Category: Economy

Can a discount orchestra save the electric series at Centre in the Square?

This tweet was the first I’d heard about the KW Symphony being dropped from the Jeans’n’Classics series of concerts, which struck me as very strange, since the whole point of those concerts was marrying rock band with symphony.

Except for this one, though, Twitter—often a great source for finding things out—was annoyingly silent on the subject. Finally I had to go old tech: I emailed Centre in the Square to ask them about the tweet. The fact that they didn’t quickly reply made me think it was probably true.

And indeed, the email response that eventually arrived confirmed it, saying that the KW Symphony would be replaced with session musicians: “the size and make-up of the orchestra will be tailored to meet the artistic and stylistic demands of each Jeans ‘n Classics production”.

The community discussion I’d been craving kind of broke out in the pages of the Waterloo Region Record, who ran a story about this on May 31. That was followed by various letters to the editor, then a very critical commentary piece by a member of the Symphony board , followed by a defense by a member of the Centre in the Square board.

Nobody seems very happy about this change, but what strikes me in particular is that first article claims that lower production costs were not the main reason here, but an artistic need for revitalization. The last article frankly states they couldn’t afford the series any longer in this form—which at least makes more sense of the whole thing.

They both agree, though, that they want a bigger audience. Got to wonder if they’re going to achieve it. I’m afraid that I, for one, won’t be helping them out with that.

At the third concert this season, they had us vote on which three concerts we wanted to see the following year (out of six choices). I thought that wasn’t a bad idea, but note that everything they selected was a reprise of a previously done show. If I go next year, I’ll be seeing three similar concerts again, only with a smaller, less talented orchestra. The promised “better staging and lighting” won’t make up for the diminished music.

When it works, it’s a fantastic sound, it really is. The sound of an orchestra when it’s playing with a rock band well… It makes every hair on your body stand on end. It’s incredibly powerful.

– Roger Daltrey (The Who), 1994

I’d know what I was missing. So after about 10 years of great seats, I’m out.

And I know I’m not the only one. So to get their bigger audience, they not only have to add people, they have to replace the ones lost to this decision.

But you know, I do wish them well. I love Centre in the Square. It’s a fantastic hall. It’s incredible that a smallish place like Kitchener-Waterloo has one of the two or three best concert halls in the whole country. More people should go experience the sound there. It’s unfortunate it’s somehow developed a bit of a “stodgy” reputation. Some things do need to change. They do need better acts, more acts, even gimmicks to drawn more people in.

I’m not sure this particular series change will work out for them. But I sure hope something their Strategic Plan does.

And it’s not like I’m abandoning the place. I’m already signed up for six KW Symphony concerts there next year (to go along with my three at the Conrad Centre). And with some dates now opened up by not going to the Jeans’n’Classics series any more, I’ll probably add a few more.

If Canada Post strikes, will you notice?

It may seem strange
How we used to wait for letters to arrive.
But what’s stranger still
Is how something so small could keep you alive.

“We Used to Wait” by Arcade Fire

Canada Post delivered my Victoria Secret order today, just ahead of their strike deadline. I thought that was great of them, considering I’d placed the order just on Saturday, and didn’t select the fast shipping options.

I get abnormally delight about having things delivered to my house. As a result, I have a bunch of stuff showing up here on a regular basis. A daily newspaper. A biweekly basket of local organic produce. A bimonthly order of organic fair-trade coffee. Several monthly or bimonthly magazine subscriptions. Music and movies on plastic discs, not just in digital bits! Books on dead trees! And the percentage of my wardrobe deriving from Victoria’s Secret is probably unusually high.

Of course, that doesn’t all get here by Canada Post. Having heard about the strike threat on Monday, I got to wondering what I’d actually miss.

The bulk of the mail I get, of course, is just advertising and requests for donations (with “free gifts”). That stuff just tends to sit around unopened for quite a while. So, I dare say I’m not going to miss that too much.

I used to get mountains of catalogs; the number is way down now. I’ll usually flip through the ones that still arrive: Vintages magazine, the discount books, exercises videos, Lee Valley. And naturally, Victoria’s Secret (once Jean’s done with it). But still, I don’t see missing that stuff too desperately, either.

Now, the disruption to my Rogers Video Direct DVD rentals will be a little annoying. Hey, I’ve just realized that the copy of Central Station that has apparently been shipped to me hasn’t arrived yet! OK, see, I am definitely somewhat annoyed about that. Especially since they’ve already received the copy of Good Hair that I returned. Plus, TV is mostly reruns now.

But, what else. I can still order from Amazon.ca, because they use UPS. Ditto Lee Valley. Ebay, Chapters, VSC are out but, hey, I think I can do without those for a bit. Magazine subscriptions will be disrupted, but I’m always behind on reading those anyway. A chance to catch up.

As for me actually mailing things, well, it has become a pretty rare event to mail personal letters and cards. I do have to send in a cheque for my high school reunion thingie by the end of the month, so if this drags on, I’ll have to use UPS or something for that. But my biggest use of stamps is for insurance companies. Because Jean and I are with different companies, we can’t submit everything electronically. To get the full refund, we have to send in paper forms and paper receipts.

It’s a huge pain that I won’t miss at all, but I do like getting the actual money back. Of course, the Sun Life office is local. I could probably just drop off the paperwork in person.

So wow. A postal strike is hardly the big deal it used to be, eh? Even for those of us still nostalgically tied to old media forms and the thrill of getting a package.

I’m not going to join in on the union bashing here (although, bankable sick days? Probably I’m just jealous, though, since I’d likely have accumulated a year or two off by now if I could do that…), but this could certainly be a tough fight for them. If due to strike, people keep finding other ways around Canada Post, that’s not good for either side.

Maybe I’ll just have to try them new-fangled online movies…

We used to wait for it. We used to wait for it.
Sometimes it never came.
Sometimes it never came.

I’m not a charity case

Unsolicited free items I have received from registered national charities:

  • Christmas cards and envelopes (enough to open my own little Hallmark store)
  • Address labels (enough to last me the rest of my life, I think)
  • Notepads
  • Pens
  • Christmas CD
  • Money (generally in coin form)
  • Reusable shopping bags
  • Calendars (and to think I used to enjoy buying those for myself)
  • Gift bags
  • Wrapping paper and bows
  • Organic fair trade tea
  • Birthday, symphathy, and “any occasion” cards and envelopes (for my expanding Hallmark store, I guess)
  • Scarf
  • T-shirt

And that’s just what I can remember off the top of my head. And in most cases, not even from charities I donate to.

Whatever surprise or delight I might have once felt in getting something for nothing is now lost under the sheer quantity of stuff coming in. It’s tipping toward making me feel punished rather than rewarded for donating regularly.

It must work, or they wouldn’t do it. But damn. How much more good could be done if they didn’t have to bribe people into donating?

Charities see alarming trend as donors become older, fewer

Legalize everything

This Magazine: Legalize Everything! Heroin, Music piracy, suicide, hate speech, raw milk.

That’s the provocative title on the latest issue of This Magazine.

Of course, they don’t mean everything, everything. There’s no passionate defense of rape and grand theft auto, for example. But it was a good, thought-provoking set of articles.

The most in-depth article was Legalize Hard Drugs. And they do mean hard drugs, not just pot; and they do mean legalize, not just de-criminalize; and they do mean in the sense of being able to go into some LCBO-like entity to pick up your heroin, not having to get a prescription from your doctor. So rather farther than most Canadians would agree to go.

Still, it’s a surprisingly compelling argument. Prohibition hasn’t worked all that well so far. All it’s done is fund the gangs and dealers who make the world more dangerous for everyone. Ounce per ounce, marijuana is more valuable than gold, the article points out—even though it’s a weed. And the only reason it’s that expensive is that it’s illegal.

Money currently spent prosecuting and jailing the never-diminishing number of dealers willing to take the risks for profit margins like that could be spend on product quality control, reducing the dangers of the drugs, and addiction treatment and prevention. It’s certainly a queasy-making idea to think of government supplying cocaine, which can bring on an instant heart attack, but they do sell cigarettes, which kill when used as intended. And alcohol, which has damaged many lives. And gambling, which is a terrible addiction problem for many. The line between legal and illegal substances is arbitrary.

But my favorite article was Legalize Music Piracy, because it laid out a plan that apparently has been tossed around for some time, but I hadn’t heard of it before:

  • All broadband Internet users who want to share music files would pay an extra monthly fee (estimated at about $3).
  • Those users could then download as much music as they wanted, keep it as long as they wanted, and share it with others.
  • Fees would be pooled to pay the artists.
  • Download stats would be maintained so that the more popular an artist, the greater their share of the fee pool.

Doesn’t that sound perfectly reasonable? Musicians like it. Music fans like it. ISPs are OK with it. The only ones truly and deeply opposed are record companies. And they just haven’t done much to endear themselves to most of us.

Toronto notices Waterloo

The Globe and Mail wrote an article about Waterloo [at a now 404ed URL].

Subhead: “Smaller town, bigger edge. What does Waterloo have that we don’t? Mennonite pragmatism and an inferiority complex.”

I often find Globe articles on Waterloo kind of amusing as they make it sound as though the place is in some distant, desolate wilderness instead within commuting distance of Toronto, and make fun bloopers like saying that the Perimeter Institute is located in an “obscure suburb” instead of where it actually is, which is right in uptown Waterloo. (Or maybe they meant that all of Waterloo is an “obscure suburb”?)

But this particular article was fairly accurate and sort of complimentary, despite the general sense of amazement that anyone with drive and intelligence would choose anywhere other than Toronto to set up shop.

One highlighted stat is that Waterloo has 2.5 patents per 10,000 employees to Toronto’s 1.09. And, seriously, with all these other articles on how Canada is falling behind in innovation, that we’re still too reliant on exporting resources, maybe the whole country—not just Toronto—would benefit from looking at what Waterloo has achieved, and how that can be emulated.

Things I bought on my summer vacation

Because someone has to stimulate the economy.

Destinations: Quebec City, Charlevoix, and points between

  • A British magazine called Classic Rock that counted down the top vocalists of all time. Number one choice of fans, critics, and musicians alike? Freddie [Mercury], natch.
  • Blueberry honey from the Musée de l’abeille. Honey that fresh is so different from the stuff you get at the supermarket, it might as well be a different food altogether.
  • A crazy amount of Québecois cheese. Among them: la Sauvagine (from the source), cèdre de lune, le migneron, and le ciel de Charlevoix (from that source), and the 1608, made from a rare breed of Canadian cow dating from that time. (Hey, did you know you can freeze cheese?)
  • A Medieval-style red and black dress that seems slightly impractical but that I was talked into on assurances that it really suited me.
  • A used copy of Roger Daltrey’s Ride a Rock Horse LP. Not CD—LP. Really, I wanted the cover.
  • Chocolates ranging in flavors from ginger to chai to marshmallow. None of which I’ve actually tried yet, but they look and smell great.
  • A fat British movie magazine called Empire. Because in Britain, apparently, the Internet has not killed the movie magazine business, as it has in North America.
  • Items I won’t detail from La boutique Kama Sutra. Oh, and some batteries.
  • Free-range duck products in many forms—magret, foie gras, paté, confit. (Yes, we travelled with an electric cooler. Otherwise, the smell of cheese might have killed us.)
  • A copy of the Ryerson Review of Journalism. The one magazine I haven’t read yet.
  • An original art work by a young Québecois artist, done in pastels, about 16 by 20, featuring a woman bathing. Quite striking.
  • Sparkling cider products from the cidrerie at l’Ile aux Coudres.
  • An art book featuring the work of Laurent Lafleur, one of whose original paintings we already own, and whom we got to meet on this trip.
  • Two bottles of Rosé from a Prince Edward County winery, meant to distract us from the astounding Chardonnay we tasted but didn’t purchase at another Prince Edward County winery, because that one was $42. Didn’t work—we spent the next half week mooning over that Chardonnay, until our taste buds were cleared by an astounding Cotes du Rhone (with meal).
  • MoneySense magazine, which has advice on how to save money. Which I probably need now.

Local dining my way to the poorhouse

I previously mentioned attending the Earth Day Gala dinner in support of local food producers.

I didn’t mention here (though many know) that this was actually our second multi-course gourmet dinner featuring local foods, in a week. We already had the Earth Day tickets when Verses announced a wine-matching dinner on a local food and wine and theme. Verses hadn’t done one of those in quite a while—we had to go that too. And fine that was. The featured vineyard was a relatively new one called Rosewood, and the food was, as always, impeccably prepared, and very well matched with each course.

(Generous servings, too. The 16% alcohol honey wine at the end really did me in. No, we didn’t drive home. Yes, I did go to work the next day. Yay, aspirin.)

And now…

We’re going to another one.

But it’s Michael Stadtländer! Our first and possibly best gourmet chef person! It’s been so hard getting into his Eigensenn Farm in recent years, we were kind of thinking we’d never eat his food again. But lo if he isn’t coming to the area, courtesy of the local chamber of commerce, and preparing a 7-course meal, local foods, some wine matching.

So yeah. We had to go to that, too.

We may end up poor, fat, and with mild liver damage, but hey. Isn’t it worth it to be surrounded by a healthy local food economy?

(Oh, and as to the rumours that Stadtländer is closing Eigensenn: True—but only to open a new, somewhat larger establishment…)

Jon goes viral—again

I’m behind in watching The Daily Show.

Things pile up on the PVR when I go on vacation. Plenty of couch-potato time has reduced the stockpile, but I still have a good five episodes of The Daily Show sitting there. Thing is, the news is depressing these days. Even the fake news. So when faced with so many options, I’d sooner just watch Erica redo her life on Being Erica (possibly my favourite show right now), or explore Battlestar Galactica‘s final days, or see when (or if) Dollhouse will get really good, or root for this year’s un-obnoxious teams on the invigorated Amazing Race, or even revel in the clash of egos on the surprisingly addictive and compelling Project Runway: Canada.

But even without watching much Daily Show, there’s been no escaping Jon Stewart this week. He’s been everywhere—on blogs, in Salon.com, in the newspaper, on Letterman… It’s just interesting how he does the thing he does every week, yet every six months or so, something pops and everyone again reacts with some surprise that a comedian can seriously and intelligently address a real issue.

So though I haven’t watched any of this yet, this is what I know happened.

In response to CNBC’s Rick Santelli’s complaint about bailing out “loser mortgages”, The Daily Show ran one of their montages illustrating months of stupid advice from the supposedly intelligent financial commentators at CNBC.

Included in the montage was one Jim Cramer. Later, on another show (that was his mistake) Cramer complained his clip was taken out of context: That he wasn’t telling people to buy Bear Stern stock, only that they didn’t have to take their money out of the bank. YouTube link

The Daily Show responded by allowing that was true, then running clips of Jim Cramer, taken only weeks earlier, advising the purchse of Bear Stern stock.

The whole culminated at the end of this week with Jim Cramer appearing on The Daily Show. The interview was so long, it didn’t fit in the 22 minutes of the episode, so the network has made the uncut version available online in three parts.

This full interview, I have watched on the computer. Not all that funny, it is Jon in “this is a serious issue” mode. And Cramer is not very combative in return. (And according to Salon, has in no way changed his approach because of all this.)

And just a sampling of the posts that alerted me to all this:

As someone who doesn’t watch financial TV anyway, it’s harder for me to get the moral outrage up compared with previous dead aims at things like the Bush government and the Crossfire approach to news coverage. But that’s how the world is today. It’s all about the economy, stupid.

Today I agreed with Stockwell Day

So CTV News today was presenting a story about a protectionist “Buy American” bill that the US Congress has suddenly passed. And some MP (not sure the party) suggested that Canada should pass its own “Buy Canada”, to which I found myself replying, “Protectionism doesn’t really help stimulate the economy” only to find Stockwell Day, on TV, saying virtually the same thing, at the same time.

Dah!

Anyway. I can’t seem to bring myself into a lather over this budget and the projected deficit. It does seem a rather large deficit, but then again, there is an awful lot of opinion out there that stimulus is needed and deficits must be tolerated. Those opinions could be wrong, but I sure don’t have the knowledge to dispute it.

But greatly amused this morning when maverick CBC economics reporter Michael Helinka (not in favor of deficit spending, by the way) expressed pure amazement that host Matt Galloway actually believed that Conservative governments try to avoid deficits. “That is simply not true. Republicans, Conservatives—they do not balance budgets. Liberals and Democrats do. Conservative governments have that reputation, but it’s simply not borne out by the facts.”

Yes, I know, I’ve said it before, but it’s hard to let go of: Stimulus package or no, we would have been in deficit anyway, because the Conservatives frittered away the surplus with stupidly timed tax cuts and silly one-time expenditures. That’s what Conservatives do.

So I don’t know what it means that I agreed with Stockwell Day.

And, I suppose it doesn’t speak well of me that I also agree with faux Michael Ignatieff in this clip from 22 Minutes. But why don’t Canadians spend some time educating themselves about how the Parliamentary system in this country works? (Not to mention which parties are best at managing economies.) That way Conservatives could stop so easily manipulating their ignorance.

On Iggy, Izzie, Steve, and Nico

A few odds and sods here…

Ignatieff “coronation”

Someone asked if I was if I was OK with Michel Ignatieff being “installed” as Liberal leader. And I have to say, yes, I’m just fine with it, thanks. I don’t have that much fondness for the guy—took a real dislike to him during the last Liberal leadership convention—but whatever.

At least the Liberals did what I suggested by rapidly dismissing M. Dion and accelerating their leadership process. By contrast, the Conservatives never listen to my advice. So big props for that.

And frankly, now, or in May, what’s the difference? He was going to be the next leader anyway. I like Bob Rae better, but the man has serious baggage from leading Ontario during a recession. I can just imagine the Conservative attack ads on that theme.

With limited options and time, the Liberals took the best available course. Just hope this coronation works out better for them than the Turner / Martin ones.

Shark jumpin’

So, I’m OK with Iggy, but I’m not the least bit OK with Izzie. Stevens. Grey’s Anatomy?

Even if you don’t watch the show, you may have heard about its recent, most gallactically stupid plot line ever, wherein Izzie first has visions of (that was OK), then starts having sex with, her dead fiancee! No! Not OK! This isn’t Buffy! Dead is dead in this series.

Then I realized I never really liked Izzie anyway (apparently she was a great character in season 1, but since I’ve been watching this series, she’s been awful), so I could just fast-forward all of her scenes, then just enjoy the rest of the show.

That worked OK for one episode, but then I ran into problem 2: Melissa George. Introduced about the same time as the dead fiancee, she plays this super-annoying old friend of Meredith’s, now an intern at Seattle Grace. Fast-forwarding her as well proved a lot trickier, especially since she started flirting with Callie, whom I really like.

But wait… Why is Callie flirting with another girl? After doing a pretty good job of contrasting Hahn, who was just realizing she was a lesbian, and Callie, who wasn’t—but was just really taken with Hahn, this turn of events is nonsensical. (Melissa George, you are no Jessica Hahn.)

So Izzie, Melissa, Callie, and Alex (too many scenes with Izzie) are out, and now I’m little troubled about this strange new relationship between McSteamy and “little Grey”. Much more of this stuff, and there won’t be anything left worth fast-forwarding to.

Dance redux

As for more worthy television….

One more thing I liked more on the Canadian dance series: Each of the four finalist got a profile and moment in the spotlight before the results were announced. Despite the really excessive blah blah that resulted, it was much better than what happens to the runner-up on the US series—they are unceremoniously shunted aside while the winner is showered with confetti. Always makes me feel bad for them.

(And congratulations, Nico. A deserving winner.)

Steve and the Senate

As for our less deserving “winner”, Mr. Harper…

I can’t seem to bring myself to get that outraged about the new Conservative Senate appointments. P-M’s are allowed to appoint Senators. So he previously said he’d rather reform the House than appoint them. Small potatoes, really. I’m much more concerned about them stalling on Climate Change talks and underestimating the degree to which Canada is at risk from sub-prime mortgages.

I will say it is unfortunate the P-M is still busying himself with political games instead of dealing with real problems like those. But it’s unfortunately not surprising.

Also not surprising

D’oh Canada! Survey reveals Canadians barely understand their political system [This was a valid link at the time…]