allies is pleased to present a multisensory feast with Food: The Concert.

“Songwriters write about the things that interest them most, so it should come as no surprise that there are so many songs about food!” observes OVC’s Artistic Director, Jane Perry. “Our audience will recognize tunes such as ‘Java Jive’ and ‘The Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy.’ There will also be traditional carols with new lyrics created as odes to favourite pies. We have a cornucopia of pieces by the zany Eric Lane Barnes, a Seattle composer. ‘The Caffeine Overload Polka’ is sure to be an audience favourite. And then there are the choristers' emerging favourites, like ‘Chili Con Carne’, an Anders Edenroth creation that gives an entire recipe for meat chili set to a Latin beat!”

Joining OVC for this concert will be guest musical ensemble the BarberEllas, a barbershop group for queer gals and pals. They will bring their own unique take on food with laugh-out-loud songs such as "When Banana Skins Are Falling."

On a more serious note, the concert will also feature composer Brian Tate’s “Overflowing”, a song about gratitude, to acknowledge the good fortune it is to have enough to eat. In recognition that not everyone is so fortunate, OVC will use the evening to introduce its audience to local community groups whose focus is providing food to those in need. The concert program will list the names and websites of these groups in the hope that those of us who are able, will help others to share in the holiday banquet.

Audience members will have the chance to partake in some feasting after the concert at a sparkling post-concert reception catered by Janey Bevan of Chef at your Shoulder. The goodies served, inspired by lyrics from the concert program, will include hot stuffed jalapeño peppers, miniature sausage rolls with honey mustard dip, beetroot cured salmon, and chocolate brownie Christmas puddings. It will be a feast for both the eye and the appetite and a wonderful start to the holiday season.

And because every great meal comes paired with great wine, be sure to watch for OVC's 5th Annual Wall of Wine Raffle. Each of the six baskets being raffled features a curated selection of wine, beer, spirits, and other great prizes. Raffle tickets will be available online starting two weeks before the show and will also be sold at the concert. Raffle tickets are $5 each, three for $10, or ten for $20.

Concert Tickets: $25 regular * $20 student/senior * free for children under 13!

Tickets available online at www.onevoicechorus.ca and from choir members

Facebook event: www.facebook.com/events/1782649075335192

Mount Douglas Holiday Concert

... the jazz band in the foyer ...

“The concert starts at 7 pm. The Jazz Band has to be there at 6:30 pm.” Neither Steve nor I could figure out what the jazz band would be doing. Setting up chairs. It wasn’t until I was talking to Duncan at the foot of the stairs as he was shining his shoes that I caught on – the jazz band was to be performing in the foyer as people walked in to take their seats.

That put some heat on us to get there on time. Duncan had already checked out his clothes and he looked fantastic – bright yellow tie on a black shirt. As we were driving out of the driveway and down the street Steve said, "Got your music?  Remember, last time I had to go home and get it."

"Whoops," said Duncan as Steve made a u-turn to go back for it.  "At least the ride home to fetch it isn't as long this time," continued Duncan as he leapt out of the car to run into the house.

 Steve and I stood in the foyer to listen to the band. No one was more surprised than the two of us when Duncan got to his feet and did a solo during one of the songs.

“Why didn’t you tell us you had a solo? What kind of son are you to keep secrets like that?”

“Well, I didn’t really want anyone to know. Mr. Awai just said to me, Duncan, you take that solo, and there wasn’t much I could do but say, yes sir.  But I have been worrying about it for days now.”

Two hundred and fift-six performers in the evening: the first band, the second band, the first choir, the second choir, the third choir, the first strings group, the second strings group, the third band. You get the idea. And those who weren’t playing at the time were cheering the others who were. The evening was full of songs I love: Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah”, “Lo, how a rose ‘ere blooming, “Mozart’s Eine Kleine Nachtmusik” by a string quartet, Mel Torme’s “Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire".

I leaned over to Steve and said, “It is true what they tell us at the HD Live Opera events. There is nothing like a live performance in your local school or theatre.”

... Mr. Awai and the Grade X Band ...

I keep hoping and praying that Duncan will join the men’s choir next year.

I think the only way he will do it is if Mr. Awai says, “Duncan, I want to see you at men’s choir.

I studied the conductor, both out in the foyer and in the gym. Doug Awai wore a Santa hat and had a bright red and green Christmas tie on. The black of his suit jacket and his pants told me that they were separate pieces. The trousers were long, maybe about six inches longer than what might have been his normal leg length, so I am guessing all of those folds at the bottom of the trousers are a statement of style. His body was full of rhythm, his legs tapping, his shoulder rocking to the music, his head going forward and back, attached to his neck which also had a rhythm of its own. His hand would be tapping the piano, or he was a holding a stick and a bell. “A one, a two, a three, a four” and then in double time, a one, two three,  four and away they went.

By the end of the evening my own body was swaying and my foot tapping.

A wonderful concert.

Arta

PS  Steve told Duncan since it was his night, he could go anywhere he wanted afterward.  I thought Duncan would choose to do a treat run through the isles of Save-on-Foods as he does with his mother.  No.  He decided on a Diary Queen ice cream cake.  Life is sweet here.

Pure Jazz

Senator Tommy Banks / UofC Jazz Concert

Mak and I walked over to hear the first of the Monday Night Jazz Series for 2011/12 – Tommy Banks quartet.  Advertized as a quartet, but what we heard was a quintet -- Bank on piano; Rubim de Toledo on bass; Al Muirhead on trumpet; Tyler Hornby on Drums and a saxaphonist whose last name I did not catch.  But he was originally for Ft. McMurray, which made him memorable to me.  The music was in his body and if a person were deaf to the music, it would still have been a joy to watch the dance of jazz in his body.

At 4 pm five guys got together and of the 1500 basic jazz tunes, they figured out the 12 or so that they all know how to play, wrote them on a half a piece of paper, but didn’t play any of them through and away the evening went, an articulation of the melody and then passing it around the group until they came to the finale. 

At one point Banks smiled at the musicians, then turned to the audience and said, “Did you hear that ending?  We didn’t even practise it.” 

The sets began and ended with Duke Ellington tunes.  We also heard Hoagy Carmichael’s Georgia and so many other jazz standards.  The crowd was an older crowd, sprinkled with university students who are learning how to use their student cards that let them into these function free. When Banks was willing to do an encore, he asked the audience what they wanted to hear.  The woman across the isle was firing off the names of all of the old tunes – i.e.,St. James Infirmary. I didn't even learn that song until last year when I decided to memorize all of the tunes on 2 disc Louis Armstrong collection.How did so much of the world get so far ahead of me.

The  quartet finished with an encore of My Funny Valentine.

Slow.  Mellow. Lingering melodies. 

I am still humming.

On the way over, for some reason Mak and I were talking about lives where there is a lot of money.  Those are good lives, but I can’t think they are any better than mine tonight – a walk to the concert hall, no traffic, sophisticated jazz playing, and by the time we left to come home the night had turned balmy, the street lights were glowing through the fall leaves on the trees and we could take an invigorating fast clip to loosen up up muscles after what seemed like an hour of being suspended, motionless in time.

Pink Floyd and the WSO

Dear Uncle Glen (and other Pink Floyd fans),

Please not that the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra is performing selected works from the band Pink Floyd's album Dark Side of The Moon.  The event will take place in Winnipeg, on March 25 - 27 and promises to take you back to 1973.  When I was a 1 year old.  My door is open and I have a blow-up queen size mattress.  March in Winnipeg should have temperatures above -15, a few buds may even be on the trees, and if you bring your boat we can ride up and down the Assiniboine river while blasting Pink Floyd.  Bring some BC peaches with you.

Hugs,
Niece Tonia

PS.  Ask yourself this, what would Uncle Glen do?

My report on seeing Cats by Xavier Brooks

Aunt Rebecca asked me how the show, Cats, was.

I went to Cats with my mother. It was really good. Our seats were in row G. The tickets were a gift from my mother’s friend. My favourite Cat was Mr. Mistopheles. Magic was in the show. Ribbons popped out of nowhere. The cat who was a magician shot fire as well.

The set was a dump yard and there was full moon. The costumes were really good. The actors looked like big cats. Their hands, their faces, their whole bodies. They had cat-like movement. We looked at songs on the Internet before we went to the show, so I knew some of them. Rumpleteaser and Mumblejerry, the twins, were funny as well.

Duncan called me on the phone this week. The next day, I called him. We like to talk and figure out how to use our computers.

Tomorrow I am giving a talk in Sunday Schho on Nebachanezzar, and Meshack, Shaddrack and Abednego. I am going to share how I learned to say their names. Grandma taught me the trick that her father taught her. You just need to remember My Shack, Your Shack and A Bungalow.

Xavier Brooks

My new love....

So my new love is a song called "The Wall" from Anais Mitchell's folk opera "Hadestown" [which is a telling of the Orpheus myth, set in post-apocalyptic depression-era USA.... it features Ani DiFranco as Persephone].

In anyevent, this is Hades [singer Greg Brown] singing.

I love it.... great political stuff!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtdLl05UcRU

18th Annual Roots and Blues Festival

Janet and Glen have been going to the Salmon Arm Roots and Blues Festival for several years. Many local folks volunteer at the festival, which brings between 20-40,000 visitors a year to the area. Next year, we are either wearing volunteer T-shirts, or are going to buy the early bird tickets like Glen and Janet. The Early Bird Pass costs $115, and gives you 2.5 days of fabulous eclectic music... singers and bands from all over Canada and the US. Alteratively, $70/day at the door. Janet and Glen are experts. They have the brains to get there early and lay out the tarp so no one takes their place. They have all the equipment: the tarps, the regulation size low chairs which enable you to sit close to the stage, the cooler full of drinks and snacks....

Every adult can take in a child (12 and under) for free. We took both kids for a few hours the second day. Alex, of course, looks like he is more than 12, so he got "ID'd", and then got given an adult band on his wrist, so no one else would challenge him. The festival caters to families during the day.... a kids area with a climbing wall, 5 small alternative stages, a sand pit, a painting tent, cool sprays of water to run through when the heat starts to get you down.

During the evening, there are still plenty of kids around, but there is additional action: clouds of smoke billowing skyward from various locations, tendrils of it carried on the winds. Alex wanted to know what the 'wierd smell' was. Arta had to tell him "marijuana, a remnant from your grandmother's generation." The music gets louder, and the light show a bit 'strobe-ish'. You can feel the throb of the bass guitar in your spine. Alex did ask if it was possible he might have a seizure. :-)

Arta was not the only one who thought she could see fireflies... from the stage, two spot lights pointed out above the crowd. It caught the silver in the wings of the moths as the floated through the beams of light. As beautiful as the meteor shower the night before. Where else in the world could the twilight capture the silhouette of Mount Ida and the stars as they began to emerge in the sky.

Bonnie got three backstage passes, so she, Arta, and Alex went backstage where they saw Fred Penner warm up... we was the act before Gord Downie (lead singer from Tragically Hip, out promoting his solo work). Penner looked out at the audience and said, "Hey, Look at you! You all grew up!" Arta is still laughing on reporting that. 75% of the audience could remember him from their youth, and they sung along with him as he strummed "The Cat Came Back", which morphed into another tune ("Hit the Road, Cat, and don't you come back no more, no more, no more, no more..."). Alex reports that being back stage was not such a big deal (for free food, they had only nuts and dried fruit and pop... he had been hoping for more). He did, however, want to keep his lanyard with the laminated pass (the one that says backstage pass), because he is sure his friends will not believe that he really DID get to go backstage.

signing off,
Rebecca and Arta