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Community Theatre is Failing Women

I have grown decidedly more Feminist in my thinking over the years which has made enjoying theatre harder to enjoy lately. There are, of course, excellent shows with diverse and interesting female casts but more often then not, the female characters are flat and uninteresting. It seems like Theatre show creators, performers, and viewers are often more liberal than the average community of people but strangely, despite this, sexism is still rampant. Something I often think about when viewing TV shows and Movies is whether or not what I am viewing would pass the Bechdel Test. The Bechdel Test, for those who are not familiar, was created by Alison Bechdel in her 1985 comic, “Dykes to Watch Out For” and has become a well-known measurement of gender bias in movies. Basically to pass the test the movie must have three things: Two female characters (preferably named), Who talk to each other, About something other than a man. When I first learned about this test I wasn't overl
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Remembering

Last night I came home after a games night and went to sit down on my couch and just expected to see her there. Waiting for me. Curled up and napping. Her bright green eyes would open up at the sound of my approach and a  "breowwww" would escape her mouth as she stretched and got up to say hello. My friend and companion of 20 years. She was my first pet - the first one I chose for myself. I was 10 and my Dad took my sister and I to a house where someone was giving away a batch of kittens for free. I saw her there - the smallest, scrawniest little kitten of the batch and the only black one. The rest of the kittens were tabby. I was drawn to her and ran and grabbed her right away. There was no question, no considering, this was my cat. We had our ups and downs but she was always there. Now she's not and it's left a hole. A hole that is extremely hard to describe, especially to those who couldn't possibly understand. I still feel her and when I remember that the feel

Kitty sitter

Meet my new roommate for the next two weeks, Klara! She's a very sweet 7 year old kitty with stage 4 kidney failure. I'm staying with her while her folks (theatre pals) are out of town. She lives like most other kitties but has a special diet and needs subq fluid once every few days. Her and I seem to be off to a good start. I'm staying at her place - a nice 2 bedroom apartment on the 35th floor of a downtown building.

Wicked

I remember one day years and years ago, I was drinking a Starbucks caramel macchiato and perusing the new and notables shelf in a Chapters when I spotted a book that piqued my interest. Well...probably a lot of books did but this one sticks out in my memory. It was called Wicked and seemed to be a story on the Wizard of Oz from the viewpoint of the famous villain, the wicked witch of the West. I like that kind of thing so I purchased it and read it. If I'm being totally honest, I didn't really like the book. It was kind of confusing and odd. There was an interesting role reversal and a worthy cause to rally with as the reader but still it just didn't work for me. Years later I start hearing about a popular new Broadway show called Wicked and discovered that it's based on the book. As I mentioned before I didn't really like the book, but I do enjoy theatre so when an opportunity to see it came up this week, I took it. My friend Michelle and I got dressed up in our pr

Not so hidden gem

I had a few friends mention this new sci-fi series called Orphan Black. I decided to make this series my first TV show marathon after coming into my gainfully unemployed status. I didn't really know anything about the plot when I started, other than it had something to do with clones. The first show opens on the street-smart and feisty Sarah with a cockney accent and a bit of a swagger.  She ends up seeing a well-dressed and professional looking woman (with her face) drop her purse and walk off the train platform into an oncoming train. This was obviously unnerving, but Sarah's natural survivor instinct compels her to grab the purse and run. Sarah uses this opportunity to take over the other girls life. From there she winds up on a journey of self discovery that puts her and those she loves in danger. I don't want to give too much away but there's a lot of interesting characters, a common enemy, and some fantastic acting. I had never heard of the Canadian actress who st

Heritage Park Nerdgasm ie. Yiddish, Famous 5, and fresh baked cookies...oh my!

I was pretty excited last Fall when I was entering Heritage Park to enjoy their Harvest Sale and noticed that they were building a new exhibit, "The Famous 5 Interpretive Centre"! I love Canadian History and and am especially interested in the role women have played in shaping it (something sadly lacking in the education system). I'm lucky to have friends who also find this kind of thing interesting. So, this week Michelle, Danaya, and I went on an afternoon adventure to the past! After a Yiddish lesson at the Montefiore Institute, shopping along the Main Street, an outdoor performance, and fresh baked cookies, we made our way to the 4pm tour at the Famous 5 Centre. The house is a duplicated (though somewhat modified) version of the house Nellie McClung lived in while in Calgary. The house itself was nice but nothing special. What did shine was the passionate and well-educated tour guide. It was a pleasure listening to him tell the story of Nellie McClung and her fight wi

Canadian eh

http://www.cbc.ca/books/books100quiz.html CBC came out with a list, 100 novels that make you proud to be Canadian! The page allows one to go through the list and check off the novels they've read (I've attached the link above). To my disgrace I had only read 2 of the 100 novels listed in full. There were 2 others I started reading last year but have yet to finish. Suddenly not feeling like a very good Canadian. I've been too intoxicated by American and British authors. Time for a change. A new goal that may even potentially tear me away from exorbitant Netflix usage! I'm going to try and go through at least 10 novels from this list for this year. I have lots of other series I'm working through so I don't want to make an unrealistic goal but I do want to encourage reading over TV viewing. So far I've read: 1. Fifth Business by Robertson Davies 2. The Book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill I started: 3. The Outlander by Gill Adamson 4. Life of Pi by Y