How to make the world a better place (or at least a place with less guilt)
I don’t think I’ve ever left a theatre after a show speechless. It always seems there is something to say, isn’t there? “That actress was terrific.” “What a great story.” “Did you find the lighting as distracting as I did?”
I broke that trend last week though after watching Sage Theatre‘s production of My Name is Rachel Corrie.
As the show came to an end I found myself watching the safe little world I’ve built for myself getting torn down like the Palestinian home Corrie was trying to protect from the bulldozer sent to demolish it. She was crushed to death by that bulldozer. That’s kind of how I felt.
And I think that’s how the production team wanted the audience to feel.
I felt so much guilt after the production ended. I didn’t really want to applaud because I felt guilty rewarding anyone at that point in time (even though Adrienne Smook was very good). I didn’t want to leave. I felt guilty when I got home simply because I was home. I felt guilty when I crawled into my super soft new bed. There was a lot of guilt running through my head that night.
Which is why I think it has taken me so long to make this post. I’ve recently realized – even though I knew this before – that I can’t change everything. I can’t stop the Palestineian/Isreali conflict. I wish I could but I can’t. I don’t have the skill set to help. I can only be me. But that’s not to say I won’t change to world.
I’m a fan of Hugh McLeod‘s Blue Monster campaign for Microsoft:
I agree. “Change the world, or go home.” I want to change the world too. I think we all have to do something good. I’ve always striven to make the world a better place for the people I can help. But I will do it in my own way and on my own terms. I have to. And I encourage everyone to do the same thing.
How will you make the world a better place today? Dream big, act small. Every little bit counts.
Is Calgary a "family-friendly" city?
I just read a very good post from the CEOs for Cities Blog which is a response to a Wall Street Journal article about “family-friendly cities”. This obviously got me thinking about whether or not Calgary is a family-friendly city.
In order to figure out if your city is family-friendly I suppose the first question is where do families come from? Certainly a young couple doesn’t get married and when they become pregnant they suddenly say, “okay, now which city would you like to live in?”. Families grow in a city to start with. The CEOs for Cities post I think summarizes this very well:
It is plainly a lot easier to hang on to the young adults who live in your city rather than recruiting them from other places. That’s why cities should pay particular attention to young singles when they are at their most mobile and also build on their family friendliness as a way of retaining these talented and energetic people.
Young families themselves are the ones that drive a “family-friendly” atmosphere in a city, not the other way around.
So is Calgary a family-friendly city? I suppose the question goes back to the beginning: are we a young adult friendly city? Judging by the large number of university and college grads choosing to make Calgary their home so they can make their “millions”, I’m guessing it won’t very long before Calgary sees itself become an even more family friendly city. Perhaps a couple of years plus nine months?
We didn’t start the fire
Last night I was lucky enough to catch the opening night of Movin’ Out, Broadway Across Canada’s latest touring performance, at the Jube. Never heard of Movin’ Out? Me neither, but a little bit of Google “research” shows it is a multiple Tony Award winner from 2003. But the real reason you should pay attention is because it is set entirely to Billy Joel’s music. A very interesting concept…
A very difficult concept too. The first thing that struck me was that this “musical” didn’t have any of the performers singing, only dancing. ‘The Piano Man’ sang the entire show from a platform above the stage (with a wickedly good band, I should mention). I thought this to be brilliant, but during the first act I started to wonder… it’s a fine line between a good performance and cheese when you are working with a concept like this. And they were leaning in the latter’s direction. However the show did improve drastically. Let me explain:
Basically the performance is a ballet set to rock music, with a thin, kinda hard to follow, plot thrown in. During the first act the performers are teenagers doing teenage things (like going to the prom). Here’s the question for you: how do you do ballet with/to that? I knew we were in trouble when they wheeled a faux car out on stage. (This is a cardinal sin in theatre as far as I’m concern. NEVER do a scene in a car on stage. It will always suck. I’ve never seen a good one, although I have friends who insist they’ve seen it well done once before. They just can’t remember the name of the show or where it was performed. Either way, only being done well once before is not good odds.) But Movin’ Out starts to pick up when they ship the characters off to the Vietnam war.
During the war scenes, and especially during the second act when the return home as drug riddled broken men, the emotion of it all starts to take over, and the ballet finally has something to build off of. The production slowly goes from cheese to a nice tasty fondue. (Perhaps not a good analogy but, trust me, the last half is beautiful.)
Great dancing, great music, but they don’t work so great together until the end. If you can get over that, you are in for a great performance. (Or if you can’t, then you get two great performances that have nothing to do with one and other. Either way you win.)
PS – Here’s a link to the Calgary Herald review.
Calgary civic pride unleashed!
My favourite new headline comes from a new article published by Calgary Economic Development:
“Calgary is better than you think!”
If that doesn’t get the citizens excited nothing will, right? (BTW, give the article a read is relatively informative.)
PS – The exclamation mark is overused in writing, don’t you think?
A Vision of Students Today
I meant to post this video earlier. (Maybe I saw it before I started this blog…)
I think it is important viewing for anyone who considers themselves a “teacher”. I also think it is important to anyone who considers themselves a “marketer”. It is just a glimpse inside the lives of everyday students, which is something I currently see everyday. And I can tell you this much: this video is accurate. It’s pretty much spot on right.
How do we reach 18-25 year olds? (BTW soon that number will grow to 18-30 year olds then 18-35 year olds.) Certainly the old style of teaching and marketing will not work for much longer.
I’m inspired by the fact that at least I see some instructors changing their ways and getting more involved with students. Speaking to them rather than at them.
Marketers are leading the way on this trend. Especially the ones that do it with no condescension. Those are the successful marketers. And hopefully the successful teachers.
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