The Rowdyman

Our Evening With Gordon Pinsent was a hit, a sold-out show followed by a nice reception (and we raised a bit of money for the Youth Centre 2000 in Grand Falls, too). Part of the performance included Mr. Pinsent reading from The Rowdyman, in my opinion the most under-rated feature film in Canadian cinema. The section Mr. Pinsent read had to do with Will Cole's feelings for Roy, a romantically ursurping mainlander, which boded Roy no good whatsoever. It was a great moment of theatre.

(Image: mun.ca.)

For the next two days we'll be at the D. F. Cook Recital Hall, rehearsing for our lovely event on Thursday, "An Evening With Gordon Pinsent." As ever, we strive to match standards set by the classics, and for a beautifully executed and precisely timed performance there's no better example then this scene from Singing In The Rain. See you back here on Friday!

(Image: musicweb.com.)

Four Quartets

The 19th Festival of New Dance that just wrapped yesterday evening was packed with good stuff. A real favourite was Deborah Dunn's Four Quartets, inspired by T. S. Eliot's poems. If you have a friend (or a husband) that balks at going to a dance performance because 'they don't get it', this is a good piece to take them to. You don't sit there wondering, what? is she supposed to be marine biologist? are they moths? You know what Four Quartets is about: it's about the poetry.
Dance set against dialogue, as opposed to music or a soundscape, is rather novel, and Dunn is mezmerizing.

(Image: manhattanrarebooks.)

We're flat out here now finessing the details for our "Evening With Gordon Pinsent" next Thursday (still a very few tickets left! call now so you won't be disappointed!). And fun as it all is, it's also a little tiring, and also leaves no time for that epitome of summer activity, the movie matinee. Still, showtime will eventually come, and to help arrange our viewing choices we're checking out these Top 10 Summer 2009 trailers.

(Above: a shot from District 9, ranked the best trailer of the season. Image: mannistrash.com.)

Being Erica

Have you caught this

series? I recommend it. You can check it out yourself, anytime. Even at your desk or whatever.

(That's lead actress Erin Karpluk, right. Doesn't she look like she'd be fun to hang out with?)

The theme of our fall issue is Cuisine. As food is such a great subject for still life, and, arguably, portraiture, we're anticipating no shortage of lovely illustrations. Maybe we'll even have something like this:

one of the prettiest desserts in the world.

(Image: seriousseats.com.)

Pining for pirouettes? Aching for arabesques? Craving some contact improv? Then you need a spot of new dance. Fortunately, the 19th Annual Festival of New Dance opens tonight, with lots of great work in a bunch of venues. Here's the schedule and other info - incidentally we hear that Deborah Dunn's Four Quartets (July 24, 25, 6pm, 163 Water Street) is not to be missed.

(Image: ladansesurlesroutes.com.)

July 20, 1969

“It suddenly struck me that that tiny pea, pretty and blue, was the Earth. I put up my thumb and shut one eye, and my thumb blotted out the planet Earth. I didn't feel like a giant. I felt very, very small.”

Neil Armstrong (Image: regmedia.com.)

Aboard the HMCS Glace Bay

I spent this morning in the best possible way, aboard the HMCS Glace Bay. This was at the invitation of the fine members of the Naval Reserve. Of course I was diligently researching on behalf of the NQ, conducting interviews towards our Spring Issue (yes, we are sometimes that organized!) The ship, which seems to corner on rails and turn on a dime, did some fancy maneuvers, and showed us how they can rescue a man overboard in less than five minutes - and guess what else? - we saw whales, humpback whales, breaching to starboard, what a lovely phrase.

(Image: www.boatnerd.com.)

The university campus in summer is a dreamy kind of place. As I walked to do an interview this morning (something about food & folklore - and that's a tease of our Fall Issue theme of Cuisine) I passed students playing extreme frisbie, flocks of fledgling wrens skimming along the grounds, overheard "...and later in the 7th century..." from one classroom window, and "...democracy can then be said to evolve from..." via another. All the kids at the Works day camp were making...well I think they were paper mache pigs but definitely small creatures of some kind. Summer: not just a season but a state of mind.

(Image: sustainablog.)

It's that time of summer again - capelin weather done, span worm season ebbing to a close - time to retake the backyard. Envisioning a calm still evening set out with blanket and laptop, surveying our barrel of snapdragons and begonias, I wondered: what is the most beautiful flower on earth? So I googled. Here's what came up.

(Image: nestledin.net.)

Don't know if you've caught this preview but it's quite fun.

(Image: musicmaven.files.)

An Evening With Gordon Pinsent

On Thursday, July 30, 7:30 pm, the Newfoundland Quarterly will host ‘An Evening With Gordon Pinsent’ at the D. F. Cook Recital Hall, Memorial Campus. This will include a reading from one of his stories, staged performances of some excerpts from his scripts, and an interval of question-and-answer sessions conducted by CBC Radio’s Jamie Fitzpatrick. Tickets are open to all: the cost is a $5.00 donation to a charity of Mr. Pinsent’s choice.
It will be followed by a reception.
If you would like to attend, please let us know.

Sincerely,

Joan Sullivan Linda Jackman
Managing Editor Circulation Manager

and,
The Board of Directors, Newfoundland Quarterly Foundation

Mailout!

And the magazines are making their way to you!

(Image: artfulpaper.com.)

Spelling It Out Part 2

It seems I misrepresented the manhole cover inscription - the proper wording (as I observed this morning) is Confined Space Danger Permit Required. But I am still puzzled. Isn't the hazard not that it is a confined space, but that it is the opposite - an open space allowing one to plummet pell mell to the depths of the earth? OK, I'll stop thinking about this now.

(Image: flickr.)

Well, if you really need it spelled out like that...

Walking around the city, one can be oblivious to such municipal infrastructure as manhole covers, but, from time to time, I do notice them, and thus read the warning there embedded: Caution, Confined Space. And I ask myself, Who on earth is that intended for? Surely if anyone was that divorced from perceptual reality they would have a hard time reading? Maybe a big 'X' would pose a more effective textual barricade?

(Image: farm4static.)

There's no better time or place for a run than 9am on a July Saturday morning in Grand Bank, with the air salty and a little cool, the sky a bit overcast and the wind just a rumour of ocean breeze. Incidentally when I say I went for a run you can kind of put that in quotes - "run" - it was more like a pretty slow jog interspersed with great bouts of walking. But thus I was able to keep enough breath to say "morning" back to all the nice Grand Bank people who said "morning" to me - and this included the mayor, Rex Barnes, who was all dressed up in a nice suit to meet the schooner the Bowdoin, which was docking as part of the Bartlet celebrations. If you get a chance to meet her at a

port of call

you're in luck - she's a beautiful sight.

(Image: mdislander.com.)

Grand Bank or Bust

And we're off on the first road trip of the summer - to the Grand Bank Regional Theatre Festival, directed so artistically by our own Berni Stapleton. She's made a script out of some of the pieces she's published with the NQ, and we can't wait to see it. See you in Grand Bank, if you happen to to be around those parts, and catch you back here Monday.

(Image: canada-photos.com.)