Citizens Bus Tour of Owen Sound

May 14, 2008

May 21, 2008
8:30 am	to	11:30 am

What: a two-hour inter-active guided tour of the city by community activist and Sun Times columnist Anne Finlay-Stewart.
When: Wednesday May 21st
Where: Things kick off with breakfast at the Ginger Press and then on to the bus…where exactly, well that’s up to Anne.
Who: Well as mentioned above it’s with Anne Finlay-Stewart but your presence is equally important.

Why: Why not? or because Anne, and others (myself included) think we need more discussion of things like …What makes Owen Sound so liveable? What needs preserving and what needs to go? What will we need in the real-life future?

Finer points - $15 includes tour on our comfortable, accessible city bus and delicious continental breakfast. Tickets available from the Ginger Press or from Anne Finlay-Stewart, 371-3933, or email her for more info at: anne@rhymeswithorange.ca

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Written by Ryan · Filed Under Get Out, The City, Events, Community

Composting Gathering

May 14, 2008

May 24, 2008
11:00 am	to	12:00 pm

Join us for a composting get together on Saturday May 24th as theOwen presents Composting 101: a hands-in-the-dirt knowledge sharing family event. Interested in urban agriculture or trying to a way to divert compostables from landfill sites? Want to compost but don’t know how? Looking to meet and share with others interested in sustainability and gardening? We’ll be presenting composting tips and techniques (care to share ideas or present?), building a composter, and having a blast. You’ll find us at 925 2nd Avenue West (across from the police station) in Owen Sound at 11 o’clock am.

Lotsa compost.

We are looking for contributors for this event, so if you know anything about composting, gardening, or urban agriculture, please get in touch!

It is hoped that this will be the first of a series of events dedicated to urban agriculture. If you have a thought, idea, or want to be part of this effort, we’d love to hear from you.

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Written by Ryan · Filed Under The Area, Sustainability, Owen Sound, Gardening, Conservation, Get Out, Participation, Community, Events, The City, The Environment

Charles Glasspool and the Big Love at St. George’s Parish Hall

May 14, 2008

May 31, 2008
8:00 pm	to	11:00 pm

Charles Glasspool and the Big Love Charles Glasspool returns to Owen Sound on Saturday May 31st at 8pm for one concert only St. George’s Parish Hall. Entrance is $8 and one non-perishable food item. He takes to the stage with his 10 piece backing band, “The Big Love”, featuring an all-star cast of local talent, including: Tara MacKenzie, Keira McArthur, Lauren Best, Patrick Dorfman, and Joshua Richardson. Charles Glasspool has toured extensively across both North America and Europe, playing his witty songs of joy and heartbreak to appreciative audiences. He has written songs for Juno award winner Serena Ryder and brought the house down at the Mariposa Folk Festival with his band, The Legendary Silverhearts. Be sure to come out and support local live music!

Check it out, for a slideshow and recording.

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Written by Ryan · Filed Under The Arts, Music, Events, theOwen Features, theOwen

A Queens Hotel Blues update and more

May 12, 2008

Editor’s Note: SO things around the office have been nothing less than slammed as of late. Many, many projects on the go that have be unfortunately diverting my attention from theOwen.com a bit. A few steps are being taken to rectify this …first off I am about to begin the process of seeking out some summer interns. Secondly, it is likely that I am looking to hire someone on the creative services side of the business and thirdly I am working on getting more good folks set up with publishing power here at theOwen.

An excellent case in point (both of the me being slammed for time and the setting good folks up with publishing power) is the fact that it has been weeks that I haven’t gotten around to publishing several updates relating to the Queens Hotel Blues documentary which was shot and produced locally under the guidance and direction of local filmmaker Graeme Bachiu. I have a couple of drafts detailing what has happened lately with this project that have yet to be published. To save myself the trouble I figured I would pass that task off to Graeme, who nicely summed things up in an email this past weekend…

It’s been a few months since our successful A Night at the Queen’s documentary premiere event. Thanks to the combined efforts of our MC, Ryan Wiseman, Paul Thompson and Eric Van Allen who handled the musical entertainment, David Adair who said a few words about the importance of documentary work, the staff at the Roxy along with my parents, my sister Kate, Adam and Jenn Olivero and of course, Mr. Steady himself, Ian Austin…well, we had a great night.

Then came Christmas and New Years’ and other complications and challenges to overcome. By the end of the winter the three of us were feeling kind of exhausted, I guess. But as the weather gets warmer and spring is in full swing I’m prepared to get to work again and set some new bearings for where our work will take us.

Thanks again to Ryan Wiseman and his website theowen.com we’re working on a better home for Queen’s Hotel Blues on the web. This has always been our plan and even though we’ve been a bit busy over the past few months we’re back in business. We’ve also got a few added goodies to whet your appetite, all available at www.theowen.com/go/queens-hotel-blues …

* An audio podcast entitled Toe Tappin’: A Musical Journey to the Queen’s Hotel Blues that features selections from my vast archive of Eric Van Allen and Paul Thompson recordings…narrated by myself
* A video podcast version of Queen’s Hotel Blues. Yes, take the Queen’s Hotel with you on your iPod!
* A gradual ‘making of’ documentary on our next project, done in the style of ongoing video blog type posts
* A sneak peek of our new documentary: Ten Years Gone

The last two items are perhaps the most exciting part of our new content! Weeks, once the snow started to melt and rebirth from winter seemed possible, I began thinking about what our next project would be. We have a number of interesting ideas on the go but for the most part I think we wanted to keep things brief and simple…or at least simpler than QHB had been. I’ve recently upgraded some of my equipment, as well, and I wanted to try something a bit different.

Another impetus for the direction we’re going with all of this is that I’ve been doing some web video work on the side and I feel strongly…well, all of us do…that video on the web is still just in its infancy. Sure, you can watch TV shows and endless Star Wars spoofs and Deep Purple concerts online but content specifically for the web is still somewhat of a niche thing. I also felt compelled to give something back to Ryan Wiseman, whose support through the final stages of Queen’s Hotel Blues was invaluable.

To get myself going, I started going through my tape archives, cleaning things up and rearchiving on DVD or other better formats. I found some funny stuff that I’ve done over the years and some video that Ian Austin and I shot almost 10 years ago now of Eric Van Allen and Paul Thompson. I was surprised that I’ve known these two guys for a decade (yikes, getting old) and the wheels in my mind started moving. Other content surfaced as time went on and I expanded my search. Eric and Paul both came up with old videotape and audio recordings that I didn’t have.

Getting a small crew plus Eric and Paul together with all of our busy schedules is a challenge but when we hang out I have a great time with these guys, and I’m going to bring you along for the ride. Due to the improvements in my own personal technology I’m going to make video podcast posts on theowen.com as we produce the documentary. We’ll give you some peeks behind the process and, hopefully, in the end you’ll be drawn into the process and the content in a way that is unconventional and compelling, as long as I’m a good storyteller!

During the production and post production of Queen’s Hotel Blues I sent out emails as an update on our process. This time—along with the video podcast segments—Ryan and I are planning to automate the process through theowen.com, freeing me up from writing long emails and adding context to the video podcast segments. In other words, check out theowen.com for more updates!

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Written by Ryan · Filed Under Guest Post, theOwen Features, Features, Video, theOwen

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