Morning Dew

Shoot! Haven't posted any music this week! Oh well, never too late for a good ol' Canadian folk song!


We were listening to this program on CBC, and this anti-war song by Bonnie Dobson has quite the story behind it...A beautiful song, a beautiful voice.


Listen to the song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qgl0YfJiz80&feature=related


Listen to the CBC documentary: http://www.cbc.ca/radio2/programs/2010/10/this-song-is-your-song-the-story-of-bonnie-dobson-and-morning-dew.html

Marvell-ous!

Came across unfinished drafts of some blog posts I meant to do about a month ago.  Since I am now officially finished all my exams, as a tribute, I post them for your reading pleasure:


PARADISE LOST


I'm always hesitant to read the classical "greats": there's an almost unapproachability - what if I don't like their work? Does that mean I'm uncultured and without artistic taste?


It's different with Shakespeare, Dostoevsky.  To me, they were givens, real enough to relate to, genius enough to be questioned.  But Homer, Ovid, Milton have seemed too solemn in their cracked leather binding, worn and pored over by multiple minds, extolled by thinkers, expounded and expanded on through the works they inspired.


Tonight it was Milton.  Our professor's been teaching Renaissance literature for 23 years, and I think her passion for the works of this multilingual master was the clue I needed in order to commit enough to this epic undertaking.  They say that there's a great epic about every 1000 years: Homer's Odyssey and Illiad, Dante's Divine Comedies, and Milton's Paradise Lost...


MARK TURNER: LITERARY CRITICISM AND ORIGINALITY IN TEXTS (note: "THE ROOM")

When you come across a room in a text, you are coming in contact with a wholly unoriginal concept; we all expect to find rooms in which the characters will move, converse, and struggle because in our own experiences we interact with that environmental space.  And though we may find the dried lavender hanging from a tack pushed into the polka dotted backing of a gilded gold frame a more original construct within the work, it cannot exist in the same capacity without the unoriginal, and indeed more complex, matrix of the room.

The dependence of the original on the unoriginal is an integral concept of Mark Turner's essay "Poetry: Metaphor and the Conceptual Context of Invention".  Turner also explores the use of the conceptual metaphor within texts such as Pilgrim's Progress, The Bible, and...

reduce, reuse, recycle, and create!

It's been awhile since I've given an art update! Haven't been painting or drawing too much of late, but other projects are finding their way into my creative schedule.

Dawn makes these Treehugger bookmarks which are made of recycled cardboard (you can still tell what kind of cereal the box was for if you look on the back) and fun things, like bits of string and pictures from cards, magazines, or books. Hers look a lot nicer than the ones I made though (:

Sara and Rebecca and I have gotten together a couple times to be creative: one night we designed journal covers.  If you've never custom decorated the cover of a journal or notebook, I highly recommend it, it is so choice. And you have an empty journal at the end in which to write down all your thoughts and shopping lists!

We're planning on having an Altered Journal exchange over the summer, in which everyone has a book which is passed around the group - everyone gets to design a two page spread per book, so at the end you have a lovely collection of art! If you want to join us, let me know!

oh how nice!

Taking a break from Dostoevsky, I thought I'd share the origin of one of my favorite "words that used to mean something completely different".

"Nice" nowadays is often used to refer to something mildly pleasant or a person who is generally kind; according to the Oxford English Dictionary, however, nice means:

1. A foolish or simple person; a fool.

a1393    Gower Confessio Amantis (Fairf.) v. 4725   Fulofte he faileth of his game That wol with ydel hand reclame His hauk, as many a nyce doth.

a1425 (1400) Chaucer Romaunt Rose 5043   If it be ony fool or nyce, In whom that Shame hath no justice.

 or

 2. More fully Nice biscuit. A thin, sweet biscuit containing coconut and sprinkled with sugar.

1895    Army & Navy Co-op. Soc. Price List 5   Biscuits.‥ Nice.

Isn't that nice?

Post show ----

Hey.  I've been somewhat depressed.  And I think it's a combination of things.


One: The Child, Handel completed its first run.  I didn't realize how much I was enjoying working on the project until it was over.  And it's like this every show I'm part of, only I had forgotten.  The joys of drama.


Two: I've been listening to too much Radiohead and watching too much Lotus Flower dancing.


Three: I live in constant captivity to the expectations of others, especially those of men.


Four: I make too many lists.


People are getting married.  Classes are ending and I still have a capstone paper to finish.  The people I most want to connect with are the ones I avoid.


I'm only writing about this because I actually had peace again today.  Maybe it was the sunny weather, that I carried boxes all the way to church, that I was able to have communion, that my friend preached about the man born blind, that I baked bread, that one of my roommates and I got to walk down to the bridge and actually talk about life.


I want to extend the script for The Child, Handel so that I can submit it to the Tarragon Theatre Playwrighting Competition at the end of April.  Seeing it onstage was definitely a high point of this year, and to have it so well acted was a blessing.

Flowers from One Acts ~ oh thanks Supinas

Maurice, Mildred, and Handel
Opening Night!

Erika can't watch - her hair is being 80fied!

We're having a reading for our short story class Thursday, April 7th in the Concordia library at 4:30pm.  There will be refreshments and awesome writing to be shared by all.  I think I'll read the one about the punks on a bridge...

By Special Request...

A picture of the delicious cupcakes we consumed at Second Cup after One Acts!

Which were amazing, by the way.

I'm still kind of giddy from it all.

There were a complete number of five acts introduced and exited by Erik and Justin, all excellent student directed and performed works.

If you're not busy April 2nd at 7pm, you should check out closing night: Concordia University College of Alberta, pay-what-you-can.