alt for everyone

 

Whenever I see the #altnyc or #altsf hashtags start to show up in my social media feeds, I always feel a pang of envy.  The Alt Summits have become the  hot ticket for rookie and established bloggers alike.  Given that tickets to the Alt Summits in New York, San Francisco and Salt Lake City are notoriously hard to get (they cap attendance at about 300) and since my budget is a little lean these days, I jumped at the chance to sign up for Alt for Everyone.  For the first time Alt was taking their summit online.  Over the course of three days I had the chance to hear from some of my favourite lifestyle bloggers and connect with other bloggers from around North America.  

I got to learn from some amazing bloggers including (clockwise from top left): Joy Cho, oh joy! |  Jordan Ferney, Oh Happy Day! | Chris Gardner, curbly.com and Man Made DIY | Liz Stanley, Say Yes to Hoboken!

It was so perfectly timed!  I've recently cut back my hours as Director of Communications at Theatre New Brunswick in order to pursue other communications consulting work as well as my own projects. Continuing to build and develop The Glad Girl is definitely part of that plan.  I can't wait to work on the tips I got!

I'm also working my through the blog roll of the participants - so many lovely blogs to check out and I hope to share some of my favourites here with you.  I have to give a special shout-out to Crystal from A Bunch of Britts who included The Glad Girl in her Alt roundup.  She's a designer, Starbucks addict and new mom. Go check out her blog!

ps you have to be brave.

I am currently in the final countdown of a major grant application at work but I had to mark Valentine's Day by sharing this absolutely gorgeous bit of writing I recently read.  

 

Jeanette Winterson on How We Fall in Love

You don’t fall in love like you fall in a hole. You fall like falling through space. It’s like you jump off your own private planet to visit someone else’s planet. And when you get there it all looks different: the flowers, the animals, the colours people wear. It is a big surprise falling in love because you thought you had everything just right on your own planet, and that was true, in a way, but then somebody signalled to you across space and the only way you could visit was to take a giant jump. Away you go, falling into someone else’s orbit and after a while you might decide to pull your two planets together and call it home. And you can bring your dog. Or your cat. Your goldfish, hamster, collection of stones, all your odd socks. (The ones you lost, including the holes, are on the new planet you found.)

And you can bring your friends to visit. And read your favourite stories to each other. And the falling was really the big jump that you had to make to be with someone you don’t want to be without. That’s it.

PS You have to be brave.

julia & paul child: a kind of human chemistry

Now comes that season of delight

When Paul and Julia's hearts take wing

So through this migratory flight 

A dual warmth of love we bring

Today marks the 50th anniversary of the first broadcast of Julia Child's tv show The French Chef.  The occasion reminded me of one of my favourite discoveries during the Julie and Julia frenzy a few years ago:  Julia Child as romantic leading lady. With her towering build and unmistakable voice, Julia Child might seem an unlikely romantic.  But her marriage to Paul Child was one for the ages.  In My Life in France she wrote:
"Valentine cards had become a tradition of ours, born of the fact that we could never get ourselves organized in time to send out Christmas cards."

Even when it wasn't Valentine's Day you could tell this pair was a great team who truly enjoyed being together.

In her words: We had a happy marriage because we were together all the time. We were friends as well as husband and wife. We just had a good time.

In his: It was a kind of human chemistry. We met and started a new fizzz going off.

shake-it-off songs

 You know what I want to do?... Strut.

I used the have a friend who said it was impossible to lack confidence in the presence of the Bee Gees song "Stayin' Alive." This was her go-to song whenever she needed a little extra chutzpah for work or play or just needing to shake off a bad day.

I got thinking about these as "shake-it-off" songs last night when I was walking downtown last night and the Sheepdogs "The Way it Is" was blasting in my headphones. I always have one song that I put on repeat that makes me hold my head a little higher,  walk a little taller and gives me a little boost of nerve.


Sometimes it's about a good driving beat as in the case of The Sheepdogs or this song by The Ting Tings that got me through the start of an intimidating new job:



Sometimes it's the lyrics. Mumford and Sons' "The Cave"  helped me give someone not-great the final push:




And then, of course, there's Florence + the Machine with the aptly titled "Shake it Out":



Do you have a song that you turn to for a boost?

the weekend that was

The sun over the Nashwaak River from D's backyard.

I hope you had had a great weekend!  Saturday started off beautiful and sunny here.  My friend D and I headed to the local farmer's market and then to my place for a simple breakfast.

While I was cooking up breakfast I glanced outside to discover that the sunshine was gone and it was practically a white-out!  Five minutes later the sun and blue skies were out again.  Truly crazy weather!

Saturday night my friend K and I treated ourselves to a girls night of cocktails and conversation at the Blue Door.  We laughed a lot.  So much fun and great hospitality from the crew at this great restaurant.

Sazerac!  So delish - I'm all about the old school cocktails "served low."

And my first scriptwriting class on Sunday night was amazing - feeling so inspired.   We are each writing a one-act play over the course of the next five weeks.  Will be a challenge but I'm excited!

It wasn't all sunshine, French toast and sazerac this weekend.  One of the city's favourite pubs and eateries  - the Garrison District Ale House - suffered serious damage when a fire broke out there on Friday night.  The good news is that they plan to re-open in six weeks.  The down side is that they've had to lay off 38 employees in the meantime.  There's a fundraiser in the works to help the staff and you can find out more on Facebook or by following @garrison_staff on Twitter.  Huge response already from the community makes me so proud of our little city!

How did you spend your weekend?

it's the weekend... dig in.

Katharine Hepburn shovels snow off the roof of her Turtle Bay townhouse (244 E 49th St.) where she lived for more than 60 years.

Well, there it is... the first, albeit abbreviated, work week of 2013 is nearly behind us. I'm looking forward to hitting the market and making breakfast for my friend D. -  lots more "eating in" this year, I think! And on Sunday night I'm starting a five-week script-writing course including classes with this guy and this guy.

So as we kick off the first weekend of a new year, here are some things I've been enjoying this week:

* follow. Can't get enough of  the out-of-this-world snapshots and updates on Cmdr. Chris Hadfield's Twitter feed from the International Space Station. (Bonus: the Twitter exchange between Cmdr. Hadfield and William Shatner!)

* admire.  So much good stuff on Brain Pickings but I particularly love this piece on scientific mysteries illustrated by some of today's hottest artists.

* listen.  Speaking of science, I've been on a big Radiolab kick recently.  Their weekly program is endlessly fascinating and I love their 20 minute shorts when my brain needs a little kickstart.

* make. Yesterday my aunt shared a 2013-Creative-Pay-it-Forward on Facebook:

2013Creative Pay-It-Forward: The first five people to comment on this status will receive from me sometime in the next calendar year,a gift---perhaps a book, or baked goods, or a candle,music- s surprise! There will likely be no warning and it will happen whenever the mood strikes me. The catch? Those five people must make the same offer in their FB status.

Then one of my dearest friends passed it on and I decided to get in on the action. Within 20 minutes our Facebook feeds were full of updates of people joining in.  Today I've seen promises of personalized short stories, paintings and 15-second jingles.  I love the idea that all kinds of creative goodies will be changing hands throughout the year.  And I'm already thinking about what I'll make for five very different people...

* watch. This will make your day. Adorable.


Marrying At 100 from Zack Conkle on Vimeo.

How will you be spending this winter weekend?

letters of note

More than kisses, letters mingle souls. 

John Donne

Dear friends, 

I used to be fairly good at letter writing.  It's one of the things that's fallen away a bit in the hustle and bustle of every day life.  Despite nearly constant contact through email, text, Twitter and Facebook with those dearest to me (and virtual strangers) I'd like to return to putting pen to paper on actual letters.   And I'm feeling very inspired by the site Letters of Note.  It's a treasure trove of poignant, provocative and humourous missives; some from the famous, some from the infamous and some from the otherwise unknown.  You can read John Steinbeck's fatherly advice on love ("Nothing good gets away.") or the lament of a 16th century widow ("How could you go ahead of me?"),  Dorothy Parker's ruminations on a hospital recovery and one particular nurse ("I have not shot her yet. Maybe Monday.") or an 18 year-old Keith Richards letter to his aunt about running into an old school chum ("He's called Mick Jagger.")

It's positively addictive.

Do you write letters?

Fondly,
The Glad Girl

P.S. Letter's of Note's Shaun Usher also curates the equally addictive Lists of Note and Letterheady.

welcome 2013

 
Fast away the old year passes...


After a whirlwind holiday season and Christmas week spent with wonderful visits with family, I've spent most of the last few days of 2012 luxuriating in solitude.   It's been a chance to tackle the physical clean-up of the old year (Am I the only one who takes almost as much satisfaction in taking out the Christmas tree as I do enjoyment in putting it up?) but also to ready myself to start the new year with a clear mind and a clean slate.

In the past few days I've been remembering and revisiting some of the little activities that bring me happiness and I'll share them here in the next little while.   I stopped making New Year's resolutions a few years ago although I'd definitely say I have some New Year's aspirations.   I had a chuckle yesterday when the wonderful author Riel Nason tweeted that she had given up trying to explain the correct word to her five year old who insisted on making New Year's "Revolutions."  I don't know... I kind of like it.

How were your holidays?  Are you planning any New Year's "revolutions"?

so... where were we?

The last post I wrote was the day before our season opened at Theatre New Brunswick.  The next 45 days or so were a bit of a blur.

We had a great season opener with Oleanna including a very nice review in the Globe and Mail.  Wearing a different blogging hat I had the chance to interview one of the show’s stars Natalie Roy, a Glad Girl if ever there was one.  My friend Ingrid hosted a lovely opening night bash at her gallery  - so much fun!

Opening night of Oleanna at Ingrid Mueller Art + Concepts

 The day after Oleanna opened we started rehearsals for Norm Foster’s new comedy Hilda’s Yard. Watching a world premiere come together is a really special experience particularly when you have a cast like we did – so many wonderful new friends.  Since we opened the week after Thanksgiving we all got together to celebrate and eat turkey together.   

Thanksgiving orphans take over Fred's kitchen

A week later the show was over (we have very short runs here) and I was hosting the closing night party.  And then it was time to get ready for the TNB Gala Hooray for Hollywood.  Which brings us to last weekend and an event fit for Hollywood royalty – an amazing night and a wonderful fundraiser that allows us to keep creating theatre magic.

A few of the details from the TNB Foundation gala - snapped during set-up.

Somewhere in there I had the chance to see Great Lake Swimmers thanks to Denis, wrote a couple of blog posts on local eating and the harvest markets for the Fredericton Tourism Town Square Social Hub and got a good start on my Christmas knitting  - which unfortunately I can’t show you since the recipients tend to read this blog…

And now it’s November!  The days are shorter, the tree branches are bare and the temperature is dipping.   All the makings for a few long winter’s nights and hopefully a little more regular blogging!

So what have you been up to?  I can't wait to hear!

sardines and songs

Prior to Saturday the last time I spent any significant time in a herring shed, I was “stringing herring;” standing in front of a seemingly endless bin of fish and one-by-one poking a pointy stake in through the gill and out through the mouth so they could be hung from the rafters in the smokeshed.   A full stick earned me something in the neighbourhood of a dime.  I remember it being tedious and smelly and when I closed my eyes that night all I could see were herring heads staring up at me.  But I also remember sea breezes blowing through the shed, the sound of gulls and the kind of boisterous camaraderie that springs up from sharing a day of manual labour.   There weren’t many more days like this down at “The Crick” (the tidal creek in Seal Cove).  The waning smoked herring industry went into deep decline in the 1990s and is now just a memory. 

So it was under very different circumstances 20 years later that I returned to the Crick on Saturday for an afternoon with the Summer’s End Folk Festival artists at The Sardine Museum and Herring Hall of Fame.  The museum is made up of a number of the old buildings and the legacy of the late Michael Zimmer.  (If you’re interested in the back story I recommend going here where my friend Peter Cunningham captures it beautifully.)

The Sardine Museum and Herring Hall of Fame is not a museum as we typically think of it.  There are no interpretative plaques, no faithful re-creations of ‘how things were.’  Instead it’s a rather eccentric and artful jumble of artifacts; relics of a time when herring was king and the smell of smoking fish (‘the smell of money!’ my dad would chime in) permeated our hair, our clothes and our summers.

It’s magical place and the perfect spot to spend an afternoon of music.    

Peter explains the museum's history to Liam Finney, Julie Doiron, Daniel Romano, Ruth Minnikin & Bry Webb 

. 

Bry Webb, Ruth Minnikin & Liam Finney.

see you soon, carly maicher

Take me with you so I don't have to miss you, 

Take me all the way across the prairies and back

To the bay.

Carly Maicher, See You Soon

Her latest album is called "Hiding" but Carly Maicher's life lately has been anything but secluded.  The singer-songwriter has spent much of this year on the road on a head-spinning Canadian tour with Zachary Lucky. (60 shows in three months!)  And now she's come back to the Bay and more specifically to Grand Manan Island to the festival she started three years ago.   Now I fully confess that I'm biased towards all things Grand Manan but I think the Summer's End Folk Festival is one of the great little gems of New Brunswick's music scene.  Established musicians and new discoveries playing in the open air a stone's throw from the sea? A perfect way to wind down your summer.  

The Festival runs August 24-25 and with just over a week to go, Carly took the time to answer a few of my questions, one island girl to another.

I love that your bio says you're one part wheat field, one part ocean.   How did you end up on Grand Manan?  How does the isolation of the island affect your writing?

Well, my grandparents are from Grand Manan originally! So, there's definitely a deep rooted family connection here. But basically, my family decided to buy a summer home here, and at the time I was looking to get away from Winnipeg, where I had been living. It sort of just happened - it worked out perfectly time wise, and since nobody was going to be living in the house, I decided to take advantage. My original plan was to just stay a couple of months and work on songs, and maybe record a home-made album, but then I just continued staying. I loved it so much that a year went by, and then years just kept going by. I built a little life here and got busy doing normal life things like working, and socializing.

During my time on Grand Manan, I spent a LOT of time alone with nature. I couldn't get over the natural beauty here. It's beautiful almost everywhere, but to me Grand Manan hosts this kind of obvious rugged beauty that's impossible to overlook. At least if you're not from a place like this. So, the environment definitely affected my writing. There's something super romantic, at least to me, about going to a little fishing island. 

Grand Manan is such a special place in general, but definitely became such a special place to me and an important time in my life. It has been such a substantial part of my life, and where I've felt most at home.

Tell me a little about Summer's End - it's no small thing deciding to start a festival on a pretty remote island. 

One of the things that I imagined about Grand Manan Island before moving here was that it would be a place filled with artists and musicians. I had been to Grand Manan before in my younger years on family trips, but never really got to know the culture really well. When I moved here, I didn't really meet anyone who had the same musical interests as me, which was surprising. There is definitely music on Grand Manan - but not specifically folk or traditional music. After a couple years of living here, I started managing a restaurant (Gallaway's Restaurant which is where the festival is held) - and there I began bringing in music from the mainland to see if we could become part of their touring circuit. With music being such an important part of my life, I needed a way to be able to continue doing that on Grand Manan too.

The festival became a dream of mine after living here and realizing that it's the most perfect place in the world for a festival, and I literally just couldn't believe it wasn't already happening here. So with that, I began planning the first one and everything just sort of fell into place. I thought that it would be a really great thing for the community to have a music festival with some music that maybe the culture here hadn't been exposed to yet. I think music can do wonderful, positive things - and that was my attempt at doing something positive within the community.

What's been the most surprising thing about Summer's End?

The most surprising part about Summers End is actually that the majority of our audience members have been people from away, not people from Grand Manan. This is really interesting! Although it means it is somewhat successful, meaning that our line up typically has some names that should draw, it is also surprising and I'd still really like the local crowd to grow. With there being so many off-islanders traveling to the festival from away, it's become a great tourist event which benefits local businesses - since the attendees are spending two nights on the island, they are contributing to the islands economy also via camping, groceries, restaurants, motels, ferry, etc! 

This year's festival offers up another great line-up - there are better-known names like Julie Doiron and Ruth Minnikin but who are some of the hidden gems / new talent / surprises we can look forward to?

This years line-up is theoretically pretty stacked! Julie Doiron, Daniel Romano, Bry Webb, and the Providers, Ruth Minnikin, and Owen Steel are all already very much so a part of the East coast music scene! People that are up and coming but that you may not have heard of are Klarka Weinwurm (NS), Devarrow (NB), Liam Finney (NS). I'm super excited to have them all involved in the festival!

(If you can't wait for the 24th to take in this music, the folks at SEFF have put together a great playlist over at CBC Music to get you in the mood! )
 

Summer's End Folk Festival is August 24-25th on Grand Manan.  You can get your tickets in advance on the website or in person at Gallaway's Restaurant (Grand Manan) Picaroons Brewtique (Fredericton) and Backstreet Records in both Fredericton and Saint John.

dear pie: f. scott fitzgerald to his daughter

 

AUGUST 8, 1933

LA PAIX RODGERS' FORGE

TOWSON, MARYLAND

DEAR PIE:

***

All I believe in in life is the rewards for virtue (according to your talents) and the punishments for not fulfilling your duties, which are doubly costly. If there is such a volume in the camp library, will you ask Mrs. Tyson to let you look up a sonnet of Shakespeare's in which the line occurs "Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds...."

***

Things to worry about:

Worry about courage

Worry about cleanliness

Worry about efficiency

Worry about horsemanship...

Things not to worry about:

Don't worry about popular opinion

Don't worry about dolls

Don't worry about the past

Don't worry about the future

Don't worry about growing up

Don't worry about anybody getting ahead of you

Don't worry about triumph

Don't worry about failure unless it comes through your own fault

Don't worry about mosquitoes

Don't worry about flies

Don't worry about insects in general

Don't worry about parents

Don't worry about boys

Don't worry about disappointments

Don't worry about pleasures

Don't worry about satisfactions

Things to think about:

What am I really aiming at?

With dearest love.

an awfully big edVenture

I enjoy any Sunday where the most pressing question is: "I wonder what will happen if I hit this with a ball peen hammer?" Every year when the list of edVentures courses comes out from the City I'm filled with thoughts of spending my summer in the adult equivalent of summer camp.  With more than 60 week-long, weekend and one-day courses in various arts and craft disciplines, your imagination can run away with you!   This year I managed to finally schedule my first edVentures course: a day of jewelry making!

london calling: send an olympic cheer

My first memory of the Olympics is watching the opening ceremonies of the 1984 games in Los Angeles.  That summer my friends and I were Olympic mad: drawing our own flags, making torches out of paper towel tubes and solemnly presenting one another scraggly wildflower bouquets for achievements in hill rolling, tree-branch swinging or puddle-jumping.  

I'm not by nature much of a sports fan but there's something about the Olympics...  Suddenly I find myself deeply invested in people I've never heard of in sports I was only vaguely aware existed.   It's been 28 years since my first Olympic memories and we are on the verge of another round of summer games.   What sports are you looking forward to?

For Fredericton folks, on Thursday you have a fun chance to kickstart the Olympic spirit.

With their Hometown Champions tour, RBC is sending three London cabs around Canada in the lead up to this summer's games.  Hop in the back and record your video message to send your Olympic well-wishes to your favourite athlete or the entire Canadian team.  On July 19 you can find the cab at RBC on Queen St.  from 10-12:30pm and Officers Square from 2-6 pm. Swing by and spread some Olympic-size love!