October 30th, 2007 writerspice
On Sunday, I fulfilled one of my travel goals. It was a modest one: not like yurting in Mongolia or walking the moors or crossing the ocean from the old world to the new a la my ancestors.
Instead, this place I’ve always wanted to see is relatively close to my home and can be easily repeated. And by the looks of the amazing changes underway, I will happily return
to the Detroit Institute of Art to gaze up again at the Diego Rivera murals.
Housed in a glass-covered courtyard, the frescos were painted throughout 1932 and capture the age of industry and vibrancy that once defined the suprisingly quiet and crumbling city. With a decidedly communist bent, they were controversial and raised a hubbub appropriate to the great Mexican artist, who once said, as quoted by PBS, “An artist is above all a human being, profoundly human to the core. If the artist can’t feel everything that humanity feels, if the artist isn’t capable of loving until he forgets himself and sacrifices himself if necessary, if he won’t put down his magic brush and head the fight against the oppressor, then he isn’t a great artist.”
As we left, driving by abandoned art deco buildings and police cars angled sideways on the streets, I thought about the struggle to bring this once wealthy American city back to life. If he could, what would Rivera paint about Detroit these days?, I wondered.
Things change, places change, but there are some destinations and sights that stand the test of time, despite what happens all around them. What are your travel dreams: what have you always wanted to see?
Posted in Art, United States | 2 Comments »
October 24th, 2007 writerspice
What’s Southwestern Michigan without a beach party? Even in 60-degree weather (that’s about 15, for the rest of the world), we bunch of brave journalists enjoyed a fish fry this past Monday night followed by a bonfire beside big rollers roaring in on the beach. We roasted marshmallows, made smores and dismissed the increasing rain as simply surf blowing in, in favour of enjoying the fire, local wine, good company and conversation. It was there, outside Michi-Mona-Mac Lakeshore Cottages, that I snapped this shot of two brave souls baring their soles.
Posted in Pretty Pictures, United States | No Comments »
October 21st, 2007 writerspice
Shredded pork and pickled onion on a homemade tortilla might not sound like much but the succulent treat made my favourites list during today’s tastings at several restaurants in Collingwood, Ontario. A traditional dish from the Yucatan, the tiny tapa was served alongside a subtly sweet drink made mostly of strawberry pulp. Savoured while sitting in a cushy lounge chair, it was a dish I could have eaten a lot more of and a place I plan to go back to.
This was Frida’s Mexican Tapas Bistro, a restaurant that opened this past September and one of ten stops on the Autumn Restaurant Walking Tour, an enjoyable stroll (or stumble, depending on how you respond to the variety of drinks) to ten venues in the city’s historic downtown.
We started at Dags & Willow, a gourmet food shop with a selection of over 100 cheeses, fine olive oils, truffle honey, smoked trout and other items. There, another quick bite of heaven: grapes rolled in cream cheese and roquefort and encrusted with pecans.
But my very favourite stop was in an old house, off Huronia Street. Walking into Brunello at 27 on fourth is like entering a friend’s home. Intimate seating is arranged in what would have once been the parlour and back dining area of the Victorian home. There, we ate a sausage ravioli in a tangy tomato sauce, creamy with cheeses. The accompanying bruschetta sang with the flavours of olive oil, fresh tomatoes, chunks of cucumber and cheese.
Like the whole tasty day, this treat was but a brief introduction to all the available eating that downtown Collingwood has to offer.
Posted in Food, Simcoe County | No Comments »
October 19th, 2007 writerspice
We all have places that we know yet don’t. One of mine is Wiarton, Ontario. It’s where my mother was born and grew up, where my late uncle set foot on the freighters for summers on the sea of Georgian Bay, where my grandfather’s barber shop burned to the ground. Up until I was six and my grandmother died, it was an integral part of my landscape too. I bounced balls on the sidewalk in front of her house and walked up and down the steep escarpment hills with her, the lake shimmering in the distance.
In the past couple years I’ve been to Wiarton to overnight twice. A couple summers ago, Jason and I sailed there, riding the wind up cliff-lined Colpoy’s Bay to tie up at the town dock. We played tourist – snapping photos of ourselves with the huge Wiarton Willy statue, poking through a few of antique shops, huffing it up the hill to get some smoked fish around the corner from my grandma’s old house.
In early October, I had to go again, this time on assignment. It demanded an overnight stay, so my mom came along. We drove through the apple orchards and crowds of scarecrows in Meaford and then turned up the Bruce Peninsula, riding the rocky ridge that juts out into Lake Huron. It was dark when we got there. We went up the hill to check out one B & B and down the hill to look at another. The second turned out to be in familiar ground for my mom.
“This is where my friend lived,” she told me as we pulled into the driveway of a red-brick Victorian home, now Gadd About Bed and Breakfast. Mom peered up through the windshield at the lit stained glass. “It seemed like a mansion then.”
The inn was just around the corner from Scott Street, where she was born, where she spent the first decade of her life. It was across the road from the modest house my grandmother wanted my grandpa to buy. He refused, convinced he wouldn’t stay there, that they’d one day move back to Manitoulin Island.
Walking in, I watched my mother’s face. The last time she’d treaded this ground she was six years old and she stepped slowly into her past. The grand staircase was less grand, the rooms a bit smaller, but the large windows were still there, the tiled fireplace. In the parlour, we settled in for a chat with the innkeeper about who had lived here and what was happening these days in my mom’s hometown. Sipping tea, I thought about how strange it is to enter foreign places you think you know.
Posted in Contemplations, Ontario | No Comments »
October 17th, 2007 writerspice
I love a good scare. When I was a kid my parents went to town designing a haunted house for my first Hallowe’en party. They brought my blindfolded friends through our pitch-black storage/wood room, guiding their hands into bowls of cold, cooked spaghetti (brains) and peeled grapes (eyeballs). The punch was a frothy green goo. I loved it!
With said attraction to the sinister, it’s a drag that I’ll miss the Scream Shack, a haunted house out in the Oro-Medonte countryside that is the highlight of the year for surrounding school kids. Every year I aim to go and something always comes up. This time it’s a few things – each of them a great option for anyone looking for weekend entertainment in Orillia and area.
Moonshine Theatre’s third event Moving Parts: Original 10-Minute Plays opens tomorrow night, until October 20th. Starting at 7:30 pm in the intimate Studio Theatre at the Orillia Opera House, the evening features seven shorts by local writers Andy McTavish, S.C. Pinney, Travis Shilling, and Lauren Carter (me).
This is only the second play I’ve ever written and it’s been inspiring, challenging and exciting to put it on the paper and see it come to life, expertly acted by local Janet-Lynne Durnford. Andy also sets himself on the stage, along with Jason Mills (my better half). With music, humour, absurdity and social commentary, the evening promises to entertain and give viewers a lot to think about as they enjoy trumpet and smooth vocals during the weekend’s 17th annual Orillia Jazz Festival.
On Sunday, the day after we close, and following a potentially raucous cast party, Jason and I are heading to Collingwood for the city’s Autumn Restaurant Walking Tour to taste our way through ten different venues, including a country inn and a local vineyard (who knew?).
A busy weekend before I head off bright and early Monday morning for a press trip to take in some art in southern Michigan.
Photo by Michael Bird TX
Posted in Orillia, Simcoe County | 1 Comment »
October 15th, 2007 writerspice
Last weekend I bought some garlic that came from Italy.
Italy!
I thought about it a bit. Held it in my hand and stared at it, papery skin shining under the flourescent lights of Food Basics. There were excuses: not enough time, it’s cheap, I’m already here… But I hesitated before tossing it into the grocery cart.
All summer Jason and I have been working with excuses. Saturday mornings are long, slow affairs that involve our once-a-week cup of coffee as we read books and talk. Once up, we take our dog for a run in the woods. By the time we get home, it’s often past 12:30, the time when the weekly Orillia Farmers’ Market shuts down.
No local food for us. No wandering stalls full of green, orange and red vegetables, glowing jars of honey, chicken that once ran around under the sun and fresh baked bread while the local folk band takes to the stage. If we were travelling, we’d be here in a jiffy, awed by the richness and colour of this 135-year-old market, buying stuffed olives and homemade crepes while perusing the wooden crafts and knitted tea-cozies (nothing that isn’t handmade is allowed at this market). But at home, we’re just too lazy.
This weekend, we decided to go. All week I’d been thinking about the garlic, imagining how much fuel it took to get it here and how quickly we’d used it up. I was thinking about Doug Porter, too. The chef at Collingwood’s Simcoe County Restaurant, he’d talked passionately about apples when I interviewed him last week. Imports are cheaper to buy so orchards in one of Ontario’s lushest apple belts are being razed for condos, he said.
As the rain slowly grew stronger in the growing grey of the day, we bought a jar of lavender honey from a beekeeper who lives just past the edge of town and organic tomatoes, potatoes, onions, spinach, squash and, of course, garlic grown on a farm fifteen miles away. All for about $30. We missed the whole summer!, we said to each other on the way home. How can that be?
That day, I picked up a copy of The 100-Mile Diet: A Year of Local Eating. The book details the expensive, difficult and rewarding effort by J.B. MacKinnon and Alisa Smith to survive on food grown within a tight radius of their apartment as opposed to the typical 1500 to 2500 miles it travels to get to the grocery store. Three chapters in and I’m already wondering where we can store enough beets and potatoes to last us the winter. I’ll keep you posted.
Posted in Food, Going Green, Orillia | 1 Comment »
October 12th, 2007 writerspice
I’ve only been to Las Vegas twice - driving down the strip in a 1970′s lemon yellow Toyota Corolla with holes in the floor (but that’s another story) and touching down for a couple hours layover on the way home from Utah this July.
But friends of mine went this summer. They did the whole deal: hotel on the strip, Fremont Street Experience, day trip to the Grand Canyon, and getting engaged. That last one might usually read ‘being married by an Elvis impersonating officiant while loaded on prickly pear shooters’, but these are fairly conservative folk.
If you’ve got a hankering to try your luck at the casinos, wander for a bit in red rock paradise and, who knows, maybe come home wearing some bling of your very own, these are the days to go. Notices of off-season hotel sales and package discounts at places like Expedia and Travelzoo keep popping up, bound to tempt the wayward gambler with a bit of time on his or her hands.
Photo by K. Liivoja
Posted in Bargains!, United States | 2 Comments »
October 10th, 2007 writerspice
When I was 17, I took my first jump across the pond to visit the branch of the Carters still in England. My father’s cousin and his family took me on a tour of London, complete with a roam through the foreboding Tower of London. I remember the Beefeaters standing still as stone in the yard and the black crows, gathered in crowds, as if still scavenging bloody bits from all those beheadings.
This love of British history drew me last night to the Tudors, a new Showtime production that debuted last week. On our ancient 1970′s television set, the 16th century court came to life, accentuated by King Henry’s recreated studliness. While I can’t say I didn’t enjoy the spontaneous shirtless wrestling scene with the King of France, I am hoping that the show will transform him, taking us through the series of confused, greed-driven actions that resulted in him packing on the pounds.
I know it’s difficult to condense a lifetime into a television series, but watching with my copy of David Starkey’s Six Wives: The Queens of Henry VIII
in hand caused some confusion. As it always does, history shifted for the sake of dramatic device. Most particularly, in the role of Catherine of Aragon, Henry’s first wife.
This woman took a lot. A failed baby-making machine, she bore her cheating husband six babies in eight years and watched them all die, except one. But near the end of last night’s episode, after Henry has the Duke of Buckingham executed (this happened in 1521) and his mistress, Elizabeth Blount gives birth to a son (which occured in 1519), Catherine kneels before the Virgin Mary and asks her to fill her barren womb.
Huh? She wasn’t barren. She already had a daughter, Mary, the only child to survive into adulthood, running around in the King’s court. Maybe the writers meant something different. More like, “Please God, give me an heir that will survive past childhood for my greedy, gluttonous husband, Henry, who is going to kill me or send me to a nunnery if I don’t produce.”
Ah, well, it’s long before the days of women’s lib. Still, I can’t help but think that Catherine of Aragon deserves to have her truth told and left unaltered, even if tragic infertility is a much bigger draw.
Posted in World | No Comments »
October 8th, 2007 writerspice
Where are you? Click on the ClustrMap in my sidebar (look right) to tell me where you’re sitting while you read these accounts of my travels around and about…
Posted in World | No Comments »
October 1st, 2007 writerspice
The world is so beautiful right now. The trees are just beginning to burn with autumn colour and some of the fields are the same shade as creamed honey.
Today I was lucky enough to get out on the road and spend some time soaking in the early oranges and ambers. It could have been a useless day – both appointments in Midland and Penetanguishene came to naught – but I found myself wandering the back roads, ambling down a gravel avenue to find a blueberry farm that plays a part in a story I’m working on.
And this is what I saw, just past the boundary marking Tay Township.
In the driver’s seat, I breathed a deep, thankful breath for the beauty of this corner of the earth where I’m lucky enough to live.
Posted in Simcoe County | No Comments »
