River City Writer

Correction

In my previous post, I stated that The Works festival ended this past weekend. In fact, the festival ends on July 6, 2008 (this coming Friday). I apologize for the error.

Edmonton Summer Round-up #1

There are a lot of things going on in the city right now (as there will be all summer), so I figured the easiest way to share the information would be in a single round-up post.

• The Edmonton International Jazz Festival and The Works Art & Design Festival both wrap up this weekend. If you have the chance, check them outbefore they’re over.
• “Bash’d” the gay rap opera by Edmonton theatre alumni Chris Craddock and Nathan Cuckow is being performed as an off-Broadway production in New York City right now. The New York Times gave them a good write-up recently.
• The Freewill Shakespeare Festival (formerly the River City Shakespeare Festival) began this week, and continues everyday (excluding Mondays) until July 20. This year’s productions are “As You Like It” and “Richard III.” I’ve seen both already and they’re both good, though I have to admit that the performances don’t seem quite as strong as in past years. If you’re only able to make it out to one of the plays this year, I’d suggest going for the comedy, “As You Like It.”
• The Feats Festival of Dance begins tomorrow. I honestly didn’t even know that Edmonton had a dance festival until I started checking out the upcoming festivals at FestivalCity.ca. It looks like the festival includes a wide range of dance types, so there should be something for just about everyone.

Edmonton International Jazz Festival

Friends, Edmontonians, Countrymen…

I have been neglegent and left this blog to rot far longer than I should have. Likely, I have lost many readers and/or subscribers. Luckily, I never got around to setting up Google Analytics for this blog, so I am unaware of the stats.

Regardless, I am back, and I’m telling you about the Edmonton International Jazz Festival. Last night, June 20, was the first night of this year’s festival and I, the River City Writer, was present at one of the shows.

I checked out the Four Corners Quartet, who were part of the Club Series, at hulbert’s. They played a mix of originals and standards, with an emphasis on the standards. Though not a huge jazz cat, I recognized a good number of the standards.

There was a lot of Charlie Parker, and some Miles Davis, which is to be expected when the leader of the band is a sax player. Oddly, I think there were a few Thelonious Monk songs in the mix, which is odd, given that there was not a piano in sight. Of course, like I said, I’m not a jazz expert, so I could be wrong about the Monk bits.

I didn’t get a chance to speak to them, but I believe the Four Corners Quartet is from Edmonton, so if you see them around town, I recommend that you check them out. In the meantime, be sure to check out the rest of the Festival.

The Edmonton International Jazz Festival runs until June 29, 2008. For a full schedule of events check out the 2008 Jazz Festival Calendar.

Reasons to Leave Edmonton - Part 1

I’m not normally a person who talks about reasons why people should leave Edmonton. After all, I love this city, and the entire point of this blog is to promote the good things about Edmonton. Still, River City isn’t perfect. The haters out there occasionally have some legitimate complaints.

So, this week, I’m going to talk about some of the biggest reasons why moving away from Edmonton might be a good idea. But, because this is a blog focusing on River City’s positive qualities, rather than it’s negatives, I’ll also suggest ways to “solve” the problems without leaving the city.

The first, and perhaps the main reason why people might want to leave Edmonton is simple: the winter.

Edmonton winters are long, cold, and miserable

Edmonton is one of the most northerly major cities in the world. Because of our location, we have long, cold winters. Global warming is slowly changing this (which is not a good thing, despite how nice it may be to have fewer -20 Celsius days in the winter), but the fact is, it gets cold in River City during the winter.

On top of the cold, our winters are very long. Winter-like temperatures can last as long as 6 months in Edmonton and, because of our latitude, it gets dark very early in the winter.

For most Edmontonians, winter means waking up and driving to work before the sunrises, and not leaving work until the sun has already set. For people like me, who don’t have a window in their office, this can mean getting almost no natural light during the winter months.

The lack of sunlight and the cold can lead to Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD). Even those who don’t suffer from true SAD can find themselves suffering from a general sense of malaise during an Edmonton winter.

I don’t blame people for wanting to leave Edmonton after they’ve experienced and River City winter. Hell, sometimes even I want to leave during the winter.

Despite that, I think there are ways that Edmontonians can make winter work in our favour. Rather than dreading winter, we should embrace it.

An Edmonton Winter Festival

The main solution to the Edmonton winter blues, in my opinion, would be to launch a winter festival, similar to La fête des Neiges de Montréal or Carnaval de Québec (the Quebec Winter Festival). Instead of hiding ourselves away in our homes and malls for 5 or 6 months a year, we should be out and enjoying our city during the winter.

Perhaps an Edmonton winter festival could be focused on Churchill Square, to take advantage of the skating rink in front of City Hall. Surely, something could be done on the river, as well. If the ice is thick enough, we could create a natural skating rink to rival the Rideau Canal in Ottawa.

Like the Rideau Skateway, kiosks could be setup along the river (and in Churchill Square) to sell hot food to keep revelers warm. Coffee, hot chocolate, and warm pastries would sell like crazy in such a situation.

A new Edmonton winter festival could take advantage of the very few winter events that already occur in Edmonton, such as the Ice on Whyte ice sculpting competition, incorporating them into the new festival. Perhaps the festival could kickoff on January 1st at midnight, using the New Year’s Eve Downtown celebration as a way to launch both the New Year, and the festival. (This would be especially symbolic during the festival’s inaugural year).

That’s my suggested solution to the Edmonton winter blues: an Edmonton winter festival. I’ve given a brief illustration of what I think such a festival could and should look like, but I’d like to hear your ideas.

After all, for something like this to ever become a reality, the festival organizers would undoubtedly need input from the community. Let’s get a jump on the game and start brainstorming ideas here.

Live From the Roar

Just a quick post to let you know that I will be live twittering all night from the Roar. If, for some reason, you can’t make it out to the Festival, you can still keep track of what’s happening by following my Twitter stream, either on the side bar of my personal blog, on my Facebook profile, or my Twitter page.

If you have a Twitter account and a cell phone, you can set it up so that you get messages sent directly to your phone.

Facebook and the blog seem to be the best places to keep track of the messages. I’ve noticed that messages sent from my cell phone sometimes don’t appear on my Twitter page, but still show up on the blog and on Facebook.

If you can’t make it to the Roar, be sure to keep up to speed by watching my Twitter feed.

The Fabulous Leprechaun Burlesque and Night Moves

Tomorrow night is the Roar. It’s gonna be an ass-kicker. Because I’m shameless, I’m pimping the shows that I’m involved in. Check out the Fabulous Leprechaun Burlesque (details above), where I’ll be tearing up the stage with Michael Appleby, Nicole Pakan, and Patrick Pilarski. It will be a barn-burner, a pants-dropper, and a mind-blower.

Immediately following that event will be Night Moves, a show that I’m hosting at the same venue. Night Moves features Corine Demas, Laurie MacFayden, and Lisa Pruden. These women know how to rock it. They will blow your mind. Confessions and confusions about sexuality, identity, nostalgia, femininity, and the journeys in between. It’s not to be missed. I’m left breathless whenever I hear one of them read, and I’m proud to be able to present them to the festival with this show.

For complete event listings and show times, check out the Roar schedule.

Edmonton Poetry Week

It is officially Edmonton Poetry Week. This means that I’m going to be busier than usual, as I’m going to be attending events, and also performing in one, and producing/hosting another. I will try to blog about the Festival as much as possible, but my posts might be sporadic, and may not be published at the usual 10:00am (Mountain Time) publishing time.

In the meantime, here’s a brief listing of some of the events that I’m hoping to check out. There are a few that I probably won’t get out to, just because of the time and location at which they’re occurring, but hopefully those constraints won’t stop you from checking things out.

CORTEX - Cortex is a multidisciplinary event, featuring poetry, visual & video art, music, and dance. I know a few of the people involved, and they’re all insane geniuses (some more insane than others, but all artistic geniuses, in my opinion). Cortex occurs today at Latitude 53 (2nd Floor, 10248 – 106 Street), from 7-9:30pm. Admission is $5.

Poets Across Borders - Showcasing the incredible cultural and ethnic diversity that exists in Edmonton, Poets Across Borders teams poets from Sudan, Pakistan, Croatia, the Phillipines, Chile, Kurdistan, India, and the Caribbean with English-speaking poets to perform collaborative works. I believe that the writers who have come from non-English countries will be performing in their native languages, but I’m not 100% sure about that. Poets Across Borders will be performing daily, at noon on CBC Centre Stage in City Centre Mall.

The Roar Spoken Word Festival - On Friday, September 21, the dynamo of spoken word and performance poetry in Edmonton is back for a 3rd year. A 3 hour literary pub crawl across the downtown core, the Roar features the best and brightest poets from Edmonton, and beyond. A blowout finale party featuring the Raving Poets Band follows the pub crawl. The finale will be held at Axis Cafe (10349 Jasper Avenue).

Small Words, Big Moments - Edmonton-based DailyHaiku launches it’s first ever print edition on Saturday, September 22. Current editors, and poetic power couple, Patrick Pilarski and Nicole Pakan host a Zen-like afternoon of tea and haiku at Cafe Select (8404 109th Street). A haiku workshop will follow the readings.

Coffee Lines Stroll - 40 readers, 4 coffee shops, 2 hours. Some of Edmonton’s most prolific poets will be out in full force on Sunday, September 23 from 2-4pm. Check the event web page for locations and a full list of readers.

For a full listing of Edmonton Poetry Week events, visit the www.edmontonpoetryfestival.com.

The Roar is 7 Days Away

Last night, I was at a meeting with some of my fellow poets to finalize the details of our show for this year’s Roar Festival—Patrick Pilarski’s “The Fabulous Leprechaun Burlesque,” which I am performing in. I’m also producing a show called “Night Moves,” which will take place immediately after the Fabulous Leprechaun Burlesque. Both of this shows will be absolutely kickin’.

Because I was at this meeting, and because the Roar is only 7 days away, there is little else on my mind. Next week is Edmonton Poetry Week. The Roar will be the highlight of the week, but there is a lot of other stuff happening that week, as well. Check out the schedule for full event listings.

There will be something for everyone at this year’s Edmonton Poetry Festival, as well as at the Roar. Both festivals include a wide range of poetry. If you’re into confessionals, you’ll be able to see that. If you love Zen and haiku, you’ll find some of that, as well. And, of course, there will be a full metric tonne of ass-kicking performance poetry going on during the Roar.

If you think that you don’t like poetry, I invite you to check out any of the events happening at Three Bananas Cafe during the Roar. It will be the poetic equivalent of a rock show. You might find that you like poetry after all.

Upcoming Events in the Edmonton Literary Arts Scene

Edmonton Poetry Festival: Now in it’s 2nd year, the Edmonton Poetry Festival is a week long poetry extravaganza. From September 17–23, poetry will flood the city—especially downtown. Events include a hip hop night, the Roar Lit Crawl (see below), and Leonard Cohen Nights.

The Roar Spoken Word Festival: The 3rd annual Roar Spoken Word Festival will be kicking ass on Friday, September 21. The Roar will take over downtown’s cafes and pubs, and turn them into rocking spoken word concert venues. Mics will be rocked, and minds will be blown. It will be the most intense 5 hours of performance poetry that you’ll witness this year.

Arts Alives! Kaliedo Festival: Head down to 118th Avenue on September 28 & 29 for the Arts Alive! Kaliedo Festival, sponsored by Arts on the Ave. The festival will bring musicians, performance artists, and visual artists to the Alberta Avenue (118 Ave) community for a huge showcase of local talent. With over 100 acts in total, this may just be the biggest arts festival in Edmonton.

The Tragic End of Summer

The Labour Day long weekend marks the tragic end of summer in Champion City. While it’s not technically the end of summer, it might as well be. All of the summer festivals are over. The sky gets dark before 10pm. The cold slowly starts to creep back into the air (though, I do like the “crispness” of an autumn morning).

The beginning of autumn in Edmonton does, however, have some good points. To me, autumn means long, aimless walks. The river valley is great for this, though I actually prefer wandering around downtown with a hot cup of coffee and a good friend to chat with. Maybe it’s because I’m not-so-secretly in love with the concrete, but walking the Core with the leaves on the ground, and a scarf around my neck is one of my favourite things in the world.

Autumn also means that the CFL is in full swing. For some reason, I never really pay attention to football until the Labour Day Classic, even though the season actually starts in the summer. This year, I’ve paid enough attention to know that the Esks aren’t doing as well as they usually do. But, after last season, I’m not overly surprised. I blame the loss of Jason Maas (okay, not really, but it does seem like the team has gone downhill since he was traded to the Ti-Cats).

Even though the summer festivals are over, that doesn’t mean that Festival City is suddenly devoid of festivals in the fall. September brings with it the Edmonton Poetry Festival, as well as the Roar Spoken Word Festival (this year’s schedule was posted recently—check it out).

Let me know what you like to in Edmonton in the fall, and I’ll do a “round-up” style post in the near future, using your suggestions. Leave a comment, or send me an email to tell me what your favourite River City autumn activities are.