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Filk community news

New additions to The Dandelion Report (filking.net): New columns by Allison Durno and Bill Sutton. Allison's is called "FILK FORTE" and is a regular reader survey. Bill's column is "Another QuarterNote Header From Bill Sutton", and will offer opinions on topics regarding music in general and filk in particular.

Greg McMullan and Maya Corbin are engaged. The wedding will take place near Boston on October 6th. Many congrats and good wishes, Greg and Maya!

Eli Goldberg reports that Christine Lavin's Webmaster just posted the lyrics to Bob Kanefsky's parody, "Santa Monica Ballooning", on the site.

Frolicks with nieces

Jeff and I took Annie and Sara to the AGO (Art Gallery of Ontario) yesterday. Even though Ruth had told us that the gallery was hosting some March Break activities especially for children, I figured we'd be spending most of our time looking at paintings (and was wondering how many minutes it would take for Annie and Sara to get bored).



I didn't have to worry. In fact, I estimate that we saw less than 10% of the activities and special workshops that the AGO had for kids this past week. Activities included wall magnet collages, building block sculptures, painting, making flowers, drawing with markers on slides and looking at your artwork on a projector, playing dress-up (they had an amazing assortment of costumes), creating creatures out of coloured styrofoam shapes, making sailboats out of empty Tetrapacks and scraps of coloured paper, string, and foil.

Speaking of Tetrapacks, someone at the AGO must have connections with the company that makes Tetrapacks. There were Tetrapacks everywhere. Some guy even built a CN tower out of them! They had a little ceremony when he put the top on the tower.




After lunch, we wandered a bit through the galleries. Sara took us to her favourite areas: the Food section (modern art, with a giant hamburger in the middle of the room), the sculpture section, section with the story painting. The latter was the most interesting experience...Sara obviously had a favourite painting in this area. She pointed out a rather sombre painting, and spent the next five minutes telling us the story behind it. As she talked, I realized the story was about the "Judgement of Solomon", and that Sara was doing a pretty darned good job outlining all the important story details. When I got back, I looked up the story online:

"Judgement of Solomon", from 1 Kings III, v. 16 ff: Two harlots came to King Solomon disputing about the rightful mother of a child. One claimed that her own baby had been swapped for the other's dead baby during the night and this was denied by the other. The king asked for a sword to be brought and said "Divide the living child in two, and give half to the one, and half to the other". The rightful mother of the child pleaded that the child's life should be spared and given to the other mother. The dishonest mother said "Let it be neither mine or thine, but divide it". On hearing this Solomon instructed that the child should be given to the woman who wanted the child to live - saying "She is the mother thereof".

She left out the part about the women being harlots, so I'm hopefully assuming she didn't know that bit of the story. I also couldn't help but notice that a few adults looking at nearby paintings edged surreptitiously closer as Sara described the story behind the picture.

Just before we left the AGO, Jeff bought both girls a small rubber duck that caught their fancy in the store (don't ask me what rubber ducks are doing at the Art Gallery of Ontario). Annie named hers "Looking". Jeff asked why she picked that name, and she replied, "Because it's always looking at me!".

Went out with Brian and Bryan in the evening...we had dinner at Terroni's, the best pizza restaurant in Toronto. Came back and watched "Triumph of the Nerds" on video. I know, I know...it sounds very cheesy, but it was actually a highly entertaining and interesting documentary about the history of personal computers, with a focus on the personalities rather than the technology.

They all mocked me unmercifully for starting up another online community even though I'm supposedly on sabbatical.










Today's Blatherpics:

Annie and I dressing up at the Art Gallery of Ontario.

CN Tower built from Tetrapaks.

A giant craft room at the AGO, one of the many special features being offered during the March Break. Each table had a different type of craft and/or demonstration, manned by several volunteers.

Larkin and Brittany this morning at Marche, where we had brunch with Jeff's dad-in-law.