Category: The Arts
Separated at conception?
Anyone who saw Cirque du Soleil’s recent shows in Halifax will have noticed the circular structure used to convey people and props between the stage and the upper reaches of the MetroCentre’s girders.
The shape of this trussed torus, and the way it hung in the air, reminded me of something I couldn’t quite put my finger on. Then it hit me:
Alexander Graham Bell’s circular kite, two fabric-covered disks, conjoined by tetrahedral trusses, flying over Beinn Bhreagh. No larger point here — the structures aren’t even all that similar in detail — just a striking confluence of shape, style, and scale across the span of a century.
Trailer: 3 Little Pigs in black light
Sydney’s Weird Beard Troupe, a black light theatrical group featuring puppeteers with Down syndrome, holds its debut performance at Cape Breton University’s Boardmore Theatre Friday. This being 2012, they’ve released a great trailer (best viewed full screen):
The inaugural production features a modernized, hippified re-make of the the Tree Little Pigs fable. All the live shows sold out early, but a CD and storybook is available.
[Disclosure: Contrarian had a small role in the production's scriptwriting.]
Snoopy as spirit dog
Our friend and fellow contrarian Christine Comeau, a writer who makes movies in Nova Scotia and Quebec, seems an unlikely marathon candidate:
The project is a fundraiser for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society of Canada.
If you happen to be in Sydney Thursday…
A native of Whitney Pier, Gallivan is a life-long collector of postcards. His illustrated talk before the Old Sydney Society will highlight four postcard periods, including “The Golden Era” (1900 to 1914), which featured cards of a high technical quality depicting industrial, disaster, and sports scenes, as well as visits by dignitaries and patriotic events.
Gallivan’s collection includes rare cards featuring the Broughton mine and Dominion Number 2 colliery, the Gisborne Bridge on the Mira River, a fishing camp at Jersey Cove, Robert Perry’s visit to Sydney, the 1913 fire in North Sydney, and Grand Chief Ben Christmas.
His talk takes place at 7:30 PM, Thursday, February 23, at the Centre for Heritage and Science, 225 George St., Sydney. (Alas, you will probably be here instead!)
Switcheroo
Vancouver photographer Hana Pesut takes pictures of couples, then gets them to switch outfits and pose again.
Nova Scotia from space
A view of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and parts of Maine and Quebec, taken from the International Space Station. Click the image for a larger version.
The bright spot at the left side is Montreal Quebec City;* that on the middle right is Halifax. Other bright spots include (left to right) Bangor, Saint John, Moncton, and Charlottetown. Close inspection reveals Truro, New Glasgow, Antigonish, Port Hawkesbury, and Sydney. The St. Lawrence River appears as a string of lights heading northeast from Montreal, and the Gaspe Peninsula is outlined in light. I believe the aurora borealis accounts for the greenish hue on the horizon.
A Contrarian reader supplied the image without identifying information, and I’ve been unable to pin down its source precisely. Based on a similar image taken a few hundred miles to the southwest however, I believe it was taken on January 29 by Expedition 30, the current crew of the International Space Station.
H/T: Shine boy.
*[Correction] Contrarian reader Bill Swan thinks the light blob on the left is Quebec City, not Montreal. He’s probably right.
The view from the back seat
Alicia Rius, a Spanish born photographer now living in Amsterdam, has produced a series of photographs on one of Contrarian’s favorite visual subjects: abandoned cars. What’s unusual is that all the photos were shot from inside the car, and from the vantage point of the back seat:
All ten images here. Maybe some Contrarian readers have similar photos they’d like to share from this side of the Atlantic.
H/T: Alison Nastasi
The man who lived on his bike
French born Guillaume Blanchet, now working as a copywriter for the Montreal advertising agency Bleublancrouge, rode his bike through the friendly streets of Montreal for 382 days, while filming himself from the handlebars, with this whimsical result:
My father is 64 years old. He’s been riding his bike more than 120,000 km. And he keeps going. I dedicate this film to him.
A.G. Bell-inspired flying art
Little Shining Man, a kite sculpture created by Heather and Ivan Morrison, takes flight from a beach at St. Aubin’s Bay, on the Bailiwick of Jersey.
Videography by James O’Garra. H/T John Hugh Edwards.
Dracula at Dalhousie: The mystery of the pilfered documents
Lauren Oostveen, Nova Scotia’s tweeting archivist, today unearthed a clipping from The 4th Estate, Halifax’s one-time alternative weekly, about a vampire conflab that took place at Dalhouse 39 years ago this month. The 4th Estate story is good, but the yarn Oostveen dug up to go with it is even better.
Organized by English Professor Devendra P. Varma, a renowned Dracula-lit buff, the goth-before-its-time conference boasted “the largest gathering of vampire experts ever presented in Canada,” and featured a screening of the classic 1931 movie Dracula, starring Bela Lugosi.
The Himalayan-born Varma, who died in 1994, was apparently quite a character. According to Oostveen, he “had a tendency to believe in conspiracies, secret police, and other forces” who, he believed, harboured an unsavoury interest in his collection of vampire books and memorabilia. At his insistence, “the really important stuff” was kept in a locked cabinet at the departmental library.
Time passes, [and] the library periodically asks about his use of their space, does he really need this secure storage, and so on. He says yes, and the cabinet gets moved a few times as the library moves divisions and departments.
The Berlin wall falls, the world is more open, evil forces are in retreat, and Varma decides he can take home his trove of vampire documents and literature.
He comes to the library with the one and only key, and of course, it’s an empty cabinet.”
Oostveen professes not to know who to blame for the pilferage: Abraham van Helsing or Dracula. I suspect Cletus Hollohan had a hand in it.
