The world lost a great talent, a great spirit, a great person, when Sheila Morrison passed away on April 24, 2009. In the short time since her arrival here in the fall of 2005 Sheila left her mark on this vibrant community.  Our rich local art scene motivated and inspired her and, in turn, her creativity, energy, ideas, and good humour inspired others.  As a passionate advocate, patron and champion of creative pursuits, her many contributions and initiatives were helping to make our remarkable town that much richer. Sheila loved and supported movies, the written word, live theatre and, at…
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Shiver me timbers! Tidal power developments are happening swiftly at this point; at least as far as the test facility goes. NS Power plans to deploy their Irish-built, OpenHydro turbine in October. Minas Basin Pulp & Power say they plan to have their test facility cable-ready as early as next summer. Scientists continue to probe the ecology of the area. And fishers look apprehensively at it, knowing the Bay can only take so much industry before further reducing their catch. There’s been no significant ‘ground-truthing’, a term used by scientists expressing what the baseline data of an area is —the…
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Something exciting was happening up at The Lorax this past weekend. For two days over a hundred people came together to share in discussions and to participate in workshops surrounding food, lifestyle and sustainability. It is the second year of the New Farmers Gathering and by all accounts it was a great success. It was only last year that I started growing my own food. Not in any great capacity as the garden space I am using is fairly modest. But it was enough to experience firsthand what it was like to plant a seed and watch it grow. And…
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This winter I moved to Ottawa. I figured it was a good place to find employment and start a career. After a few weeks, I found myself in an outside parking lot, valeting cars in the middle of January, in the heart of the city, in the midst of a bus strike. In between the crazy rushes, I did have chances to look up at the skyscrapers through the falling snow and try to imagine myself being one of those busy people battling the rat race. I didn’t stay out there for long. I asked myself what gave me the…
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Front cover of the new Hupman Brothers CD. Inside there’s some incredible acoustic and electric music It’s been brewing for a few months now. Initially I heard only whisperings. Then I met Ian Sherwood, “Up on the Ridge”, at the Hupman’s Place. He was there to lay down some saxophone tracks. I heard, for the first time, a few tracks of their upcoming new CD: “Countin’ Quarters”. There are Hammond and fiddle sounds, double bass and some (un)real electricity. Now the disc is all that’s a-playin’ at our house. A couple of years ago, when their first CD came out,…
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Written by Andy Flinn in the May 7 2009 issue A couple of weeks ago, I noticed that somebody was spreading rumours about the front page of the Grapevine being written by somebody new. There was also an unsubstantiated claim that this person would be carefully selected by Ariana and myself. All these statements, in hindsight, seem a tiny bit inaccurate. I shall devote this, one of my last two front pages, to an effort of making better sense. As far as the front page is concerned: We did not choose a new writer. We chose a new management. A…
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