This is an interesting year of milestones for me - in 2012, I will have my 25th wedding anniversary, my 50th birthday and it will also mark my 30th anniversary as a professional singer/actor/musician. It is a tough time in the arts right now, with companies closing or on the verge of bankruptcy, audiences are down, charitable donations are down, grants are uncertain. Lots of colleagues are very discouraged about the future. Of my classmates from 1982 in Banff, there are only three of us still in the biz. I’m very lucky - I have just come off 2 1/2 months of Code Gnu. (Family slang - Gnu rhymes with BNU, which is an acronym derived from the first three initials of the phrase ‘Buy New Undies - We Don’t Have Time To Do Laundry.’ BNU is much easier than BNUWDHTTDL…) Now, if only I’d been that busy on high-paying gigs… (Contemporary opera is four times the work for twice the time and half the pay.)
In the midst of all this gloom, though, there is still room for people with good ideas to do well. It has been about 14 months since friends opened the café ‘Snakes and Lattes’, and they are almost finished their first expansion. In an age of wireless and internet, they have bucked the trend and opened a cafe where the bulk of their money comes from charging an hourly price to play one of their thousands of board games. They employ extremely clever people (my friend J.P. works there between opera engagements) who can explain a new game to a table of people in three clear sentences.
Little Island is a comic shop that opened around the corner from us about two months ago - it is a small storefront, run by the same group of artists and writers who run the well-established ‘Beguiling’. Someone thought that having a whole store of comics aimed at the 3 - 16 year old crowd would do well, particularly if it were staffed by enthusiastic people who love to talk to children about what they are reading and how cool it is. They are doing quite well.
So, as always, my career depends entirely on my imagination, optimism and discipline, but those are qualities I would highly recommend to anyone, in the arts or not. Sunspace, I have had the joy of your company a couple of times, and I have every confidence that you would be a fantastic addition to the right company. Leaffan, I remember when you were between jobs, and the hard choices you had to make. You’re another one who makes me wish I were in a position to hire you. Sadly, I’m a one-man operation that could use to downsize, physically and metaphorically…
Le Ministre, you may have solved a problem for me! There’s a boy I know, the son of some of my friends. He’s 11, in grade 6. He loves to draw. I’m trying to give a little of what I would have loved to receive at his age–he borrowed my copy of McCloud’s Understanding Comics, though it remains to be seen what, if anything, he’ll make of it–and I was wanting to take him to a really good comic shop. Of course I immediately thought of The Beguiling, but there are some very dark things there he might not be ready for. This new store sounds perfect. Where is it? I’m downtown and can check it out…
I well remember the time I was in a Calgary comic shop. It had a life-sized statue of the Hulk in the shop, not visible to anybody standing under five feet tall coming in the front door. A little boy–maybe six years old–came in with his father, wandered a bit, turned a corner around a rack, saw the Hulk statue, and screamed. In spite of his father’s efforts, the child would not calm down, and his father finally ended up leaving with the boy.
Poor kid; he probably had nightmares for weeks. I agree, a “kid-friendly” comic shop, with age-appropriate material and displays, is probably a good thing.
That looks like the kind of shop that would be more appropriate for the child in my earlier post.
Interestingly, Sunspace, one of the links on the page you cited led to an interview with the owner of the shop where the incident I mentioned took place. The interview includes a photo of the Hulk statue. Have a look, if you like (the Hulk photo is nearly halfway down the page).
And we found it in real life. West side of Bathurst a few minutes south of Bloor. It’s definitely worth it. Lots of kid-friendly comics in both French and English.
Hang in there. It will get better. According to 88% of Canadians, we are going to have a good year. Eighty-eight percent of Canadians just can’t be wrong. Optimistic Canadians spend money creating confidence and jobs.
I tell you, at 61, I’ve never felt better about my personal future, my kid’s future and our collective future as a country.
My university aged kids and all their friends love this place! A friend of mine takes her 8yr old there as well so the demographics are pretty much wide open. I really should leave the suburbs some day and check it out myself
Well, I guess that’s a possibility; though having driven through Winnipeg, I’d prefer it not be. (Seriously, is there any other city anywhere that assigns route numbers to its roads, in addition to their names?)
As I recall, we have Dopers from all across the country. If we were to select a location for a Canada-wide Dopefest, where should it be, does anyone think? I think ease of access would be important, so probably a big city; but as to which “big city,” I’m unsure. Thoughts?
Unfortunately, that would mean Toronto…sadly, to get anywhere in Canada from anywhere else you have to connect in Toronto. Only Air Canada actually serves everyone for direct routes. WestJet may be a better airline, but they have yet to
a)go where I want to go
b)when I want to go, and
c)for a price I can afford.
Until they drop the west and actually serve everyone, they will remain second fiddle.
Frankly, I’m not too enthused about a Dopefest in Toronto, mostly because I’d like to imagine going somewhere I’ve never been.
So for no real reason whatsoever I nominate Whitehorse. Everyone will have a bitch of a time getting there so we’ll all be equally pissed off and ready for beer, and Whitehorse is a place I’m unlikely to visit otherwise.
Good heavens, I’m blushing redder than my Christmas sweater!
I just signed with Edmonton Opera to appear in ‘Les Contes d’Hoffmann’ in early February of 2013. A side trip to Calgary/Lethbridge would be a mandatory part of that month in Edmonton.
Of course, you southern Alberta folks could do me a favour and start a write-in campaign to get Bob McPhee at Calgary Opera to hire me there, too.
Longitudinally, the centre is just east of Winnipeg. The true geographic centre of Canada is near Baker Lake, Nunavut. Compared to which, Whitehorse would be a piece of cake to get to.
I’m envisioning a large RV with ‘CanaDopers’ painted on the side driving through to all three coasts…
Interesting…thanks! Though based on that article they still won’t serve Eastern Canada, which is where I’ve had the most frustration trying to get tickets. IIRC, you can only get in and out of Charlottetown on a WestJet flight on Tuesdays and Thursdays…not really bloody useful, is it? And usually, that was for 2-3 times the price as a direct flight with Air Canada, and West Jet wanted passengers to transfer in Toronto…have you looked at a map lately? In what world does it make sense to go via Toronto when going from Montreal to Charlottetown?
I realize that Charlottetown isn’t exactly a major city, but it is the capital of one of our provinces. On the other hand, if I want to go to Calgary, I’m set. :rolleyes: Porter does a better job of serving the East, though I don’t believe they go to Charlottetown either.
I’d love to have a choice and competitive prices, but it’s still several years off, apparently. Not that I really have complaints about Air Canada… they’ve been at worst mediocre and at best very good to me.
