 intended). I'm not saying I agree with arresting people for growing for personal use- that's over zealous- but I can see why they would want to/feel the need to create disincentive to do so and we can only wait and see how it affects the consumer. I think it'll have benefits for all the people who just want to smoke, which is a lot a lot of people. It wouldn't be that hard to get around the law anyway.  I also doubt if you have a plant or two anyone is going to call the cops on you- it'd be fairly indistinguishable from the smell of someone who smokes a lot's place, and that wouldn't warrant arrest. If you're trying to sneak around the government and sell large quantities illegally despite the framework to sell legally, then yes that strikes me as prosecutable. Legalization only fully benefits us if it means the government knows what we have access to smoking. That's not authoritarian. The drug war was authoritarian, and if you'll recall, that came from the "small gov't" people. I just wish more states had ballot initiatives so we could really get the ball rolling. My state will hold out a looong time.Strap in, it’s been a busy week with concerts and a play, and all of a sudden there’s a lot of things to do the next few weeks.
First on the pecking order is the play. The Opera House is currently running Ziigwen Mixemong’s Mno Bimaadiziwin (which translates to A Good Life). It’s a play about healing as 4 people introduce themselves to each other and the sweat lodge guide. The guide, or conductor, is played by Jordan Burns. The character is like so many people I know from across the lake; a bit of a dry wit and enough happy energy for what comes next it’s almost infectious.
The play starts with him asking the four (Pesch Nepoose, Brianne Tucker, Trina Paula Moyen and John Roldan) to tell a little bit about themselves – which takes up the bulk of the play. Each monologue shows us the trials they have been through. The first is a woman who it seems only recently found out how Native she is and doesn’t know how to cope with it. She wants to be part of the community, but wonders if she’ll be accepted, and always carried the idea she was different than the world she grew up in.  Each of their troubles stem from just being Native.
A lot of it is about how society treated them and how they dealt, poorly, with it. They are doing the sweat lodge as a way of healing themselves. The play runs to October 3 and you can get tickets online.
Saturday night the Orillia Youth Centre’s annual fundraising concerts happened at ODAS Park under a tent, the same one the Mariposa Folk Festival used to use in the pub before they outgrew it.
The performers were Roger Harvey, Skye Wallace and Irish Mythen. The most obvious thing to have taken away from the night is just how bloody happy everyone was to go to a concert.
I got my times wrong and missed most of Roger’s set. Skye didn’t have her band and accompanied herself on acoustic guitar. There is no doubt she is a fantastic performer, she sings very well and she can growl when it’s called for.
Irish Mythen is something else. Singer, songwriter, comedian, you have to be brain dead to not enjoy her performance. Two things she said are of importance. She said at the beginning she got so many requests online from the time the concert was announced to that day and she had them on a list and would try to play every one of them rather than go with a prepared set list.
The other thing, while each of the performers gave thanks to youth center staff and the volunteers and sponsors Kevin Gangloff wrangled, Irish Mythen went one step further. She noticed the silent auction table at the other end of the tent, and marveled at all things donated to raise the pot from the concert, so she said she was going to put up a house concert for the silent auction next year. That’s incredible. Musicians are often aware of the causes they are performing in aid of, but I don’t recall I ever witnessed an artist so tuned into what was happening surrounding the gig they felt moved enough to do more than perform.
Kevin told me Monday night, even though they are still working on the books from the concert, he’s pretty sure more than $20,000 will have been raised. And he wasn’t done yet. Monday night he was stickhandling another fundraiser for Green Haven Shelter for Women and Youth.
This time Sam Johnston, Roger Harvey and Sean Patrick was the line up at Creative Nomad Studios. Sam opened bookending the set with her own tunes and doing covers in between. She did a few blues pieces, but what I liked was how she structured her set. From Janice Joplin’s Piece Of My Heart through Hank William’s I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry and onward each tune had a little more energy to spread, so by the time the finale arrived you felt she had taken you on a journey.
Anyone who sings a song about Blue Balls gets my attention. I’m sure that is what Roger Harvey said, balls, plural. Turns out the song was about Blue Ball (singular), Pennsylvania, and to get to Paradise, PA, you have to go through Intercourse, PA. Those are all real places, not unlike our own Dildo, Newfoundland and a trio of also closely located towns in Michigan – Climax, Colon and Hell. After the concert I told Roger I spent some time thinking about how much I was looking forward to having some fun with that song title, and I think I just did.
Roger is a storyteller, every song seemed to be about a place he’d been, or an experience he had. I thought, if there was such a thing as a troubadour anymore, he’d be it. Roger was the only performer of the weekend not soloing. He had Ben Pierce along to play electric guitar to his acoustic.
Sean Patrick, our very own banjo picker, did a set of stuff he wrote, some bluegrass tunes, and a couple gospel tunes. You know, this isn’t the first time I’ve seen him play, but it’s been at clubs and on the street downtown for events and I was struck by how good his voice is. I don’t know if it was the setting with fewer distractions, or the acoustics of the room, but he’s much better than I ever thought he was.
Later that night, after the concert, someone thought it would be a good idea to bust up the back entry to Creative Nomad Studio. Being a place with all the latest, they have a video camera system that is much better than any bank in town has and got some great still images of the guy. It’s possible the hair salon next door was broken into as well. So, if you recognize him, call the Orillia OPP or Crime Stoppers.
Hold on to your seats because the Mariposa Folk Festival has 6 concerts scheduled for October 23. Great, you say. You can be excited, but at the same time bummed, because 5 of them are happening at different venues at the same time. It’s been in the works for a while.
“The foundation board of directors challenged the festival organizing group back in the spring to come up with some alternatives to the festival,” said Mariposa president Pam Carter. They got a $50,000 Celebrate Ontario Reconnect grant, and added $1,000 from RTO7 and $1,500 for the Paul Quarrington Legacy Fund.
“We have a grant application to Heritage Canada, so we’re hopeful we will also get that grant,” Pam said.
Those all start at 1 p.m. Saturday evening, there’s a 7:30 p.m. concert at the Opera House with Donovan Woods, Evangeline Gentle and Shakura S’Aida.
There’s a reason 5 concerts are happening at the same time and it has to do with you-know-what.
“We had to sell tickets specific to the venue because we didn’t want to take a chance that somebody at Braestone saying, “I think I’ll drive in to St. Paul’s and see what’s happening there and then they can’t get in because of capacity issues,”” Pam said.
The point of the grant was to get artists and production crews working. Mariposa has their production crew working on these, plus they have a number of volunteers on board to pull it off.
All this is a forerunner to Mariposa getting back into operating mode.
“We’re hoping to have a Mariposa-in-Concert once we get this one underway. We’ll be starting up the winter concert series,” she said. I guess we know what Lance Anderson is doing next February when the annual February Blues concert happens.
Thanksgiving is just ahead and so is the annual – with a one year break – Images Studio Tour. There are 30 artists participating at 20 galleries/studios. Six studios have more than one artist showing their work.
If you needed an excuse to get out, this is it. The drive through the townships should remind you, you are living in one of the greatest places in the world. Add in some great art and artists and your eyes will want to get extra pay. The galleries are open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.