My Denis McGrath interview on blogTO

I have two new posts up on blogTO, for those interested:

My interview with Denis McGrath

Denis McGrath is a Toronto screenwriter whose writing credits include episodes of Blood Ties. McGrath worked at CityTV and Chum Television, and helped start Canada's science fiction channel, Space: The Imagination Station. His series, Across The River To Motor City, premieres soon in Canada.

If you have comments to post about the interview, I urge you to do so at blogTO instead of in my Livejournal. That way my editor will know people are reading my posts, thanks. :-) You can post without having to register.

Read the interview here.

(Photo to right courtesy Denis McGrath.)

A brief plug for Relay For Life

With your help, I've raised $1265 in pledges so far! The Relay is this Friday. If you'd like to make a pledge, you can do so on my Relay For Life page. Thank you! I'll be covering the event for blogTO.

Read my post here.







From the all the comments in response to my post about musicals, it's clear that a LOT of you like musicals, though may not share the same tastes. :-) Thanks for the reponses; I've added to my list of musicals I know I still need to see.

As you can see from the photos above, Jeff and I are so pleased with our Squirrelbuster feeder that we decided to buy another. The squirrels, of course, immediately had to investigate. Heh...I'm amused to see that searching for "Squirrelbuster" on Google right now turns up one of my Blatherings as the #1 result!

Speaking of squirrels...my friends Tony and Leslie have pointed me to yet more proof of Evil Squirrel World Domination plans:

Rampaging squirrel injures 3: "An aggressive squirrel attacked and injured three people in a German town before a 72-year-old pensioner dispatched the rampaging animal with his crutch."




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WWFC, Phantom of the Opera, and Blood Ties news

Will Write For Chocolate has been updated.

Way busy, hence the dearth of Blatherings. I try to limit the amount of time I spend blogging (reading and writing blogs, that is), and now that I'm doing some writing for blogTO, I'm having to take time away from other blog-related projects.

Jeff and I went to see Phantom of the Opera last night. Jeff was shocked that I hadn't seen it before, considering my love of all things musical. The main reason I never saw it when it first came to Toronto was because I was teaching piano at the time, and pretty much ALL my students wanted to learn Phantom of the Opera music; a bunch of schools in Orangeville were making student trips to see the musical. Anyway, as beautiful as the score may be, I could only stand to hear "Think of Me" and "Phantom of the Opera" so many times before I felt like running screaming whenever I saw a student come in with that songbook.

Besides, after seeing Brian De Palma's Phantom of the Paradise, I didn't really need to see any more Phantoms.



But then I heard that Phantom was leaving Toronto for who knows how long AND I had the opportunity to buy half-price tickets. Jeff generously offered to accompany me. I went in with mediocre expectations, but I have to confess that I was disappointed. Maybe Phantom is something you had to see when it first came out, or maybe it's just not my kind of musical. I loved the costumes and sets, but the story and characters left me cold. And despite being vaguely familiar with the story, I still found the story flow confusing at times.

Excerpt from a hastily whispered exchange between Jeff and me after what was an obviously heartfelt musical number by the heroine:

JEFF: "What was she just singing about?"

ME: "I have no idea."

My favourite theatre musical is still Les Miserables, but also very much enjoyed seeing the performances of The Lion King, Rent, Cats, Wicked and Urinetown. I'm sure I'm missing some others.

Survey: What are your favourite live musicals?

Speaking of music, thanks to all those who helped out my friend Julie with her audio software question!



Above: A bunny in our back garden! It looks just like a Lindt bunny, doesn't it? It nibbles at some of our plants, but isn't nearly as destructive as the Demon Squirrels. Jeff says I'm being massively unfair by hating the squirrels for eating my plants but going all googoo-eyed over the bunny just because it's so cute. Well, so far the bunny seems to have the decency not to MALICIOUSLY DIG UP hapless seedlings and leave them TO DIE ON THE SUN-BAKED EARTH. Plus yes, it's darned cute.

For those other Blood Ties fans, Tanya Huff has posted an updated about Canadian airdates:

Citytv Toronto and Winnipeg:
Monday August 20 8-10PM

Citytv Vancouver:
Sunday August 26 8-10PM

Citytv Calgary / Edmonton:
Thursday August 23 8-10PM

From Tanya: "Tell two friends. Heck, tell three. Remember, we need 62 episodes to make it into syndication and replace Mutant X as the weekend Can-con on SPACE (Canadian humour) That's pretty much three seasons and the only way to get that is for the show to have the kind of viewing numbers that convinces CHUM and their advertisers, that we're a good investment."



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Dust Poets fangirl

It's hard to describe the music of the Dust Poets, and that's one of the things I liked most about this Canadian band; they don't try to sound like anyone else or fit into a particular genre. One minute they're playing bluegrass, the next a heartrending ballad, then sultry blues, foot-stomping folk-rock, then ragtime. Their harmonies are incredible tight, arrangements and instrumentals impressive.

A quote from the press:

"The Dust Poets continue a recent tradition of hip, intelligent and humorous Canadian bands, along with fellow countrymen Barenaked Ladies and the sadly defunct Moxy Fruvous." - Frederick News-Post

You can see the cover of the most recent Dust Poets CD, Lovesick Town, below:



You can hear the entire album (!) on their site. Dave Clement gave this CD to me last week (thanks, Dave!) and I also bought their Four Legs Good CD.



Dave Clement, Sean McManus and me.

The members of the band are:

Murray Evans (guitar, harmonica): Front man Murray has been active in the Manitoba folk scene for many years and has toured much of Canada and the US as a solo artist. I love the slight Prairie twang in his voice. Ok, I just love his VOICE. :-)

Corey Ticknor (mandolin, trumpet and trombone): I was surprised to find out that Corey has a music degree as a trombonist; his mandolin playing in the concert was so amazing. Wonderful stage energy! Corey and Karla both performed on Sam Baardman's CDs.

Sean McManus (drums, clarinet, sax): Another Dust Poet with impressive music credentials, Sean has a masters degree in Ethnomusicology at York University. Man, can this guy play clarinet! He admits he plays it like a sax, which is another of his instruments. I loved his drum set-up, which was a small suitcase on a drum stand with a cymbal thingy (what's the proper drum term for that?) and the top of Sam Baardman's double boiler pan. :-D

Karla Ferguson (accordion, piano): A classically trained mezzo soprano and pianist, Karla grew up on a ranch in Saskatchewan. She has served as the executive director of the national Canadian Chamber Choir, and performed with the renowned Elmer Iseler Singers. Lovely voice (I -love- "Lonesome") and gorgeous harmonies.

Gord Mowat (upright bass): Gord was in the Jazz Studies program at Humber College, and has performed and recorded with the likes of Steve Bell, Howard Levy, Swing Soniq, Kiva, and The Love Orchestra. He's the only member of the group to be currently living in Toronto. Watching him on fretless bass was amazing - he plays like he's part of the instrument.



I attended the Dust Poets concert in Orangeville with my friends Sue, Dave and Tom. Dave and Tom are Dandelion Wine, by the way, scheduled to perform in Germany at Filkcontinental this autumn. And I recently discovered that Heather Dale is the Special Guest at the convention! As you may recall, I Blathered about Heather Dale's concert in Toronto recently. I SO wish I had the money to go to Germany this fall.

Dave and Tom are friends with the Dust Poets and decided to surprise them by showing up at their concert. The concert was hosted by a B&B called The Stream, which is a 40-minute drive out of Toronto and (I discovered) a 2-minute drive away from where Jeff and I used to live (!). The B&B even had some Al Pace pottery for sale; Al is a friend of ours; he and his wife Lynn were some of the guides on our Nahanni River canoe trip.



If you ever have a chance to hear the Dust Poets perform, I urge you not to pass up the chance! You can find their performance schedule online. They're going to be performing at Summerfolk in Owen Sound on the weekend of Aug 17-19th, for instance.

Thanks to Dave, Tom and Sue for inviting me to the concert! I'm definitely a Dust Poets fan now. :-)

For more info about the Dust Poets, go their Web site and be sure to listen to their music.







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My first restaurant review up at blogTO!

Woohoo, my first restaurant review is posted on blogTO.com this morning! Please do visit, and feel free to comment there if you like the post. :-) The restaurant I wrote about: Chai on Bayview Avenue, one of Jeff's and my favourite brunch spots.

As I've mentioned before, I've been hired by blogTO for their Books/Lit and Food sections. blogTO is a Web site about Toronto culture including the arts, music, film, fashion and food. I did ask if I could post about music as well, but apparently they have more than enough music bloggers. :-)

For the Books/Lit section, I'll be interviewing Toronto authors, editors, publishers, specialty printers as well as profiling bookstores in the city. If you know of a person or place in Toronto you think should be interviewed or profiled, please do let me know. I'm mainly looking for people or places who haven't already been profiled a zillion times before, more independent / small business than mainstream.

For the record, my policy re: restaurant reviews is going to be the following: I'm only going to review restaurants I like. This doesn't mean I won't have some minor negative comments sometimes, but with so many small restaurants struggling to keep afloat, I see no point in bashing one publicly. I'd rather use the space (and my time) to promote restaurants that deserve to be promoted.

I had a WONDERFUL time at the Dust Poets concert at The Stream
in Orangeville, by the way. More details in an upcoming Blathering.

Below: Dave, Tom and Sue in T&S's new car!






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Heartfelt thanks, friends, and Dust Poets

Will Write For Chocolate was updated on Wednesday.

Between new illustration projects, new writing projects (I'm an official blogTO contributor now and my first post should appear tomorrow), and trying to get my rewrite finished for proofreaders (thanks, proofreaders!), things have gotten busier these days.

THANK YOU so much to those of you who have sponsored me for Relay For Life so far. My goal was to raise $500. Thus far, over $1100 in pledges have come in. I am deeply touched (weepy, to be honest) by how many people have put in pledges. Not just friends and family, but also people I don't know that well or not at all. Thank you so much; it means a great deal to me.

To those who missed my earlier Blathering: If you would like to sponsor me for the Relay For Life on June 22nd, you can pledge online.

Speaking of friends:



Above: Dave Weingart is in town from New York for business; Jodi and I had dinner with him at the Frog & Firkin at Yonge & Sheppard. Dave continues to verify the rumour that he is checking out condo prices in Toronto, yay.



Above: My friend Craig, at the newly revamped Royal Ontario Museum. You can see my pics on Flickr or better yet, check out Jeff's pics.

Lots of interesting angles, and I liked the juxtaposition of the old and new architecture:



Looking forward to hearing the Dust Poets in Orangeville tonight with Sue Postero, Tom Jeffers and Dave Clement!




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