Archives for July 2006
Kayaking on Gambier Island
31 July 2006 | personal | No Responses
Went on a lovely trip with milady this past weekend, across Howe Sound in rented kayaks.
We had an amazing time — seals, silence, thunderstorms, wild waves and fantastic food made us very
very happy, but it was relaxing in each other’s company that kept us warm at night and made it all worthwhile.
I accidentally erased most of the pics we took; I’m working on getting them back, but in the meantime, here’s the ones we managed to save.
Tag: kayaking
Response from Grouse Mountain
31 July 2006 | elsewhere, changeeverything | No Responses
Holy fast responses! Friday morning I received a nice email from Chris, a pr guy for Grouse Mountain, outlining the reasons that the lights are on at night. With his kind permission, I’ve included the email below.
Aaron-
Here is why the lights of Grouse Mountain remain on until 2am every morning:
1. Grouse Mountain has a population of staff members who reside on site. These employees are on-call twenty-four hours a day to respond to any and all alpine emergencies, and their mountaintop homes are primarily situated along the slopes of The Cut. Safe and swift navigation through alpine areas at night requires sufficient lighting.
2. Much of Grouse Mountain’s outdoor operations take place at night, and require illumination. For safety reasons, extensive run grooming (both winter and summer), routine machine maintenance, and alpine patrol/training operations are performed when our guests have left for the evening. Note that our last up-hill Skyride departs at 10:00 PM, with restaurant guests often leaving several hours later.
3. Grouse Mountain has an alpine helicopter pad that can serve both commercial and rescue aircraft. As the lights of The Cut are an easily identifiable landmark, they serve as an immutable navigational tool for pilots. Search and rescue helicopters routinely survey the forests of the Capilano Valley in and around the high-traffic trails of Grouse Mountain. Also, our "Fly, Dine, & Drive" program operates year-round and involves Helijet Airways shuttling Observatory guests from the Vancouver Harbour to the top of the mountain for evening reservations.
4. The lights of the Cut are a Vancouver landmark, intrinsic to the North Shore Skyline much in the same way illuminated urban structures such as the CN Tower, Statue of Liberty, and the Space Needle are revered symbols of their respective cities. That said, they are extinguished at 2am every morning.
5. Grouse Mountain works closely with BC Hydro to improve energy efficiency.In fact, as an active participant in the Powersmart program, we have undergone an extensive energy audit. From retro-fitting to more efficient technology, numerous recommendations stemmed from this audit, which Grouse Mountain has implemented and will continue to implement in the coming year.
Our commitment to sustainability is not a static undertaking. It is an ongoing journey that requires constant evaluation and modification, infiltrating every aspect of the social and economic culture of our operation. We strive to put more back into the environment than we withdraw, and we will remain diligent in this pursuit.
On that note, thank you for taking the time to offer your comments; concerned voices such as yours reassure us that our environmental mission is shared by the public at large. If you still have any questions or concerns on this subject, we’d appreciate a chance to answer them directly before you create another post in this thread.
Best,
Chris
Grouse Mountain Resort
While I’m not sure I’m entirely convinced by the reasons he listed, this has certainly given me pause for thought. Where before the lights looked frivolous, they’re now starting to look kind of meaningful.
Kudos to Chris and the Grouse Mountain team on their speedy response — It’s rare, I think, to hear anyone respond to criticism (especially public criticism) in such a reasonable manner. And kudos again for letting me post the response — this shows a refreshing willingness on GM’s part to engage in dialogue with the general public as part of their ongoing commitment to sustainability. Hoorah!
Tag: Grouse MountainTourist attraction, unsightly blemish, or my tax dollars at work?
27 July 2006 | miscellaneous, elsewhere, changeeverything | No Responses
I remember hearing once that BC Hydro donates the electricity to Grouse because they consider the lights a tourist attraction. So not only is Grouse wasting the electricity & messing up our beautiful view at dusk, but they're also (if the rumours are true) doing it for free. Well, not free exactly, because we're paying for it!
The prospect of that makes me very upset. I guess I'd better verify the facts before I get too mad, though…
Tag: Grouse MountainThe new site
14 July 2006 | music, elsewhere, athousandtimesno | No Responses
Well, I'm proud to say that I'm ashamed to say that after 23 weeks 1 day the website is finally sort of good enough to be pretty okay enough to show people. So, feast your eyes! Have a look around! And when you find the broken things, think of them as tiny secret treasures that nobody wants to hear about.
Huzzah! What the heck took so long? It's definitely me. I'm not lazy. I worked so hard on it. Still, it took forever. And ever. And ever. (Well, I'm sure I don't have to tell you, dear reader — you're the one who's been waiting.) It's still not what I/we want it to be, but Evan finally threatened to beat the crap out of me with laser sticks if I/we didn't get it done. So, at long last, we lift the veil on the treasuredome! Welcome to athousandtimesno.com: the future of our website.
The new site
14 July 2006 | music, elsewhere, athousandtimesno | No Responses
Well, I’m proud to say that I’m ashamed to say that after 23 weeks 1 day the website is finally sort of good enough to be pretty okay enough to show people. So, feast your eyes! Have a look around! And when you find the broken things, think of them as tiny secret treasures that nobody wants to hear about. Huzzah!
Tags: athousandtimesno, musicSpeaking of dialogue…
3 July 2006 | miscellaneous, elsewhere, events, socialsignal | No Responses
Last week I had the pleasure of attending a production of Palestine, Israel & Me: A power play by Headlines Theatre, presented as part of the WUF's Earth festival. And while I don't usually go in for 'participatory theatre' (too often it feels cheap and gimmicky), this was different. Headlines doesn't make you participate, they invite you to participate in creating a compelling and thoughtful real-world dialogue through the art of 'forum theatre'.
Forum theatre (as I saw it) works like this: The actors play out a single scene involving an emotionally and politically charged inter-personal conflict. Just as the conflict comes to a boil, the scene ends, and the audience is left in the incredible, uncomfortable, unresolved tension of that moment. Then the actors do the show again, only this time audience members can 'freeze' the scene any time they see fit, and come onstage to take the place of one of the characters (called an intervention) and try to steer the situation toward safety and resolution. Neat, huh?
Only it's really hard! The actors (actually non-actors, in this case) did a wonderful job of staying true to their characters' motivations and beliefs, which made interventions very difficult… just like they would be in real life. In fact, the sense you come away with after the show is that this is a kind of rehearsal for real life, to help us get the tough things right. David Diamond, director of Headlines theatre drives home the importance of these rehearsals:
If a person in a workshop creates a moment, once, I do not believe it has anything to do with "acting". When that person takes on a role, though, and must do the same thing over and over again - hit a mark, get a cue, reach a rehearsed emotional place - this is a performance. In this moment, the citizen becomes an actor, and becoming an actor on the community stage leads to acting in a different way in the community. It leads to a different kind of self- and world-analysis, a more informed internal and external set of actions. For me, this is the essence of community development, and community development is the core of a healthy response to the negative impacts of globalization.
Despite a little difficulty getting started, the audience contribution was amazing. It's rare to see people modeling thoughtful conflict-resolution tactics in real-time, especially when the issues run so deep, especially when the topic is Palestine and Israel. After each intervention, our facilitator, David, would gather the cast together and question them about the relative success of their interventions, whether they created safety for the characters in the scene, and if so, whether that safety came at the expense of other characters. It was fascinating to see what worked and what didn't, and I learned a lot from watching other audience members translate their strategies into action.
Forum theatre is a unique type of dialogue because it's part conversation, part entertainment: it's exactly as engaging as it is meaningful. Throughout the show, David was constantly re-inforcing the idea that it's interventions that contribute to this form, not statements or debate. He wouldn't let audience members participate at all unless they were willing to come up on stage. And you know, at the time, I felt like he was completely ignoring the potential contributions of most of the room. But as the evening unfolded, what emerged was infinitely more valuable than an argument or debate precisely because we didn't get off track. We stayed focused on the characters, and through the characters we explored the issues. And when we were done, then we talked about it (just like in real life!)
The whole event was so refreshing, I can't even explain. Go see their next show — you won't be disappointed. (And if you are, it's kinda your own fault!)
Some links to visit:
Essay by David Diamond:Creating Community Based Dialogue
Wikipedia entry for Augusto Boal (founder of Theatre of the Oppressed, pre-cursor to forum theatre
