Day: June 20, 2006

free music & trading fantasy novels for grocery monies

Mood-altering cat parasites make women friendly and men into jerks.

Tomorrow is the longest day, the summer solstice, officially celebrated through France, and in cities such as Barcelona, Berlin, Sydney, and London, as La Fete de la Musique. This year Vancouver’s making a start in public places and needs participation. Here’s part of an entry on the official website fetedelamusique.culture.fr:

Completely different from a music festival, Le Fete is above all a free popular fiesta, open to any participant – amateur or professional. Launched in 1982 by the French Ministry of Culture, the Fete de la Musique is now held in more than 100 countries every June 21st. … This Music Day allows for the expression of all styles of music. it takes place in the open air, in streets, in gardens, in squares, in courtyards.

For practical and legal reasons there are no stages, no crews, no amplification. Just people making live acoustic music for free in the open air, whether performing or practicing, rehearsing, jamming, playing solo or in a group, it doesn’t matter.

While participants are invited to create their own event where and when they want, there are several “official” areas which are particularly suitable for people to gather and make music. Some activities are tentatively programmed for these places in the late afternoon and evening

From east to west the more official venues are:

  • Commercial Drive, especially Grandview Park and the Britannia School playing field below it (all day)
  • Trout Lake in East Vancouver (evening)
  • The Ceperley picnic area just behind Second Beach in Stanley Park near Denman St. (mid afternoon to evening) where there will have an African ‘village’.
  • The Prospect Point picnic area (evening), where there will be a Celtic gathering of the clans
  • The wooded slope at the north end of Kits Beach (evening), where there will be English folk music and Morris Dancing

    There will also be free performances for La Fete de la Musique at the Alliance Française de Vancouver, 6161 Cambie from 4-8 pm.

    I’ll likely be hanging out at Grandview park, easy to find. I’ll be the girl on the blanket covered in terrible novels, trying to trade them for high denomination pocket change.
    —

    Nicholas has just informed me that earlier today there was a Vancouver Island bomb scare on the Pat Bay Highway. In response, they closed the highway down and, (this is the good bit), “rushed” the Vancouver Bomb Squad in. On BC Ferries. For those who don’t know, the ferry ride takes two hours. They’re on the 3 PM sailing, so if the bus hasn’t blown up they’ll deal with it around 5:30. GO CANADA!

    • my computer speakers are dying


    Originally uploaded by
    skonen_blades.

    Job interview today. Oh sanity. Dressing extra-conservative to try and off-set my brightly coloured hair. They want a receptionist. It sounds simple, plugging people back and forth between phones, pushing people into voice mail systems, riding the tiny thunder of a dispatch system. It pays reasonably, but I’m still considering turning them down if they accept me. I like being in offices, hiding behind exorbitant desks is occasionally comforting, but I feel I need a quantum leap out of the threshing field of crappy low-level barely-paying employment I got caught in after my divorce. Small faced places, populated by disquieting smiling minimum wage children. Everyone twenty-something and toiling away in a place with no chances to change or climb higher. Retail, restaurants, coffeeshops without end, amen.

    Pilot finds snakes on a plane!

    I’m trying to decide if I’ve regained enough confidence to refuse the shelter of an easy job on the assurance that there’s something better, if I’m going to be venturesome and throw my faith instead with my applications to more interesting companies, more ethical employers, more complicated tasks. I’m fairly certain I have enough past experience pulling survival requirements from the air that I shouldn’t be too concerned to say “no.” I might be scraping, but I’m persevering. The language of desperation isn’t whispering softly in my ear, it’s stuck sitting with paranoid magazines in the waiting room, reading anecdotal articles on chaos fractal butterflies until next month and wishing it had thought to bring a book.